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Violating law is not inherently bad, no. We all know this. Laws do not have moral/ethical value. So what China is doing is in violation of international law, but that does not mean it's bad.
What the US does, as the world's most violent empire, is bad - not because it violates international law but because it is acting in the interest of total domination and subjugation of the world's people.
What China is doing in the SCS is very clearly in the interest of establishing its own national security against exactly the immoral behavior of the USA. Sure, harassment of fisherman feels like a terrible thing, but when we look at it in the full context, China is asserting its willingness to control a region of the waters and apply a consistent rule in those waters (no one has access) in an attempt to create conditions under which it can stop war ships from the US, UK, Japan, and other anti-Chinese powers from operating with impunity in those waters. And the reason it wants to be able to do that is because these countries have all raped and pillaged not only China but many of the countries that have coastlines on the SCS.
What the US is doing is, having successfully raped and pillaged multiple countries with shorelines on the SCS, attempting to say it has the right to peacefully move war ships including nuclear-capable submarines into the SCS because it's international waters and it doesn't matter if strategically that means China will have a gaping security hole in its national defense.
Again, it's like saying cryptography is illegal, and now that we've made it illegal, it is actually immoral to protect your home computers from hackers and then saying someone installing cryptography is just as wrong as the hackers stealing their data. It's total bullshit and you and people like you totally understand the concept of immoral laws and laws with immoral consequences when it involves concepts in your own ideology but you discard it immediately when it comes to the national defense of the West's military targets. You have to see how disingenuous this is.
Your entire premise is actually backwards. You are claiming that international laws are arbitrary, and don't have any "moral/ethical value". That is completely incorrect. They are based on common sense, fair practices that seek to reduce or eliminate conflict between nations. The entire point is to sustain a moral and ethical balance, where everyone's rights are respected.
It isn't the same thing as declaring cryptography illegal. That would be an example of an arbitrary law. In the case of international waters being open for anyone's use, it is anything but arbitrary. Other countries have every right to use those waters for trade and travel. Restricting their access to those waters represents an infringement on their rights.
What you're saying China had every right to do, directly violates someone else's right to do the same thing. That is why it is illegal. No one is out there in the South China Sea, stopping China from moving through the area, are they? No one is stopping them from sending ships past the North American coast to Panama either. The US has no right to patrol those waters and harass ships that use them...because those waters belong to everyone.
What the US is doing right now in the Caribbean however, IS illegal for exactly the same reason. It's even worse, because they're also just blowing up boats that they claim are transporting drugs...but even if all they were doing was seizing those vessels or harassing traffic through the area...they would still be violating the law.
It doesn't matter what justification they claimed they had, regarding their own "security"...they have no right to restrict other countries access to trade and travel, through territory that belongs to everyone.
Right, so your position is that everyone has to follow the rules even if doing so puts them in a weaker position that could be exploited by the USA, because defending against potential violations of international law by the USA which pose existential threats to your nation is not valid and instead the rights of fishermen trump the right to national self defense because we say so.
Ok, so did you not actually read my comment? I have no idea what you're even responding to here.
I literally said the US has no right to police international waters, no matter what their "justification". Just like you can't close the street in front of your house, just because you're worried that criminals might use it. It doesn't belong to you, and you can't prevent other people from using it just because you feel threatened.
I'm starting to be a little confused by your argument here. Are you in favor of the US's actions in the Caribbean? Because you seem to be making the argument that they have the right to "defend themselves" in this manner. Or is it just China that should be allowed to do stuff like this, and the US is still wrong?
The US isn't behaving defensively, it's behaving offensively. Maybe that's why you're confused about my position.
Let's take your example. Criminals on the street.
Let's say you're a black person in America living in a predominantly black neighborhood. Some neo-Nazis have been roving the streets for the last couple of years, robbing people, beating them up, breaking into homes, vandalizing homes, killing people, kidnapping and torturing people, etc.
But those neo-Nazis also own the newspapers and TV stations and they produce media saying that the black neighborhood you live in is a terrible place and needs to be cleaned up.
You and your neighbors beseech the police to protect you, but they do nothing.
So you and your neighbors take it on yourself to blockade the street to protect yourselves.
And then the neonazi news media says you're violating the law and then people on Lemmy argue that violating laws like this is terrible no matter what.
Do you get it now?
It's funny that you think your opinion about their motives even matters here. It doesn't. They can say whatever they want in defense of their crimes...just like China can. China is literally using the exact same defense of their actions in the SCS. What makes their excuses valid, while the US's excuses are not?
Let's look at your analogy, from a rational perspective...I assume the "neo Nazis" you're talking about, represent the US? So, you're suggesting that the US has been roving around in the South China Sea, randomly robbing and killing people recently, and that China is only trying to protect itself? When did these attacks happen? Because the US hasn't been involved in any conflicts in that region since at least the end of the Vietnam war. That makes your entire analogy invalid. China isn't "defending itself" against anyone. No one in that region is currently threatening China, in any way.
It's just a bullshit excuse, no different than the one the US is trying to use in the Caribbean.
That's why reasons like these are not valid justifications for breaking the law. You don't just get to pick and choose what laws apply to you, based on your excuses. You either think they should apply to everyone equally...or you don't. And if you don't...then you can't complain when other people ignore those laws, too.
Right, so as I suspected, you just won't bring any of this into context. You have to twist yourself into pretzels to avoid stating the obvious.
Yes, it's about the US and no it's not about the US murdering people specifically in the SCS just as in the story the blockade is happening at the critical entrances to the block.
In case you haven't noticed, the US has been roving around the world killing, raping, robbing, and torturing for decades. The Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Libya, Somalia... And those are just the easy the ones to identify. The US has been non-stop beligerent all over the world. It has 700 foreign military bases. Domestically its intelligentsia and academics and news media and propagandists have been writing about winning nuclear war for decades, have been writing about defeating China in a war based on US preemptive strikes, have been constantly using their international diplomatic platform to war monger against China and others.
China is doing none of these things. China hasn't dropped a bomb since 1989. Despite the US training terrorists and literally air dropping them into Tibet, China has never gone on a rampage the way the US did after 9/11. China doesn't train death squads and send them all over South Anerica to kill farmers and families that might vote for social democrats.
Again, totally decontextualized and essentially saying that China has nothing to worry about despite the US demonstrating daily that China has everything to worry about.
The US has deep covert ties all over the area that stem from their drug running operations that they developed during the post war era. Under Obama, 2/3rds of US naval assets were repositioned to be in the Pacific in Obama's very open and explicit "pivot to Asia". It is an absolutely constant threat to China and China is doing everything it can to develop itself while avoiding war while also ensuring it is capable of defending itself if the US choose to continue to push towards war.
You have absolutely no problem critcizing the US for being a bad actor but the minute China does anything to assert itself on the world stage suddenly nothing the US did or does matters at all.
Again. You have to realize how disingenuous it is to say "sure the US has been talking about attacking China for 2 decades now and sure it killed 500k children in Iraq and sure it lies diplomatically to create false diplomatic pretenses for a meeting that it used to assassinate a top Iranian official via drone strike and sure it funds fanatical and violent proxies all over East Asia and sure it is destroying boats with its naval assets in the Caribbean and sure its constantly at war with anyone and everyone and sure it runs constant military exercises in the regiona surrounding China to ensure it has sufficient military capabilities for an invasion but China has absolutely nothing to fear in the SCS specifically because when was the last time the US killed anyone specifically in the SCS?!"
It's very tiring.
Wow. There is so much make-believe bullshit in there, that I don't even know how to respond to it all. I would just love to see you go back through that comment, and attach sources for any of your claims.
I am no fan of the US, but I at least have the intellectual integrity to not just make shit up, to satisfy my pre-existing biases. Good grief, dude. Have you no shame?
"Wow, there is so much that goes against my pre-existing biases that i will pretend that it is somehow difficult to analyze. I would just love for you to waste your time linking sources that i have almost certainly been linked before so that i can dismiss them out of hand without reading them.
i am no fan of the us, despite believing everything they say about their enemies, but at least i have the intellectual laziness to simply call you a liar despite stating easily verifiable facts. good grief dude. do you condemn Hamas?"
I forget just how propagandized we Anglos are, and how propagandized I was for at least 30 years. It's entirely possible that if Archangel keeps engaging I might be able to teach them one thing and if I can do that, it's worth it
good luck and godspeed comrade
Mission failed
you'll get them next time
Sorry friend, if this is all news to you, I am more than happy to source anything you want me to. Could you pick 3 claims that you don't have sufficient evidence for? I will happily provide you with sources.
Nah, that's ok, buddy...your firehose did the job. I don't have the energy to sift through all that, and really have no inclination to defend the US. I think it's fairly sad that you're trying to put me in a position where you think should have to, in order to make a point.
That's pretty disingenuous, given the fact that I've repeatedly told you I don't side with them. So, if you insist on putting me on their side of this conversation, then I'm out. Gaslight someone else.
Sorry you feel that way. The reality of the situation is that the US is a violent threat to every single nation on Earth and every administration since Obama has publicly declared a military focus on Asia. If you think China has no need to defend the geographical features most critical to its national defense, you can just say that. It's not gaslighting. As you said, you already don't support the US, so you don't have to defend it. You just have to acknowledge that you're in the wrong when you say that simply because the US has not done any overt piracy or committed war crimes in the SCS this is not sufficient to conclude that China has no legitimate security interests in controlling it.
Man, see you should try looking at this conversation from an external perspective. I say one thing...you make it all about the US. I say something else...you turn it back to being all about the US. I point out that you keep making everything all about the US...and you find a way to blame the US again.
If I were a relationship counselor, my advice to you, would be that you should stop blaming other people for your problems, and start taking responsibility for your choices. Because as long as you are stuck in the mindset that everything you do, is someone else's fault, you are never going to be able to move on with your life and grow as a person.
But, what do I know? The US is terrible, so obviously China has no choice about anything. It's inevitable that as long as the US exists, they will have no choice but to constantly react defensively to US influence. It's pretty pathetic, that no one in charge of that country has any free will, to even try and do better than that. Right? US influence is simply too powerful.
That's a very weird take. China absolutely has free will and it is using it to advance its national interests. One of those national interests is national defense. Defense against whom, we might ask? Defense against Zimbabwe? No. Defense against Denmark? No. Defense against Uruguay? No. China's national defense posture is specifically shaped based on the threats it faces from the Western empire and its vassals.
Is that a lack of free will or is it an acknowledgement of the reality of the power structure of the world. It is absolutely true that the US truncates the national self direction of other nations. Every nation on earth would rather spend its efforts and wealth on making life better for itself. But instead, the US went and dropped two nukes in civilian cities and then carpet bombed and napalmed a handful of Asian nations and killed millions of people and made them suffer for generations from the after effects of nuclear and chemical warfare. So now everyone that the US treats as an adversary essentially has no choice but to establish sufficient military deterrence and defensive capabilities to prevent the US from flattening their country, killing their people, and stealing all of their resources.
If you were a relationship counselor and told China to just not worry about the USA, you'd have to deal with the guilt when the USA murdered your client. You don't tell the victim of abuse to just not respond to threats of violence. Victims of abuse and facing threats of violence must act to protect themselves or they have a very high likelihood to end up dead. This is not an abdication of self determination but an assertion of it.
The fact that you can't see that is very bizarre. It's almost as if you cannot acknowledge that China has legitimate national security concerns and therefore it should follow all international laws like a good little world citizen and not worry so much about the fact that the US has spent 20+ years planning attacks and putting capabilities into positions specifically to counter Chinese defenses.
From an external perspective in the US, I agree with you - US residents are the most propagandized people in the world and they can't imagine that China would ever do any of what it's doing because of the real legitimate threat of violence from the US. But outside the US and the white supremacists here and in the EU, most people would see this conversation and think "wow. Archangel really does not understand what's going in the world"