China has upset many countries in the Asia-Pacific region with its release of a new official map that lays claim to most of the South China Sea, as well as to contested parts of India and Russia, and official objections continue to mount. What is the map, and why is it upsetting people so much?
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It seems significant, then, that Beijing chose to release the map on the heels of a late August meeting of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and just before China is to participate in top-level meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Group of 20 rich and developing nations.
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In releasing the map now, Beijing is widely seen as signaling it has no intention of backing down on any of its claims and is making sure that its positions are fresh in the minds of other countries in the region.
You presume that I defend China, I do not. Just because America genocided Native Americans, and carried out extrajudicial executions in Vietnam and Iwo Jima, doesn’t mean that they are evil. The same metric should be applied to China. Maybe both countries are bad. Don’t limit your understanding. I’m rooting for you.
You talk about two VERY different things here.
One is attrocities committed by the military, which are horrible, should not happen, and those responsible should be punished. Also some of these attrocities you mention are over 200 years ago…
The other is (current) governments and government policies.
China is a dictatorship. America is a (very falwed and at this point maybe even a failed, but still hanging on) democracy. Do I really need to spell out the practical differences here?
They are NOT the same.
If I were in China right now, just for writing this part above, I’d likely be jailed, and likely somewhat tortured just for good measure.
The USA has a host of issues, but at least it isn’t government policy to jail and torture it’s own citizens for whatever reason they deem fit.
You cannot be that naive not to understand that these are not the same.