view the rest of the comments
Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
Taiwan is de facto an independent state. They have their own customs (as in economy), their own military and their own independent government.
No one officially recognizes it as independent because - as it turns out - neither China has any interest in changing the status quo. It is however very much implicitly recognized as independent considering trade deals made with mainland China do not affect trade deals with Taiwan and vice versa.
For all intents and purposes, Taiwan is more of a country than England but you'll find hardly anyone argue that England does not have countryhood.
Country / state / nation. These words have meaning. England is both a country and a nation but not an independent state. Taiwan meets the definition of a country in that it is defined territory, but it is not a nation. It is not an independent state, as it claims to be the government of China, not the government of Taiwan. It makes trade agreements as the government of China. And the reason other countries play along with this is because the US and UK decided that they would make Taiwan into a comprador proxy and invested tons of money into it, while they embargoed the shit out of China and no one was allowed to trade with both China and the USA. The evidence you are using for Taiwan being independent is actually evidence that they are dependent entirely on the USA. Without the USA, the KMT would have been stopped in their reign of terror long before 40 years were up and the province would have been reintegrated into China after 75 years of national trauma.
.. which it only does because the PRC threatens with war if Taiwan would drop it.
As it stands now, the majority of the Taiwanese no longer consider themselves Chinese, but the PRC wants to keep that illusion alive for their annexation goals to seem justified. This is solely on the PRC.