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EU says China trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine war
(www.straitstimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2026
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So? Now they want to do it but the PRC threatens to throw a temper tantrum about it. Just let it sink in how a country of one billion is actively choosing to worsen its situation over an island of not even 25 million. The PRC could have moved on for a very long time and put its resources in its own prosperity instead of wasting the resources on a cause that will end in a war. It's so petty.
You can call that whatever you want. The fact still stands: the PRC wants a piece of land they never established control over.
Just what happened in Taiwan. They don't consider themselves Chinese, they are simply not allowed to openly say it due to the giant fragile red snowflake next door. We're pretending something that isn't the case just to protect the fragile feelings of a giant that cannot accept the truth.
Well, isn't that handy! :D
Germans, Slavs, Romans might have had some rivers and mountains here and there, yet have a long history of conquering each others land. Somehow that's colonialism, but when Hans crossed a river to dominate other cultures, it isn't?
Yea. The most successful being the Hans (if there are no Mongols or Japanese around). Somehow you don't seem to have a lot of problems with them establishing themselves as the master humans. Talk about double standards..
Who says so? The Chinese? The Tibetans? The Russians also liked to consider themselves as the protectors of the various cultures they dominated during whatever they labelled their respective regimes of injustice (Tsardom, SSSR,..) during the last 200 years. Of course, the self-proclaimed master humans want to whitewash their oppression. Weird that you can only see the wrongdoings of one side, while completely whitewash the other side. :D
25% want to.
The PRC is very clear that Taiwan becoming sovereign means Western empire at their doorstep. This has literally been the strategic situation for over 400 years. It's not just a "now" thing and it's not just a PRC. It's a fundamental aspect of security. Security it always mutual. The US wouldn't allow China to build a military presence in Long Island of they decided to secede, and you wouldn't call it a tantrum. It's obvious from your word choice that you don't believe China is allowed to have legitimate security concerns.
Are you serious right now? The US embargoed the PRC while it was the poorest country in the world, and prevented anyone in the Western world from trading with it, while the US and UK invested billions to develop the province of Taiwan under a fascist mass murdering dictatorship, and you think I need to let it sink in what China is doing?
This is so offensively dismissive it's clear you have no ability to reason clearly about this. China has a literal multi-century security threat on its doorstep and it's been spending money developing a military that is capable of defending against the world's largest genocidal empire and you think that was "Wasting resources". And before you go all paternalistic about China should have invested in its own prosperity, China accounts for literally all of the net poverty alleviation in the last century, while Europe and North America created more poverty than they alleviated. There are grandparents in China today that grew up subsistence farming and are now experiencing robotic self-driving vehicles. China is doing just fine developing its prosperity and also its national security posture against the world's largest ever military threat.
That is not, actually, what they want. They want to establish a security perimeter that is inviolable by imperialists. Again, literally the same motivation for almost 400 years. You consuming fan fic editorializing Chinese motivations doesn't change reality.
That's literally not what happened. At this point, you're clearly not even engaging in good faith. What happened in Taiwan, as I've stated many times, is that foreign militaries intervened in internal Chinese politics for the purpose of subjugating China militarily. That is not AT ALL like the situation in Switzerland. At all. The Han Chinese colonized Taiwan, and the dominated and oppressed the indigenous. This is far more akin to the situation in North America, where white people are still all European settlers. The Han Chinese in Taiwan are Chinese settlers and settlers don't have a claim to a new new national identity. If they did, then genocide would be the result. We have to hold this line and you don't get to have a double standard simply because you're an anti-communist.
Again, it is so obvious that you can't engage in this discussion in good faith that I the only reason I'm bothering to refute you is so that others can learn.
If you're entire grasp of history requires that everyone doing similar seeming things is actually part of the same historical process so that you can make false equivalencies to prove your point, you might not understand anything about history. It's not handy, it's reality. Of course the Chinese process is a distinct process from the European process. They were done by different people, under total different philosophies, in different geographies, with different outcomes. This statement shouldn't be controversial. The fact you want to project all the evils of your own society onto China is a way for you to absolve yourself of supporting your empire by prioritizing opposing your empire's mortal enemy.
What? No, that's not what I said at all. I said that Han colonization is a different historical process from European colonization. In the flat lands of Europe where there were no physical hard boundaries yes, the lands were constantly conquered and reconquered. That's why there is a Swiss nation but no Belgian nation and no Austrian nation. These were just stretches of territory that various nations fought for control over. That wasn't colonization. Colonization is when one group subjugated other nations in their distinct historical homelands. Europeans and Chinese did this, but they were distinct historical processes shaped by their unique geographical context which gave rise to distinct political, economic, philosophical, and technological development.
The concept of Han Supremacy is also not equivalent to the concept of Eurocentric Christian White Supremacy. Han Chauvinism, which is the idea that the Han were cosmically and divinely mandated to bring civilization to the world led to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and mass murder all over China, just like Eurocentric Christian White Supremacy did in Europe. But the result in China has ALWAYS been a multi-national multi-ethnic state, whereas in Europe the results were very often ethnostates with a single nation present.
That's not to say one is better than the other, but it's to show that they are different. In this context, the Hand "establishing themselves as the master humans" was absolutely problematic. But Han Supremacy died over a century ago and was replaced with Han Chauvinism, which was the belief that the Han knew better than anyone else. Han Chauvinism was endemic in the early PRC, but Han Chauvinism was deliberately ended under the administration of Deng Xiaoping when the CPC modified the constitution and specifically targeted the concept and its impact. Because the CPC came to the realization that even though chauvinism wasn't nearly as bad as supremacy, it was still contradictory and would lead to ruin.
All you need to do is look at the One Child Policy to understand how fundamental this change was. When China established the One Child Policy, the same people who claim that China is just as evil as Europe pointed to the policy as fundamentally cruel. However, what most people never talked about was the fact that ethnic minorities were exempted from the policy. Some were unrestricted, some were restricted but to some number above one. The people who were constrained to one child were Han. Compare that to the social outcomes in Europe and their former and current colonies and it's starkly clear that there is a fundamental difference now.
I don't have to defend Han Supremacy, nor their genocides, nor their settler colonialism. It's all bad, and the harm needs to be repaired. I'm happy to be consistent on that front.
Historians, politicians, the UN, international law. I get that it doesn't fit your narrative, but there's a real difference between a protectorate and a colony. Tibet could not have been a resource colony when it first became a protectorate because no one was able to access the natural resources and build logistics to exploit them until after the PRC was established and finally industrialized. Meanwhile, the indigenous population of Tibet has more than doubled in the last 70 years. That's not indicative of a colony. That's indicative of an active colonial project. That's indicative of a thriving autonomous region under the military protection of a larger regional hegemon.
It's not weird at all. I just operate with a different set of facts than you. China has over 250 indigenous languages with over 1000 living speakers, whereas in all of North America it's less than 100. That's a fundamentally different outcome. Of the many indigenous ethnicities in China, most of them maintain their cultural customs, celebrations, holidays, cuisines, and histories. The Chinese government actively funds the preservation of these cultures, practices, and histories. Meanwhile, indigenous folks in North America are so traumatized by European colonization that the older generations are literally disowning their own kids for abandoning Christianity. The US and Canadian governments continue genocidal programs of blood quantum, water rights, toxic dumping, and cultural erasure.
That's not true.
Yes. Instead of accepting a status quo that exists as long as the PRC exists, they still voluntarily pursue the idea of something that will inevitably lead them into war, personal suffering and economic hardship. It is a very dumb thing to do, fuelled only by nationalist ideals and the desire of petty revenge. The PRC could choose to move beyond those dastardly motives and continue living their very successful life, yet they don't.
So? Since when can you choose your neighbours? Also, this is de facto already the case for as long as the PRC exists. Yet, the PRC managed to become a leading country. What exactly is their problem they want to spark a major war for, threatening their prosperity they just managed to accumulate?
So they don't consider Taiwan as part of their country?
Yet you seem to have a problem with only one of these forms of colonialism.
If you mean by that that there's a state where one master ethnicity enforces its command on all its subdued subjects within that state, yes. That's a very weird thing to defend, though.
So you don't defend it. Yet, it is the foundation for your claim of the entitlement of the PRC to control Taiwan, as both are effectively Han states?
That has become clear. Yea, and some of these cultures, the ruling Han elite even allows to continue to exist, in a tightly controlled and monitored way. I mean, how could they do it differently, as their entire state is built on continued Han Supremacy. So as soon as a culture seems to be no longer in line with this core principle of this so-called People's rule, that in fact is actually the rule of a Han elite, you get your culture destroyed (Tibet) or yourself locked up in ~~concentration~~ re-education camps. I just love PRC apologists clamour against imperialism, while they happily and blindly defend a state that has that much imperialism in its core. I'd say a true imperialist would distance themselves as much from Western as from Eastern imperialism, as they actually oppose the idea of imperialism itself. Yet, what can instead be seen online are people that love to label themselves 'anti-imperialists', as that is a noble badge to wear, while actually only being tribalistic anti-westernists yearning for an extremely simple binary world view of bad and hence good.
The whole Chinese Civil War was heavily influenced by the respective global powers. Both the US and the Soviet Union used their respective Chinese group to achieve a result they liked. Each propped up their group in a hope to lead them to victory. Both Chinese sites were used as puppets.
So, would you say that South Korea should annex North Korea?
At this point it's obvious you're not here to discuss facts and reason about them. You're here to filter facts and misinterpret them deliberately to fit your preferred conclusion.
And then you pivot to Korea in a way that is so disingenuous and so obviously ignoring literally everything I've said about the nature of sovereignty, Western imperialism, mutual security, nationhood and statehood, that it's clear you're having a discussion with yourself and not with me.
Someone that doesn't consider themselves Chinese is seceding from China.
They do. Invading an island is as little self-defence as bombing Iran.
'Since when can you choose your neighbours' has nothing to do with 'Western imperialist goals' but is a fact that affects all countries globally.
Except it isn't. The PRC/ROC split is the result of the Chinese Civil War, just as the NK/SK split is the result of the Korean Civil War. Both wars ended in a status quo where neither side controls the entirety, de facto resulting in two separate countries since decades.
So, if you negate the possibility of such an outcome in the Chinese question, you should negate this possibility in the Korean question and hence argue for South Korea, as the stronger part, to be entitled to force 'reunification' with the crippling North, which is rightfully theirs.
This is why you're not worth talking to.
You're a completely disingenuous person.
You don't argue in good faith.
You have a delusional grasp of history that serves only your pre-selected conclusions.
And your pre-selected conclusions are exactly matched to Western imperialist goals.
And you argue like a right-wing youtuber with zero self-awareness for how transparent you are.
You can shower me with whatever compliment you feel like. It doesn't change the fact that the Taiwanese don't consider themselves Chinese anymore. So does the world that currently is entertaining this charade of 'one China' to cater to the hurt feelings of the PRC. The Swiss moved on from being German or French you said, well so do the Taiwanese.
That might well be, but it doesn't change the fact that an attack on Taiwan by the PRC is not covered by self-defence.
So be it. But still, no country, notwithstanding any label whatever faction attributes to them has the right to choose its neighbours.
To call the clearly observable outcomes of the Civil Wars of China and Korea 'delusional' sounds a lot like psychological projection.
Even if that were the case, to reject a conclusion because it 'benefits the other side' is not necessarily a sign of an open mind but thinking within hard-set boundaries. Something I bet you'd refuse.
You should invest less time on obsessing with me and more on the gaping holes in your logic. Don't blame me for it.
Let's recap:
The PRCs rule is the outcome of a civil war, which was heavily influenced by both the US and the Soviet Union, which wanted their side to win.
This rule never extended to the island of Taiwan, which remained under the control of the ROC.
Until the 70s, this ROC was internationally considered 'China', the PRC was not.
Then, the US wanted to benefit from the Soviet-Sino Split and recognised the PRC instead of the ROC. This lead to the switch of international recognition of the PRC as China instead of the ROC.
Then, we saw the PRC becoming the factory of the US and the world, with the economic reforms of Deng Ziaoping introducing the market economy and ushering in the rise of capitalist elements in the PRCs economy
Meanwhile, the ROC dropped its formerly firmly held ambition to reconquer Mainland China and instead, developed an own identity, where Taiwan was all they aspired to control.
This is strongly opposed by the PRC, which strongly wants Taiwan to keep its 'Chinese' affiliation. We both know why.
So, concluding: Taiwan is de facto a sovereign country. Just as South Korea and North Korea are. Or the PRC. The only reason why the international community doesn't call it as it is is due to the PRC threatening war for that case. Yet, this childish behaviour not worthy of one of the largest countries in the world cannot change what has been fact since the existence of the PRC: it does not hold any control over Taiwan. And not even the longest, most entangled excursion into whatever theory or story how mean 'the West' is, has been and will forever be, cannot change that.