Miscellaneous News

Wasn't this the weapon they said would replace the rail gun after it was cancelled?

Overbom said:

I thought that only the usual US lapdogs would sign. It seems that they managed to trick some more countries

It also seems that ASEAN countries are quite desperate to have the US somehow involved in Asia-Pacific to try to balance Chinese influence in the region


No. As I posted in another thread, IPEF is hot garbage.
It doesn't offer any lower trade barriers. "Creating rules, regulations etc" don't matter that much if you don't further open up your market to your "allies"

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Yeah the usa is desperate for any kind of a win given the screw ups in Afghanistan and Ukraine and this might be easy to do against China given that China has little interest in engaging in a pissing match with the USA which seems to be the only thing the USA is good at winning. So yeah, let the USA win these pointless fights while China stocks up on grain, gas/oils, weapons and food while the USA spends its time going through its oil, food and now diesel reserves in an attempt to so the pissing match In Ukraine which we all know is being lost be there as we speak given that this fight has prevent the EU and the USA from exploiting Russia’s and now Ukraine’s resources as they once did.
China has plenty of time, the USA doesn’t and of a civil war happens, well the USA will go down in history as the nation that lost against China with China doing almost nothing to the USA. Not even the Roman Empire has failed as badly given it took nearly almost a thousand years to fully go down with the USA only being a two hundred years at most and all the red signs are here including a leader that is mostly asleep

I would no more believe so-called American agreement of intent than to believe the lying news emanating from the likes of MSNBC Democrat stenographer necon Nicole Wallace.

xypher said:

What is even the point of having some "yesman" in the security council, lol. It should be staffed with actually independent countries. No joke, I'd rather see India instead of Japan become a permanent member - as the situation with Russia shows, they ultimately still pursue a somewhat independent foreign policy unlike puppet states like Japan. Oh, and don't expand the permanent membership, just kick the UK out - France at least can act as some sort of EU representative, while Brits being there no longer makes sense. Their daddy USA can speak on their behalf anyways.

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Replacing the UK with its former colony will be some downright hilarious karma, I sincerely hope I live to see such a day.

taxiya said:

The US is serious about it because it knows that China and Russia will veto it so it will never happen. That is how serious it is.

Nothing has changed since the first time of the noise decades ago.

What I am seeing is nothing new but Biden picking up the old and well exposed tricks from Obama, TPP/IPEF is another example.

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China can use this to extract concessions from Japan, if Japan wants power then support them for UNSC membership, in return for a return to pacifism, defensive posture and a recognition of past atrocities, in short Japan should make up for it’s past security abuses, it should resolve it’s current security issues with it’s neighbors.

Same tactic can be applied to India.

The ASEAN countries that have joined the IEPF have extracted a concession that China may be allowed to join in the future, and that they will define a mechanism for expansion, the ASEAN countries also now hold a majority in the IPEF.

In addition, Singapore also announced support for China to join the CPTTP at the same time as joining the IPEF.

And, the US has exposed themselves because some of the “pillars”, such as the Anti-Corruption one make the US actually look bad given how corrupt the system is.

I’d say this has backfired quite spectacularly.

Andy1974 said:

China can use this to extract concessions from Japan, if Japan wants power then support them for UNSC membership, in return for a return to pacifism, defensive posture and a recognition of past atrocities, in short Japan should make up for it’s past security abuses, it should resolve it’s current security issues with it’s neighbors.

Same tactic can be applied to India.

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No, no deal. Acceptance into the security council is permanent; getting thrown out is unheard of. But offering these concessions to China, then slowly rolling them back, is so easy, it's to be expected. This goes even beyond that democracies are untrustworthy as they regularly change leaders who are free to reneg on the stances of old leaders. Even the same person can reverse course and you'd have no way to stop him or take back what you gave.

Andy1974 said:

China can use this to extract concessions from Japan, if Japan wants power then support them for UNSC membership, in return for a return to pacifism, defensive posture and a recognition of past atrocities, in short Japan should make up for it’s past security abuses, it should resolve it’s current security issues with it’s neighbors.

Same tactic can be applied to India.

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Never.

There is no guarantee of the return once someone get that big cake. This is not about Japan and India, it is about anybody. The permanent seat in UNSC is gained by winning WWII, it is not for trade. The seat is like throne of the emperor. So long as the emperor lives, nobody can get it not even his son let alone the former enemy.

All the advocating of expending permanent seat in UNSC are just day dreams of G4 and people who think nagging, lobbing and bribing worth more than blood.

Are you migrant from any of the two countries so you are lobbing for them? Because I honestly can not imagine anybody else would sincerely make such effort.

BTW, Criminal does not get rewarded for paying for their crime, that is an obligation.

Nothing to do with illegal fishing. It is just another attempt to contain China.

Another day and another failed attempt of Taiwan.

Andy1974 said:

The ASEAN countries that have joined the IEPF have extracted a concession that China may be allowed to join in the future, and that they will define a mechanism for expansion, the ASEAN countries also now hold a majority in the IPEF.

In addition, Singapore also announced support for China to join the CPTTP at the same time as joining the IPEF.

And, the US has exposed themselves because some of the “pillars”, such as the Anti-Corruption one make the US actually look bad given how corrupt the system is.

I’d say this has backfired quite spectacularly.

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China and the UK are now joining the CPTTP, which is way more meaningful in terms of lowering tariffs and increasing market access. The US is trying to control trading practices in the Asia-Pacific region, but they dare not enter anymore free trade agreements. It is ironic that the ex-euro member UK will be part of the CPTPP, while the US is out of any of these rcep or cptpp agreements.