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Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in othe
by ebp 10y ago
Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in other circumstances?"
Should we see China as a reliable partner in the South China Sea? (No.) What would a regional economic order look like under China? (Maybe TTP isn't so terrible.) Should companies continue to use Hong Kong as a base for legal operations in China and SE Asia? (E.g. Singapore is looking better and better for arbitration.) Certainly, Taiwan should take note what any promised autonomy would look like if China offers a grand bargain to reunify.
Countries should see how China acts, note it, and behave accordingly.
- M_Grey 10y ago>Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in other circumstances?" Well the answers are clearly: "No" and "A lot" respectively. If you think the world needs the US of all countries to trumpet that fact, you're delusional. The problem there is that they see how we act too, and they're probably not so dim that they can't appreciate why we get off on pointing fingers at "bad guys". This just in: We're the bad guys too... we're all pretty bad guys in direct proportion to the power we wield, and in inverse proportion to our accountability. China, Russia, the US... lots of power, virtually no accountability. A strongly worded statement is just a bad joke that people see through these days.