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A lot of international politics/treaties enforcement boils down to - are you willing to bleed and die for that cause. Unless we are willing to go to war - ther

A lot of international politics/treaties enforcement boils down to - are you willing to bleed and die for that cause. Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions.

JadeNB 6y ago
> Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. This just seems false. There are no ways to guarantee that they won't do something, but China, like everyone else, is vulnerable to international pressure. An optimistic historic parallel to which one could look is the Helsinki Accords, where diplomatic measures far short of war wrung what turned out to be dramatic human-rights concessions from the Soviets.
- ReptileMan 6y ago
  It seems but it is not. China is ascending power whereas USSR was in the first stages of decay. The only game the big boys play is Realpolitik. And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all.
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    > And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all. Of course, there is no such thing as a binding international agreement—a state that feels itself empowered to abrogate an agreement will do so, regardless of anything that it has signed. As you say, in the end, the only sure-fire tool of enforcement is war, and even that is not sure fire, because victory in war is not guaranteed. Nonetheless, despite the many and flagrant violations of the Helsinki Accords, it is plausible to trace the beginning of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact directly to the accords.
goatinaboat 6y ago
Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions There is one recent-ish historical exception: the SA Apartheid regime was brought down by the West without any land invasion. But invasion is no guarantee either; the Indian caste system, which makes apartheid look like Sunday school, survived the British occupation.
- outlace 6y ago
  Sure but that was in a country where the ruling class was a small minority; perhaps the internal pressure was much more significant. In China the ruling class is a supermassive majority compared to the relatively tiny number of Uyghur’s.

JadeNB 6y ago

> Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. This just seems false. There are no ways to guarantee that they won't do something, but China, like everyone else, is vulnerable to international pressure. An optimistic historic parallel to which one could look is the Helsinki Accords, where diplomatic measures far short of war wrung what turned out to be dramatic human-rights concessions from the Soviets.

ReptileMan 6y ago
It seems but it is not. China is ascending power whereas USSR was in the first stages of decay. The only game the big boys play is Realpolitik. And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all. Of course, there is no such thing as a binding international agreement—a state that feels itself empowered to abrogate an agreement will do so, regardless of anything that it has signed. As you say, in the end, the only sure-fire tool of enforcement is war, and even that is not sure fire, because victory in war is not guaranteed. Nonetheless, despite the many and flagrant violations of the Helsinki Accords, it is plausible to trace the beginning of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact directly to the accords.

goatinaboat 6y ago

Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions There is one recent-ish historical exception: the SA Apartheid regime was brought down by the West without any land invasion. But invasion is no guarantee either; the Indian caste system, which makes apartheid look like Sunday school, survived the British occupation.

outlace 6y ago
Sure but that was in a country where the ruling class was a small minority; perhaps the internal pressure was much more significant. In China the ruling class is a supermassive majority compared to the relatively tiny number of Uyghur’s.