5 ms·

yes, we know, there are historical territorial disputes all over the world. But can somebody here make a case that this is not actually/solely to appease China

yes, we know, there are historical territorial disputes all over the world. But can somebody here make a case that this is not actually/solely to appease China (over Taiwan presumably)?

mjr00 2y ago
If the essence of your question is "are there US-aligned/non-China countries who would have issues about certain flags", the answer is yes. Good example: the flag for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea. The Western world acknowledges North Korea as a separate entity. South Korea does not and considers the North part of its territory. They wouldn't be too happy about a NK flag on their operating system giving legitimacy to the state.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  no, (a) that's not the essence of my question and (b) I was not asking the essence of my question, I was asking literally my question. Microsoft would not respond to North Korea by deleting all the unicode flags all over the world, so while that might get you closer to the essence of your question, there's no point in me asking my question if you are just going to dodge it.
  - mjr00 2y ago
    Your question was > can somebody here make a case that this is not actually/solely to appease China (over Taiwan presumably)? I gave one (of many) examples where this would be relevant for a country other than China. If you don't think South Korea is politically important enough to matter, then use the Israel/Palestinian flag situation as something that certainly is. Or more simply: no, this is not just because of China and Taiwan.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      saying "it's North Korea" does not make a case that it's North Korea (especially when I acknowledged these disputes are all around the world, indicating that I understood that already). Fail.
      - zinekeller 2y ago
        There are ROK (South Korea) laws banning the display of DPRK (North Korea) imagery (and more), including the DPRK flag. Microsoft considers the SK market important enough that it has a separate version of Windows (the KN subvariant), so it's not really far-fetched that this is a consideration too.
        Symbiote 2y ago
        The ban on "display" of the DPRK flag means flying the flag in public or on a building, it doesn't mean viewing the file on a computer.
LAC-Tech 2y ago
Chinese denialism over Taiwan is really, really demented. It's not that they just claim Taiwan - they pretend they already own it, and stick their fingers in their ears if you point out facts on the ground. I suppose they did the same with Mongolia, until they couldn't.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  ok, but that didn't answer my question.
- dixie_land 2y ago
  Funny you mentioned Mongolia. Republic of China (Taiwan) still recognize it as part of its territory (together with mainland China). It is the communist that ceded a lot of territory to the Soviet Union and the puppet state of Mongolia to appease the USSR by having a buffer between it and china
  - LAC-Tech 2y ago
    But that's mainly due to how the PRC operates, right? Like when the PRC threatened invasion when the UK wanted Hong Kong to elect its own leaders, then later they can turn around and say "the British never even let the Hong Kong people vote". Some with Taiwan / R.O.C and it's territorial claims.
- hackerdues 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - int_19h 2y ago
    They are not physically in control of Taiwan, so no, they haven't "won the war" in that respect. Not that it matters, because legitimacy of holding territory is not based on winning wars.
    - hackerdues 2y ago
      > They are not physically in control of Taiwan, so no, they haven't "won the war" in that respect. They won the civil war, just like the vietnamese won their war of independence against france. It's just that china, like vietnam, needs to win another war. The war against the US to fully liberate their nation like vietnam did. > Not that it matters, because legitimacy of holding territory is not based on winning wars. Sure it is. It's the wars we won against britain, spain, mexico, japan, etc that gained all our territory. You think spain gave up florida, mexico gave up texas and japan gave up the pacific islands because they were feeling generous? Winning wars is what ultimately decides who owns what. The past 500 years has been europeans winning wars and stealing land all over the world. Actually, all of human history is people taking territory by force. Actually, this also applies to lions, wolves and ants. The reason china doesn't control taiwan is because they chickened out and decided not to fight the US for taiwan. The chinese should look to india for some inspiration. Know why goa is part of india again? India forcibly took it back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa
lmm 2y ago
Practically every place in the world where it's disputed whether it's part of another country or independent creates a flag issue. Do you include a Quebec flag? Northern Ireland? Somaliland? Palestine?
- fsckboy 2y ago
  what I asked was to convince me that this is not about China. you have failed to convince me that this is about quebec, somalililand or palestine, those are absurd notions, so you have failed to convince me that this is not about china.
  - lmm 2y ago
    I find it entirely plausible that it's about Palestine (in the sense that that would be sufficient cause for MS to want to avoid shipping a list of countries even if there wasn't a China/Taiwan issue) given that e.g. several US states have laws that make companies ineligible for public contracts if they participate in boycotting Israel. To say nothing of wanting to make sales in Israel itself. (Of course it won't really be about any one thing, it will be about all of these things - and China is probably the biggest and most relevant case. But it's by no means the only one)
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      using "reddit terminology" (not that there's anything good about reddit anymore but they do have the terminology), this post is about microsoft and the flag emojis, and up and down the thread are a zillion comments all about "it's generic territorial disputes". I try to start a subthread about perhaps an alternative idea, and I get responses that are all about the same blather that's already everywhere else. People here have no intellectual subtlety: I wouldn't bother commenting to elicit responses that are all the same thing that's already here. Try to say something different. Make a case. (and if you know anything about the history of Microsoft and Israel, no, it's not about Palestine. Ask any Israeli on here, did Microsoft drop flag emojis because of Israeli sensitivities?)

yes, we know, there are historical territorial disputes all over the world. But can somebody here make a case that this is not actually/solely to appease China (over Taiwan presumably)?

mjr00 2y ago

If the essence of your question is "are there US-aligned/non-China countries who would have issues about certain flags", the answer is yes. Good example: the flag for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea. The Western world acknowledges North Korea as a separate entity. South Korea does not and considers the North part of its territory. They wouldn't be too happy about a NK flag on their operating system giving legitimacy to the state.

fsckboy 2y ago
no, (a) that's not the essence of my question and (b) I was not asking the essence of my question, I was asking literally my question. Microsoft would not respond to North Korea by deleting all the unicode flags all over the world, so while that might get you closer to the essence of your question, there's no point in me asking my question if you are just going to dodge it.
- mjr00 2y ago
  Your question was > can somebody here make a case that this is not actually/solely to appease China (over Taiwan presumably)? I gave one (of many) examples where this would be relevant for a country other than China. If you don't think South Korea is politically important enough to matter, then use the Israel/Palestinian flag situation as something that certainly is. Or more simply: no, this is not just because of China and Taiwan.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    saying "it's North Korea" does not make a case that it's North Korea (especially when I acknowledged these disputes are all around the world, indicating that I understood that already). Fail.
    - zinekeller 2y ago
      There are ROK (South Korea) laws banning the display of DPRK (North Korea) imagery (and more), including the DPRK flag. Microsoft considers the SK market important enough that it has a separate version of Windows (the KN subvariant), so it's not really far-fetched that this is a consideration too.
      - Symbiote 2y ago
        The ban on "display" of the DPRK flag means flying the flag in public or on a building, it doesn't mean viewing the file on a computer.

LAC-Tech 2y ago

Chinese denialism over Taiwan is really, really demented. It's not that they just claim Taiwan - they pretend they already own it, and stick their fingers in their ears if you point out facts on the ground. I suppose they did the same with Mongolia, until they couldn't.

fsckboy 2y ago
ok, but that didn't answer my question.
dixie_land 2y ago
Funny you mentioned Mongolia. Republic of China (Taiwan) still recognize it as part of its territory (together with mainland China). It is the communist that ceded a lot of territory to the Soviet Union and the puppet state of Mongolia to appease the USSR by having a buffer between it and china
- LAC-Tech 2y ago
  But that's mainly due to how the PRC operates, right? Like when the PRC threatened invasion when the UK wanted Hong Kong to elect its own leaders, then later they can turn around and say "the British never even let the Hong Kong people vote". Some with Taiwan / R.O.C and it's territorial claims.
hackerdues 2y ago
[flagged]
- int_19h 2y ago
  They are not physically in control of Taiwan, so no, they haven't "won the war" in that respect. Not that it matters, because legitimacy of holding territory is not based on winning wars.
  - hackerdues 2y ago
    > They are not physically in control of Taiwan, so no, they haven't "won the war" in that respect. They won the civil war, just like the vietnamese won their war of independence against france. It's just that china, like vietnam, needs to win another war. The war against the US to fully liberate their nation like vietnam did. > Not that it matters, because legitimacy of holding territory is not based on winning wars. Sure it is. It's the wars we won against britain, spain, mexico, japan, etc that gained all our territory. You think spain gave up florida, mexico gave up texas and japan gave up the pacific islands because they were feeling generous? Winning wars is what ultimately decides who owns what. The past 500 years has been europeans winning wars and stealing land all over the world. Actually, all of human history is people taking territory by force. Actually, this also applies to lions, wolves and ants. The reason china doesn't control taiwan is because they chickened out and decided not to fight the US for taiwan. The chinese should look to india for some inspiration. Know why goa is part of india again? India forcibly took it back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa

lmm 2y ago

Practically every place in the world where it's disputed whether it's part of another country or independent creates a flag issue. Do you include a Quebec flag? Northern Ireland? Somaliland? Palestine?

fsckboy 2y ago
what I asked was to convince me that this is not about China. you have failed to convince me that this is about quebec, somalililand or palestine, those are absurd notions, so you have failed to convince me that this is not about china.
- lmm 2y ago
  I find it entirely plausible that it's about Palestine (in the sense that that would be sufficient cause for MS to want to avoid shipping a list of countries even if there wasn't a China/Taiwan issue) given that e.g. several US states have laws that make companies ineligible for public contracts if they participate in boycotting Israel. To say nothing of wanting to make sales in Israel itself. (Of course it won't really be about any one thing, it will be about all of these things - and China is probably the biggest and most relevant case. But it's by no means the only one)
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    using "reddit terminology" (not that there's anything good about reddit anymore but they do have the terminology), this post is about microsoft and the flag emojis, and up and down the thread are a zillion comments all about "it's generic territorial disputes". I try to start a subthread about perhaps an alternative idea, and I get responses that are all about the same blather that's already everywhere else. People here have no intellectual subtlety: I wouldn't bother commenting to elicit responses that are all the same thing that's already here. Try to say something different. Make a case. (and if you know anything about the history of Microsoft and Israel, no, it's not about Palestine. Ask any Israeli on here, did Microsoft drop flag emojis because of Israeli sensitivities?)