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Xi Jinping Vows to Reunify China and Taiwan in New Year's Eve Speech
- xenospn 10mo agoIf there was ever a time to attack Taiwan, it is now, when Trump is in office. He is so weak and so indecisive, has great admiration for dictators and strongmen. The US will do nothing to stop them.
- ta9000 10mo agoYou really think the US military industrial complex will allow Trump to not act to defend profits errr freedom?
- xenospn 10mo agohave you not been paying attention? The entire US *-complex is made of bootlickers and spineless men who grovel and kiss the ring.
- trymas 10mo agoLook at Ukraine and how GOP was successful at blocking or significantly delaying any help. In 2022 everyone was saying that military industrial complex (MIC) was so strong in US, that Ukraine will be getting anything they want. Apparently MIC lobby is rather weak.
- exabrial 10mo agoGreat. I wanted to go the rest of my life without another war. Can't these nimrods find something else to do? Has he tried like golf or pickleball? Bro get a hobby.
- wolvoleo 10mo agoWhy can't they just leave them alone? Taiwan is not a threat to China. They just want to live their lives their way. Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride?
- RegnisGnaw 10mo agoTaiwan is a threat to China, not military but socially. The CCP (and Xi in particular) has made "One China" a key point. The deaths of a few million Taiwan people is not a big deal to ensure the future survival and stability of China and the CCP.
- wolvoleo 9mo agoI don't really see how. The Chinese people don't look up at Taiwan as a beacon of democracy. Most Chinese citizens are fine with the status quo. It's not a sentiment that actually lives among the people. And there's plenty of other democratic countries to take examples from if they so desire. And killing millions of people in another country to ensure a regime's survival is surely a big deal.
- RegnisGnaw 9mo agoMost mainland Chinese support merging Taiwan back to China, either through a 1C2S deal or directly with force. Sentiments can be changed as needed through proper guidence of public opinion. The survival of China and the CCP is the #1 goal, the deaths of a few million people isn't a big deal to achieve that goal.
- AnimalMuppet 10mo agoTaiwan isn't a threat to China in the military sense. Taiwan is not going to wake up tomorrow and decide to invade China. But Taiwan is a threat indirectly. Chinese people, but with much more political freedom than in the mainland, and with more prosperity - that's a threat to the Communist Party's legitimacy as ruler of China, in the same way that Ukraine is a threat to Putin's rule of Russia. It's somebody just next door, with approximately the same people, who's doing much better and is much more free. It makes the Chinese and Russians start to get ideas that maybe they could have that, too. And Taiwan is more directly a threat, because Xi has explicitly made reunification with Taiwan a measure of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi's mouth made that problem, and now he can't back down without losing face. > Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride? In a "face" culture? Yes, they may be.
- davydm 10mo agopoohbear needs to fuck right off
- tjpnz 10mo agoThe resemblance is uncanny.
- throw4r5yeet 9mo agoThere’s a Winnie the Pooh ride in Shanghai Disneyland.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoI don’t think Xi is worried about body comparisons anymore given that Trump is president rather than Obama.
- yesfitz 10mo agoHere's the full English text of Xi Jinping's speech: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202512/31/WS69550b6ba310d6866eb31768.html https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202512/31/WS69550b6ba310d686... There's one mention of Taiwan, in the eigth paragraph (of twelve). "We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a bond of blood and kinship. The reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable!" I support an independent Taiwan, and given China's recent military exercises that encircled Taiwan, everyone's right to be cagey, but the speech itself doesn't focus on Taiwan, nor does it seem to escalate China's rhetoric. To be fair, the Guardian article does provide the context of the military exercises, so I guess I'm complaining about the headline being overly alarming. A first in journalism, I'm sure /s.
- AnimalMuppet 10mo ago"A trend of the times"? In fact, Taiwan is not trending toward reunification.
- yesfitz 10mo agoThe "trend" is a reference to the sentences preceding what I quoted, in which Xi Jinping celebrates the continued integration of Hong Kong and Macau. "Not long ago, I attended the opening ceremony of the National Games, and I was glad to see Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao coming together in unity and acting in unison. We should unswervingly implement the policy of One Country, Two Systems, and support Hong Kong and Macao in better integrating into the overall development of our country and maintaining long-term prosperity and stability. We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a bond of blood and kinship. The reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable!" Given the unrest and bad optics from Hong Kong, which was a gradual, negotiated transfer of power to China, I'm hoping that the threat of invasion remains just a threat. Soft power takes longer and is more easily contested. I think 2026 will determine if America's step back is a blip or the start of a trend. I wouldn't be surprised if China and other countries are waiting to determine the same.
- DustinEchoes 10mo agoIt’s worth mentioning that he says this every year.
- tim-tday 10mo agoAnd hasn’t changed the deadline he gave to his military “to have all options for reunification available by 2027” Peaceful reunification is not in the cards. It will be war or nothing and it ain’t gunna be nothing.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoI should point out the obvious that this is a directive to the PLA to develop capabilities to take the island by 2027, it isn’t a directive to attack in 2027. Taken at face value, China is admitting that it doesn’t have the capability to take Taiwan right now, which I think is a bit surprising.
- justanotherjoe 9mo agoWhat's so surprising about it? Russia had been smashing their heads against the Ukraine wall for years now. Defending can be done very efficiently with modern weaponry. And Taiwan is more powerful than Ukraine potentially and more economically important.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoChina has been working on amphibious and naval capabilities for a decade now. The trick for the PLA is not to just successfully take Taiwan, but to do it in a way that doesn’t leave the whole island as a smoking crater. Geology and topography isn’t China’s friend in this, they can’t just roll some tanks into Taiwan, and all of Taiwan’s infrastructure is on the west side of the island, with the ryukyus way too close for comfort.
- forinti 10mo agoI wish people would think long term. China should be friendlier with Taiwan and maybe in 100 years there could be some sort of Chinese Union. It reminds me of the Falklands. Argentina should have invested in wooing the Falklanders who weren't getting much attention from the British then.
- RegnisGnaw 10mo agoWhy would there be a union? Taiwan is not equal to China.
- tim333 10mo agoThe EU kind of works. It doesn't mean Germany has to be equal to Malta for example for that to happen.
- RegnisGnaw 9mo agoThe EU only works cause there is many countries.