Cold War against China?

But the Chinese thing is almost entirely the US' fault and anyone pretending otherwise is ridiculous to me. It began more than a decade ago and has been a concerted effort to limit the rise of China (by the US).
The US enabled the rise of China. It initially hoped that China would be a strategic partner. But Chinese actions indicated it preferred to be a strategic competitor. So US policy shifted to one of containment. "Fault"... I mean, what does that mean?
 
A war the West fecking started without exception across all fronts. In the Middle East, by deception, couldn't give a shit about detractions, in Ukraine (yeah Russia invaded after they NATOed the place), and now they tell China there is no One China policy which is another betrayal of US pledged policy.

It is the US and its vassals that are at fault if this all goes tits up. No ambiguity at all.
What?!

The US never agreed with China's position regarding Taiwan, they only acknowledged their position.

If Xi invades, it's imperative that the US & allies defends Taiwan.
 
A war the West fecking started without exception across all fronts. In the Middle East, by deception, couldn't give a shit about detractions, in Ukraine (yeah Russia invaded after they NATOed the place), and now they tell China there is no One China policy which is another betrayal of US pledged policy.

It is the US and its vassals that are at fault if this all goes tits up. No ambiguity at all.

did he actually do that?
 
did he actually do that?
Yes. The US has stated it, and I do not say binding, they're more clever than that, over and over again and made their position clear. That they don't, for strategic reasons, see Taiwan as part of China at all. That is, if you followed the last four years you'd remember Nancy Pelosi and the rest flying to Taiwan to symbolically state that they don't place any stress or weight upon the One China policy. Indeed, it has been muted that if Taiwan were invaded that the US would support Taiwain.
 
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The US enabled the rise of China. It initially hoped that China would be a strategic partner. But Chinese actions indicated it preferred to be a strategic competitor. So US policy shifted to one of containment. "Fault"... I mean, what does that mean?
China was going rise regardless. The US did expedite that rise, no doubt, but did so, as I'm sure you're aware, by capitalism not by reason or logic or strategy. The only strategy or reason had to do with shareholder profits because China had/has a vast workforce where US/EU companies could off-shore their labour costs and so increase profits all the whilst fecking over the very nations in which these business are, in pretense only, actually located (the global finance-scape is what it is and a multinational is no more or less American, when we really get into it, than it is Chinese: I mean, here, strictly, the management of and concentration of wealth).

The short-term (and medium term) profit (see why GDP doesn't mean shit by itself) which the US economy benefited from was one side of the same coin whereby something like complete deindustrialization took place. People ask why Trump is and can be elected and your answer is not far from this. A hollowing out of the American economy in real-terms regardless of what the stock market says. Meaningful job losses across a generation or more and then ghost towns.
 
What?!

The US never agreed with China's position regarding Taiwan, they only acknowledged their position.

If Xi invades, it's imperative that the US & allies defends Taiwan.
The United States' One-China policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.[3] The United States does not challenge that position."

This is revisionism. The same kind of "hang on, we never had a formal paper which said NATO cannot expand to the East, it was only an agreement". These agreements were made for specific reasons at specific times. To bring China into the US fold, or closer to it, and away from the Soviet Union. To pretend that the US does not acknowledge that which is bread and butter in US-Chinese relations, or only acknowledges it as if that makes no difference, is to be a complete revisionist in historical terms.

The document covers three main aspects for the United States and China. The United States formally acknowledged that "all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China". The use of the word "acknowledge" rather than "accept" is often cited as an example of the United States' ambiguous position regarding the future of Taiwan.[10] The agreed Chinese translation renders "acknowledges" as cheng ren (承认), which connotes recognition and acceptance.[
The US knew and knows what that document meant to the Chinese. To try and say "ah, they only said yes to something vague" is completely degenerate (a degenerate understanding of politics, geopolitics, and history: an ideological understanding of such).

Even so, the US officially acknowledged that Taiwan is part of China. How can China invade China? By your own rhetoric it would be a civil war, not an external war. Neither of which is likely to happen any time soon anyway.
 
The United States' One-China policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.[3] The United States does not challenge that position."

This is revisionism. The same kind of "hang on, we never had a formal paper which said NATO cannot expand to the East, it was only an agreement". These agreements were made for specific reasons at specific times. To bring China into the US fold, or closer to it, and away from the Soviet Union. To pretend that the US does not acknowledge that which is bread and butter in US-Chinese relations, or only acknowledges it as if that makes no difference, is to be a complete revisionist in historical terms.


The US knew and knows what that document meant to the Chinese. To try and say "ah, they only said yes to something vague" is completely degenerate (a degenerate understanding of politics, geopolitics, and history: an ideological understanding of such).

Even so, the US officially acknowledged that Taiwan is part of China. How can China invade China? By your own rhetoric it would be a civil war, not an external war. Neither of which is likely to happen any time soon anyway.
Ah the famous promise to not expand nato east that even Gorbachev himself acknowledged wasn’t even talked about or discussed
 
Yes. The US has stated it, and I do not say binding, they're more clever than that, over and over again and made their position clear. That they don't, for strategic reasons, see Taiwan as part of China at all. That is, if you followed the last four years you'd remember Nancy Pelosi and the rest flying to Taiwan to symbolically state that they don't place any stress or weight upon the One China policy. Indeed, it has been muted that if Taiwan were invaded that the US would support Taiwain.

I was under the impression you thought the recent administration had changed something, but I was mistaken
 
I’m really not sure what you think has changed regarding Taiwan given the previous 3 times PRC threatened to invade Taiwan or actually mobilised to, the US parked the pacific fleet into the Taiwan straits.
 
Ah the famous promise to not expand nato east that even Gorbachev himself acknowledged wasn’t even talked about or discussed
And the entire press core of the US and Soviets all reported it. They just dreamed it, of course.


It wasn't even contentious until the Russian invasion when everyone and their mother tried to revise history.
 
And the entire press core of the US and Soviets all reported it. They just dreamed it, of course.


It wasn't even contentious until the Russian invasion when everyone and their mother tried to revise history.
So why would Gorbachev lie?
 
I was under the impression you thought the recent administration had changed something, but I was mistaken
I was under the impression you understood what geopolitics and such actually was where signs are given consistently and convey meaning (such as Pelosi's visit), but I am clearly mistaken. The US knew what it was doing with that visit and then said "we have changed nothing".
 
So why would Gorbachev lie?
Why would the entire press core of the time lie?

"The Americans promised that Nato wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted."
That is Gorbachev. Your witness, not mine.
 
see above. your witness, not mine, as stated.

The promise is also to be found in official american documents (referring to the agreement, to be absolutely specific), so I don't know why people pretend it never happened.
I need to see these documents on this aforementioned agreement.

I have worked in NATO for over a decade and this is the first I’ve heard of these documents
 
I was under the impression you understood what geopolitics and such actually was where signs are given consistently and convey meaning (such as Pelosi's visit), but I am clearly mistaken. The US knew what it was doing with that visit and then said "we have changed nothing".

huh? why are you being passive aggressive

I just asked you a question because it seemed like you were saying the current administration changed policy on China. Then you replied and explained the exact same policy they've had for ages :lol:
 
huh? why are you being passive aggressive

I just asked you a question because it seemed like you were saying the current administration changed policy on China. Then you replied and explained the exact same policy they've had for ages :lol:

Also pretending the Us hasn’t actively defended Taiwan in the past, such as parking three carrier groups into Taiwan straits in 1996.
 
huh? why are you being passive aggressive

I just asked you a question because it seemed like you were saying the current administration changed policy on China. Then you replied and explained the exact same policy they've had for ages :lol:
You're pretending the US isn't intentionally signing to China that it doesn't any longer respect the One China policy. It is evident that that is exactly what they have been doing over the past few years. I took your ignorance for passive aggressiveness. I was maybe incorrect.
 
You're pretending the US isn't intentionally signing to China that it doesn't any longer respect the One China policy. It is evident that that is exactly what they have been doing over the past few years. I took your ignorance for passive aggressiveness. I was maybe incorrect.

So what was the first, second and third Taiwan strait crisis?

US doctrine has always been strategic ambiguity. Taiwan isn’t an independent country but they’ll fight to defend it anyway.

If one china was what they truly believe then 96 crisis wouldn’t have happened.
 
I have worked in NATO for over a decade and this is the first I’ve heard of these documents
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-...t-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early#_edn6

here.

You can pretend all you like. Nothing personal, because you're not the only one who engages in this revisionism whether knowingly or not. But the US declassified documents align perfectly with the press reports of the time. And there is a section of those documents available in that US governmental archive above. edit: it is an archive of US governmental maternal, just to be exact here. I.e., not governmental but with governmental resources (documents and reports).


Document 05

Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.

Feb 9, 1990

Source

U.S. Department of State, FOIA 199504567 (National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38)


Even with (unjustified) redactions by U.S. classification officers, this American transcript of perhaps the most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” Later in the conversation, Baker poses the same position as a question, “would you prefer a united Germany outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?” The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote.
 
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So what was the first, second and third Taiwan strait crisis?

US doctrine has always been strategic ambiguity. Taiwan isn’t an independent country but they’ll fight to defend it anyway.

If one china was what they truly believe then 96 crisis wouldn’t have happened.
I'm still waiting on your Quantum Gorachev to resolve itself. Mine agrees with the US' own declassified documentation, yours does not.
 
Why would the entire press core of the time lie?


That is Gorbachev. Your witness, not mine.
FFS a promise in a private chat (was it even minuted?) is not the same as a commitment made in a treaty. It doesn't matter what was or was not said in a fireside chat. No world leader is going to be dumb enough to trust that.
 
FFS a promise in a private chat (was it even minuted?) is not the same as a commitment made in a treaty. It doesn't matter what was or was not said in a fireside chat. No world leader is going to be dumb enough to trust that.
It was a negotiation regarding the re-unification of Germany, not a "private chat". And it was taken very seriously by both the US and the Soviets as can be seen in the official record, not in these revisionists comments. Read the document I just posted.

"There will be no need for NATO..." (in Europe) at all - that's what Baker is saying. And "not one inch to the east".

Now, in the context of this thread the argument made was that it was never stated. This is clearly complete nonsense. That's all I am proving here. No more, no less.
 
You're pretending the US isn't intentionally signing to China that it doesn't any longer respect the One China policy. It is evident that that is exactly what they have been doing over the past few years. I took your ignorance for passive aggressiveness. I was maybe incorrect.

Nah I'm not doing that. I don't think they've ever respected it and surely nobody actually believes they do. Vague public positions and political posturing is another matter.
 
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I'm still waiting on your Quantum Gorachev to resolve itself. Mine agrees with the US' own declassified documentation, yours does not.
Ffs, so this document and agreement you bang on about was actually just a comment by baker without any formal ratification or documentation?

:lol: :lol: This is insane mental gymnastics
 
:lol: :lol: This is insane mental gymnastics

see above. your witness, not mine, as stated.

The promise is also to be found in official american documents (referring to the agreement, to be absolutely specific), so I don't know why people pretend it never happened.
I need to see these documents on this aforementioned agreement.

I have worked in NATO for over a decade and this is the first I’ve heard of these documents


Indeed. You state no such thing exists. Are proven completely incorrect and then move the goalposts. Your mental gymnastics are indeed amazing.
 
I knew you would link to that particular source by the way.

The same source that explicitly says the wording was “led to believe” and not any agreement.

Gorbachev talks about this. He said that nato expansion was discussed in context of German occupation right after fall of Warsaw pact. Read Gorbachevs comments ffs.
 
without any formal ratification or documentation?
Has never been the point. Moving parameters to suit your ignorance aposteriori. Do as you want, but you were wrong and now you want to throw smileys around and pretend otherwise. Would be easier for you to just admit that you aren't up on the history of the precise thing we are talking about because, if you were, you would have known about all these documents.
 
Indeed. You state no such thing exists. Are proven completely incorrect and then move the goalposts. Your mental gymnastics are indeed amazing.
You said a document pertaining to an agreement.

Not the minutes of a conversation :lol:
 
Has never been the point. Moving parameters to suit your ignorance aposteriori. Do as you want, but you were wrong and now you want to throw smileys around and pretend otherwise. Would be easier for you to just admit that you aren't up on the history of the precise thing we are talking about because, if you were, you would have known about all these documents.
see above. your witness, not mine, as stated.

The promise is also to be found in official american documents (referring to the agreement, to be absolutely specific), so I don't know why people pretend it never happened.

This is your wording. You said document referencing the agreement. There was no agreement.
 
China was going rise regardless. The US did expedite that rise, no doubt, but did so, as I'm sure you're aware, by capitalism not by reason or logic or strategy. The only strategy or reason had to do with shareholder profits because China had/has a vast workforce where US/EU companies could off-shore their labour costs and so increase profits all the whilst fecking over the very nations in which these business are, in pretense only, actually located (the global finance-scape is what it is and a multinational is no more or less American, when we really get into it, than it is Chinese: I mean, here, strictly, the management of and concentration of wealth).

The short-term (and medium term) profit (see why GDP doesn't mean shit by itself) which the US economy benefited from was one side of the same coin whereby something like complete deindustrialization took place. People ask why Trump is and can be elected and your answer is not far from this. A hollowing out of the American economy in real-terms regardless of what the stock market says. Meaningful job losses across a generation or more and then ghost towns.
Ah, because "capitalism is bad therefore America is bad".

Of course you don't mention how China aggressively kept the Yuan far below its market value, directly contributing to that hollowing out. Or the industrial espionage. Or the forced technology transfers. The general mercantilist approach to trade.
 
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Read Gorbachevs comments ffs.
I prefer to read the actual record. Which I have, over many years, in depth. You clearly have not.

I never said binding agreement, I said promise and agreement. And I proved it (easily) because it has always been public record.


Good luck.
 
This is your wording. You said document referencing the agreement. There was no agreement.
It was a literal agreement within that very conversation. Non-binding per treaties, but a literal understanding qua "agreement" within that (and other) conversation(s). That was all I had to "prove" here, not that it was "binding" which I never once stated. Only the US knew, and always has, that the Soviets, now Russians, took and take that to be about as binding as binding gets (after the idea of Russia being in NATO, under Yeltsin, was completely dismissed).

Is it a treaty? Nope. It is a highly official agreement (understanding) in the context of the collapse of the SU and the re-unification of Germany. An assurance given which was completely betrayed. That's what historians who aren't idiots conclude (not necessarily on the betrayal part) because the official and declassified documentation, as well as press reports of the time, cannot allow for any other conclusion. It is matter of fact.
 
I prefer to read the actual record. Which I have, over many years, in depth. You clearly have not.

I never said binding agreement, I said promise and agreement. And I proved it (easily) because it has always been public record.


Good luck.
Jesus you seem to treat diplomacy like Dave promising to sell Chris a baggie at the pub…

If there was nothing in paper there wasn’t an agreement or promise.

I’ve known about the baker minutes for years and frankly is about as useful as listening to Chomskys views on the matter.
 
It was a literal agreement within that very conversation. Non-binding per treaties, but a literal understanding qua "agreement" within that (and other) conversation(s). That was all I had to "prove" here, not that it was "binding" which I never once stated. Only the US knew, and always has, that the Soviets, now Russians, took and take that to be about as binding as binding gets (after the idea of Russia being in NATO, under Yeltsin, was completely dismissed).

Is it a treaty? Nope. It is a highly official agreement (understanding) in the context of the collapse of the SU and the re-unification of Germany. An assurance given which was completely betrayed. That's what historians who aren't idiots conclude (not necessarily on the betrayal part) because the official and declassified documentation, as well as press reports of the time, cannot allow for any other conclusion. It is matter of fact.

I’m sorry there is no way Russia believes that. They’re not year 9 kids doing international diplomacy for the first time. Nobody believes that one comment from one guy is enough to bind something for 30 years.

Let’s counterpoint with something similar with xi and Obama. Xi “promised” Obama in a convo there would be no militarisation of South China Sea. Broken within one years.

Guess what, the US didn’t throw a hissy fit about it or claim china broke their agreements because they understand that one conversation an ageeement does not make.
 
It was a negotiation regarding the re-unification of Germany, not a "private chat". And it was taken very seriously by both the US and the Soviets as can be seen in the official record, not in these revisionists comments. Read the document I just posted.

"There will be no need for NATO..." (in Europe) at all - that's what Baker is saying. And "not one inch to the east".

Now, in the context of this thread the argument made was that it was never stated. This is clearly complete nonsense. That's all I am proving here. No more, no less.
Then you've not really proven much. What matters is what flows from an agreement.