The American Society of Civil Engineers might have some bias towards ensuring Civil Engineers have jobs, seeing as how that's part of their mission statement. This might additionally bias them towards suggesting that infrastructure needs improvement more often than strictly necessary.
It might also bias them towards reporting the work of their members is of a quality that justifies their continued employment and thus avoid suggesting that recent or ongoing improvements were inadequate.
As someone who has lived in majority-black towns in the south most of my life, those words are simply not used in the way you are using them. Blacks in the south are universally considered a minority, even in those geographies where they are actually the demographic majority.
Sure, and that wasn't the point of my post. My point is that black people who run the government that governs over an almost entirely black population still choose to use shot spotter.
Surely there is some merit there that is not merely keeping minorities down, or maybe all the black people running the government just secretly hate blacks.
"Citizen of the USA" is a mouthful. People tend to use "American" but that's ignoring the fact that there are 35 countries in America.
A lot of languages have a word like USian, e.g. "états-unien" (French), "estadounidense" (Spanish). I have used "USAmerican" myself when "American" would be ambiguous.
Using America to refer to every country in North and South America is imprecise at best, if not outright disingenuous. Nobody thinks you're talking about Brazilians or Argentines or Canadian when you say "American."
That's us. It's our word. You can pry it from our cold dead lips.
Your America-first approach to naming is fine in American circles but don't be surprised when other people use other terminology. No, America is indeed a continent. I have a lot of Brazilian/Peruvian/Canadians colleagues and have been in contexts where we've discussed American (continent) vs European points of views.
I am not sorry if my attempt to use precise language when precision is needed is "disingenuous" to you. What a weird thing to get rude about.
If there were another North or South American country that went by America (e.g. if Brazil was instead called the "Eastern American Republic") then what you say would make sense. As is, it just sounds like you're trying to stick it to the man.
That's a was oversimplification and is as constructed not correct.
Interest rates on government debt are not set by central bank policy. Nominal rates on back reserves are set by central bank policy. But those rates are set RELATIVE to real rates.
So if real rates are low then the central bank can not magically set them higher without causing massive economic damage.
So yes, investors and the real economy very much influences interest rates.
In addition government debt interest rates are very different and are mostly determined by market forces.
Considering that Taiwan is already independent and would need to be persuaded to join the PRC, these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification".
This is the golden rule of nations - no nation “owns” anything. It’s only what you can defend and get other nations to recognize.
Remember there are pro-China factions in Taiwan. All China needs to do is invade, suppress dissent and elevate the views of those few who are happy with the outcome.
And with that ‘A “rogue” state of China lead by “seditionists, Western mercenaries and reactionaries” will then have been “rightfully pacified and reunified” with China in accordance with the “will of the people”’.
And just like that…an independent country ceases to exist.
From your perspective, maybe. But not from China's perspective.
> these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification"
Imposing economic sanctions until the country has to oblige to China's request I'm sure is seen as "peaceful" from China's perspective. I think the only thing that is far away is outright war, but everything else would be considered "peaceful".
Typical HN relativism and intellectualization. In its current state, Taiwan is independent, and it will require either:
a) Taiwanese consensus to officially rejoin China.
b) An act of war.
We can discuss China's perspective all day, but it does not change the status quo. What about the perspective of Russia? Australia? South Africa? Which one is true? Is anything true?
We need to interpret what is meant by "Taiwan independence" here.
Taiwan is currently not part of the PRC (and never has been part of it, actually), but it is what's left of the Republic of China.
There are roughly 3 point of views and aims:
1. The PRC claims that the Republic of China ceased to exist in 1949 and that Taiwan is part of the PRC.
2. The ROC still exists but is currently only surviving in Taiwan. In this sense Taiwan is an independent state but it is still China (just not the PRC) and still ultimate goal is still to re-unify.
3. Taiwan is an independent country, not part of 'China' and not aiming to re-unify at all.
Usually, "supporting Taiwan independence" means #3.
The current state of play is #2 at least formally (Taiwan is independent but not #3). The PRC government's policy is obviously #1 but they know that the reality is #2 and that's the 'status quo', but it is #3 that is the casus belli for them.
The US has imposed similar "peaceful" economic sanctions on a few countries until they obliged to requests too. This move is hardly specific to Chinese diplomacy.
They still are with Venezuela and Cuba. Both are ridiculous and only hurting the people of the country. While we regularly cavort with countries like Saudi Arabia.
> Considering that Taiwan is already independent and would need to be persuaded to join the PRC, these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification".
--flurben
so flurben will now be criminally responsible for life (in China)?
Correct. If flurben ever wants to go to China incl Hong Kong and Macau, and the officials there google a bit, that might be a problem. Probably not jailed, but no visa either.
It will also be a problem for companies who deal with Chinese companies. If e.g. Tim Cook started talking about the nation of Taiwan, he would probably get an email from somebody with a .gov.cn address reminding him "Nice Foxconn supplier you got there, would be a shame if something happened to your contracts... wanna revise your recent statements?"
Well, that even was a problem before this announcement, but this announcement certainly will make it worse.
Huawei survived Trump, China is building a lot of international bridges e.g. with the Belt and Road initiative, the EU and US are defacto dependent on China because that's where they outsourced a lot of their product and supply chains. China never gave a fuck about what the populations in the West thought about them, because they know that even outraged Westerners will not stop buying products made in China. China had one "PR disaster" after another for years and years now, e.g. recent things like imprisoned Chinese dissidents getting the Nobel Peace price in absentia, anything happening in Hong Kong, and in the Chinese sea, and the "reeducation" camps for Uyghurs. They didn't budge after tiananmen square, they didn't budge after the Dalai Lama got popular, they didn't budge after any of the recent stuff. What makes you think they will budge in the future?
They don't really need the West, but the West needs them (for the forseeable future). Their markets may take a hit if push comes to shove with the West, but that's fine with them. And they have a home market with 1.7 billion customers, and many other foreign markets in Asia, Africa or South America that will still deal with them.
At this point I'm not sure what will happen when China eventually attacks Taiwan. It is a vital resource for the USA in terms of their sheer semiconductor industrial output. It doesn't really seem that the USA would get involved in such a fight though, or make more than a token effort. I think Taiwan missed their chance in the 80s to become a nuclear power when China was busy with other stuff, now it's too late and they are all but doomed to eventual takeover by China.
US terminated Taiwan's nuclear program in 1988. They confiscated fuel rod, data, research paper, poured cement into the labs and dismantled the heavy water reactor that was worth around 2 billion USD.
Not according to the PRC, and a lot of countries and international institutions either. Some (usually with close ties to China, but now always, e.g. Spain[1], probably because they do not want to give their own separatist movements any political ammunition) consider the ROC part of the PRC, others are deliberately vague on whether they consider Taiwan independent or even a nation, like e.g. the US[0].
The WHO for example is very adept at avoiding any position on Taiwan[2].
And then of course, there is this guy... [3]. (Just if you like some cringe about a serious topic)
>China's goals of "peaceful reunification".
(PR) China doesn't really talk about peaceful reunification. They officially consider Taiwan part of the country already, a part that is just a little rebellious at the moment. They are more talking about a peaceful end of the conflict, but recently use the word "peaceful" a lot less.
Taiwan is considered independent by the vast majority of countries, who are doing business with it and having totally normally diplomatic relationships with it. The only caveat is Taiwan embassies are called bullshit and those countries will pretend not having diplomatic with it. But this is theater only and for 99% of things that matter Taiwan is considered a country.
Let's take an example: passports. France is one of the country pretending Taiwan isn't independent while letting Taiwanese people enter its borders with a Taiwanese passport. Since when people can move around with passports from an not independent country? Other example: academic scholarships for foreigners in Japan. China and Taiwan are separated and treated vastly different things. Also money changing: I didn't had any issue changing from and to NTD the last I went to a change bureau in KIX airport. How all of this is this possible if Taiwan is not, in fact, recognized as a country?
> Not according to the PRC, and a lot of countries and international institutions either.
funny last time I remember going to Taiwan I was not subject to mainland China visa rules.
silly comment. you can deny facts all day long and pretend the sky is red instead of blue. Taiwan is in control of the territory and thats legitimacy enough.
What is China going to do? Put all the MEPs on the Taiwan supportes list? Good luck to them. The EU is most likely going to do the same with top Chinese officials.
"functionally independent" does not buy you much if you don't have enough international recognition. And I mentioned it's not just Djibouti, it's the US, it's the EU (all of it), and so on.
>Nevertheless, 15 states recognise the ROC and have diplomatic relations with it.
Those 15 states... heavy-weights like the Holy Sea (aka the Vatican), Paraguay, Nicaragua and some tiny island nations mostly in the Caribbean and Micronesia. Basically all the nations China deemed too unimportant to pressure or buy off, and the Pope.
The only reason China didn't topple Taiwan yet is that the US (and the EU, but they do not really care that much about that) would get mad.
However, China is recently increasing the pressure more and more, this announcement only being the last one. It looks like China is preparing to see if the US is bluffing.
It might end up becoming another Hong Kong, with China pinky-swearing they will keep Taiwan "autonomous" for the time being to appease the international community, while not really doing that, knowing full well that the US is not very keen of risking an outright war with China over Taiwan.
you are just talking about pure politics. in the economic worls Taiwan does exist and applies different rules for exports and importa than China. thats recognition of it being an independent entity.
Yeah, and Hong Kong has/had the same situation, officially part of China, unofficially treated rather differently especially in the economic dimension. And now look at what's happening there.
HK was not in the same situation since 1997. It was officially a part of China at that time. No comparison possible. HK does not have its own standing army.
Remove the "probably" for Spain, it's totally for that reason. They also have the same stance on the Republic of Kosovo with some "hilarious" moment when there was the footbal World Cup qualification match between Kosovo and Spain, with TV in Spain forces to use lower case for Kosovo, commentarists avoiding to say the K-word etc.
