Taiwan’s newly inaugurated president William Lai has called on China to stop threatening the island and accept the existence of its democracy.

He urged Beijing to replace confrontation with dialogue, shortly after being sworn in on Monday.

He also said Taiwan would never back down in the face of intimidation from China, which has long claimed the island as its own.

China responded by saying, “Taiwan independence is a dead end”.

“Regardless of the pretext or the banner under which it is pursued, the push for Taiwan independence is destined to fail,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at the daily press briefing on Monday afternoon.

      • zephyreks
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        25 days ago

        Lai is objectively fucked in his own legislature. Both the KMT and TPP are opposed to the DPP (enough to set aside their own differences)… And they hold the majority in the legislature.

    • tortillaPeanuts@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      I don’t understand how that article relates to Taiwan at all. It seems like a dispute between China and Australia.

      • zephyreks
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        25 days ago

        He’s deflecting on a fucking non-issue because he doesn’t want to admit that his policy of antagonizing China isn’t working and the opposition (KMT+TPP) have increasing power.

    • Apollo42@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      You can’t see why a plane launching flares in the path of a helicopter in international waters is problematic?

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      26 days ago

      How much does Pooh bear pay you or are you just a zinglet doing this shit for free?

      • zephyreks
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        24 days ago

        The facts are that Lai’s legislature is a fucking mess domestically. It’s breaking out into fistfights, people are trying to steal away bills to prevent them getting passed, and the KMT+TPP are much more unified than expected.

        Lai was only elected because of FPTP and he needs to project legitimacy in the face of the KMT+TPP opposition (who, together, received something like 60% of the vote). This is him attempting to do so.

        • jaschen@lemm.ee
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          24 days ago

          I didn’t ask about that. We got our own problems, but they are our problems. How about you mind your fucking business and just leave us the fuck alone. We ain’t never going to join the CCP no matter how much they pay you.

          • zephyreks
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            21 days ago

            Lai is lashing out because the KMT+TPP coalition want to pass a bill that shifts power from the executive branch to the legislative branch.

            The horror.

            • jaschen@lemm.ee
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              21 days ago

              Calm down tankie. You will be ok. Keep drinking that Kool-Aid.

              • zephyreks
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                21 days ago

                Supporting the KMT or the TPP is a tankie position.

          • alcoholicorn
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            21 days ago

            We got our own problems, but they are our problems.

            Don’t worry, we’re getting ready to give you problems so big you’ll forget you ever had any problems.

            How about you mind your fucking business and just leave us the fuck alone.

            [laughs in American]

            • jaschen@lemm.ee
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              20 days ago

              Barking dogs don’t bite, Mr Paper Dragon.

              If you’re gonna do it, do it. Stop giving us empty warnings. We ain’t scared of you.

              • alcoholicorn
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                20 days ago

                You should be, look at literally every place we’ve “supported”. Yall are gonna look like Ukraine or Iraq or Libya or Yugoslavia or Somalia if Raytheon and it’s politicians get their way again. They’d love nothing more than to fight the PRC to the last drop of Taiwanese blood.

                • jaschen@lemm.ee
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                  20 days ago

                  Japan and Korea are set to fight alongside us. They know they will be next.

                  Have you heard of the 1.6nm chip Taiwan just invented? Wanna know who doesn’t get these new chips once Taiwan is in China’s hands? We got at least 10 years before they even come close to catching up.

                  Ukraine is just a buffer from Russia.

                  • alcoholicorn
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                    20 days ago

                    Wanna know who doesn’t get these new chips once Taiwan is in China’s hands

                    Everybody. Our own war games show we won’t be able to hold Taiwan, unless we focused our entire military on that singular task and had future technology that doesn’t actually exist, so we can assume they’d destroy TSMC to deny it to the enemy.

                    I would be surprised if even those wargames weren’t wildly optimistic about readiness of reserve equipment, when we mobilized some marine divisions for Iraq, parts of aircraft that wasn’t supposed to fail over the life of the aircraft and were no longer manufactured were failing.

                    Ukraine is just a buffer from Russia.

                    Ukraine is a bleeder; the US will continue to provide weapons and training to right-wing elements in Ukraine long after the Ukraine government loses its appetite for war. That was the strategy with Afghanistan in the 80s, and Russia can’t retreat from this one since it’s right on their border.

                    My point is that a status quo where reunification remains some time in the distant future forever is infinitely better for you guys than what war would entail.