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child of Thor
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i reckon Chiraq just woke up all pissed off.
probably with a hangover; pushed away the 'company' he collected from the roadside last night, and read a headline in a newspaper about Bush + the Pope, or something like that. And he just snapped.
"Sac're bluer, zis bush is a madmon - i vil show im oo is da bos"
Then sold taiwan to china.
He probably feels bad about it now, after the hang over wore off.
But the french are passionate people, his heart took over from his head in his bush-hate momment imho.
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Dracon II
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Communist Party of Apolyton
Jan 1970
time: 15:35
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A nation-state acting in its own self interest? 
The US only supports Taiwan because it sees China's growing influence in the region as possibly supplanting its own. The USA has for a long time tried to foster a divided Asia tied to the US bilaterally and, if unavoidable, multilaterally. It was with this in mind that they rejected Mahatir's proposal for an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), preferring instread Australia's idea of APEC. Or when they rejected Japan's proposal for an Asian Monetary Fund (which asia side stepped with the Chiang Mai initiative). The US has recently been heard to grumble over the prospects of this year's East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur.... but it is frustrated by its increasing inability to do anything about it. Asia is organising itself multilaterally around China, and is doing this in a way that limits the influence of the US. Of course, the US still has Japan and Australia.... but even Australia is erring on the side of China. Australia refuses to criticize outright the EU's lifting of its arms ban on China, and our foreign minister recently suggested that we would not necessarily take the US's side in a confrontation over Taiwan. So it is not only France that is being friendly to China for personal gain, but also one of the USA's most staunch allies. It highlights just how isolated America is on this issue (with the possible exception of Japan, which currently relies on the US strategically, but on China economically [like Australia I guess] and is thus largely a toothless tiger]).
The difference between France and the US on this issue is largely the difference between national and imperial interest. As a state that is far removed from the Asian strategic situation, France is seeing this purely as a means of making a few euros, whereas the USA has a critical imperial interest in maintaining its strategic presence and influence in the region, and thus is putting purely economic considerations to the side (or perhaps not so if one considers arms sales to Taiwan) in what it considers as a threat to its regional power by an ascending challenger. The threat to Taiwanese democracy is a peripheral consideration at best. Empires have little time for idealism.
Last edited by Dracon II on 23-04-2005 at 08:41
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22-04-2005 15:36
), the diplomats would have enrobed it in a sweet antiterrorist rhetorics.
). In particular, May has so many holidays that there's nearly one workweek less during that month. It's fairly absurd, especially when you know that the whole of autumn has very few holidays here.
)
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