WHA rules against letting Taiwan participate

I don’t think I need to say which country was leading the charge opposing it.

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???

Unpopular opinion, and Taiwan may not like it but China is doing what I would probably do in the same circumstance. Ma was willing to agree to the consensus, Cai is not willing, so China will use the pressure they can exert to make Taiwan uncomfortable.

I fully expect China to ratchet up the pressure slowly to tighten the noose, and Taiwan will finally agree to the previous status quo, just like Korea inevitably did. Like tighten the financial rules for all the Taiwanese business owners with business interests on the mainland. Korea fought for a while and conceded, and they are the best of friends again.

It’s politically untenable the DPP leader to go back to the previous status quo - especially since the PRCs measures against the ROC have proven to be largely ineffectual. They’ve already played the tourism card, the suspending communications card, and now this fiasco. None of it has changed hearts and minds.

Haven’t been following South Korea for a while - are they removing THAAD? A brief search suggests it’s still go.

its ineffectual but they havent really put on the pressure yet.
Even with Korea, there were many more steps they could have taken. First they put out propaganda on the TV demonizing korea, next thing you know the people got whipped up boycotting Korean products. Then if you still don’t comply, they start to add more laws making it tough to do business in China. You can cut trade, demand countries that trade with you stop trading with Taiwan.

I think China has been handling it slowly so as to not rile up Taiwanese as they prefer a peaceful reunion or status quo. They dont need to worry about hearts and minds when jobs start evaporating. And im sure THAAD will be kicked out now that Moon is in as he does not want to antagonize North Korea and China.

For example, fellow Canadians are mostly rabid anti trump as he continues to squeeze us threatening Canada and Mexico with trade tariffs if they don’t renegotiate NAFTA.
We can get pissed all we want but Canada is small potatoes and Trump really couldn’t care less as we need them more than they need us. The mouse does not get to dictate to the elephant what he wants the elephant to do.

As a former trade bureaucrat in Canada, I think you should not assume Canada is completely clean in trade. Trump is perfectly right to re-negotiate NAFTA as the labour mobility chapter is decades old and sorely outdated. People criticize US protectionism but what about Canada`s supply managed dairy sector? Most countries got rid of it decades ago. It is Communist like. It makes poor people pay exorbitantly high rates for milk, cheese etc. to protect Quebec farmers. What about Canadian protection for its Crown-land lumber? For local wine in Canadian supermarkets that feature local wines but not NAPA or Bordeaux wines? All of this is likely to be trade inconsistent and offside of NAFTA and the WTO. Trump wants to strengthen NAFTA by updating it and opening up the very-protected Canadian market. Good for him!!! And many Canadians, especially from the West and Calgary, are pro Trump. I sure am. That Hillary-Huma symbiont creature was pure evil! :joy:

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I fully support Trump too on this matter. But there is a lot of butt hurt Canadians crying on reddit that the Canadian government should ban coal shipments to the USA as a retaliatory method. My point is that might hurt the US on that one point but they can really bring the hurt then. Trudeau has wisely avoided doing anything kneejerk.

Canada is downright communist in its protection of those industries and I’m working on a report on the wireless industry, they are allowed to collude and be anti competitive but foreign companies are all but blocked from entry into the market. Wind tried to come in and the Egyptian investor got destroyed financially by barriers that were put up and supported by the competition. He said after Canada was his worst mistake ever. After that Verizon who was kicking the tires to enter wisely bailed out.

Ironically Canada loves to sell its nationalized companies too when it needs quick cash (Ontario with Hydro, Manitoba with MTS, Canada Post), while at the same time protecting industries such as dairy and lumber. Canada acts like it wants to be free market by allowing private companies to rule the roost while putting up barriers for foreign companies to come in and set up while rewarding local crony companies.

Time will tell I guess. I think people tend to overestimate china because its media censorship is so effective. IE Taiwan and Taiwanese are very critical of their country and what’s going on, but that leaks out much less on the mainland. You really have to take everything coming out of that country with an enormous grain of salt, including really basic things like population and GDP levels, which can and will be fabricated.

haha. same nonsense year after year. Do the taiwanese think the world cares about their teeny ass roc/taiwan/real china nonsense?

https://twitter.com/brianhioe/status/1660616782233866244?s=20

The name “taiwan” means nothing in realpolitik. it doesnt exist. The roc exists, only as long as a few world powers tolerate it.

Get over it ROCese… either have the balls to change the official chinese name of your country and the 1000s of enenties which are all named “china this” and “china that”, or keep doing this exercise in futility for the next 1000 years.

The WHO is maybe helpful to the poorest and saddest nations in Africa at best, completely useless and frankly embarrassing or even detrimental at worst. Even if Taiwan becomes a full member, we’d get nothing from this organisation. Idk why the government is so obsessed with participation in such a pointless organisation.

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