What is with Germany. It is one thing to pander to the Chinese to win business deals, but to sell them advanced weapons is something totally different! And look at the French, joint military exercises!!! I hope that is or was similar to the joint exercises I think were once done with the USA.
What is going on with Europe? It is making me sick and f&*(ing pissed off! I know they don’t have the nads to stand up to China but they don’t need to bend over like Clinton did on his trip to China. Do they not care if one day free democratic Taiwan is taken over and invaded by the Communist PLA in China?
Does anyone think this is a blessing in disguise for Taiwan as then Taiwan because of the total imbalence might be able to purchase offensive weapons or begin producing long range nuclear arms? Or maybe then the US military could open a few bases in Taiwan or at least provide more open support for Taiwan or would they not do that either and Taiwan is to quickly become usurped by the Communists?
I don’t know about the GErmans, but I know that the French were lobbying to get the EU embargo on arms sales to China lifted. I don’t think that Germany can unilaterally do it as it is an EU-wide ban and something tells me that many of the new members would never vote to open up the sale of weapons to a Communist regime, considering that all but one were formerly under the control of a nearby Communist giant.
[quote=“Hobart”]
Does anyone think this is a blessing in disguise for Taiwan as then Taiwan because of the total imbalence might be able to purchase offensive weapons or begin producing long range nuclear arms? Or maybe then the US military could open a few bases in Taiwan or at least provide more open support for Taiwan or would they not do that either and Taiwan is to quickly become usurped by the Communists?[/quote]
Maybe the Taiwanese will just take it on themselves to finally set up a professional military with realistic levels of pay.
pissed with the Europeans?
it is the “the Americans” who make billions of $. “The Americans” are in favor of not changing the status quo. Why might that be?
[quote=“DaveorJimmy”]pissed with the Europeans?
it is the “the Americans” who make billions of $. “The Americans” are in favor of not changing the status quo. Why might that be?[/quote]
Absolutely true. Europe has a much more mature attitude of “Yes, China. On my knees, China. Democracy for millions in Taiwan? You want to invade them? Well… whatever…”
Not too bad… A post about another country and it turned into someone’s vent for anti-americanism in only its fifth post…
Nonsense. The original poster criticized “Europe” for selling weapons to China. Such a remark begs the question whether Europe is any worse than other regions in the world. In fact it is not. The US leads the world in the shameful category of arms sales:
Fair enough, but… its just gets tiring. I would like to learn more about Europe, or peoples opinions of its actions or policies. But once someone mentions Europe, the next post is always, ‘yeah but america sucks.’
For example, you posted nothing about Germany, but only a quote about the US. Could we start a different thread about “US Weapon Sales to China” or even “Global weapon sales to China”? That would seem more appropriate.
I know a lot of US policies suck. I’d just like to have ONE discussion which doesn’t become a US vs. Europe or US vs. Canada or US vs. the world (in which I learn more than the US is evil and everyone hates them). Can we just have one thread discussing a DIFFERENT area of the world? We certainly have a few ‘discussing’ US policy.
It’s not merely America-bashing, don’t you see? Somebody asks why Europe is doing this. Well, the person who gave you a response simply points out that, for some reason, the US is doing the same. If you support the US in what it does, you must have a reason for yourself, so expend a little extra thought to apply it to another situation, will ya?
What the h*ll are you talking about? Instead of accepting a critical statement of Europe, you have to be so immature as to say something like, “well the US does it, they are worse than us, why can’t we do it too?”
I am talking about the place where we now live you fool! I own a home here in Taiwan and a business. I have family here. I don’t want anyone selling weapons to the PRC. Don’t you live in Taiwan too? (Even if I didn’t live here I could commisserate with Taiwan!) I guess you are just a short timer or going home soon or have a low self esteem and cannot accept criticism of your country? If not, doesn’t this piss you off too? How could those weenies in the government in Germany contemplate this? Why do they choose as allies the PRC’s corrupt communist human rights violators over Taiwan’s peaceful free democratically elected leaders? Is unemployment so high there that they really need the money that badly? They should be ashamed of themselves! They are such wussies afraid to stand up to the PRC or their own domestic arms dealers?!?!
[quote=“DaveorJimmy”]pissed with the Europeans?
it is the “the Americans” who make billions of $. “The Americans” are in favor of not changing the status quo. Why might that be?[/quote]
because the americans don’t want taiwan taken over by china. the europeans could sell arms to taiwan as well, but they know they can make MORE money by not pissing off the commies. are you really that ignorant that you don’t know about all the times europe has refused to sell weapons to taiwan?
[quote=“Hobart”]What the h*ll are you talking about? Instead of accepting a critical statement of Europe, you have to be so immature as to say something like, “well the US does it, they are worse than us, why can’t we do it too?”
I am talking about the place where we now live you fool! I own a home here in Taiwan and a business. I have family here. I don’t want anyone selling weapons to the PRC. Don’t you live in Taiwan too? (Even if I didn’t live here I could commisserate with Taiwan!) I guess you are just a short timer or going home soon or have a low self esteem and cannot accept criticism of your country? If not, doesn’t this piss you off too? How could those weenies in the government in Germany contemplate this? Why do they choose as allies the PRC’s corrupt communist human rights violators over Taiwan’s peaceful free democratically elected leaders? Is unemployment so high there that they really need the money that badly? They should be ashamed of themselves! They are such wussies afraid to stand up to the PRC or their own domestic arms dealers?!?![/quote]
What the hell are you talking about? I don’t like the idea of anyone selling arms to China either, but when you go off trying to vilify Europe, ranting about how vile the region is to sell weapons to China, I think it’s only fair to point out how the US is by far the world’s leading arms seller and is too damn wimpy to sign a ban on the use of landmines, which cripple, maim and kill god knows how many innocent civilians, because US companies apparently make good profits selling such nasty devices.
Despite all the personal insults you sling at me, you don’t know me at all. You call my response immature, but judging from your post it seems that you have only a self-centered concern about sales of arms that could potentially endanger you some day. Unlike you, I am concerned also about sales of arms to evil regimes, sales of arms that indiscriminately kill and maim inoccent civilians long after fighting has ceased, and sales of arms in general as the world is already super-saturated with arms that are used for evil purposes.
Like you, I feel the sale of arms to China is wrong. But when you ranted that, “What is going on with Europe? It is making me sick. . .” I simply felt it might help to put world arms sales in proper perspective.
So instead of agreeing that it is awful of Europe to do this, you still have to point fingers at the USA. I agree it is disgusting that the USA would ever sell arms to countries that might use those arms to harm innocent people. Can you agree that it is awful that Europe would sell these advanced weapons to the PRC and can’t you just get upset about and be critical of Germany and not justify what they did and not bring the USA into it?
the us is not selling arms to China. but then facts never stopped your arguments before, so why deal with these trivial little details now?[/quote]
Perhaps with a little context you will see that “the same” refers to “weapons sales [that] help outfit non-democratic regimes” in the post previous to mine.
If you have other beef you’ll have to be more specific.
OK, this thread is digressing from my original point of criticising and questioning Germany for considering to end Europe’s arms embargo on the PRC.
I would be very interested in learning more about US arms sales to regimes similar or worse than the PRC, but please start this in a new thread in the International Politics forum.
(Original is a DW (Deutsche Welle) report but the link doesn’t work if I paste it here.)
From the table (at the bottom) you can see that Germany does actually not rely on arms exports (less than 1% of the total) even though it’s the 5th biggest exporter worldwide: destatis.de/presse/deutsch/p … 920181.htm
As you can see the sales and export sales are pretty steady besides the surge in 1999 (which is what the above article is mainly about): projects.sipri.se/milex/aprod/na … frg_uk.pdf
So selling weapons to China looks more like ass-kissing than a necessity to me …
Perhaps with a little context you will see that “the same” refers to “weapons sales [that] help outfit non-democratic regimes” in the post previous to mine.
If you have other beef you’ll have to be more specific.[/quote]
perhaps with a little more insight you’d realize that this thread is not about arms sales to some random non-democratic country, but arms sales which might wind up being used against taiwan. this is a board about taiwan, after all.
your generic “us is bad for selling weapons” arguments might be better suited to a new anti-american thread since it has nothing to do with weapons sales to china or taiwan.
I will also try to refrain from personal attacks in the future.