The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has called on European countries to send warships through the Taiwan Strait, patrols that Beijing would view as provocations.
“Europe must in fact be very present on this issue [of Taiwan], which concerns us economically, commercially and technologically,” Borrell wrote in an op-ed for the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“That is why I call on European navies to patrol the Taiwan Strait to signify Europe’s commitment to freedom of navigation in this absolutely crucial area. At the same time, we must be vigilant against provocations and overbidding,” he added.
Borrell’s comments appear to be a rebuke to French President Emmanuel Macron’s warning that Europe should not follow the US into a conflict with China over Taiwan.
“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” Macron said earlier this month.
Despite Macron’s comments, Taiwanese media reported that a French warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait from April 9 to 10. The US frequently sends warships through Taiwan Strait, but European transits are rare. The last known French transit through the Strait took place in October 2021.
France has been the only EU country to send warships through the Taiwan Strait in recent years. In 2021, Germany deployed a naval vessel to the Asia Pacific for the first time in almost two decades, which transited the South China Sea but avoided the Taiwan Strait.
The sh-t is about to be stirred….
It’s in the blender now, on frappe.
Borell must be a CIA plant, the only plausible explanation for what he does and what he says. The pay off must be great. The Europeans are as corrupt as the Ukrainians. Zelensky and Biden and their neocon cabal are committing genocide of the Ukrainian people, sacrificing their lives for the warmongers in the USA for a war they can not win..
Is stupidity a virus???
Another idiot.
What’s being suppressed in the US MSM are all the antiwar protests going on in Europe. Why Europe wants another war is beyond any rationality; but who ever said governments are rational?
I don’t see it as gvt per se. I mean even in the States, its easy to point the finger at the Fed gvt as the culprit because its the vehicle occupied by the culprits, the official platform (so much for borderless marketplaces), but I see as all Western governments having been hijacked (kinda like the Vatican). There are good people, civil servants but they are the collages. The institutes no longer not only not represent their people, but I think the role of government has changed altogether. Its doesn’t reflect the role its supposedly was meant for as in the yesteryears. It functions with all the legal parameters allowing it to do so, to exist, but its objectives span the boundaries and interests it once upheld and protected. Hence the uprisings and protests. The thing has become unrecognizable doing shit nobody understands. Like an alien institution serving unknown & unfamiliar entities.
China really wants to extend their territory don’t they?
The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei all have issues with them not just Taiwan. At least Europe seems to believe this isn’t just our issue to “fix” nor just the problems of those small nations who don’t want to give up territory/land to China.
That’s a misguided point of view. That entire region from South East Asia, Central Asia, to the Peninsula all the way down to Philipines, there are territorial disputes. This is not as a result of China wanting expansion, this is as a result of colonial legacy. Divide and conquer strategies of the lost British Empire. Its a legacy pervasive everywere on the globe. From the Balkans, West Asia including Turkiye, to India, Africa, Australia, the West Indies Isles. A history of conquest and the mess left behind.
So the Chinese don’t want to expand….lol.
Do you really believe the propoganda you spout?
India, with the largest population on earth is just imagining their territorial dispute with China?
Pick up a book…
Google might help too.
I m well read on history thank you which I suspect you are not. You are just mouthing off soundbites you get off internet sites you visit without proper perspective. And as always you are all over the place with your arguments. If you reread my comment. I said there ARE territorial disputes all over because of colonial legacy. I named a few places, assuming you knew your history, but apparently you missed that. You come back at me with India which I mentioned. These disputes are not recent. Thats why I refuted your claim that China wants to expand. That claim means these territorial disputes stem from China’s recent moves. Thats what I was highlighting. They are old and there has been ongoing diplomacy over these disputes for over a long time. The thing is, you throw these snarky remarks about China (which you clearly hate for reasons I cannot think of other than either racist, or butthurt that they are non Western compliant and have reached great heights in their progress as a nation), and then insert a current news item, then wrap it up with narrative and inuendo. Most of the times it comes out off. Like watching one of those spy tv serials where some westerner operative has to save the day because ‘insert whatver nation is the empire enemy of the day’, and it comes off tacky and forced.
Well read… that means he’s self taught….lol…we’ve got ourselves an self-taught self-proclaimed expert…impressive….
Türkiye? I don’t pay attention to Türkiye? Then why do I have the Hindustan Times app? Or my Arab News app? Or my Al Monitor bookmark?
Or my Express Tribune bookmark?
How about India? Do want to proclaim I don’t pay attention to the most populated country on earth either? How about my Benar News app? Do you want to proclaim I don’t pay attention to Thailand’s upcoming elections next month either?
China does not want to expand? All those nations with disputes are just imagining it but you know better because you have read a few history books and perhaps took a course or two at a Community College (if that many). Then you pretend your little self taught education is so much better than mine which cost some serious dollars in a real college that involved many (including grad level) history courses.
But despite you claiming the Chinese do not want to expand you share there are territorial disputes????
That’s some great self-taught scholarship…lol.
Then you share it’s all because of colonialism (wow; you read a book; one of my many college history courses involved the Industrial Revolution with a heavy emphasis on the British colonial system and how it contrasted to others; my professor in that class was a Canadian self-described Communist who hated Britain…but you read a book, maybe two) as if that negates China’s actions. While it does shape what is occuring to some extent but it does not take in the view of some the expansion is from a want to a return to the Mao dynasty’s “greatness”. Maybe that book you read shares a little bit about that?
None of which excuses China’s territorial expansion goals no matter how you must wish it to be excused or even justified.
Why don’t you just say that in your view nothing China ever does is bad nor wrong (and include your nonsence about China not wanting to expand) and everything the US does is evil?
That is what you believe isn’t it?
Pure simplistic internet garbage that one finds in comment sections especially by those who have self-taught themselves by reading a few books (by obscure authors who self-publish because no one else will).
Did you even attend college? Or are you really just a self-taught pretender (you started the insults; I’d match my real education against your “well read” self-taught one any day)
I will ignore that last comment completely. I won’t take that bait. However, as I have noticed you have a propensity to go off point and distegard what is being debated. So please explain to me in your view HOW China is trying to expand to as you called it Mao’s dynasty? Please be coherent so I can learn something from you instead. Let’s keep it civil.
Aw…. the guy who insults me is upset that I returned in kind…lol.
Please try to be civil yourself…
Some of those in power view the Mao era as the model to emulate and are describing their want to push expansion as a return to that era of “greatness”
You really have not heard of that train of thought?
In America it’s the 1950’s perhaps, and the Brits are enamored of the early Beatles era.
It’s honestly not an unusual view to hold given how Mao is viewed over there.
A return to glory to paraphrase it or perhaps a continuation of Mao’s vision of expanding influence of a great system even could be a paraphrase.
My dear fellow now I know you are just spit balling. Mao’s era was not a time of greatness if anything it was a time of consolidation in the modern age as there have been numerous such efforts in past eras. Mao himself described his efforts under their chosen political vehicle: Communism. To unite all whole of China as one so that future generations can have a foundation to build on after a humiliating century as the dirty men of Asia, uneducated, unravelled in principle and sabotaged numerous times e.g the opium wars. So his efforts (he lost the momentum on Taiwan, Chiang Kai Shek was also a sly and capable operator especially after allying with the west for financial backing, some tonnage of Chinese gold was used as collateral). What we are witnessing now is Mao’s dream manifesting itself although after going through complex and diverging pathways. To say China under Mao was great and something to behold that “some” in the leadership view it with nostalgia is dubious to say the least. China has reached this pinnacle of achievement only recently, not even more 3 than decades. There is a saying, if you find fixing every problem with a hammer, then everything will look like nails to you. US/UK/NATO foreign policy doctrine is based on this concept. It simply cannot accept ANY country in the world as a developing one, with its own independent view on the world. It does not even need to be doing anything questionable, to the Empire it quickly views them as a challenger either they should bow down or step it down a notch. If defiant then its military intervention, sanctions, regime change and/or perpetual demonization via the media sphere. In all honesty none of this is hidden but some people willingly and knowingly pretend not to acknowledge it. Some even claiming yes the US and its allies are bad but that doesn’t mean there are no other bad players out there. This is the zero sum game outlook. I think you know this but are also stuck in that same frequency. No insults. Its a frequency manipulated by the neocons and their straussian world view. Their quest for supreme domination. Any country not accepting their views, their diktats is an enemy. The whole world is off balance because of this. I m saying Americans can live, cooperate in win-win situations within a global society. I know the citizens want just as much, but their nation and that of many in the west have been usurped and held hostage by the same group that is choking the rest of the world with forever wars, blackmail, sanctions, terror. I mean seriously can’t you see it. So when I hear someone coming across with comments that are similar in nature with those demonizing events, I don’t care they could be China, Tehran, Damascus, I get really fed up. Anyway, sorry if I came off as insulting. Passion sometimes gets the best of us and you are allowed your opinion on matters even if we don’t see eye to eye.
Spitballing?
Just because I share a strain of thought that others hold and can see where they ome up with it?
Just because you disagree with something because it does not agree with your personal opinion does not preclude it from being an aspect that does drive China’s foreign policy.
Certainly you are not postulating that China is no longer Communist and Mao is no longer considered the father of where they started? No one there wants to return to where they were going before ugly capitalism came to them?
You are really unable to see that the Chinese do not have others interests in mind when they conduct foreign policy just like every other country on earth, nor are unable to how ugly at times their B&R gets (while doing good things at other times) you really are just like a flag waving American who never accepts America does terrible things just as China does in its own way.
At least you refrained from the namecalling and I thank you for that.
I really do not understand how you can extract what u just claimed from what I wrote. Chinese IS communist never been anything else since it existed (People’s Republic of…that is). No where did I claim otherwise. Mao is great to them, yeah but during Mao’s tenure China was not great. It had just come off a long civil war, you cannot compare China now and how they were back then. That was my point. I don’t doubt they have there own agenda when pursuing foreign policy. I also know they take advantage of opportunities that lie in other regions of the world that benefit them more than those the claim to invest in. Thats business 101. I m saying though they haven’t unleashed sanctions, right-to-protect invasions, regime change operations, hybrid warfare, lawfare or sponsored terror networks in order to take advantage of any regions resources.
Your opinions do not matter to those in China.
Just because you do not agree with something does not mean it is not occuring.
So China doesn’t care and they carry on sponsoring sanctions, terror networks, regime change, etc etc since what I say doesn’t mean its not occurring. Well this has been very enlightening. I will take my leave.
wow if i was some kind of boss of that region i would tell my guys to allow every single ship no matter what color it is to freely transit back and forth as many times as they want to. but being the boss of that region i would have exactly one missile trained on every single ship that transits my region.
figure that sh*t out idiots.