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The US and North Korea are not the only ones ratcheting up tensions in the Orient. From Japan-Forward[1]:
The armies of India and China are locked in a standoff over the strategic Doklam plateau, an area inside the sovereign territory of Bhutan. Under the purview of the Indian-Bhutan Friendship Treaty, signed in New Delhi in February 2007, the tiny kingdom called in for Indian help after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moved in under orders from Beijing.
Asserting dubious claims and then engaging in bullying and revisionism to get its way—this is now becoming an oft-repeated Chinese pattern we have all seen before. Indeed, in the offensive launched in June 2017 in the Doklam plateau—which China now claims is a “traditional pasture for Tibetans” (ignoring completely the fact that China predicates the claim in Doklam upon its equally untenable claim over Tibet)—China attempted to build a road near the critical tri-junction border area among China, India, and Bhutan. This area is vital to India’s security.
In the specific case of Doklam, there is a fascinating twist to the tale. China did not foresee India’s tenacious military resistance and political fortitude in response to the PLA’s Doklam encroachment. Unlike the Scarborough Shoal, where Filipino forces quit without a fight, India appears very unlikely to withdraw its troops unilaterally from the Doklam border area, and is standing up to China.
China and India are the first and second largest world militaries, perhaps it would be wise to heed the sage advice.
[1]:Japan-Forward is the English-language publication of the Sankei Shimbun, a large Japanese newspaper with an open Nationalist slant.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:47AM (11 children)
Background - India's northeasternmost part is separated by a 'chicken-leg' - in the states it might have been called a panhandle - from the rest of the country. This area borders on Tibet - since the 50s that means the PRC. Bhutan is a tiny independent kingdom with close ties to India.
The Indian/Chinese border here is fairly close to set, and there haven't been any problems over it in a long time, even if it's still technically unfinished business as well. But that's not the border we're talking about. This is on the border between Tibet and Bhutan - India is not directly implicated.
Nonetheless, Bhutan and India are close, and the Bhutan/Tibet border is not as settled as the India/Tibet border. Which, again, is not truly settled.
So the Chinese work crews are building their roads. They cross what Bhutan claims as their border, in a disputed area.
Bhutan, apparently, called India.
India sent troops from their nearby frontier to the trouble spot.
For weeks now we've had Indian and Chinese troops facing off over this road. Work was stopped, obviously, and the Chinese are not at all happy about that. Threats were made on both sides, but no one has followed through on them yet. China has been moving troops to the area, and saying openly that they will use force to take the area if necessary. India has also been moving troops to the area, although they say they do this every year anyway, and they've only move up the calendar on their annual exercises a smidgen.
Neither side has any obvious way to back down without losing more face than they can afford.
Neither can either really be interested in unleashing a nuclear holocaust over a patch of uninhabited waste land with moderately profitable mineral prospects.
An editorial on the subject from India I read a few weeks back explicitly called on the Chinese to back off in sympathy, making the analogy India -> Bhutan as China -> North Korea. Bhutan is not India but is consider a key strategic buffer zone for India - they feel compelled to protect it even if the cost be extraordinary, in much the same way China feels compelled to protect N Korea no matter how much they wish the Kim would just choke to death on his own tongue. They can't afford to let an outside power have sway there.
So, yeah, the two largest nations on earth look like they may be about to go at it. Did our media pay any attention?
It's been going on for several weeks now and the closest I've seen to a mainstream mention is this here blurb on soylent.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:10AM (10 children)
Ultimately, it's a small country most people in the West have never likely heard of, let alone would be able to locate on a map, and the chances of an actual conflict are pretty slim barring some unfortunate misunderstanding between the in-place militaries, so not much chance of the clicks and ad-revenue they seek. On the one hand, it's a damning indictment of how the standards of the media have fallen and how selective it can be in addition to the biases many love to gripe about, but on the other, for the sake of the people in Bhutan, in this instance I can only hope it stays that way.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:32AM (7 children)
I used to really like NPR. Now it seems like all they want to do is cluck about Trump. World news? Don't have time. We need to use every second of air-time to lobby for the President to be lynched. If we occasionally mention a world news story, that's because it ties into the narrative about lynching Trump.
No donation this year NPR. I'm serious about that. Your donation is going to hookers and blow instead, and that's final. Traitors.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:47AM (1 child)
My experience is similar to yours -- but while they do cover Trump extensively, to assert that he is their sole topic of discussion is quite a bit of an exaggeration.
They also spend a significant amount of time discussing
illegal aliensundocumented immigrants.And let us not forget their strong emphasis on
coloured people (because the defining characteristic of an individual is whether he or she is [a] white, or [b] none of the above)People of Color®(the phrase loses all of its backwards connotations when you swap the word order around!).(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:52AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:59AM (4 children)
Same here. NPR programming used to be left leaning but generally fair news coverage--more fair than the competition.
Trump's election changed that and NPR has pushed hard left with its programming. Hard to recognize it at this point. I want more news and less editorializing.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:13PM
Hard left? I think it is just anti-Trump. Before the election, one may have heard a report on how extensive cattle farming is polluting water supplies in the United States, and a call for the roll-back of subsidies and making the price of beef more expensive. After the election, they had a report on how Trump's anti-trade-bloc politics was hurting cattle farmer's livelihoods because they wouldn't be able to easily sell excess production to Asia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:50PM (2 children)
I never listened to NPR so I can't say how much it did or didn't change, but did you consider that maybe NPR stayed pretty much where it was and the right got much righter? Maybe even alt-righter?
(Just an alternative theory that could explain the perceived shift, as I said, I don't know one way or another.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:14PM
I have been a listener of NPR for more than a decade. They have different member stations by geographical location (e.g. WNYC in New York and KPCC in Southern California). Each station will typically broadcast a combination of national news and syndicated programming (e.g. Marketplace, Car Talk, Splendid Table) as well as local news and programming so the experience of a listener from one area may not necessarily be representative of listeners from other areas.
Keeping the earlier caveat in mind, I do not think this is an accurate explanation. In recent years their reporting has had a clear shift in focus -- with greater emphasis on identity politics and "Social Justice" topics such as "the undocumented" (i.e. illegal aliens), transgendered, and "People of Color" [<rant>I despise that phrase... Sorry, but reversing the word order does not make its meaning any less backwards than "Coloured People". It still operates on the same underlying assumption that there are only two types of people: white and non-white. There are substantial differences in culture, history, and experiences between the groups lumped together as "white" -- like English, Irish, Polish, and Romanian. Reducing all others into a single "non-white" category is even more absurd. The perspectives and historical treatment of various "non-white" groups warrant their own consideration, and pigeon-holing the ethnicity of various Western/Eastern European, North/South/Native American, African, East/West Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. peoples into a single Boolean value is ridiculous.</rant>]. To provide a specific example, the "Code Switch" [npr.org] series on their web site seems to focus exclusively on identity politics.
Moving back on topic to your original point, the explanation of the right shifting further while the left remains stationary just does not match up with my observations. I consider myself to be on the moderate left, but from my perspective the mainstream left has been moving further toward the fringes and distancing itself from many core tenets such as freedom of speech or judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin (e.g. "safe spaces" segregated by race). IMHO a more reasonable explanation would be that an escalating level of polarization has resulted in the mainstream right and left shifting further toward their respective extremes -- while their most vocal, zealous proponents go even further.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 04 2017, @09:13AM
They have a very different message now. It's all about getting rid of Trump, they're letting the democracy part go to avoid dissonance I guess. At least they're still kind of giving a nod to the 'liberal' part but they don't seem to really remember what it means.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
Okay then you have missed The Economist [economist.com] which reads like Chinese propaganda. Reminds me of why I unsubscribed it in the first place - their Asian coverage is so abysmally bad. Also, India hasn't actually said anything, and Indian public doesn't care if India bows down to China.
Bhutan asked India to take care of it's border security when China annexed Tibet. Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim did the same thing, but because they weren't critical for Eastern India, Indian government was in better bargaining position. Secondly, China is violating a treaty [qz.com] that was specifically made to address issues like Doklam:
(Notice how The Economist doesn't say anything about the treaty or what Bhutan is saying.) China's position is that since it is Chinese territory, it is not part of the tri-juncture boundary. India has so far is simply not in position to back down as it will be akin to giving up all of the Eastern India without a war and with added loss of spoiling its foreign policy for rest of the history.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:04PM
Not true. It's important to India strategically because it is an advantageous piece of territory for a Chinese attack on India at this area of weakness, but it is not akin to giving up Eastern India which can still be supplied via Bangladesh and the Indian sea. In the advent of an actual Chinese attack, I consider it unlikely that India would be able to hold the Siliguri Corridor no matter the state of Doklam. Indian or Bhutan control of the Doklam area would be rather to slow down/complicate a Chinese advance than to prevent it (and it probably wouldn't be reliable at that either against a prepared, technologically advanced foe).