Not a huge fan of this. I know why they're doing this but it sucks for the people living on the Falkland Islands being used as pawns in a larger geopolitical game.
China recently renamed Okinawa to Ryukyu in its internal nomenclature and Xi was reported specifically talking about Ryukyu's historical connections with China.
Seems like we're entering the "two can play at that game" stage of Chinese diplomacy.
Argintina literally had a US installed fascist government that was torturing people for being socialists at the time of the Falklands war. Losing the Falklands war was one of the main things that led to the collapse of said government
You can't simultaneously support British balkanization and think the UK should have an imperialist outpost in South America lmao. There's a reason why the Global South as a whole supports Argentina's claims to the Malvinas no matter how many times Anglos, including the ones here, cry about "the Falklanders' sovereignty." How very convenient these Falklanders aren't asking to be their own sovereign country but part of the UK where the UK has access to its oil and territorial waters. They couldn't even ask to be a Commonwealth state like Jamaica. At least Taiwanese, Uighur, and Tibetan separatists have the decency to pretend their respective republics would be an independent country and not just some US proxy state when the Falklanders couldn't even do that.
Ultimately this is why I flip flop on it. In terms of popular support though people will always side with "What do the people living there want?" and this is what makes it a mess.
I think part of the reason support for being part of Britain is so high is the implicit threat that without British protection then Argentina would take the island and they'd be shit out of luck, potentially even kicked out. Taiwanese separatists are similarly reliant on American protection and the majority of Taiwan wants to "maintain the status quo" because they know what it means if the status quo changes. Similar story there in my opinion.
With all that said, Britain losing more would be good. If the islanders can have their security and existing laws guaranteed then changing hands of the island is probably fine.
There's so many things that the UK (and Argentina) could've done if they actually cared about the people living in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas instead of using them as geopolitical pawns. Like, if we must insist that the Malvinas get labeled "Falkland Islands (UK)" on maps:
The UK could de jure or de facto cede territorial waters to Argentina.
The UK could demilitarize the island.
The UK could grant Argentina fishing and drilling rights on the islands.
The UK could offer to pay a lease for the islands.
The UK could buy the islands from Argentina.
The UK could offer a trade agreement favorable to Argentina for the islands.
The UK could have a similar arrangement like the PRC and Portugal regarding Macau where the island belongs to the UK but is administered by Argentina (or vice versa).
Nobody on the islands has to get deported to the UK and both countries can save face. But the UK had absolutely no intentions for diplomacy.
In 2012 it was estimated that British taxpayers paid more than £20,000 per islander for defence alone, and approximately one-third of the population worked for the government.
Surely this is an independent population that exists for reasons other than to be a military foothold in South America.
IMO, it should just become a separate country, or at the very least demilitarized. And no, the Argentine government of today isn't the same as back then. They aren't just going to invade because the British fuck off.
DPRK, Laos, Iran are anti-imperialist countries (and arguably South Africa) which do not. There are Euro imperialist countries which do. This isn't totally clear cut.
Even if it were, that many countries in the Global South rhetorically support a position does not automatically make it correct, even if that is often a useful heuristic. NAFOids post maps of Global South countries which voted in the UN to condemn the Russian invasion of Russia. So what?