Look for seller with longer history and good ratings. I've bought hundreds of dollars of random little items there, 100+ packages, and only 2 or 3 had issues or lost due to lost in transit after reaching my local area. If broken upon arrival, received refund, etc.
If that's still the case, then PRC wouldn't feel any urgency regarding Taiwan. But decades of anti-Mainland China public education - which included writing China out of Taiwanese history, so Taiwan seemingly popped out from nowhere as an island that birthed itself LOL - there are fewer and fewer ppl in Taiwan who believe they are Chinese. The current party in power is openly separatist and intensely propagandizes everything anti-China, so even mentioning the ROC as a concept these days has became politically incorrect. If they could change their constitution to cross out ROC and become the Republic of Taiwan instead, they would. But they dare not as yet.
Hence you're seeing things like these where the PRC is stepping up efforts to emphasize everywhere they can, and in all their foreign policy interactions, that Taiwan is part of China etc. Etc.
It appears China and Russia are visa-free for each other's tour groups since 2023.
Actually, they haven't, lol.
The focus on one word has to do with how the CPC announces its policy. George Yeo has described interpreting the CPC's policy announcement akin to interpreting the Catholic Church's proclamations. Each year they announce their current updated position, and everyone (including all the party bureaucrats who will be executing policy, the Chinese ppl, media, etc.) compare the current version with last year's version to see what is the change that is now being promoted by the central government. That is, the differences between the 2 texts IS the policy change xD
So, in fact, they are doing the right thing by this narrow focus on a word or two. What they are doing deliberately WRONG, though, is to interpret it only for their own fearmongering purpose.
In fact, the very vagueness and ambiguity of broadcasting policy this way is deliberate: doing so allows local officials to (1) implement policy changes in ways that fit local situations, and (2) have some creativity and flexibility in coming up with potential ways to implement the policy change.
So really, the CPC's policy changes are always a direction to move toward, a general result aimed to be achieved, by a certain time line, without any specific steps as to how.
And in the specific case for Taiwan, (3) this is the CPC itself allowing themselves the ambiguity and flexibility to change policy on Taiwan depending on how things work out as this year goes on. All they're saying is, things are going to change now so everyone, be prepared to change.
They may have omitted this word in the past but currently it is a reflection of a meaningful change in policy.
This change is a recognition that, only giving benefits to Taiwan (ECFA; allowing practically zero import tax of Taiwanese goods sold into mainland China; all kinds of respecting Taiwan's one-sided political assertions at the expense of the mainland's positions, etc.) without ANY teeth, is a bad policy that need to be updated.
What had worked to preserve peace 15 years ago no longer work, when the DPP is actively engaged in separation tactics, deliberate provocations (to the point of complete silliness--an incident ongoing right now, where Taiwanese coast guards caused the deaths of two mainland fishermen, with ongoing refusal to apologize, recognize any fault, outright lies that keep getting discovered in embarrassing ways a day or two after the lie , claiming no video evidence existed though the ship + 4 guards are all supposed video all incidents, refusal to give up the dead bodies or allowing the mainland to participate in examination/dissection for cause of death, etc.), and continuation of anti-China education in their public school system.
What this is not, however, is a sign of imminent invasion or whatever, which seems to be the main implication whenever Western media wrote about Taiwanese things. They deliberately fail to point out that there are like 100 steps the mainland can take, going from inconveniencing Taiwan to outright economically devastate Taiwan, before reaching any kind of hot conflict.
Sharing borders with China, they have culturally-held reservations /anger /fear /disgruntledness about China's influence and effects reaching within their lands, and believes China had invaded them or ruled over them unfairly at various points from ancient times to the Vietnamese Communist era, etc etc. All the typical love-and-hate between lands that were side by side for thousands of years with endless cycles of good times and bad. Relationship status: it's complicated.
So Vietnam geopolitically aims to find other great powers—USA in this case, USSR in the past, etc—to counter balance China. Simultaneously, they have been part of the sinosphere for centuries and does know the need and the how of working WITH China too.
K that's beyond my knowledge level to answer xD I mostly know what Huawei want it to become and how they likely can make it happen compared to Google Home and Apple versions of the same dream but badly realized, give the more friendly environment to Huawei in China, its relationship with more companies and branches of products, and ppl being more used to doing literally everything already via their mobile os and very willing to be even more immersed
No, so far as I understand it it's a separate system that may not be compatible with android. HarmonyOS is intended to be a cross platform operating system from the ground up linking phone, car (electronic vehicles growing exponentially in China), desktop, household electronics, household AI, etc, completely seamlessly. If you aren't part of that entire ecosystem as Huawei visualize, which is likely the case if you're not in China, you probably won't experience the benefit of HarmonyOS, it'll just be another system running another set of apps. But ppl in China will if it rolls out as intended.
Outside of China, HarmonyOS will probably eventually need to be compatible with Android to be competitive.
If they just want to stay out of the situation they wouldn't make this statement, which sets forth their position very thoroughly: a two state solution based on 1967 borders. They've made this position clear for decades.
Chinese influence is coming into West Asia without a doubt, but they do NOT intend to be another great power that has clearly picked a side, clearly favoring certain countries over others. Picking side is how the West had played things, divide and conquer, sow distrust. After all this time, all countries there KNOW the Americans will pick Israel above all others, and thus the US can never act as a genuine peacemaker, no one will trust them to be fair. Nor can Russia, which has picked their sides fairly clearly too. But China can, having established trade relations with many countries in the region, and therefore in a position to talk to all sides and actually have the believable neutrality to pass messages, promote negotiations, and maybe achieve something.
I'm little frustrated, because it seems like people just want China to turn into another US, to interfere deeply with other countries' internal affairs but just do so with whatever side that is different than what the West had traditionally picked. That doesn't result in a multipolar world where great powers respect every country and regions' sovereignty; that's just tilting the world toward another pole. So they aren't going to do it, there is clearly stated principles behind their stance.
Finally, the Chinese historically did not played politics by using forceful power. For thousands of years, the way they dealt with foreign powers is through a system with tieres of BENEFITS and honors (apart from short aberration, such as Mao era). So they've always been more about the carrot than the stick, and now too they work more with dangling potential benefits to the West Asian countries in their effort toward providing more stability. It's more about painting a picture to all the leaders about how great it would be if everyone is not fighting as much, the potential for prosperity, etc, which is always going to be a longer process than straight up sending violence.
A society literally dominated by chaebols.. The system doesn't work well 😔
I really need a "hide read post" option 😺
OK, here's a couple more that are famous and great for touristic reasons of history /culture /good food /great landscape /etc
Xi'an (one of the ancient capitals of China, starting point of the traditional and new Silk Road), Guilin (every single time they show China in cartoon, with giant mountains and winding rivers, they're basically showing here), Shenzhen (the new hyper modern high tech city), Guangzhou (old English name was Canton, as in Cantonese food), Suzhou and Hangzhou (historically famed for being chill and beautiful, lakes and canals etc), Hainandao (Chinese version of Hawaii), Nanjing (another ancient capital of China, lots of culture), Harbin (lots of Russian architecture here, and a FANTASTIC and huge ice sculpture show every year)
Was not expecting 济公 here along with the Marxists xD
...sounds grim and surreal. Pretty sure I've read post-apocalyptic fiction with similar backgrounds :|
China has been working to increase the PLAN's power and reach this past decade. They are nearing to a blue water navy at this point, and have broken through the first island chain, within which they are no longer considered to be defeatable without extreme cost.
The US has withdrawn their concentration back to Guam (previously, they didn't bothered to arm the second island chain).
China has 20x the manufacturing power of the US and a bigger PPP (more efficient use of their military budget) , and they have known the US will one day come for them since Mao. Their recent ships are lighter in tonnage but newer than the American fleet by several decades, carries better equipment, radar, with greater fire power that makes them more equal to traditional ships one category higher in tonnage.
Finally, they aren't building a navy to project power around the globe like the US navy does. The PLAN intends to have the capability to defend their home waters and to protect their economic interests abroad, that's it, so it will never need to have as many ships as the US navy, so a tonnage or ship number comparison would not be an accurate measure of the PLAN capabilities.
To be fair they are parliamentarian and have been for centuries.
But, the parliament is literally staffed by aristocrats and other types of ruling elite, so....