Tales from the Dragon

[vnman]

I told him that if he wanted any money he'd have to provide certain services
He agreed. He came to my apartment, got undressed and then told me he was 17. I thought 'are you really!' because your body is not that of a 17 year old, nor is your face, you have tattoos, you don't go to school, you hang around hot baths looking for customers and you live the life of a mobile money boy.. I simply told him that the age of consent in China is lower than that and does not discriminate with regards to sexuality or gender.

You forgot to tell him that the age of consent does discriminate when it comes to paid sex and that the latter is illegal China, regardless.

Love the thread! Many things there remind me of Vietnam.

[arsenal]

Thanks vnman. A quiet night at one of our nightclubs.

[arsenal]

I have invented invisibility. That was obvious this afternoon. The policeman was quite comically dodging in and out of the e-bikes to apprehend some guy riding without a helmet. Shouting and pointing he was. But me! somehow he and his two colleagues failed to even see me. This is the usual way of things with police checks here. I love it.

[vnman]

But me! somehow he and his two colleagues failed to even see me. This is the usual way of things with police checks here. I love it.

A great example of why I had to think about Vietnam. In almost ten years time, I have been stopped many times and only gotten a ticket once. As soon as they saw I was a foreigner they would wave me through. I was used to Thailand where one or two hundred baht coffee money was no exception. I think it was in the last weeks of my stay in Vietnam when I got a fine for making an illegal U-turn with my motorbike. I guess I showed them by leaving the country immediately hehe.


BTW Those pictures are great and making me really restless. I need to get out soon.

[snotface]

Have only just discovered this thread. Very enjoyable read. Always more interesting when someone actually lives in a place rather than passes through as a tourist. Thanks, arsenal, for all the time and effort you must have put into it.

[arsenal]

Two things, one of which is comme ci comme ca and one makes my blood boil.

The only demographic still wearing masks outside are young guys. This means their beautiful faces are obscured. And a new phrase seems to be doing the rounds, as if it's being promoted. 'The Chinese Province of Taiwan' is a new favourite. It's replaced 'Taiwan is China' which was the previous way to describe the place.

[Armando]

And a new phrase seems to be doing the rounds, as if it's being promoted. 'The Chinese Province of Taiwan' is a new favourite. It's replaced 'Taiwan is China' which was the previous way to describe the place.

Under the present dictator Xi, China will do its utmost to get Taiwan back into the arms of the motherland - short of war, I expect. War would end up involving a host of other nations but if China was to go that far, would actions by any other group of nations be in a position to reverse the situation? I suspect that's highly unlikely. Besides, China surely is not going to go to the lengths of outright war if it then must retreat with its tail between its legs. That just will not happen.

So a continuing stalemate surely remains the most likely future, unless the Taiwanese people themselves decide to link up with Beijing. Massively unlikely. But what is Taiwan's position in international law? Forget Beijing'a sabre rattling for a moment. The facts seem to be that the Cairo Declaration in 1943, the Potsdam Declaration in 1945 and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender all dictated that all Japanese occupied lands in Asia be returned to those from whom Japan stole them. Bejing had ruled Taiwan for 212 years prior to the Japanese invasion. Interestingly, I think, that is longer than the British had occupied The Falkland Islands before it went to war twith Argentina to reclaim them. Could therefore the UK an any way object to China forcibly reclaiming Taiwan? Following World War 2, the main western powers all agreed to Chiang Kai-shek's government in China retaking Taiwan as part of the mainland.

Then Mao upset the cosy applecart by beating Chiang in China's civil war and resulting in him and about 2 million of his Kuomintang forces fleeing to Taiwan. Chiang's intention was always to retake the mainland which of course never happened. Mao's taking over the mainland was anathema to much of the world, but especially to the USA. With the Cold War beginning and a second communist colossus in the world, the USA needed all the allies it could get in Asia. So it assembled the San Francisco Conference of 1951, partly to force the Japanese to sign a new document agreeing to the surrender of Taiwan to the KMT party that Chiang had led until 1949. Mao's China was not invited to that Conference and had no part in the overturning of the three previously agreed documents. Even that 1951 agreement has holes in it, though. So Taiwan's status was and remains well and truly fucked.

Until Nixon's visit to China, the phrase "Who lost China?" was to be heard regularly in Washington. The Washington power brokers were more than furious. None had believed Mao would win the war and all were horrified at the result. With diplomatic relations re-established between China and the USA, though, the USA swung away from its two China policy and agreed internationally that Taiwan is part of mainland China. As is often the case, the agreement establishing this reads slightly differently in Chinese and English. Yet more obfuscation. Yet more stalemate.

I have little idea of the precise legal position of Taiwan today. It seems another massively stupid mess was carved out by people who made equally massive assumptions without taking onto account the variety of circumstances that might thereafter follow. The US might have had the upper hand many decades ago. Now China holds the best cards and has shown through its actions in the South China Sea and in Hong Kong that it is quite prepared to break international agreements to get its way. As anyone who has been to Taiwan knows, it is essentially a country in its own right. Will it remain so? Who knows?

I wonder what is arsenal's view as one on the ground, so to speak.

[goji]

Bejing had ruled Taiwan for 212 years prior to the Japanese invasion. Interestingly, I think, that is longer than the British had occupied The Falkland Islands before it went to war twith Argentina to reclaim them. Could therefore the UK an any way object to China forcibly reclaiming Taiwan?

The Falklands are inhabited by people who want to remain British.
Taiwan is occupied by people who, as far as we know, want to remain as Taiwan and independent from the dictatorship in Beijing.
A big difference.
Taiwan exists as an independent state since they didn't want to be under a communist dictatorship. That has turned out to be a good decision, since they escaped the mass starvation under Mao and other disasters.

[arsenal]

Chinese occasionally want me to agree that 'Taiwan is China' and can start tub thumping when I won't.

A less Chinese China might have been able to coax Taiwan back to a sort of more robust 'one country, two system's' but their behaviour in Hong Kong has ended that possibility.

Xi is likely to use military force only when it becomes expedient to shore up his position in the way Mao launched the cultural revolution. Even then it would probably depend on who was sitting in the oval office. History shows that in war, China likes a 10 to one troop advantage....and still manages to lose every time with huge losses.

So they claim victories that are not theirs to claim. 'China beat Japan' in WW II and Genghis Khan was in fact, Chinese.

[Armando]

The Falklands are inhabited by people who want to remain British.
Taiwan is occupied by people who, as far as we know, want to remain as Taiwan and independent from the dictatorship in Beijing.
A big difference.
Taiwan exists as an independent state since they didn't want to be under a communist dictatorship. That has turned out to be a good decision, since they escaped the mass starvation under Mao and other disasters.

You misread my comment re The Falklands. I was referring not to population but to legal status. The French actually founded the first settlement there in 1764. Soon Britain and Spain had settlements. But for a long time thereafter the Islands were uninhabited until 1833 when Britain claimed sovereignty. Successive Argentine governments have objected.

Similarly with Taiwan, although there the native Taiwanese had inhabited the Island for millennia. The Dutch colonised Taiwan in the 16th century. Spain tried to carve out a section for itself but was beaten off by the Dutch. The recently installed Qing Dynasty defeated some Chinese rebels from the mainland in 1683 and soon ruled most of the Island integrating it into the mainland. It remained in control until defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1895. Thus, like The Falklands relationship with Britain, Taiwan had been part of the Chinese Empire. As a result of the Conventions and Treaties I listed earlier, Taiwan was handed back to China after the Japanese defeat in 1945.

As far as I can see, nothing in international law proclaims that Taiwan is anything other than part of present day China. The Taiwanese don't like it, most nations no doubt don't like it, goji and I certainly don't like it. But international law is international law. How Taiwan could proclaim independence without China making an enormous fuss about it - diplomatically and maybe also militarily - I haven't the faintest idea. My Taiwan friends would also prefer independence but have zero idea how that could be accomplished.

A less Chinese China might have been able to coax Taiwan back to a sort of more robust 'one country, two system's' but their behaviour in Hong Kong has ended that possibility. .

I could not agree more. Had China made a success of taking back Hong Kong and permitted free elections in 2018 as promised and basically left it to its own devices, the thinking in Taiwan might have swayed more to a "one country two systems" formula for the future. Now that idea is dead and buried. The hardliners backing Xi won out over Hong Kong but have shot themselves in the foot over Taiwan - at least for the immediate future.