Wordle 305 4/6
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After failing to take Kyiv in quick succession, Putin has regrouped to focus the offensive on the eastern front in Ukraine, with more focus assault on the cities like Mariupol and Donbas, going into Day 55 of the attack.
My thoughts and prayers are for Ukraine, to hold fast, and strong. Bullies must be defeated.
Meantime, China is quietly waging war of a different kind, buying up strategically located islands like Solomon Islands, all without much fuss. ("Security Pact," my ass.) Imagine, just spending peanuts to buy those islands with just 700k population. In less than ten years, CCP could transform its population to become all ethnic mainland chinese, effectively gaining complete control of those sovereign states. And these islanders won't even know what's hitting them. This is far cheaper and quicker to establish a base for its military and way-station for its logistics, piping all the extracted minerals from Australia back to China, than to create a man-made island from scratch in the middle of South China Sea, in the midst of rising sea level that would almost certainly wash it away at some point. Buying up small Pacific Islands can also bypass the much stronger reactions from Canberra, in canceling its One-Belt-One-Road initiative with Victoria, or the attempt to void the lease of Northern Territory port (which would surely create a direct route from northern shore by CCP all the way into the heartland into Australia interior) for just A$506M which is an incredibly cheap deal for CCP.
You do have to give the CCP credits for strategic thinking. As CCP (much like Putin) doesn't have to worry about election cycles, and Xi now rules for life, it can afford to play the long game, and do the salami-slicing. While Western governments (eg. UK, US) are retreating from the various flavors of colonization and soft-power dominance, CCP is actively working to fill that void.
All those "neighbors" of China are going get squeezed, and their increasing trade with China is going to be a deal with the devil that will come back to bite them, big time, sooner rather than later.
The parallel of our present days with WWII is plainly and painfully clear for all to see. Back then, it was Germany/Italy divvying up the world with Japan, with the battle theaters in Europe and Asia. It's undeniable that Russia and China now have the same understanding, for China to support Russia attacking Europe while China engulfs on Asia. This is all while the two covering each other's backs in UN.
The UN will likely be as ineffective as The League of Nations (the predecessor of UN) in stopping WWII. To the world at large, the question remains: How do we unite to stop naked aggression?
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