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Cake day: December 18th, 2023

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  • You’re completely forgetting the most important part…

    China has already shown that they’re willing to negotiate (e.g. the Gulf of Tonkin with Vietnam, which was favourable to the Vietnamese).

    With regards to the Paracels, Vietnam holds claims solely as leverage in the Spratlys. Vietnam lacks any control over the Paracels and has not supported American FONOPS through the Paracels for that reason alone. Vietnam knows that their claim to the Spratlys is strong. Vietnam has been escalating their island-building in the Spratlys for that exact reason. From what I can tell, Vietnam is trying to secure partial or total jurisdiction over the Spratlys in exchange for yielding the Paracels. Unfortunately, until Vietnam/China obtain exclusive co-sovereignty in the region, such an agreement is impossible.












  • sigh

    You know what the biggest cities in Xinjiang are? Urumqi, Korla, Aksu, Karamay. Those are some Chinese sounding names /s

    Note that some towns have been switched to a Mandarin standard. This is especially true when Han populations dominate a particular city (e.g., Shihezi, set up by a Chinese general in 1951), or when a city relies on tourism from other provinces (e.g., Beitun, a ski towm). But… That’s not what the article is discussing, really. The article is much more interested in Romanization of these names.

    Officially, the Uyghur name shares equal right as the Chinese one, however, sometimes the Uyghur Romanization is a pain in the ass to pronounce while the Chinese one is far easier (Ürümqi vs. Wulumuqi). This is as true in Xizang as it is in Xinjiang (the name བོད་ is still used to refer to Xizang by official Chinese standards, but that doesn’t phonetically map to Tibet). Of course, people are forgetting that English is neither the first nor second most common language in Xinjiang… In fact, given the number of ethnic minorities I doubt it’s even on the list. The English name is selected for convenience rather than anything else because nobody except Western tourists will ever use it.

    There’s an interesting debate happening today in Canada as to whether this Romanization makes sense: while First Nations names like Squamish and Tsawwassen have been Romanized and are used colloquially, First Nations groups oppose Romanization because of its association with colonialism and instead would prefer names like “šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ”. The question is, which do you keep as the English public-facing name?

    Of course, this is coming from the same The Guardian that reported that “the last major mosque in China lost its domes and minarets” when the Afaq Khoja and Id Kah exist and are widely known as holy sites in Uyghur Islam. The Guardian’s reporting on China has consistently been sloppy because they don’t have a correspondent in Xinjiang and their editorial teams don’t speak Chinese or Uyghur.