Erik

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@LapGong @dayana_dy You will be surprised how many are still active in Hong Kong.

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

We had to do a cartoon about this. This policy started in the winter of 2017/ 2018 and has been rigidly followed ever since

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@xie_wanjun Wow.
This guy is insane.
His propogranda is so far out, it is completely detached from reality.
I thought the American's were bad enough.
His BS are completely dreamed up fantasy.
The NGO or NED should stop paying until he comes up with something more solid.

[X Global @X_Global_tv]

🇮🇱 Israeli people attacked a Christian woman while she was walking her dogs in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Really interesting that Trump mentioned the Chinese origin of the term "gung ho" during his remarks at Xi's arrival ceremony 👇 (https://t.co/NB5ydHmC2T)

What he didn't mention, however, is the most fascinating fact: it directly comes from an organizational concept that the US Marines borrowed from the Communist Army during WW2.

See, during WW2, the Communists were at a big disadvantage versus both the Japanese and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists: fewer weapons, less money, no foreign backing to speak of.

Yet they kept proving extraordinarily capable, scoring many victories, and an American Marine officer named Evans Carlson (https://t.co/MTNtQZDskj) decided to embed himself with the Eighth Route Army (the Communist forces under Zhu De) in order to understand why.

What he found - which deeply impressed him - was a completely different organizational culture to traditional armed forces: almost no hierarchy, officers sharing the same food and hardships as the men, open discussion of objectives, and discipline based on conviction rather than rank.

In short, the Communists' secret weapon was cohesion - the way they worked together - and Carlson came away convinced it was the model for how fighting units should be run.

He didn't quite know how to call this organizational concept so he borrowed a term from a Chinese cooperative movement he'd come across during his travels (the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives: https://t.co/abEo7GCetn), known by the abbreviation 工合 (gōnghé) which literally means "work together". It captured exactly what he'd seen in the Eighth Route Army.

Back in the Marines he took command of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion ("Carlson's Raiders") in 1942, and he adopted "Gung Ho" as the unit's motto and applied the Eighth Route Army model.

He held "Gung Ho meetings" where rank was set aside and men could speak freely and criticise, officers had no special privileges, and everyone was expected to understand why they were fighting. The Raiders became famous for the Makin Island raid (August 1942) and the "Long Patrol" on Guadalcanal (late 1942).

Carlson's Marine unit became so legendary that Hollywood made the 1943 film Gung Ho! about them (https://t.co/GeSCG9Sk3I!), which is largely how the phrase spread into general American English.

So there you have it, many ironies here, first among which is the fact that the US Marines learned to let their men speak freely and criticize their leaders by... watching the Chinese Communists 😊

[Mao Ning 毛宁 @SpoxCHN_MaoNing]

President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan joined President Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump for tea at the White House.

The two presidents agreed to add new substance to their vision for the China-U.S. relationship, jointly building a constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness and reciprocity.

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@hac959 The one on the left, is that Godzilla in human form? 😬

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@JackSparrowCCP1 她没有資格與中國領導人比。
她對老外的態度就是對自已代表的國家的一種恥辱。

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@VOAChinese 廢話。
中國外交立埸穩定連貫。
不需要再在聯合國解釋甚麼。
中國不做門面功夫和没有意義的事。

[战剑铠 @zhanlongkai]

You have made two separate factual and legal claims:

1. China “tried to blockade” the passage of the two New Zealand Navy ships.
2. “Taiwan Strait doesn’t belong to China.”

Please provide evidence for both claims separately.

For the first claim, please identify an official New Zealand government or NZDF statement, navigation record, communication record, video, or other independently verifiable evidence showing that China actually attempted to prevent the vessels from passing, rather than merely monitoring, shadowing, warning, or challenging them.

For the second claim, please identify the specific rule of international law, treaty provision, judicial decision, or authoritative legal instrument on which you rely for the categorical statement that “the Taiwan Strait does not belong to China.”

Please do not substitute a general reference to “freedom of navigation” for evidence of territorial title or maritime jurisdiction. Freedom of navigation and sovereignty/jurisdiction are different legal questions.

So please establish:
first, that an attempted blockade actually occurred;
second, the precise legal basis for your statement about the legal status of the Taiwan Strait.

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@JackSparrowCCP1 Where is the welcoming party?

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

Another ammo depot blows up in Syria, as the country continues to destabilise. The only thing that seemingly holds Syria together now is its president — a former head of Al-Qaeda. If (or when) Syria unravels, it could trigger a turf war between Israel and Turkey. This is what all those years of proxy war against Syria produced. Behind the righteous indignation and moral slogans calling for regime-changing Assad, there was always a predictable disaster.

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

China has become a nightmare for Merz.

He is accusing China — again.

He claims that Chinese state subsidies and overcapacity are putting pressure on the European economy.

Yet Europe never had a moral problem with asymmetric trade.

It had a psychological problem with losing control of the asymmetry.

When China bought German cars, German machines and German chemicals, that was globalization.

When China learned to build its own cars, its own machines, its own batteries — and then started selling them back — suddenly globalization became “overcapacity,” “aggressive pricing” and “unfair competition.”

The complaint is not that China trades too much.
The complaint is that China forgot its assigned role.

Europe wanted an Asia that manufactures cheaply, buys Western brands, stays technologically subordinate, and knows when to stop climbing.

Japan understood the script.
China did not.

Perhaps that is what really irritates them.

A few decades ago, the answer to an Asian competitor was a Plaza Accord.
A century ago, it was gunboats.

Today they are left with speeches about “fair competition.”

History did not make Europe more comfortable with equals.
It merely took away some of the tools it once used to avoid having them.

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@SCMPNews Why are we paying so much attentions to the offenders?
Who care if a rapist going to die the day after they were convicted.
I think it is more appropriate to do a physical castration, it is quick and simple.
It is unlikely they will be able to reoffend.

[South China Morning Post @SCMPNews]

Singapore is open to chemical castration, but what are ethical, health concerns? https://t.co/9Haq6drxG5

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@SCMPNews Japan is poor.
So please don't expect too much.
Do you remember the issues with the Olympics and Expo 2025 Osaka?

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@SCMPNews Taiwan will readily accept the situation because the drones are actually free with the huge sum paid as protection money.

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

Britain spent years romanticizing political upheaval in Hong Kong as “democracy,” “self-determination” and “the will of the people.”

Now Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland invoke the same language at home and suddenly the vocabulary changes:
break-up. constitutional crisis. security vacuum. lost oil. lost nuclear bases.

Funny how “self-determination” becomes terrifying the moment the empire has to apply it to itself.

Freedom for Hong Kong was a principle.
Freedom for Scotland, Wales and Ireland is apparently a threat assessment.

The British Empire never abandoned double standards.
It just lost the empire.

[Erik @lifeisgoodtake2]

@MimosaWada25 @FT None.
There was no election under British colonial rule.