Shermos

Nerd, lefty interested in China's + Global South's development. Retweets/likes do not necessarily = endorsement. Civil disagreement is welcome. I follow back.

[Shermos @Sherman89]

This is a fine example of projection.

ASPI, financially backed by foreign governments and weapons manufacturers, uses social and traditional media to interfere in Australia's political debate around our foreign policy and how we should respond to a rapidly changing world order.

[ASPI @ASPI_org]

“Authorities are aware the Chinese government is using social media as a way to interfere in the political debate, the question is how do they enforce against it,” @AlbertYZhang tells @dailytelegraph on CCP information operations targeting 🇦🇺.

Read more⬇️https://t.co/MZdXex7fjn

[Michelle @D162Michele]

Interesting how Chinese blockbusters are always propaganda, while Hollywood films featuring military hardware, military advisors, and military-approved scripts are somehow just ‘entertainment’.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Unreal: the symbolism of Trump signing a surrender agreement at Versailles in which the US agrees to pay massive reparations is just too perfect.

I wouldn't be surprised if Macron weaponized Trump's complete ignorance of history and told him something like: "Mr. President, Versailles is where the most consequential deal of the 20th century was signed. Yours deserves the same stage."

Either that or Macron stumbled into the perfect historical parallel through sheer obliviousness - which, knowing him, is actually even more likely.

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

This is just the lesson we have to learn over and over again. The rules-based international order is just some version of be our vassals or we will break you but with extra bullshit on top.

The Russians were told « don’t worry about nato it’s a defensive alliance. » right after that happened the Kosovo war where nato went in Serbia. That was not a defensive war. No NATO territory was under threat.

So the Russians went back to NATO and said geez…does that mean NATO can attack Russia too? NATO was like…of course not. Russia is a nuclear-armed country. So as soon as that happened, Putin knew what was protecting Russia was not NATO’s defensive nature but Russian ability to defend itself and that’s how he has been acting ever since.

Iran has earned the respect of the United States not by giving them what they want but by proving they cannot be coerced.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Westerners love to whine about how tyrannical and authoritarian Iran's government is, but it's worth noting that the control Tehran exerts within its borders is a major reason US-Israeli efforts to turn the nation into a giant Libya have failed. That control exists to thwart precisely the type of existential foreign threat that Iran just thwarted. Were it not for that existential foreign threat, such control wouldn't be necessary.

The US has openly admitted to deliberately fomenting the domestic unrest we saw in Iran earlier this year, and to attempting to arm insurgent factions. Those foreign threats were put down by precisely the "tyranny" you've seen western liberals and anarkiddies decrying in Iran all year.

The fact that the US-Israeli war failed to achieve the government-toppling goals set out by Washington and Tel Aviv means that Iran was able to inhibit the visibility that US and Israeli intelligence agencies had into the nation, because you only fail to accomplish a military objective you think you can accomplish if your enemy is able to surprise you. Countering US and Israeli intelligence operations, rooting out US and Israeli intelligence assets, blocking US and Israeli propaganda from domestic consumption, and obstructing US and Israeli visibility into Tehran's government and military could only be achieved by a strong government that's willing exert forceful control over what goes on inside its own borders.

Westerners like to point at the "authoritarianism" of the few remaining enemies of the US-centralized empire as though it proves that we're looking at a struggle between a beneficent and virtuous civilization and a bunch of evil tyrants, but really all it proves is that the only nations who are able to resist absorption into the imperial blob are the ones who are willing and able to exert control over what happens inside their borders. If the US and its allies weren't constantly working to subvert and topple all unabsorbed nations, this "authoritarianism" wouldn't be needed to resist it.

[Shermos @Sherman89]

@j_laurenceson @timeshighered @GroupOfEight @ATNUnis @uniaus This campaign has been running for 10 years give or take.

[Shermos @Sherman89]

@AngelicaOung clear errors, I still have a lot of respect for Deng. It's the two generations of leadership which came after him who I have a bigger problem with.

[Shermos @Sherman89]

@AngelicaOung I understand the need to be cautious and avoid repeating Mao's mistakes, but there is a time limit, and if some vested interests need to be more thoroughly suppressed for the long term benefit of the people and nation, so it may have to be.

On another note, in spite of his /3

[Robert Barwick @RobbieBarwick]

Pro-AUKUS experts seem to exist in an echo chamber and are surprised by alternative views.

So let me help.

Every country in the world recognises One China, as does the UN. Almost all recognise the PRC, a handful the ROC, but ALL recognise ONE.

It IS international law.

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

Oh gee, another coincidonk!!

Just after Indonesia says ‘NO’ to US military flight access over Indonesian territory, guess what, US funded student groups start up street riots again.

Just like clockwork.

This time the theme colour is YELLOW — for this latest in orchestrated US-sponsored Colour Revolutions!

Watch for more reporting of the ‘chaos’ in Indonesia, until the US gets its own way and gets its flight access — so it can squeeze the Malacca Strait closed to choke Chinese trade.

https://t.co/E6P5y96hRn @abcnews

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us for our logic. « Soviet Union delenda est » was perhaps fair enough. But then it became Russia delenda est. China delenda est. North Korea delenda est. Iran delenda est. Cuba delenda est.

As Anna Applebaum herself hopefully pointed out, there’s no ideological linkage between the between America’s enemies anymore. To the extent they hang together it is purely in practical interest. Because the west has clearly signaled their plan to take them down one by one, break them apart and sow their fields with salt.

Anybody who thinks this is still about human rights and institutions and that America is one big Amnesty International with nuclear weapons and NATO is just working with Angelina Jolie to bring more empowerment to women needs their head examined.

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

If the USA really wanted to promote democracy, they should shut down NED and make a sacred vow not to interfere in the domestic politics of others.

It should apologize for the past interference, both through spycraft and using Trojan Horse NGOs. It should acknowledge the terrible damage it has done to the reputation of democracy and liberal institutions that it claims to love so much by instrumentalizing them as a part of American statescraft.

[Cameron Leckie @leckie_cameron]

Hugh White

By far the most likely outcome is that 🇦🇺 will end up with no submarines

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Good thing we have no enemies other than those we create via our "alliance" with the 🇺🇸

https://t.co/zOIiYeeVUB

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

@justjoenyc @Johanna53187776 You're saying Mossad is going to murder me, and that you're happy that Mossad will murder me, and that you are defending a foreign state whose intelligence operatives travel around the world murdering people who criticize that state on the internet? What an interesting admission.

[Eivor @Eivor_Koy]

This Japanese dude complained that Chinese uses a single-character system for every element in the periodic table — yet this is precisely one of the reasons why Chinese students can learn chemistry with remarkably little effort.

Chinese employs a highly systematic phono-semantic strategy: the radical indicates the physical category, while the phonetic component hints at the pronunciation. Metal radical 钅 → metals (e.g., 镧 lanthanum, 铍 beryllium). Gas radical 气 → gases (e.g., 氩 argon, 氦 helium). An ordinary Chinese speaker can often guess an element’s basic properties at a glance with minimal memorization.

In contrast, Japanese primarily relies on katakana transliterations of international names in scientific contexts, especially for newer elements: oxygen → オキシゲン, hydrogen → ハイドロゲン, sodium → ナトリウム, beryllium → ベリリウム. This leads to longer names (often 4–7 syllables), no built-in clues about whether it’s a metal or gas, and a higher memory load for beginners.

Japanese does have intuitive native names for many common elements (酸素 for oxygen, 水素 for hydrogen, etc.), which are widely used in education and daily life. However, formal academic and IUPAC-style contexts lean heavily on katakana, forcing students to constantly switch between the two systems.

In short: what Chinese expresses efficiently in a single meaningful character, Japanese often renders with a longer string of syllables that carry no inherent information about the element’s properties. The efficiency and intuitiveness gap is real and immediately noticeable.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Cameron Leckie @leckie_cameron]

@JAParker29 @DavidShoebridge 3. This is my favourite tweet in the thread?

What's missing?

Where does our trade to and from 🇨🇳 during a war with 🇨🇳 get redirected to?

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[Robert Barwick @RobbieBarwick]

If you bother to read this🧵first be aware of one important FACT:

China is very reliant on open sea lanes, they are a major vulnerability for its security, and it has NEVER threatened to close them.

Our US ally, on the other hand, openly talks about closing CHINA'S sea lanes.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Israel: *ignites regional war*
Israel: *never abides by ceasefire agreements*
Israel: *bombs southern Lebanon every day*
Israel: *openly sabotages US negotiations with Iran*
Israel: *begins bombing Beirut*
Iran: *bombs Israel*
Zionists: They attack us because of our religion 😢