China's Salami Slicing
China's salami slicing (; Robert BarnettChina Is Building Entire Villages in Another Country’s Territory Foreign Policy, 7 May 2021.) is a strategy by which the government of China uses small provocations, none of which would constitute a ''casus belli'' by itself, but cumulatively produce a much larger action or result in China's favor which would have been difficult or unlawful to perform all at once. In 1996, a United States Institute of Peace report on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea wrote, " analysts point to Chinese "salami tactics," in which China is said to test the other claimants through aggressive actions, then back off when it meets significant resistance." The term "salami slice strategy" has been used to describe policies that incrementally improve China's foreign policy position. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spratly With Flags
The Spratly Islands ( fil, Kapuluan ng Kalayaan; zh, c=南沙群島/南沙群岛, s=, t=, p=Nánshā Qúndǎo; Malay, id, Kepulauan Spratly; vi, Quần đảo Trường Sa) are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets, cays, and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atolls, the archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia, and southern Vietnam. Named after the 19th-century British whaling captain Richard Spratly who sighted Spratly Island in 1843, the islands contain less than of naturally occurring land area, which is spread over an area of more than . The Spratly Islands are one of the major archipelagos in the South China Sea which complicate governance and economics in this part of Southeast Asia due to their location in strategic shipping lanes. The islands are largely uninhabited, but offer rich fishing grounds and may contain significant oil and natural gas reserves,Owen, N. A. and C. H. Schofi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hobson’s Choice
A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered. The term is often used to describe an illusion that multiple choices are available. The most well known Hobson's choice is "I'll give you a choice: take it or leave it", wherein "leaving it" is strongly undesirable. The phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. Origins According to a plaque underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge Guildhall, Hobson had an extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the appearance to his customers that, upon entry, they would have their choice of mounts, when in fact there was only one: Hobson required his customers to take the horse in the stall closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses from always being chosen, which would have caused those horses to be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2020-2021 China-India Skirmishes
The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. The name "hyphen-minus" derives from the original ASCII standard, where it was called "hyphen(minus)". The character is referred to as a "hyphen", a "minus sign", or a "dash" according to the context where it is being used. Description In early monospaced font typewriters and character encodings, a single key/code was almost always used for hyphen, minus, various dashes, and strikethrough, since they all have a roughly similar appearance. The current Unicode Standard specifies distinct characters for a number of different dashes, an unambiguous minus sign ("Unicode minus") at code point U+2212, and various types of hyphen including the unambiguous "Unicode hyphen" at U+2010 and the hyphen-minus at U+002D. When a hyphen is called for, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South China Sea Claims Map
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', cf English meridional), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-facing side'' of a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads of Central Asia and East Asia. Being the largest province-level division of China by area and the 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions, both administered by China, are claimed by India. Xinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The most well-known route of the historic Silk Ro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hard Power
In politics, hard power is the use of military and economic means to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies. This form of political power is often aggressive (coercion), and is most immediately effective when imposed by one political body upon another of lesser military and/or economic power. Hard power contrasts with soft power, which comes from diplomacy, culture and history. According to Joseph Nye, hard power involves "the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will". Here, "carrots" stand for inducements such as the reduction of trade barriers, the offer of an alliance or the promise of military protection. On the other hand, "sticks" represent threats - including the use of coercive diplomacy, the threat of military intervention, or the implementation of economic sanctions. Ernest Wilson describes hard power as the capacity to coerce "another to act in ways in which that entity would not have ac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soft Power
In politics (and particularly in international politics), soft power is the ability to co-opt rather than coerce (contrast hard power). In other words, soft power involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power includes culture, political values, and foreign policies. In 2012, Joseph Nye of Harvard University explained that with soft power, "the best propaganda is not propaganda", further explaining that during the Information Age, "credibility is the scarcest resource". Nye popularised the term in his 1990 book, ''Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power''. In this book he wrote: "when one country gets other countries to want what it wants might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants". He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, ''Soft Power: The Means to Success in Worl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Diplomat
''The Diplomat'' is an international online news magazine covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region. It is based in Washington, D.C. It was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jones, David Llewellyn-Smith and Sung Lee in 2001, but due to financial reasons it was converted into an online magazine in 2009 and moved to Japan and later Washington, D.C. The magazine is currently owned by MHT Corporation. History ''The Diplomat'' was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jones, David Llewellyn-Smith and Sung Lee in 2001. The first edition was published in April 2002, with Bui Jones as the founding editor and Llewellyn-Smith the founding publisher. The magazine was acquired by James Pach through his company Trans-Asia Inc. in December 2007. Pach assumed the role of executive publisher and hired former ''Penthouse'' editor Ian Gerrard to update its presentation. Nonetheless, the print ed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scarborough Shoal
Scarborough Shoal, also known as Bajo de Masinloc (in Spanish language, Spanish), Panatag Shoal ( fil, Kulumpol ng Panatag, lit=serene cluster), Huangyan Island (Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin zh, c=黄岩岛, p=Huáng Yán Dǎo, l=yellow rock island), and Democracy Reef, are two skerry, rocks in a shoal located between Luzon and Macclesfield Bank within the Philippine EEZ in the South China Sea. It is away from the nearest landmass of Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines. It is a territorial dispute, disputed territory claimed by the Philippines, Republic of the Philippines through the 1734 Velarde map, while the China, People's Republic of China and the Taiwan, Republic of China (Taiwan) claim it through the disputed nine-dash line (originally an eleven-dash line which included waters in the Gulf of Tonkin). The shoal's status is often discussed in conjunction with other territorial disputes in the South China Sea such as those involving the Spratly Islands, and the 201 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mischief Reef
Mischief Reef, also known as Panganiban Reef ( tl, Bahura ng Panganiban); vi, Đá Vành Khăn; also known in Mandarin ;, is a low tide elevation (LTE) reef/atoll surrounding a large lagoon in the SE of Dangerous Ground in the east of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. It is located west of Palawan Island of the Philippines. Administratively, it belonged to the Kalayaan Islands municipality of the province of Palawan. Activities by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the mid-2010s have created a large artificial island on the atoll which has included an approximately runway and associated airfield. Although the reef is well within the Philippines' EEZ and traditional fishing grounds, Mischief Reef has been controlled by the PRC since 1995, and is also claimed by the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Vietnam. The PRC performed various reclamation activities at least two locations on the rim of the atoll in the period from 1995 to 2013, but in the period from the end ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Johnson South Reef
Johnson South Reef, also known in Mandarin ; Mabini Reef ( tl, Bahura ng Mabini, lit=Reef of Mabini); vi, Đá Gạc Ma), is a reef in the southwest portion of the Union Banks in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea. It is controlled by the People's Republic of China (PRC), but its ownership is disputed and also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan (ROC), and Vietnam. Location, topography and structures Johnson South Reef lies adjacent to the Vietnamese-controlled Collins Reef (also known as Johnson North Reef) which lies to the northwest. It is naturally above water only at low tide. Prior to 2014 it housed a number of small buildings, wharves and a fortified Chinese maritime observation station. On 12 July 2016, the tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration concluded that Johnson Reef contains, within the meaning of Article 121(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), naturally formed areas of land, surrounded by water, which are above ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paracel Islands
The Paracel Islands, also known as the Xisha Islands () and the Hoang Sa Archipelago ( vi, Quần đảo Hoàng Sa, lit=Yellow Sand Archipelago), are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. The archipelago includes about 130 small coral islands and reefs, most grouped into the northeastern Amphitrite Group or the western Crescent Group. They are distributed over a maritime area of around , with a land area of approximately . The name ''Paracel'' is of Portuguese origin, and appears on 16th-century Portuguese maps. The archipelago is approximately equidistant from the coastlines of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Vietnam, and approximately one-third of the way from central Vietnam to the northern Philippines. The archipelago includes Dragon Hole, the deepest underwater sinkhole in the world. Turtles and seabirds are native to the islands, which have a hot and humid climate, abundant rainfall and frequent typhoons. The archipelago is surrounded by productive fishin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |