Australia's defence minister Richard Marles said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance.

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

  • @pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9•4 days ago

    Expecting people to wade through 8000 word articles in the hope of finding mention of your claim is why you’re being downvoted.

    Imagine someone making the claim, ‘Jesus hated gay people, it’s obvious’ and then when probed for a source, responding, ‘this is common knowledge available anywhere:
    https://thekingsbible.com/’

    • @CommanderCloon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4•4 days ago

      Because that’s a history question. “Taiwan” is not a country, it’s a province of the Republic of China (ROC), which was the government of China before the communist revolution. They fled to Taiwan but their constitution etc still define them as the Republic Of China, with territorial claims over all of China

      Here is an article specifically on that exact topic

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Area

      Edit: The main “Taiwan” wikipedia article also has a map that can be selected under the label “Show map of Taiwan (dark green) with ROC Mainland Area and historical claims (light green)”

      • @pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8•3 days ago

        Many, many countries have ‘historical claims’ that mean nothing in current day geopolitics.

        Claiming that ‘Taiwan is not a country’ is enough for me to know that this will not be a fruitful discussion.

        Literally the first line of the ‘Taiwan’ Wikipedia article:

        “Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia.”