France allys with China against Taiwan.

Thus French geo-politics in action.

I still say George Bush has done more for French geo-politics in the last four years than all of France's presidents for the last 40.

But don't blow this out of proportion. The Chinese currency game is putting a hurt on the French, I think, and this might be part of the French game to make friendly with the Chinese so that the Chinese might be nicer when it comes to currency politics. It probably won't work. At the same time the French have always seen themselves as a world power, so this is fairly normal.

Based on the article, the relationship seems pretty tame and small. Could this be an indicator of greater political ties?

The French face resistance from the Americans in an area they think is their back garden - Africa. The Chinese see Southeast Asia as their sphere of influence (as do the Japanese) but also face a US presence.

Hmmm......

Note that this could also have another angle to it. By becoming more engaged with China, France might be signalling to the other countries of Europe that a stronger EU is needed. A stronger EU might curtail France from doing some pretty stupid shit internationally.

Hmmm... Could be interesting.
 
Another fine example of ass kissing. I guess France knows that China can only become bigger and better and more important in the very near future.
Still, you're absolutely right to hate their French guts, CC. But what do you expect when a guy like Chirac is president? :wink:
 
Yeah, since De Gaulle, French politics have really gone downwards. Curse that damned fascist.
 
ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
Ill just cry that the France of Montesque and Voltaire and Chopin is now truly dead.
Click to expand...

*slaps CC*

Chopin is Polish you idjit :D

Baboon said:
Yeah, since De Gaulle, French politics have really gone downwards. Curse that damned fascis
Click to expand...

*double slaps Baboon*

Y'know, Chirac is a thief, a liar and an arrogant bastard. De Gaulle was the fascist.



And overall, I think this is more asskissing with economic perspectives, not an alliance against a country...
 
Damn French. Many of Indonesia's officers have been trained in Australian defence academies such as Duntroon, all in the name of better relations.

China is making huge advances in many areas but are still not appropriate 'friends' for a European nation and especially not for France.
 
Jesus Christ. People of culture come from poland? Who the fuck knew? :D

Sorry about that. But with a name like Chopin, it is hard to guess his nationality as anything other then French, and I was just listening to Fantasie.

Who was it who said the death of DuGaulle was the greatest moment in French history?

Anyway, am I the only reactionary who would take Vaclav Havel over that pissy HATE AMERICA IS FOREIGN POLICY GOLD bitch-ass Chirac?
 
The EU will crash and burn.
Take the "diplomatic" 3, England, France and whats their name with the biggest populations always having a meeting before an EU one no doubt to decide on what to vote togheter.
 
Germany?

And anyway, Wooz, I was referring to De Gaulle about the fascism; letting an ex-general in uniform leading a country after a war just isn't right. And the events of 1968 in France just proved this further.

And let's look at France's foreign policies; nothing glorious and useful there since Napoleon, and he wasn't even French. Since then, the only thing France has been trying has been pathetic, even when there could have been so much more.

A good example is France's involvment in wars since Napoleon got pwned at Waterloo.

1870: Franco-prussian war. So pathetic it's barely worth mentioning (way to put up a good fight).

WW1: stupid generals, stupid politicians: stupid results (i.e got a little pwned).

WW2: stupider generals, stupider politicians (as a matter of fact, De Gaulle tried to bring armoured regime´nts into the army, but everyone laughed at him so Frnace got pwned as a result). Just take "La ligne Maginot"; good defence against the Blitkrieg there. Way to defend a useless point of entry too, so that the Germans could invade through Belgium, again (*SIGH*).

Decolonization, then? Hmm, Algeria, great way to handle that. And thanks again, De Gaulle, for "ending" the war. Could easily have been avoided if the French had actually treated the Algerians as citizens, and not, well, shit.

Vietnam was a good move too, there. Same thing with Indochina as with Algeria. Just... drop it. So pathetic I'll avoid breathing when typing this. The French got pwned at Dien Bien Phu since they SUCKED both army-wise and in trying to avoid a war, then the Americans took over, and trashed the country. At least the British had a commonwealth.

France has had it's 15 minutes (or should I say 1500 years :)) and every attempt to restore that today has been futile and laughable.

This big opposition against the US that De Gaulle started in the 50s/60s wasn't necesarily a bad thing, but it was handled waaaaaaay wrong (moving NATO HQ out of Paris, great idea there, that'll improve our foreign popularity). France didn't realize that today countries are organized in groups, and tried to stand alone as a superpower, which failed.

This event is just stupid (getting friendly with China? WTF!?) and France should stop with this foolish pride. Repair the car before driving it.
 
Snake said:
The EU will crash and burn.
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It will indeed.
It will fall and crumble like the Roman Empire.
It will desintegrate and collapse like the Mongol one.
It will drown like a teeny-weeny bug in the big lavatory that is called the world.
It will be reduced to nothing but ruins and graves.

This is wishfull thinking, by the way... :twisted:
 
A couple big exceptions on french foreign policy-

(1) France has maintained pretty tight control over it's African sphere of influence better than most other regions. Through tight relations between political elites and occassional use of very few military assets, generally it has been able to maintain stability and a large bit of de facto control over former colonies. Perfect? No. But generally better than the US had over Latin America.

(2) Since the disaster of the Suez Crisis, the French have been arguing that there is another way besides kissing up to the US to remain powerful and influential. They have managed to do that. They have also been working towards stronger ties with German to develop a European power- which the Bush administration has inadvertently pushed towards fruition.
 
heh

Snake said:
The EU will crash and burn.
Click to expand...

It will probably topple over it's idiotic regulations.

Example. The EU has decreed that in the first half of March, a water sample from the bigger beaches has to be taken to decide if it is pure enough to swim in.
Good thing itself, and apparently it was "Absolutely imperative to test it before the swimming season IE before April"
So, the sample takers went to the shore with a big drill and a pair of pliers, and sent a ice block for the tests.
 
Snake said:
The EU will crash and burn.
Click to expand...

Possible. It's expanding too fast and too much, which can lead to alot of trouble. Dunno, can't see into the future.

But don't be mistaken in thinking the three are the problem with the EU. This huge expansion is much worse.

welsh said:
Since the disaster of the Suez Crisis, the French have been arguing that there is another way besides kissing up to the US to remain powerful and influential. They have managed to do that. They have also been working towards stronger ties with German to develop a European power- which the Bush administration has inadvertently pushed towards fruition.
Click to expand...

Aye, it's a simple choice, either you chose unified European power or you become an American suck-up. Nobody wants to be shoved out of the political spectrum whole.

France and Germany have long-since had little choice but to work together to gain this power. Countries that're following the US, like Spain, Poland, Holland and England, are making a big mistake, especially England. If you keep out of European politics on the level England does your placing yourself in a bad position on the longterm if the Union solidifies.
 
Kharn said:
Countries that're following the US, like Spain, Poland, Holland and England, are making a big mistake, especially England. If you keep out of European politics on the level England does your placing yourself in a bad position on the longterm if the Union solidifies.
Click to expand...
Yep, most British (note - this majority does not include myself) don't feel any connection with Europe. There is a large amount of resistance to even the limited amount of integration with Europe that there is at the moment.
People don't see the long term picture, sure there may be a few problems with th EU (and particularly the €), but in 10-15 years when they have been ironed out, any country that is not a part of it suffer, both economically and in terms of world power/influence. One of the best arguments that I can see for joining (completely) is to sto the US having total control of the planet. (not that they are expansionist, but that they are too powerful not to get their way)
The world needs more than one superpower (or none at all), but at the moment the only real superpower is the US. Any major (global) political decision is now thought of in terms of "ass kissing the US" or being against them. This is bad.


EDIT - Just re-read that, and it seems too Anti American, to clarify, I am not anti-American, I just think it is bad that there is not anyone to effectively oppose/discuss/counter their decisions on world politics.
 
This is just show.

But this is funny considering 2 thngs -
1. Welsh and me already have on going discussion on this topic.
2. A Taiwanese general recently got caught with his pants down with a nice looking Mainland Chinese female spy who coincidentally is asking him to provide technical aspects on the French warships that France sold Taiwan of which China is pissed off of.

Confused? Good. Welcome to the wonderful world of political play ground that is Asia Pacific. :P

All this will do is to give DPP more votes than KMT. DPP(think democrat), KMT(think republican) are the 2 biggest political parties in Taiwan. DPP was losing pretty badly until China start to blow nonsense. DPP's candidate, current President Chan Shui-Bian, is the one calling for referendum.

A quick lesson on Taiwan.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/taiwan/

But of course, China has been pissed off at France for have very strong ties with Taiwan for a long time. I remember reading something that says they even share military information across board. So this move by France is rather curious, but not unexpected. This could be just one way the French shows off war technology to Taiwan that they can purchase. Taiwan is one of the biggest purchaser of the French photom fighters.

There are 2 more things amuses me about this move.
1. It's possible that France might be intending to use this data as incentive for their sales pitch. How their technology works for/against Chinese technology.
2. It would be interesting to see Mongolian's perpective on this since they seem to have better ties with France than China does. I've heard of Mongolian soldiers been trained by the forign leagion.

But, this election is rather entertaining to watch.

Despite the lack of western media attention, this is turning out to be a election of epic battles that rivals the Matrix.

We already have triad connections, UN support/non support, American lobbying on both sides, a beautiful mainland Chinese spy, threats of 500 missles, diplomatic pressures, murders, some public breakdowns, apologies and a Nazi TV ad.

What more can an election ask for?

For some reason, it does always comes back to Nazis. I just heard on CBC radio one, that they had to pull a TV ad comparing the current President to Hitler.

This is more entertaining than watching reality TV.

Compare to this, the mud slinging done by Bush and Kerry(decided front runner?) can be seen as childish.
:P (no offense meant)

Well, voting starts in a few days. I am waiting. :D
 
Nice one Starseeker and a nice link as well. Things are messier in China than they appear. What are those crazy French up to?
 
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