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  • 24 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 13th, 2023
  • BrokebackHampton@kbin.socialtoNews@lemmy.world•US expects to upgrade Vietnam ties, risks China anger
    0·
    1 year ago

    Nobody seems to have pointed out the obvious historical angle where China and Vietnam have been long-time enemies.

    The issue goes back to the Cold War era and the Sino-Soviet split and it’s kinda hard to synthesize in a few short paragraphs, you can read more on the wiki article about it, but these sections could be a good summary:

    Vietnam was an ideological battleground during the 1960s Sino-Soviet split. After the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping secretly promised the North Vietnamese 1 billion yuan in military and economic aid if they refused all Soviet aid.

    During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese and the Chinese had agreed to defer tackling their territorial issues until South Vietnam was defeated. Those issues included the lack of delineation of Vietnam’s territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin and the question of sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

    And also:

    In the wake of the Vietnam War, the Cambodian–Vietnamese War caused tensions with China, which had allied itself with Democratic Kampuchea. That and Vietnam’s close ties to the Soviet Union made China consider Vietnam to be a threat to its regional sphere of influence. Tensions were heightened in the 1970s by the Vietnamese government’s oppression of the Hoa minority (Vietnamese of Chinese ethnicity) and the invasion of Khmer Rouge-held Cambodia. At the same time, Vietnam expressed its disapproval with China strengthening ties with the United States since the Nixon-Mao Summit of 1972.

  • BrokebackHampton@kbin.socialtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
    12·
    1 year ago

    That is factually false information. There are solid arguments to be made against nuclear energy.

    https://isreview.org/issue/77/case-against-nuclear-power/index.html

    Even if you discard everything else, this section seems particularly relevant:

    The long lead times for construction that invalidate nuclear power as a way of mitigating climate change was a point recognized in 2009 by the body whose mission is to promote the use of nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Nuclear power is not a near-term solution to the challenge of climate change,” writes Sharon Squassoni in the IAEA bulletin. “The need to immediately and dramatically reduce carbon emissions calls for approaches that can be implemented more quickly than building nuclear reactors.”

    https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315

    Wealer from Berlin’s Technical University, along with numerous other energy experts, sees takes a different view.

    “The contribution of nuclear energy is viewed too optimistically,” he said. “In reality, [power plant] construction times are too long and the costs too high to have a noticeable effect on climate change. It takes too long for nuclear energy to become available.”

    Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, agrees.

    “Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build,” he said. “When you factor it all in, you’re looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant.”

    He pointed out that the world needed to get greenhouse gases under control within a decade. “And in the next 10 years, nuclear power won’t be able to make a significant contribution,” added Schneider.