#China-North Korea relations | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

treethymes · 2 months

Text

With the exceptions of North Korea and Cuba, the communist world has merged onto the capitalist highway in a couple different ways during the twenty-first century. As you’ve read, free-trade imperialism and its cheap agricultural imports pushed farmers into the cities and into factory work, lowering the global price of manufacturing labor and glutting the world market with stuff. Forward-thinking states such as China and Vietnam invested in high-value-added production capacity and managed labor organizing, luring links from the global electronics supply chain and jump-starting capital investment. Combined with capital’s hesitancy to invest in North Atlantic production facilities, as well as a disinclination toward state-led investment in the region, Asian top-down planning erased much of the West’s technological edge. If two workers can do a single job, and one worker costs less, both in wages and state support, why pick the expensive one? Foxconn’s 2017 plan to build a U.S. taxpayer–subsidized $10 billion flat-panel display factory in Wisconsin was trumpeted by the president, but it was a fiasco that produced zero screens. The future cost of labor looks to be capped somewhere below the wage levels many people have enjoyed, and not just in the West.

The left-wing economist Joan Robinson used to tell a joke about poverty and investment, something to the effect of: The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited by capitalists. It’s a cruel truism about the unipolar world, but shouldn’t second place count for something? When the Soviet project came to an end, in the early 1990s, the country had completed world history’s biggest, fastest modernization project, and that didn’t just disappear. Recall that Cisco was hyped to announce its buyout of the Evil Empire’s supercomputer team. Why wasn’t capitalist Russia able to, well, capitalize? You’re already familiar with one of the reasons: The United States absorbed a lot of human capital originally financed by the Soviet people. American immigration policy was based on draining technical talent in particular from the Second World. Sergey Brin is the best-known person in the Moscow-to-Palo-Alto pipeline, but he’s not the only one.

Look at the economic composition of China and Russia in the wake of Soviet dissolution: Both were headed toward capitalist social relations, but they took two different routes. The Russian transition happened rapidly. The state sold off public assets right away, and the natural monopolies such as telecommunications and energy were divided among a small number of skilled and connected businessmen, a category of guys lacking in a country that frowned on such characters but that grew in Gorbachev’s liberalizing perestroika era. Within five years, the country sold off an incredible 35 percent of its national wealth. Russia’s richest ended the century with a full counterrevolutionary reversal of their fortunes, propelling their income share above what it was before the Bolsheviks took over. To accomplish this, the country’s new capitalists fleeced the most vulnerable half of their society. “Over the 1989–2016 period, the top 1 percent captured more than two-thirds of the total growth in Russia,” found an international group of scholars, “while the bottom 50 percent actually saw a decline in its income.” Increases in energy prices encouraged the growth of an extractionist petro-centered economy. Blood-covered, teary, and writhing, infant Russian capital crowded into the gas and oil sectors. The small circle of oligarchs privatized unemployed KGB-trained killers to run “security,” and gangsters dominated politics at the local and national levels. They installed a not particularly well-known functionary—a former head of the new intelligence service FSB who also worked on the privatization of government assets—as president in a surprise move on the first day of the year 2000. He became the gangster in chief.

Vladimir Putin’s first term coincided with the energy boom, and billionaires gobbled up a ludicrous share of growth. If any individual oligarch got too big for his britches, Putin was not beyond imposing serious consequences. He reinserted the state into the natural monopolies, this time in collaboration with loyal capitalists, and his stranglehold on power remains tight for now, despite the outstandingly uneven distribution of growth. Between 1980 and 2015, the Russian top 1 percent grew its income an impressive 6.2 percent per year, but the top .001 percent has maintained a growth rate of 17 percent over the same period. To invest these profits, the Russian billionaires parked their money in real estate, bidding up housing prices, and stashed a large amount of their wealth offshore. Reinvestment in Russian production was not a priority—why go through the hassle when there were easier ways to keep getting richer?

While Russia grew billionaires instead of output, China saw a path to have both. As in the case of Terry Gou, the Chinese Communist Party tempered its transition by incorporating steadily increasing amounts of foreign direct investment through Hong Kong and Taiwan, picking partners and expanding outward from the special economic zones. State support for education and infrastructure combined with low wages to make the mainland too attractive to resist. (Russia’s population is stagnant, while China’s has grown quickly.) China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, in 2001, gave investors more confidence. Meanwhile, strong capital controls kept the country out of the offshore trap, and state development priorities took precedence over extraction and get-rich-quick schemes. Chinese private wealth was rechanneled into domestic financial assets—equity and bonds or other loan instruments—at a much higher rate than it was in Russia. The result has been a sustained high level of annual output growth compared to the rest of the world, the type that involves putting up an iPhone City in a matter of months. As it has everywhere else, that growth has been skewed: only an average of 4.5 percent for the bottom half of earners in the 1978–2015 period compared to more than 10 percent for the top .001 percent. But this ratio of just over 2–1 is incomparable to Russia’s 17–.5 ration during the same period.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, certain trends have been more or less unavoidable. The rich have gotten richer relative to the poor and working class—in Russia, in China, in the United States, and pretty much anywhere else you want to look. Capital has piled into property markets, driving up the cost of housing everywhere people want to live, especially in higher-wage cities and especially in the world’s financial centers. Capitalist and communist countries alike have disgorged public assets into private pockets. But by maintaining a level of control over the process and slowing its tendencies, the People’s Republic of China has built a massive and expanding postindustrial manufacturing base.

It’s important to understand both of these patterns as part of the same global system rather than as two opposed regimes. One might imagine, based on what I’ve written so far, that the Chinese model is useful, albeit perhaps threatening, in the long term for American tech companies while the Russian model is irrelevant. Some commentators have phrased this as the dilemma of middle-wage countries on the global market: Wages in China are going to be higher than wages in Russia because wages in Russia used to be higher than wages in China. But Russia’s counterrevolutionary hyper-bifurcation has been useful for Silicon Valley as well; they are two sides of the same coin. Think about it this way: If you’re a Russian billionaire in the first decades of the twenty-first century looking to invest a bunch of money you pulled out of the ground, where’s the best place you could put it? The answer is Palo Alto.

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto

53 notes · View notes

whencyclopedia · 14 days

Photo

Ancient Korean & Japanese Relations

Ancient East Asia was dominated by the three states known today as China, Japan, and Korea. These kingdoms traded raw materials and high-quality manufactured goods, exchanged cultural ideas and practices, and fought each other in equal measure throughout the centuries. The complex chain of successive kingdoms in all three states has created a rich web of events that historians have sometimes found difficult to disentangle; a situation not helped by modern nationalist claims and ideals superimposed on antiquity from all three parties. As the historian Kim Won-Yong put it, "Korea acted as a cultural bridge between China and Japan" (Portal, 20). Historians continue to discuss whether that bridge was one-way or two-way traffic and, if the former, which direction, but suffice to say that there was such a bridge, and its consequences in art, politics, and history in both countries still resonate today.

First Trade Relations

It is likely that there was contact between the Japanese islands and the Korean peninsula in the Neolithic period (6,000-1,000 BCE), especially considering the lower sea-level at that time and so closer geographical proximity of the two land masses. However, the first recorded ties between Japan, specifically the island of Kyushu, which the Koreans called Wae (and the Chinese Wa), occurred in the period known as the Proto-Three Kingdoms period between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. The fragmented territories in the south of the peninsula were not yet centralised states, but international relations were developed by the Chinese commanderies which occupied the north of Korea at this time, especially Lelang. Envoys and tribute were sent by the Wa, now a confederation of small states in southern and western Japan, the most important of which was Yamato. These missions are recorded in 57, 107, 238, and 248 CE.

#History #AncientJapan #AsukaPeriod #Baekje #WHE #[#]

33 notes · View notes

thatwobblychair · 17 days

Text

CoD The Other Good Guys Bear! Edition

What if the rest of the good guys in call of duty were bears? Part 2 - see Part 1 for 141 as bears

More bear facts! Cause bears are truly the best! 🐻💯

Alejandro: Mexican Grizzly Bear*

Ursus arctos nelsoni - now Ursus arctos horribilis

*depiction of what a mexican grizzly bear may have looked like alive

A now extinct subspecies of the grizzly bear that once inhabited northern Mexico. Due to its predation on cattle farms, they were considered pests and hunted by farmers. By the 1960s there were less than 30 individuals remaining. In 1974 the last known individual was shot in Sonora.

It was smaller than grizzly bears from the United states and Canada, and its colouration was said to range from a pale yellow to greyish-white with a darker undertone, though some individuals were described to be darker and reddish brown.

Due to its silvery fur, it was called 'el olso plateado' (the silvery bear) in Spanish, though it's name in the Ópatas language (an indigenous Mexican people's) was 'pissini'.

Rudy: Spectacled Bear "Andean Bear"

Tremarctos ornatus

The last remaining short-faced bear, native to the Andes Mountains in northern and western South America. Though all bears are omnivores, the spectacled bear has a mostly herbivorous diet with only 5-7% of their diet being meat.

The bear is named after it's distinctive eye markings, though not all spectacled bears may have such markings. Individuals can have highly variable fur patterns making it relatively easy to distinguish from one another.

It's short face and broad snout is thought to be an adaptation to a carnivorous diet despite it's herbivorous preferences.

Paddington Bear is said to be a Spectacled Bear from Peru.

Farah: Asian Black Bear "Moon Bear"

Ursus thibetanus

A medium sized bear native to Asia and highly adapted to arboreal life. It can be found in parts of Korea, China, Japan, eastern Russia, the Himalayas, southeastern Iran and northern India. It is listed as vulnerable due to deforestation and poaching for its body parts (used in traditional medicines).

The name 'moon bear' is given due to its distinctive creamy white cresent fur patch, though in some individuals it is "V" shaped. It has a powerful upper body stronger than it's lower limbs and are known to be the most bipedal of bears.

It has a reputation for extreme aggression despite their reclusive nature and there have been documented reports of unprovoked attacks. They are said to be more aggressive than the Eurasian Brown Bears that may cohabit the same areas and the American Black Bear.

Alex: American Black Bear

Ursus americanus

Alongside the Brown Bear, it is one of the only Bear species not threatened with extinction.

Despite living in North America, it is more closely related to the Asian Black Bear and Sun Bear than Grizzly Bears (North American Brown Bears) and Polar Bears. It's ancestors are thought to have split off from the Sun Bear.

Black Bears are distinguished from Grizzly Bears who may cohabit the same area, with their longer tall ears, straight face profile, shorter claws and lack of distinctive hump.

Teddy bears, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Smokey Bear are all inspired by the American Black Bear.

Nikolai: Polar Bear

Ursus maritimus

A large bear native to the Arctic. It is closely related to the Brown Bear and can hybridise with them though this is rare and not often seen. (See Grolar Bears)

They are the most carnivorous of all bear species (hypercarnivores), specialising in hunting seals through ambush attacks. Polar Bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups on land. They can form stable 'alliances' based on dominance hierarchies outside of breeding seasons with the largest males at the top.

It's common name was given in 1771, and was previously referred to as 'white bear', 'ice bear', 'sea bear', 'Greenland bear' in 13th - 18th century Europe. The Netsilik cultures (Inuit) named it 'nanook' and have several additional different names for them depending on sex and age of the polar bear.

Laswell: Kodiak Bear "Kodiak/Alaskan Brown Bear"

Ursus arctos middendorffi

Named after it's habitation of the Kodiak Archipelago in southwest Alaska, the Kodiak bear is the largest subspecies of Brown Bear, with some individuals comparable to the Polar Bear in size.

An island bear, it is 1.5-2x larger than it's mainland cousins the grizzly bear, though physically and physiologically, the two bears are very similar.

Due to its tendancy to feed in dense groups, it has thought to have developed more complex social behaviours (in comparison to mainland grizzly bears) to minimise infighting/fatalities via both verbal/ body posturing and social structures.

All info taken from wiki. Please let me know if ther any mistakes.

#cod mwii #cod mw2 #call of duty modern warfare #cod mwiii #alejandro vargas #rudy parra #rudy cod #farah karim #farah cod #alex cod #nikolai cod #kate laswell #laswell cod #bears #bear facts

23 notes · View notes

pixeljade · 1 month

Text

I do keep seeing posts that say "whys Joe even funding Israel except that he loves Genocide" or "Why is there discussion of leaving NATO in the senate survey" and like. Here. Let me explain this to you. (DISCLAIMER: I hate Joe Biden I'm just doing this because understanding your opponents motivations makes it so you can more effectively fight them)

When you're President, issues are not just single simple issues. Theres a shitton of moving parts, and he cant be obvious about his awareness of all these parts for transparency's sake because that also gives his enemies (which would include those of us who want Both Parties Gone) an upper hand. Joe Biden views Israel as a necessary US base of operation in the middle east to defend the USA in case of an attack by China and (more pressing lately) Russia.

See, with Russia attacking Ukraine, Ukraine is thinking of joining NATO as a means of better defending itself. They've been talking about it for ages but really started getting the ball rolling when Putin attacked. NATO is a treaty organization which, if Ukraine does join, all the other members of NATO would be forced to come to its aid (i.e., literally all of them would be considered At War With Russia). On top of this, Russia has strong allies with a lot of anti-USA powers, including China. I wouldnt even be surprised if North Korea shows up. If this is starting to ring bells relating to the world wars in history class, good, because thats exactly what this scenario would entail. Another, open world war. Yes people scream 'world war 3' over the tiniest provocation but its just as foolish to claim its impossible. Add in that Putin has said he will gladly use nukes if he has to, and...well. you can put two and two together. It wont be a pretty picture.

Anyways, the middle east is, and has been, a central point in our proxy wars against Russia for ages. This is both because of the resources (oil) there, as well as its potential as a strong base of defense for the west against the east. Israel in particular is USA's biggest military defense resource, as they have a shit-ton of anti-ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capabilities. Simply put, they serve as a bulwark against the forces of the east. They're also one of the biggest deterrants against all-out world war; because if anyone DOES try to send a nuke out west, we'll just blow it up before it hits us and then have Israel nuke them back, with far less time to defend.

So lets put ourselves in Joe's shoes knowing all of this. It starts to feel a bit like he HAS to keep giving Israel what they want in order to prevent world war 3 and/or nuclear holocaust, huh? This should also clarify why he said "If there were not an Israel in the middle east we would have to make one", and why he reportedly is very upset with all the Palestinean death yet still gives Israel weapons. Its a shitty appeasement tactic with an eye on global politics. (Side note: astute readers may also note that the actions regarding China are part of this, including the tik tok ban. They are correct.)

But does this make his actions correct? Fuck no. As many have noted Israel wouldnt even be able to continue existing without assistance from America, and Israel would likely be the first place to be destroyed by Russia if they seek to win, if it were weakened sufficiently. Meaning Joe could EASILY turn the tables on Israel and threaten to (or actually) cut them off and say "Fine, if you want to go that way then enjoy the hellfire that comes for us all, chuck." He could also decide to start rebuilding relations with China despite our differences, and therefore deprive Russia of allies in the world war 3 scenario. He could also build up these same defense systems in another middle eastern allied country (which I'd be against because colonialism is part of the problem). And that's simply taking it from the perspective of Joe, I, personally, do not think that America should remain in its current form. It has far more blood on its hands than just the Palestinean blood, and its destruction (preferably without nukes) could allow better things to take root.

Anyways, like I said, this is so that we might better defeat our enemies, so if you're wondering what the implications here are, I'd say start getting involved in politics at a local level. Not just protests, go to city council meetings! Its mostly boring stuff but once you get a hold on what it all means (and you will!) You'll start to see ways to shift the American culture away from this war-dependent fascistic society which has been surging so terrifyingly. You will start to see the glimmers of hope which shine through the sludge that it is American Politics.

Anyways if someone says this is a pro-Biden post im going to stab you with a million knives.

#politics #anti israel #anti zionism #anti joe biden #cw nuclear holocaust #cw war #anarchism

23 notes · View notes

arcticdementor · 1 month

Text

I think the best line in it comes directly after the headline: “For a Samurai to be brave, he must have a bit of Black blood.” — Japanese Proverb. I had originally thought that this was a reference to Onis, and so my knee-jerk reaction was: Imagine appropriating a Japanese proverb about demon blood to make a point about African representation in ancient Japan. Then I looked into the origin of the “proverb”, which you might be able to tell from the scare quotes, wasn’t actually a proverb, it is attributed to a relatively obscure French racist, Georges Maget, by M. De Quatrefages in “Bulletins et mémoires” By Société d’anthropologie de Paris in the late 1800’s. Page 53, if you can read French. Maget is described as having written a letter in 1877 that described the Japanese as a mixture of Malay “Negritos” and the Ainu, and using that heritage to paint them as mixed-race sub humans. A copy of Japan’s Weekly Mail from the same year skewered him, very politely, for not having a fucking clue what he was talking about: “A good deal has been already said and written about the origin of the Japanese race Kaempffer makes them out to be Assyrians. and traces their route from the Tower of Babel with as much minuteness as if he had himself been an eyewitness of their journey, while other writers have in turn identified them with the Chinese, the North-American Indians, the ancient Peruvians, and the lost tribes of Israel. A plausibly written article from the pen of Dr. Maget, of the French man-of-war Cosmao, which has been lately reproduced in two of the Yokohama journals, endeavours to prove that the Japanese are chiefly of Malay origin, and as he refers somewhat contemptuously to the theory of “the peopling of the Nipon Archipelago by emigrations which with too great complacency are fancied to have started no from China, now from Korea, now from Manchuria,” he cannot complain if some of those who with more or less ‘complacency’ hold this view, at least in so far as Korea is concerned, should do their best. to combat his arguments.” So to tie that all up: In order to make the point that there should have been black people in a movie set in ancient Japan, Spivey quoted a 150 year old quote from a French Racist who fabricated the ancestry of Japanese people to make the point that Japanese people were sub-human by relation. Take a fucking bow.

—Humble Talent

#quote #comments section #see link for context #quotes within quote #william spivey #shogun 2024 #georges maget

23 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 1 month

Text

In the waters of the South China Sea, Chinese coast guard vessels have clashed with Philippine ships. In the air above the Taiwan Strait, Chinese warplanes have challenged Taiwanese jet fighters. And in the valleys of the Himalayas, Chinese troops have fought Indian soldiers.

Across several frontiers, China has been using its armed forces to dispute territory not internationally recognized as part of China but nevertheless claimed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In August 2023, Beijing laid out its current territorial claims for the world to see. The new edition of the standard map of China includes lands that are today a part of India and Russia, along with island territories such as Taiwan and comprehensive stretches of the East and South China Seas that are also claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

China often invokes historical narratives to justify these claims. Beijing, for example, has said that the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it claims under the name of the Diaoyu Islands, “have been an inherent territory of China since ancient times.” Chinese officials have used the same words to back China’s right to parts of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese government also claims that its sovereignty over the South China Sea is based on its own historic maritime maps.

However, in certain periods since ancient times China has also held sway over other states in the region—Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam. Yet Beijing is currently not laying claim to any of these.

Instead, Beijing has embraced a selective irredentism, wielding specific chapters of China’s historical record when they suit existing aims and leaving former Chinese territories be when they don’t. Over time, as Beijing’s interests and power relations have shifted, some of these claims have faded from importance, while new ones have taken their place. Yet for Taiwan, Chinese claims remain unchanged, as the fate of the island state is tied to the very legitimacy of the CCP as well as the vitality of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political vision.

Many of the CCP’s territorial claims have roots in the 19th and 20th centuries during the late rule of the Qing Dynasty. Following diplomatic pressure and repeated military defeats, the Qing Dynasty was forced to cede territory to several Western colonial powers, as well as the Russian and Japanese empires. These concessions are part of what are known in China as the “unequal treaties,” while the 100 years in which the treaties were signed and enforced are known as the “century of humiliation.” These territorial losses eventually passed from the dynasty to the Republic of China and then, following the Chinese Civil War, to the CCP. As a result, upon the CCP’s establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new Chinese state inherited outstanding territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.

But despite the humiliation the Qing Dynasty’s losses had caused, the CCP proved willing to compromise and reduce its territorial aims during times of high internal unrest. Following the Tibetan uprising in 1959, for instance, the CCP negotiated territorial settlements with countries bordering the Tibet region, including Myanmar, Nepal, and India. Similarly, when unrest rocked the Uyghur region in the 1960s and ‘90s, Beijing pursued territorial compromises with several bordering countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP also pursued territorial settlements with Mongolia, Laos, and Vietnam in the hopes of securing China’s borders during times of domestic instability. Instead of pursuing diversionary wars, the CCP relied on diplomacy to settle border and territory disputes.

But China has changed quite a lot since then. In recent years, the CCP has avoided the inflammatory domestic political chaos of previous decades, and its once-tentative hold over border regions, such as Tibet and the Uyghur region, has been replaced by an iron grip. With this upper hand, the CCP has little incentive to pursue peaceful resolutions to remaining territorial disputes.

“China’s national power has increased significantly, reducing the benefits of compromise and enabling China to drive a much harder bargain,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In this context, the CCP has expanded its irredentist ambitions. After the discovery of potential oil reserves around the Senkaku Islands, and the United States’ return of the islands to Japan in the 1970s, Beijing drew on its historical record to lay claim to the islands, even though it had previously referred to them as part of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Similarly, though Beijing and Moscow settled a dispute over Heixiazi Island, located along China’s northeastern border, in 2004, the 2023 map of China depicted the entire island (ceded, along with vast Pacific territories, by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire in 1860) as part of its domain, much to the ire of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that the Chinese mapping of Heixiazi Island shows that Beijing holds on to certain core interests and simply waits for the opportune time to assert them.

“Given the current context of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s increased dependence on China, it might have appeared to Beijing that it has the chips in its pockets because, after all, Moscow needs Beijing more than the other way around,” Koh said on the German Marshall Fund’s China Global podcast.

This raises the question of whether territorial disputes that were settled during times of CCP weakness can be revisited and become subject to irredentist ambitions should power balances shift in China’s favor.

According to Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, there is currently a limit to how far the CCP will push territorial claims against Russia, since President Xi will need Russian support to sustain his grand ambitions for Chinese leadership on the global stage.

Although it would be a long shot, even Russia may not be safe from these ambitions indefinitely. Given that large swaths of Russia’s Pacific territories were part of China until 1860, “China could claim back the Russian Far East when it deems the time is right,” Tsang said. Such control would grant Beijing unrestricted access to the region’s abundance of coal, timber, tin, and gold while moving it geographically closer to its ambition of becoming an Arctic power.

While there is plenty of historical evidence pointing to former Chinese control over the southeastern portion of the Russian Far East, the historical record is less unequivocal about Chinese control over Taiwan. Anything resembling mainland Chinese control over Taiwan was not established until after 1684 by the Qing Dynasty, and even then central authority remained weak. In 1895, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan following the First Sino-Japanese War, and by the time Chinese authority was restored in 1945, Taiwan had undergone several decades of Japanization.

These details have not prevented the CCP from claiming that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Yet more than any other irredentist claim, Xi has made unification with Taiwan a major component of his vision to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Unification, however, has little to do with ancient history and more to do with the challenge that Taiwan presently poses to Xi’s aims, according to Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor who teaches about Chinese foreign policy at the National University of Singapore.

“The CCP pursues a Chinese nationalism that emphasizes unity and homogeneity centered around the CCP leadership while they also often claim that their single-party rule is acceptable to Chinese people,” Chong said.

In contrast, Taiwan holds free elections in which multiple political parties compete for the favor of a people that have increasingly developed an identity distinct from mainland China.

“The Taiwanese experience is a clear affront to the CCP narrative,” Chong said.

Control over Taiwan is also attractive to Beijing because it is key to unlocking the Chinese leadership’s broader ambition of maritime hegemony in waters where almost half of the world’s container fleet passed through in 2022.

As with the case of Taiwan, the CCP’s historical arguments regarding its claims on island groups and islets in the East and South China Seas are likewise much weaker than many of its land-based claims.

Instead, Chinese territorial intransigence in the maritime arena is more about a strategic shift in the value of the seas around China, Fravel said.

Today, it has been estimated that more than 21 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea. And beneath these waters are not only subsea cables that carry sensitive internet data but also vast estimated reserves of oil and natural gas.

Although it may say otherwise, Beijing’s unwillingness to let up on its tenuous territorial maritime claims suggests that China is pursuing long-held ambitions and global aspirations rather than attempting to reverse past losses. So long as the CCP wields its historical record selectively and changeably to serve its aims—and is willing to back its claims up with military action—China’s neighbors will remain at risk.

18 notes · View notes

odinsblog · 26 days

Text

Usually, when refugees flee an oppressive regime, they know what they’re leaving behind; they can taste the freedom they’re searching for. But part of the story “Beyond Utopia” tells is that the citizens of North Korea don’t fully understand how oppressed they are. They can’t; they’ve never seen any other way of being.

In that sense, apart from Nazi Germany, the country that North Korea most resembles is Mao’s China during the insanity of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Tens of millions of people died in China from famine, due to Mao’s disastrously unhinged economic policies. In the aftermath, partly to cover all that up, China became the first National Propaganda Media State, subjecting its vast populace to a daily brainwashing, with Mao held up as a living deity.

The North Korean regime, in many ways a depraved outgrowth of Maoism, goes even further. As the film shows us, it has taken its made-up theology from the Bible, with Kim Jong-un portrayed as a Christ figure, and we see footage of the great mass stadium exhibitions that the citizens, including thousands of schoolchildren, rehearse for a year at a time — displays that look like the opening ceremony of the Olympics staged on a mile-wide electronic billboard in which every LED light is a choreographed human being. All of this loony-tunes spectacle is meant to celebrate the “utopia” of North Korea, with the outside world, especially America, portrayed as such a demonic place that the only word used to refer to someone in the U.S. is “American-bastard.”

The joyless suppression of life in North Korea prompts at least some citizens to suspect that a better life must lay on the other side. The family of defectors in “Beyond Utopia” are like that; they’re ordinary people who have put themselves on a moving mission.

(continue reading) related ←

#politics #beyond utopia #north korea #kim jung un #brainwashing #n korea #authoritarianism #documentaries #authoritarian dictatorships #mao tse tung #mao zedong #totalitarianism #maoism

12 notes · View notes

usafphantom2 · 1 month

Text

South Korea will upgrade the long-range mission capabilities of the F-15K fighter

The project, scheduled from 2024 to 2034, has a total budget of approximately US$ 2.89 billion.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/23/2024 - 15:43in Military

The South Korean Air Force is launching the "F-15K performance improvement project" to improve radar systems and increase the long-range mission capabilities of its F-15K fighters.

The Defense Security Committee recently approved an acquisition plan to advance the project through foreign purchases, specifically the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement on Friday.

The updates are expected to allow the F-15K to identify and attack targets, ensuring stable operational conditions, crucial for extended missions.

The project, scheduled from 2024 to 2034, has a total budget of approximately US$ 2.89 billion.

Boeing unveiled plans in December 2023 to comprehensively upgrade South Korea's F-15K fleet. The improvement initiative targets three main areas: the installation of the advanced AN/APG-82 radar, reinforcing the cabin display capabilities and integrating the electronic warfare suite 'Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System' (EPAWS).

The decision to invest heavily in the F-15 fleet is aligned with the strategic objectives of South Korea, especially given the relatively young age of the jets, with an average of just over 14 years. Originally acquired under the FX program in the mid-1990s, the first batch of 61 F-15K entered service at the end of 2005 and continues to play a crucial role in the combat capabilities of the Republic of Korea Air Force RoKAF).

The F-15K variant is suitable for long-range attack missions, including against reinforced North Korean targets.

Tags: Military AviationBoeing F-15K Slam EagleROKAF - Republic of Korea Air Force/South Korean Air Force

Sharing

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

Related news

MILITARY

GKN Aerospace receives request for future Swedish propulsion and hunting power concept studies

22/03/2024 - 19:02

MILITARY

Baykar tests new ammunition on the Akinci drone and presents two TB2 UAVs from the Maldives

22/03/2024 - 14:00

MILITARY

French General Directorate of Arms receives two Rafale B jets to be modified in the F4.1 standard

22/03/2024 - 11:00

LiteHUD.

FIDAE

BAE Systems will demonstrate its proven technologies in defense and regional partnerships at FIDAE 2024

22/03/2024 - 10:00

HELICOPTERS

IMAGES: China's new Z-21 heavy attack helicopter is seen for the first time

22/03/2024 - 08:30

Concept of future Swedish hunting in image of 2020.

MILITARY

Saab receives request for concept studies of future Swedish hunting

22/03/2024 - 07:27

10 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 6 days

Text

youtube

Russian state media loves "Moscow Marjorie" Taylor Traitor Greene. They undoubtedly hope that her attempt to oust Speaker Johnson creates chaos and prevents the already overdo aid package to Ukraine from passing.

The Russian government is engaged in an effort to destabilize and weaken liberal democracies. Greene fits in nicely with their plans.

Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S.

In a classified addendum to Russia’s official — and public — “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States. “We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states,” states the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a European intelligence service. “It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.” The document for the first time provides official confirmation and codification of what many in the Moscow elite say has become a hybrid war against the West. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power.

Just a quick word to point out that Putin is under the delusion that his Axis of Authoritarians would have Russia as its head. China is stronger than Russia and will not kowtow to a country which has a GDP not much bigger than Italy's and is suffering enormous losses in a war with a country which has only a quarter of Russia's population.

Using much tougher and blunter language than the public foreign policy document, the secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony.” The document says the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order,” a clear indication that Moscow sees the result of its invasion as inextricably bound with its ability — and that of other authoritarian nations — to impose its will globally.

In addition to old school revanchism, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine is a test to see how far the liberal democracies will let Putin go.

For Mikhail Khodorkovsky — the longtime Putin critic who was once Russia’s richest man until a clash with the Kremlin landed him 10 years in prison — it is not surprising that Russia is seeking to do everything it can to undermine the United States. “For Putin, it is absolutely natural that he should try to create the maximum number of problems for the U.S.,” he said. “The task is to take the U.S. out of the game, and then destroy NATO. This doesn’t mean dissolving it, but to create the feeling among people that NATO isn’t defending them.” The long congressional standoff on providing more weapons to Ukraine was only making it easier for Russia to challenge Washington’s global power, he said. “The Americans consider that insofar as they are not directly participating in the war [in Ukraine], then any loss is not their loss,” Khodorkovsky said. “This is an absolute misunderstanding.”

Putin was taken aback by both Ukraine's fierce defense and by Western resolve to protect the independence of a European democratic state. He refuses to admit that he made an enormous blunder so he continues to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Russians while hoping that his US servants like Greene, Gaetz, and Trump will rescue him.

#marjorie taylor greene #moscow marjorie #dupe of putin #russia #vladimir putin #russian hegemony #invasion of ukraine #subverting western support for uktaine #nato #russian attempts to undermine liberal democracies #democracy vs. dictatorship #stand with ukraine #ukraine aid now #агрессивная война россии #русский реваншизм #русский мiръ #москва марджори #владимир путин #путин хуйло #мясные волны #союз постсоветских клептократических ватников #путин – это лжедмитрий iv а не пётр великий #руки прочь от украины!#геть з україни #вторгнення оркостану в україну #слава україні!#героям слава!

7 notes · View notes

unhonestlymirror · 7 months

Note

This is random, sudden, stupid, non-hetalia related question, but how do you feel about with the way communism gets treated/discused on the internet, especially by people who didn't live under communism regime?

I used to not think much about that Buggs Bunny communism meme

But now when I look back at it, a tiny part of me feels like these whole "OUR [object] memes take the easy way of talking about communism. (That's not to say making jokes is not allowed), but it kinda comes across and potraying communism in a good light - like it's better than capitalism, for example.

Everyone gets treated equally, right? It's not like people died. It's not like there was limited ammount of food for people that people would have to use whatever theh could find at home to eat. It's not like staning out was frowned upon because you were expected to be blend in with others. It's not like owning too much in ussrs eyes would get you be seen as a treat.

And I'm aware I'm not qualified to discuss this. I didn't live through those times and not very knowlegable outside what I recall. I don't want to say the wrong thing, but even so.

So how do you feel about this?

I think the biggest communism fans actually deserve to taste their beloved communism: just some random people coming in your house and stealing everything yours and make it "ours", a government which kills any manifestation of individuality, thousands of concentration camps of free labour. I think they deserve to experience that. For some reason, I don't see many English speaking communism fans wanting to be deported to Belarus or China or North Korea or russia, their beloved communist countries.(although they don't call themselves communist countries, they actually pretty much are).

Ngl, I used to find this meme a bit funny until I realised people are dead serious about it. This trend became popular because of Pewdiepie, the most "popular" and one of the most paid YT bloggers. I would not be surprised if his sponsors were russian or Chinese.

In general, I don't really care about communism fans because 99% of them are just stupid and uneducated, and I don't wanna waste my time on them.

#ask #communism

18 notes · View notes

sylvia-on-the-run · 1 month

Note

What would you do if a joint coalition of the USSR, DDR, Cuba, South Africa (under julius malema), People's Republic of Japan, North Korea, and the Irish Republic occupied the Zionist state in order to end the war and set up a Palestinian State and secure aid to its people. Then all the TERFs in Israel (many terfs from Britain converted and moved here to escape IRA bombs) went out onto the streets to protest trans Palestinian women being given free hormones and baba ghanuj. Comrade General Secretary Vriska Serket then orders a column of tanks to suppress the uprising in Jerusalem which opens fire on the crowd and runs over a terf with its caterpillar tracks, causing her head to explode and her eyes to pop out? Then the Japanese Red Army decides because of the emergency to bring back WW2 bushido tactics against TERF zionist insurgents attacking their wombs with their bayonets and forcing them to have sex with their own children. Tumblrs transandrophobia truther zionist condemn this for some unknown reason.

What would you then do?

i have many questions but i guess to answer your question id uh well at what point is the question asked cause at the end id do very little related to this other than like lobby for the pcms support of the apparently extant ussr and ddr as well as the new palestinian republic uh yeah thats it i guess i mean idk what i would do vis a vis that unless this is like a question of wether or not i think thatd be a good thign? which if it was reword your question but yeah i think thatd be broadly good thouhg damn my space bar is being fucky today. anyways time for my questions firstly what time is this why do these communists states exist?? what is their specific ideological backing is the irish republic comunist? is vriska serket a human or a troll? while jerusalem is a real historical name for the city surely in this context itd be more accurate to say al-quds? why are we calling japanese warcrimes in the second sino-japanese war bushido tactics while their is a connection with bushido being a major piece of facistic japanese propoganda id hardly call such things tactics and they dont really have much relation. also i dont get why such a decision would be made it was done in their first place as part of the colonial endevour in china to weaken and fracture the chinese population, but since the palestinian population would already be in the majority and surely a reorganized economy would empower that majority i dont see the benefit of those sorts of terror tactics

7 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months

Text

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 4, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 5, 2024

The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee today released a 156-page report showing that when he was in the presidency, Trump received at least $7.8 million from 20 different governments, including those of China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Malaysia, through businesses he owned.

The Democrats brought receipts.

According to the report—and the documents from Trump’s former accounting firm Mazars that are attached to it—the People’s Republic of China and companies substantially controlled by the PRC government paid at least $5,572,548 to Trump-owned properties while Trump was in office; Saudi Arabia paid at least $615,422; Qatar paid at least $465,744; Kuwait paid at least $300,000; India paid at least $282,764; Malaysia paid at least $248,962; Afghanistan paid at least $154,750; the Philippines paid at least $74,810; the United Arab Emirates paid at least $65,225. The list went on and on.

The committee Democrats explained that these payments were likely only a fraction of the actual money exchanged, since they cover only four of more than 500 entities Trump owned at the time. When the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2023, Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) stopped the investigation before Mazars had produced the documents the committee had asked for when Democrats were in charge of it. Those records included documents relating to Russia, South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil.

Trump fought hard against the production of these documents, dragging out the court fight until September 2022. The committee worked on them for just four months before voters put Republicans in charge of the House and the investigation stopped.

These are the first hard numbers that show how foreign governments funneled money to the president while policies involving their countries were in front of him. The report notes, for example, that Trump refused to impose sanctions on Chinese banks that were helping the North Korean government; one of those banks was paying him close to $2 million in rent annually for commercial office space in Trump Tower.

The first article of the U.S. Constitution reads: “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument [that is, salary, fee, or profit], Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The report also contrasted powerfully with the attempt of Republicans on the Oversight Committee, led by Comer, to argue that Democratic Joe Biden has corruptly profited from the presidency.

In the Washington Post on December 26, 2023, Philip Bump noted that just after voters elected a Republican majority, Comer told the Washington Post that as soon as he was in charge of the Oversight Committee, he would use his power to “determine if this president and this White House are compromised because of the millions of dollars that his family has received from our adversaries in China, Russia and Ukraine.”

For the past year, while he and the committee have made a number of highly misleading statements to make it sound as if there are Biden family businesses involving the president (there are not) and the president was involved in them (he was not), their claims were never backed by any evidence. Bump noted in a piece on December 14, 2023, for example, that Comer told Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo that “the Bidens” have “taken in” more than $24 million. In fact, Bump explained, Biden’s son Hunter and his business partners did receive such payments, but most of the money went to the business partners. About $7.5 million of it went to Hunter Biden. There is no evidence that any of it went to Joe Biden.

All of the committee’s claims have similar reality checks. Jonathan Yerushalmy of The Guardian wrote that after nearly 40,000 pages of bank records and dozens of hours of testimony, “no evidence has emerged that Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current or previous role.”

Still, the constant hyping of their claims on right-wing media led then–House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to authorize an impeachment inquiry in mid-September, and in mid-December, Republicans in the House formalized the inquiry.

There is more behind the attack on Biden than simply trying to even the score between him and Trump—who remains angry at his impeachments and has demanded Republicans retaliate—or to smear Biden through an “investigation,” which has been a standard technique of the Republicans since the mid-1990s.

Claiming that Biden is as corrupt as Trump undermines faith in our democracy. After all, if everyone is a crook, why does it matter which one is in office? And what makes American democracy any different from the authoritarian systems of Russia or Hungary or Venezuela, where leaders grab what they can for themselves and their followers?

Democracies are different from authoritarian governments because they have laws to prevent the corruption in which it appears Trump engaged. The fact that Republicans refuse to hold their own party members accountable to those laws while smearing their opponents says far more about them than it does about the nature of democracy.

It does, though, highlight that our democracy is in danger.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#corrupt GOP #corruption #letters from an american #heather cox richardson #Emolument

17 notes · View notes

stirringwinds · 1 year

Note

When it comes to personifications, what do you think are the factors that cause a nation to have a “modern” form derived from an “ancient” personification (i.e. Greece and Ancient Greece, Egypt and ancient Egypt)? I mean, I get that it may be an inconsistentency or creative choice done by Himaruya, but how is it possible for other older nations to manage to live for so long without producing a “modern heir” to replace them in the present day (i.e. China, Japan, Korea, India, Mongolia, etc.)?

interesting question! i definitely agree this is something inherently subjective. there isn’t really a singular way of interpreting the complexity of history, let alone how we’d transpose that history onto the helltalias and their lifespan. at least for me, i rationalise some of it in relation to historiography and dynamics of political-cultural contiguity, such as with how Himaruya takes opposing approaches for China and Rome (whom i will focus on in this ask).

for China (aka my great-grandpa): in terms of history, i want to first emphasise that all cultures change; it isn’t a perfectly continuous, unbroken 4,000 year old civilisation, even if we often like to trace Chinese history right back to the ostensible Xia dynasty. there are some elements that have endured for a very long time (like the writing system)—but there were also periods of political disruption very similar to the fall of Rome (and one can argue Rome endured in many ways). however, in terms of melding it to hetalia canon—Yao being old as balls fits quite nicely with the ‘dynastic cycle’ historiography of China—that Chinese history is an unbroken succession of dynasties. Which is flawed actually, but which has tended to dominate perceptions of Chinese history all the same. ergo—‘the empire long divided must unite’, or the thought of the first emperor ‘uniting China’ (as opposed to ‘conquering a vast empire stretching from the north all the way down South to Vietnam and other non-Han ‘Baiyue’ tribes, and Sinicising dozens of different nations that had some similarities with how conquered European and Middle Eastern/North African regions ‘became Roman’).

to me, Yao being extremely old also fits with the way Chinese cultural influence has dominated in the region in terms of influence on material culture, philosophy and language. Like, in the Confucian hierarchy, age = prestige. He sees himself as the great empire and well spring of civilisation (humble? nah, he’s rather arrogant). He’s older than Kiku and Yong-soo, and likes to assert he is older than Lien (Vietnam) which she contests lol. With Kiku especially, I see a very long-running mentor/protege dynamic between them that has at times turned into an ‘ambitious apprentice backstabs his master’ relationship even before the modern era (i.e Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s attempted invasion of Ming China). There are also certain cyclical elements in Chinese culture; like China was historically influenced by Buddhism that came via India and its concepts of reincarnation. So, he dies but he comes back all the same, no matter if it’s in a different form (kingdom to empire to republic). as i headcanon him, there’s a mix of calm (i will endure and wait for spring to come again) but also sometimes spitefulness lol (i’m not dead yet, fuckers).

for Rome: i do headcanon that the Italybros are his sons not grandsons. when it comes to the historiography and cultural perceptions of it, there’s a lot of thought about ‘the fall of the (western) roman empire’ and in terms of political continuity, yes it is fairly clear that the roman empire is no more. historiographically, there’s a sort of linearity to how people have perceived it too: a dramatic rise and fall, beginning and ends. you have people like Petrarch calling the medieval period the “dark ages”, in contrast to the “light” of Rome and the rest of classical antiquity. this is something that most medieval historians today won’t agree with (incl my old professor haha who was a specialist in women’s medieval history)—the parts of Europe (and MENA) that made up the old Roman Empire sure as hell didn’t stand still for a thousand years until the Renaissance; it was a period of cultural developments and not simply darkness and ignorance. but, in terms of transposing it to hetalia—i kind of think Roma being dead fits nicely with 1) the way people have perceived the history of Rome (rise and fall) 2) the medieval developments— all the new European states (and some older ones) emerging from the shattered remnants of the empire, all of them changed by Rome in some ways (Latin --> different Romance languages.) in contrast to China, i guess reincarnation is less of a concept in the Roman pantheon or in Christianity.

i think there’s also a sort of ironic poetry to it, when the fall of Rome is put in context of larger imperial and global history. Rome becomes this mythical figure who haunts the imagination of the European personifications precisely because he’s dead— the towering patriarch who is the model of a grand maritime empire that all of them that used to be Roman colonies/provinces strive for in the 15th century onwards. Like, the Spanish empire had a motto of “further beyond” (plus ultra). In the Aeneid, Jupiter is said to grant the Romans “empire without limit” (imperium sine fine). Even England, where there was this duelling narrative of lionising Boudica (the Iceni queen who fought the Roman conquerors and burned Roman London the ground) and longing to be as great as Rome (there’s a caption on a Victorian-era statue of Boudica in London saying “regions Caesar never knew / thy posterity shall sway”. “Britannia” itself as a name for the UK is ofc from Roman rule. so when it comes down to it, i guess it really is a creative choice by Himaruya (and ourselves). and for me, it’s not just about Rome and China (or any other nation’s) own history but also thinking about historiography (i.e how that history is understood, in terms of dynastic cycles or rise and fall) + relationship with other characters.

#hetalia #hetalia headcanons #hws china #hws rome #aph china #aph rome #hetalia meta #also i am a romechu shipper lol and i guess i am here for the #vibes of Yao remembering a world long gone

105 notes · View notes

brrrkdslek · 7 months

Text

CHAPTER 1 ― THE VEIL OF GRIEF

🂱 an event known as 'THE PULSE' occurs worldwide, granting a significant portion of the population extraordinary abilities. you, a grieving mother, encounters a group of boys while seeking refuge. the newfound group navigates a changing society while uncovering the truth behind the pulse.

🂱 ot8 x fem! reader

🂱 thriller, mystery, superhero, action, written

🂱 mentions of rape and death, corrupt government

🂱 1.6k

🂱 EMERGENCE. mlist

THE MACHINE CRACKED AND MADE NOISES as the others sweatdropped. "sir... are you sure about this?" the man groaned and hit the machine a few times, "of course i am! this will bring everything to peace," the man turned to his subordinates, "it's what we've been waiting for. we could save everybody, you know this."

the boy looks down as he hesitated, "but... what if it goes wrong?" the others stiffen but only continue on their work, "what if we end up killing every-" a slap was heard, it echoed through the quiet walls of the underground workspace.

the man grips the boy's hair, "THEN LET THEM DIE! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!?" the man's hoarse voice bounced off the walls, "THIS COUNTRY HAS TURNED TO SHIT, EVERYONE WOULD RATHER DIE!" he shoved the boy aside, before regaining his composure. "we're simply doing them a favour."

and what he said was true. in the year 2025, the north and south combined, creating the country as they know now, new korea. the governmental policies in north korea had influenced the south at the time, resulting in the merging of the two countries.

now, everything was strict. you could end up in prison for simple things such as littering, or sleeping on the streets. taxes has risen by 10% bringing 1/8 of koreans in deep debt or on the streets, crimes such as bullying, sexual harassment and even rape could be dismissed if one had connections and or an alibi. the rights and wrongs were all in reverse.

it had gotten so bad that new korea had antagonised lots of neighbouring countries. even almost starting a war with zonguo, the new china. even now, there are zonguo soldiers lined up at the shore, preparing for war any minute. and the same went for new korea.

but still, koreans tried their best to maintain their society as a whole, slowly crumbling from the inside. nowadays, barely any people visited new korea, simply because of their policies and regulations. if one were to even badmouth the governor or make fun of any government related workers, they could be killed.

everything had turned into a blur, including your childhood, which didn't really feel like your childhood. you were raped at 15 and left with a baby girl. despite the circumstances, you kept the baby and raised her with yourself.

you were incredibly thankful for your parents who accepted your daughter with open arms, until they decided to kill her. your heart clenched at the memory; she laid on the living room ground, face pale and eyes dull. you remembered how fake their cries were, how fake their alibi was.

unfortunately for you, they had deep connections with a member of the court, which successfully dismissed the case as suicide. how pathetic was that, suicide? a five year old little girl committing suicide, it brought more tears to your eyes as you wailed loudly, gripped the stuffed bear in your arms tightly.

passerby's shot you concerned looks as you bawled your eyes out, but you didn't care, not when you were grieving. well, you shouldn't be grieving, actually. it's been almost ten years now, but you could never get over it, over her, your daughter.

you stare ahead with blurry eyes and read the inscription of the tomb, 'here lies, l/n sapphire'. you gripped your chest, the feeling of emptiness in your heart was so familiar to you as you've been coming here every single day ever since she passed. everyone seemed to have forgotten about her, but you didn't. how could you? she was your literal daughter.

you could feel a gush of wind pass you and shivered at the feeling, could it have been sapphire? no, y/n stop making yourself feel like this. you are an adult, you are responsible, you can't be sad and ugly all the time.

you sniffled and hiccupped while you grabbed the chocolate donuts from your bag, placing it next to her headstone. "sapphie, hey- uh, it's mommy. i missed you a lot, did you miss me too?" you wiped your swollen eyes with your tissue before blowing into it, "i brought your favourite- i, i hope you're happy up there..." feeling yourself tear up again, you gripped the grass below you, "take care of yourself, okay?"

you checked your watch before reluctantly standing up. despite being in constant grievance, you still worked hard to provide for yourself. picking up the phone as it rang, you coughed before answering, "hello?" "ms. l/n, please come over quickly!" hearing the tremble in your coworker's voice, you began walking quicker.

"jumin, what happened?" "i-i don't know! secretary lim suddenly started screaming and said he's seeing things- oh my god, taejin! are you oka-" the line suddenly cut off. you felt your heartbeat quicken when the line cut off, what happened? you called back as you began jogging to your car, why's the sky turning so blue?

you stopped. why- why is everything so... blue? you turn around and observe every direction of your surroundings, everything seeming a different shade of blue. you saw a man crouched on the ground, clenching his heart as tears cascaded down his face.

"sir! are you okay!?" you crouched down onto the pavement where the man was. he coughed out a sob, bunching his shirt in his hand, "no! i-i feel so sad," he looked up at you with tear-filled eyes, "like something's missing, someone." you held the man steady as the words were too familiar, tears of your own begin to fall. "i feel so empty- but i don't know why..."

his hands fall to the pavement as the grief and sorrow fills his body, making him sob loudly. you tried to stand up, but slipped and scrapped your knee, letting out a small hiss. the blue atmosphere then vanished, leaving you stunned.

the man begins to sniffle, the sadness finally leaving his system as he looks up at you. blood gushing out of your open-wound as you searched in your purse for your packet of tissues. "ah, please let me help." he dug into his pocket and pulls out a few sanitary napkins, dabbing at the wound gently.

you observe the man's face, "are... you okay, now?" he looks up, "ah, yes. i don't know what that was back there," he frowns, "i've... never felt such pain before." you and the man maintain eye contact for a few seconds until you speak, "mr. park?" he perks up at the mention of his name, "yes, how do you know me...?"

the stabbing pain in your chest beings to make itself present again as you smiled apologetically, "you were the doctor who tried to save my sapphire..." his eyes widen as he takes your hands in his immediately, "oh... ms. l/n," he begins tearing up, "i'm... so sorry i couldn't-" "it's fine, really! you did your best, mr. park..."

he caresses your hands gently, "you can call me seonghwa." you smiled gently, "then you can call me y/n." seonghwa shoots back a smile as he goes back to treating your wound. "ah, the blood never seems to stop." he furrows his eyebrows as you watch him work. he holds your leg and squeezes, trying to stop the blood from coming.

instead, your leg tingles with a warm feeling as green sparkles are seen around your wound and his hands, "are... are you seeing this, seonghwa?" he squealed and pulled away, the sparkles disappearing with the warmth. you watch as your wound closes up right then, not even leaving a scar behind.

"oh my god..." you couldn't believe it. you looked up as you and seonghwa shared the same look of 'what the fuck?'. seonghwa looks down at his hands, the green sparkles suddenly coming back, tingling and warming his hands. you two stood up, confused as fuck. quiet for a moment, the cogwheels in your head turn, "wait, if that was you, does that mean the blue thing was... me?"

"but how though, how did you manifest it?" you looked down at your trembling hands, "i-i don't know, it just came when-" "i felt sad, like so damn sad," you share a look as you spoke in unison, "like something's missing." your eyes widen, "it's my sadness?" seonghwa holds your hands in his, "just to be sure, you should try." "but how? i-i don't even know how i-" "just feel, that was what i did too."

you nodded. looking down, you let the sadness and pain of the past take over you again, bringing tears to your eyes yet again. seonghwa watched as a blue dot became visible at your chest, suddenly expanding when a tear slipped from your right eye. his knees buckled at the painful feeling, a tear also leaving his right eye.

as he collapses onto the ground, you crouch down to comfort the man. "ah! i-i'm so sorry, seonghwa!" as the words left your mouth, the blue atmosphere and feeling vanishes again, proving the theory.

he wipes the tear, "i'm alright, but it means that we both have...powers." you stiffen at his words, "but how come...? and why just us?" "maybe there's more people like us, but i can't be sure..." he rubs your shoulder, "for now, we have to keep this a secret, especially with the near war with zonguo." you nodded, "you still have my number right? we should discuss this sooner." "yeah i do," suddenly his phone rings, "shit, i gotta go back to work!"

you bid him goodbye as he begins to sprint in the opposite direction, running into multiple things. you giggle at that, becoming serious again as the realisation hits you; you had powers.

‹ PREV | NEXT ›

#ateez fanfic #ateez x reader #wooyoung x reader #san x reader #mingi x reader #hongjoong x reader #yeosang x reader #jongho x reader #yunho x reader #seonghwa x reader #ateez au #ateez #ateez fic #atz

16 notes · View notes