AssortedBiscuits

Russian diplomacy is at their weakest, which is why almost every single African country sent a delegation to Moscow.

I just upvote every comment that has pronouns or lemmygrad.ml without even reading the comment.

No, I do not support the fascist regime of Ukraine. Why would I follow their leader?

Whether a nation or people is sovereign or not is a statement of reality, and part of sovereignty is whether other sovereign countries are able to vouch for your sovereignty. Just formally acknowledging your sovereignty like having an embassy is the bare minimum, but there's more like defense treaties, economic deals, and joining organizations. At the end of the day, there will be other countries and entities that will seek to challenge and destroy a country's sovereignty and unless you have a fleet of Gundams, you'll need other countries to rush to your defense when it's challenged. Nobody can do it alone.

If you're talking about cases like the ROC being in the UN instead of the PRC even though the PRC is de facto far larger than the ROC, remember that the UN isn't an immutable organization. There's nothing stopping the ROC from denouncing the UN as a sham organization after getting kicked out and starting their own rival organization called the League of United Nations or something and getting other countries to cosign to this new organization. There's nothing stopping the ROC from campaigning their allies (ie the West and various Western vassals) to leave the UN and join the LUN. But for obvious reasons, a LUN would never happen because the ROC doesn't have many allies. Most countries, including its so-called allies, see Taiwan as a US unsinkable aircraft carrier that'll inevitably be reunited with the Mainland, whether peacefully or by force, or be completely destroyed in the process of a US-China war.

How do you go from there - economic dependence and decreasing recognition - to not being self sovereign? They run a government and have elections. As another hexbear pointed out

At a basic level, to be a sovereign country is for the people of that country to have the ability to determine their own collective destiny. Now, sovereignty is not a simple binary but a scale since powerful countries have the potential for greater influence than smaller countries who must fight against the influence of larger countries.

Vietnam has sovereignty. It has an independent military that is battle-tested through winning numerous wars against its neighbors and the US, it has a seat within the UN where it can lobby its interest before a global body of nations, it has international treaties with numerous countries and is free to sign more or back away from treaties if it's in its geopolitical interests, it is part of many international organizations like ASEAN, and it has an extremely savvy ruling party who knows how to play off the blocs against each other for Vietnam's benefit. It's even taking steps to be completely food independent so they won't get fucked over by sanctions and climate change. The only real mark against their sovereignty is the PRC (and ROC) presence in the SCS.

Taiwan, in contrast, has little to no sovereignty. Its military is completely dependent on the US. If it wasn't for the 7th Fleet constantly bailing out Taiwan, Taiwan would've long since been reunited with the Mainland. It has no seat in the UN. A grand total of 12 UN states, many of them Pacific islands that Taiwan constantly bribes for their continued recognition, plus Vatican City recognizes Taiwan. Because Taiwan is not a UN state, it cannot belong to a lot of organizations. Just a few days ago, Taiwan got expelled from the Central American Parliament. The Central American Parliament isn't some hugely important organization and that's part of the point. Taiwan has already been shut out of important organizations like the UN and the WHO and now they're even being shut out of even less important ones. Taiwan has to compete in the Olympics under the humiliating title "Chinese Taipei" and instead of boycotting the Olympics, they choose to compete with that humiliating title, further cementing their inability to move beyond what the PRC and the rest of the world has placed them in. Neither the KMT and nor the DPP are pursuing policies that would bolster Taiwan's little sovereignty, with the KMT thinking if they can kiss the PRC ass enough times, the PRC won't invade Taiwan and with the DPP thinking if they can lick Uncle Sam's boots enough times, the US would save Taiwan and not abandon them like the US did with Afghanistan. Taiwan is also overly dependent on trade with the PRC and in general, Taiwan's economy is intertwined with the PRC, meaning if the PRC does shit like temporary ban some Taiwanese imports, the entire economy feels the strain.

This is a country that's economically dependent on one country and militarily dependent on another country. This is not a sovereign country. This is a pawn that's being played by two countries that are belligerent with each other.

Taiwan is completely economically dependent on the Mainland and is recognized by an ever shrinking pool of nations?

Taiwan does not view itself as a soverign nation, but for most practical purposes it is one.

Being a sovereign nation is when you don't have a seat in the UN and most sovereign nations refuse to recognize you as an independent nation.

Nobody in SEA likes Taiwan. It doesn't help that Taiwan has two naval bases in the South China Sea and always sides with the PRC against the rest of SEA over the SCS, mostly using the justification of "acktually the SCS is part of Chinese naval waters and we're officially called the Republic of China, so this is Taiwanese naval waters btw since we're officially called the Republic of China."

Were you not around when the hordes of MS fanboys kept on insisting the start menu wasn't necessary acktually for Windows 8?

What tankie tears are you referring to?

More like tears of laughter lol

Putin got tired of getting outranked by Prigo in the Chad-Cuck power ranking.

You know, this could be a pretty funny Linux joke, but the comic had to ruin it with some cringey dick joke.