Painting the eyes of war on the Buddha.
In many traditions, when you paint or sculpt a Buddha, the eyes are the very last to be painted. It’s only after the eyes have been completed that the sculpture is fully alive and empowered.
The US has just approved a $75 million weapons package to Taiwan province involving the sale of the Link 16 communications system.
The acquisition of Link 16 is analogous to “painting the eyes on the Buddha”: a last touch, it makes Taiwan’s military systems and weapons platforms live and far-seeing. It confers deadly powers, or more prosaically, in the words of the US military, it completes Taiwan as the final, lethal link of the multilateral coalition kill chain against China.
uh huh. like china gives a shit. when it decides to take over taiwan, it just will. we can either ww3 over it or not. im hoping not.
It’s actually Daruma they paint the eyes an. He was the monk who brought Zen to Japan from China… not to distract from the seriousness of this post however
Last link in the kill chain? The US already has multiple full-on military bases in Japan, Korea, Guam, and the Philippines. There’s no need for a proxy force in Taiwan just to oppose China.
“it would signal that the Biden administration is as serious and unwavering in its desire to provoke and wage large-scale war with China”
Sure… because -as we all know- giving countries threatened the tools to defend themselves is the real aggression.
Welcome to the average tankie’s upside-down world…
Taiwan would have to be a country first.
It seemingly is, operating independently of China and all. It’s a weird international “must not call it a country” thing but I think everyone recognizes that it de facto is a country even though they pretend it isn’t because politics.
Apple, the second largest American company, refers to the region as Taiwan, China to its suppliers and as Taiwan Province in its regional Apple Maps.
Hm.
Kinda grim view to think Apple, a megacorp, is the one deciding what is a country and what is not.
I’m not sure what you mean as regional map. I’m looking at it right now and it just says Taiwan, nothing about China.
Not that it would be wrong to say it is China. Taiwan is officially called Republic of China and I think they still claim the mainland and that’d make Taiwan (the island) just one province or whatever of China (RoC). The island China (RoC) is usually called Taiwan to differentiate it from mainland China (People’s Republic of China) but also confusingly the island alone is called Taiwan. It’s a mess. It’s usually just said it is a province of China to claim it’s not a country of it’s own.
Consult Apple Maps in China, or in Asian countries which don’t recognize Taiwan.
I think that’s just a legal requirement for operating in PRC. They do NOT like it when people acknowledge Taiwan as a country. In other parts of the world it’d be just Taiwan (or maybe ROC).
Slava taiwan!
