Australia's defence minister Richard Marles said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance.

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

  • eureka@aussie.zoneEnglish
    51·
    5 days ago

    It’s complicated.

    Unfortunately, the Wikipedia articles I found lack citations, so they probably aren’t a good source. They claim that the ROC (Taiwan) claims all of the mainland.

    This reddit thread refers to the ROC constitution and interprets it as:

    In the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan area and the Mainland area, the following is stated:

    “Taiwan Area” refers to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and any other area under the effective control of the Government.

    “Mainland Area” refers to the territory of the Republic of China outside the Taiwan Area.

    “People of the Taiwan Area” refers to the people who have household registrations in the Taiwan Area.

    “People of the Mainland Area” refers to the people who have household registrations in the Mainland Area.

    The implication is that wherever this law applies, is what the ROC government considers to be “territory of the ROC outside of the Taiwan Area”. Currently the application of this law overlaps the entirety of the PRC, minus HK and Macau.

    This the fun part. If you look at the ROC constitution, it makes […] mention to Mongolia and Tibet.

    I don’t know how much of this applies beyond the KMT.