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0 pointspeoplefromibiza3y ago0 comments

> is not a buffer state between two major political powers

Ukraine is not a buffer state between two powers though.

Only Americans see it like that, after they regained independence from USSR.

Ukrainians are an east Slavic ethnic group native of Ukraine, separated from Russians, who descend from Finno-Ugric tribes.

Unlike 97% of Taiwanese people, who are Han Chinese like in mainland China.

Taiwan is more like Catalonia, where Catalans insist that they are different from Spaniards, but the conclusion is that Catalans including other Spaniards and even Portuguese are the same ethnic people

EDIT: immediate downvotes are probably from Russian zealots pretending that the World is indeed 100% Russian and should stay like that.

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hosh3y ago

A buffer state can still have sovereignty. For example, North Korea is a buffer state between Chinese/Russia and South Korea / Japan, America. This is more about geopolitical realities than territory and culture claimed by ethnic groups.

If you are thinking of _vassal_ states, historically, Imperial China had some. A more complicated example, Qing-dynasty, Manchurian-controlled China tried to treat the kingdom of Korea as one.

As far as I know, neither Ukraine or Taiwan were or are vassal states.

peoplefromibizaOP3y ago

> North Korea

That is inhabited by the same Koreans that live in the south and only exists for geopolitcal reasons.

Just like east and west Germany.

Ukraine exists because Ukranian people exist.

Belgium is more of a buffer state than Ukraine

(no, I'm not Ukranian, far from it)

ilammy3y ago

It is not about nationality, or ethnicity, or anything else about people living there, except international recognition of the territory and the amount of sovereignty it has.

It is about geopolitical situation, where states A and C happen to have state B between them. When relations between A and C go real sour, then B becomes a buffer state between them (unless B is powerful enough to kick asses of both A and C, should anything escalate). The buffer state’s role in geopolitics is to get invaded first on the way, cause an international outrage, and hopefully defuse the tensions before A gets to “C proper” territory, or at least stall the invasion.

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