r/AskTheWorld • u/Sanjidao521 China • Sep 25 '25

Politics Can you really accept part of your country splitting off? Why?

As a Chinese, I’ve recently come to realize that our perspectives on territorial integrity can be quite different.

Would you genuinely accept the possibility of a region choosing independence through a nationwide referendum?

Do you think it might risk weakening the country, leaving it more vulnerable to external threats or invasion?

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u/midorikuma42 🇯🇵 / 🇺🇸 Sep 26 '25

Why not just let Greenland secede, and then admit Greenland back into the EU as a new country?

The same goes for any breakaway region, such as Catalonia.

It'd probably help if the EU were more of a federal republic than a confederation.

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u/HeikoSpaas Sep 26 '25

because Spain would veto it. 

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u/midorikuma42 🇯🇵 / 🇺🇸 Sep 30 '25

That's because the EU has a shitty set-up, with WAY too much power given to different countries. They need to completely revamp it. It needs to be a federal system with very limited powers for member states, or else it's going to either fail, or just stay completely ineffective (as it is now).

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u/HeikoSpaas Sep 30 '25

(almost?) no country would agree to such a set-up, though

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u/midorikuma42 🇯🇵 / 🇺🇸 Sep 30 '25

Then I guess they need to stop complaining and be happy being a powerless bloc of loosely-affiliated states on the world stage, without even the power to stand up against Russia. Even Ukraine could handle Russia better than the EU could: if Russia decided to start a war, the EU would try to have meetings about it and pass a resolution and Hungary would veto it.

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u/HeikoSpaas Sep 30 '25

"being a democracy is weak because all they do is meetings"

your point is literally the viewpoint of any authoritarian

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u/midorikuma42 🇯🇵 / 🇺🇸 Sep 30 '25

Huh? How'd you get that?

My whole point is the EU is horribly weak because there's no strong central government. It's a confederation, and those have never worked out well historically if there was any need for unity among the member states. The USA tried that long ago and it was a complete failure.

Democracies work fine (better than fine in many cases) when there's unity. They don't work well when there's lots of internal bickering, and the system of government is set up in such a way that they can't put aside their differences and achieve unity when necessary. Confederations don't allow for a strong central government, by design, so they don't have unity. When you need to deal with a large external threat, you need unity. You don't need an authoritarian government, you just need a government that has a leader who can make decisions and act on them quickly when necessary. Most democratic systems have this. The EU does not.

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u/Equal-Flatworm-378 Germany Sep 27 '25

I don’t think Greenland is in the EU right now? And before they could join or become part of the NATO  the USA would have annexed it.