This is the best summary I could come up with:
China previously warned that the election was critical, as voters could be choosing between war and peace.
Biden’s stance reinforces the One China policy in recognizing Beijing’s claims that Taiwan is historically part of the mainland.
After Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Nov., he said he “made clear” China should not interfere in Taiwan’s election.
The U.S. announced Wednesday that it would be sending an unofficial delegation to Taiwan after the island conducted its election.
It’s unknown how China will react to the new delegation and Lai’s win, but the country previously told the U.S. that it will “not make any concession or compromise” on Taiwan.
Lai, who said he is open to talks with China, posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter thanking voters for electing him and pledged to uphold peace in the Taiwan Straight and to be “a force of good in the international community.”
The original article contains 367 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
…Reports were unclear on whether President Biden’s fingers were crossed at the time or if knowing winks were exchanged with the crowd. Initial statements also do not include a “no takebacks” clause.
“We arent ready to sever ties with China, so we will tow the line and kowtow for the meantime”
I think supporting the One China policy makes pretty clear where he stands and it ain’t with Taiwan.
Taiwan is politically complicated. Taiwan has to play a balancing act where China believes that will Taiwan will willingly rejoin the mainland, while still acting as ‘the true China’. If mainland China believes that it will eventually be resolved diplomatically, they won’t resort to violence. This is complicated with the election of the anti-Chinese president in Taiwan who will push harder against China, upsetting that balance. My guess is that his statements are done to ease Chinese concerns, and/or signal to Taiwan to not antagonize the Chinese.
The US officially supports One China, the US doesn’t have an official statement on who we want to be in charge of that One China. The whole thing is a wink-and-nod sort of operation. Sure, we support the reintegration of Chinese culture and territory. Do we support that existing under Jinping? Ehhhhhhhh. America would be just as happy, or happier, were the Taiwanese government to gain control of greater China. But since we aren’t trying to start a shooting war with greater China, we keep that part quiet.
The Chinese government knows damn well we don’t like them much. We also know they don’t like us much. But we’re economically interdependent and neither of us wants to rattle sabers at the other until our hand is forced. That’s why the situation is full of doublespeak and missing information. It’s intentionally vague so that a non-inflammatory statement can be given without backing oneself into a corner.
Not the Onion?
This is the continuation of settled policy on Taiwan. It is not an internationally recognised nation, it is an autonomous territory within China. Declaring support for independence would be escalatory language from the US and could harm efforts within Taiwan to move in that direction domestically. It would allow the CCP to further push the narrative of foreign interference while lessening the focus on the actual desires of the Taiwanese voters. It’s a very complicated situation compared to something like Ukraine.
You don’t? Ukraine is its own individual recognized country, being invaded by a completely different neighboring country. That just isn’t what’s happening in Taiwan.
That was my point. Ukraine has been recognized worldwide as being its own country for quite some time now. So I don’t understand how the person I replied to said they compare what is happening with Taiwan, which is not universally recognized to be its own country, with what Russia is doing.
Edit: unless I misread what they said… if they were meaning that Taiwan is a complicated situation when compared with what what is going on in Ukraine.
By acknowledging that Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s before Russia did the same. Russia is trying to act like they are the Soviet Union and never recognized Ukrainian independence as opposed to another breakaway state.
Taiwan is the remaining territory of the republic of China, a government that lost the entirety of mainland China in a civil war that neither side claims is over and has just been in a stalemate for most of a century. The koreas are a better comparison than Ukraine.
Placating the Chinese is a failed strategy. It only gives them time to build up a stronger military for the upcoming conflict. It is worth calling their bluff on Taiwan and recognizing it.
Hopefully, tensions don’t escalate to anything other than skirmishes, but the longer the US waits, the more casualties it will incur from false hope this will get resolved diplomatically.
Chinese military is mostly defensive, they might take a few regional territories they consider to be a part of China, like Tibet and Taiwan, but they don’t have much interest in using their military to invade a country like Japan. That said, no one is going to defeat the Chinese in a ground invasion of China, they are pretty fucking tough.
Princess Bride joke about a ground war in Asia stands. LOL
Seriously though, we want to deter China, not invade them. NOBODY wants to invade China. What a fuck hell that would be, and so pointless. Plus right now China is failing badly, with respect to their country’s internal issues. I suspect that’s a big part of why Xi is beating the war drum so hard, in order to distract from domestic catastrophes.
But their military is still in very bad shape, the military purge Xi just did recently is because of all the grafting and corruption and how screwed most of their systems are. They have the tech they’ve stolen from the US, but that doesn’t translate to the ability to manufacture it reliably, manage logistics of a military, etc. They are learning though, and that’s what I mean about giving them time.
Right now their three air craft carriers are literally a bad joke. They’re dammed near useless, and they have scandals with their missile systems and the missiles, and so on across the board. BUT this will get better over the years. I’d rather skirmishes and standing fast on right of navigation, and dismantling of the military islands they’ve created, along with Taiwan independence now—instead of once they have REAL air craft, and missiles they can rely on, and refined equipment designs that fix the subtle flaws that have a huge impact when deployed for real.
I don’t think we’re in any serious disagreement here. Avoiding an invasion of China is a MUST. But pushing for what the world needs, freedom of navigation, Taiwan, and dismantling the illegal military islands… that’s best done now. Where worst case scenario has a far smaller impact on our forces. And if it weakens Xi, then that’d be great. He’s a terrible dictator and I wouldn’t cry if he was gone.
The US has already decided the opposite. The big push for chip manufacture in the US is about making it easier to cut ties with Taiwan down the road.
Agree that chip manufacturing is a component of the decision making and contingency planning. I disagree with drawing too much of a conclusion about US intent from it. If things work out, the US will happily continue importing chips even as our own capacity grows.
Part of the push for US Chip manufacturing is finally recognizing it as a national defense issue. The US isn’t the only country doing this (setting up their own). Modern militaries are crippled without chips. So it’s not necessarily a definitive line to the Taiwan policy.
While, I don’t disagree that it’s a factor, but I would debate the inference and weight of the factor.
making it easier to cut ties with Taiwan down the road.
It’s a smart strategic decision to not be caught without chips in the event of a war between Taiwan and China.
It will work fine due to circumstances. China is facing a demographic cliff due to the effects of the One Child Policy. They have to start a war in the next few years or they won’t be able to for at least another generation. Probably more like two or three. They have too many old people and not enough young people to take care of them.
With their recent economic downturn (relatively speaking; their GDP is still growing >5%/year) the window may already be closed.
They can continue to be the world’s factory, or they can make a big military to take Taiwan and keep the US Navy out of their sphere of influence. They can’t do both.
