TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China’s military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island’s defense ministry said Monday was a daily record in recent times.
Why tf is west Taiwan so far up mainland Taiwan’s asshole?
Whats the deal with china and taiwan? Is it the same shit as russia and ukraine?
Edit: why am i being downvoted? Am i not allowed to be uninformed?
Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China (ROC), ruled by the nationalist KMT, after the defeat of Imperial Japan, which had occupied it. The KMT forces lost the civil war on the mainland against the communists and fled to Taiwan, claiming to be the true government of China. The ROC was a military dictatorship until the late 80s and responsible for the White Terror. At first, the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) couldn’t follow and invade Taiwan because they lacked a navy, and soon after, the ROC got US protection (Taiwan was in important US military base during the Korean war).
In the 70s, Nixon recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing as the legitimate government of China, and un-recognized Taipei. He also signed an agreement with the PRC stating that there is one China, and that Taiwan is part of China. White House spokespeople reaffirm this regularly when asked. They never actually properly committed to this though: In practice the US treats Taiwan almost like it is independent, but they avoid calling it that officially. So the US is arguably in breach of its agreement with China on this point, and always was (though I think this was understood by all sides at the time of signing).
In this agreement, the US also promised to work towards reunification and to demilitarize Taiwan. They did in fact remove US troops from Taiwan and scaled down weapons deliveries. Lately though, they are increasingly breaking these promises with more weapons deliveries, more US military personnel on Taiwan, and open support for pro-independence positions and politicians.
The PRC for its part promised to work towards peaceful reunification and not use military force. So far they haven’t, so this is currently a one-sided breach of the agreement by the US. Why is the US breaking an agreement that so far has prevented a military conflict?
Both Beijing, as well as the majority of people on Taiwan, are in favor of continuing the status quo for a while longer. But Beijing has made it clear that they will not accept Taiwan declaring independence, and they certainly do not want a hostile military presence so close to the Chinese mainland and important port cities. The PRC has threatened to blockade/invade Taiwan if independence is declared or if there is a military buildup.
This mostly correct.
But the US isn’t responsible for Taiwan’s increased interest in independence. Taiwan is.
After the Sunflower Movement and witnessing what happened to HK, young Taiwanese are overwhelmingly in favor of independence. So much so that independence has become all but stated as the platform of the DPP. The KMT is now the pro-unification party, but outside of the last mid-terms, they have been getting slaughtered in elections and had to tone down their pro-China rhetoric.
Status quo is definitely still the overall majority, but that is going to change with demographics and the next generation overwhelmingly favor independence.
As they should. China was not the first owner of Taiwan, and over the course of Taiwan’s history, their control of the island was relatively short. This is not even speaking of the Indigenous Taiwanese who are always left out of the conversation about Taiwan and have never been citizens of China or had Chinese heritage.
If China wanted peaceful unification they can have it tomorrow.
Cede all power to Taiwan and they can be one country. They definitely won’t be bullied by Taiwan and unlike China Taiwan would accept differing opinions. It’s been done successfully before to a large extent. East and West Germany joined together as one country without the need for border fences or two systems in one country. Just imagine what a basket case of a country if it happened the other way around. 2 systems, border fences different currencies, declining standings on corruption, political freedom etc.
But of course they’ll never do that. Because deep down it’s not the country they care about. They only care about the CCP itself.
Edit: looks like the wumaos are in force, not surprising as a large number of them are otherwise unemployed now 😂
During the Communist revolution the republic government was losing pretty badly and fell back to the very defensible island. They’ve been there ever since with their official name: the Republic of China. So there’s some civil war tension there and a lot of claims of who’s the rightful ruler of China.
Please don’t skip the critical pieces of information:
The British and USA sent war ships to defend the KMT on Taiwan because they had been trading and negotiating junior status with the KMT and did not want the West to lose access to Chinese markets, labor, and natural resources.
The KMT immediately launched a 40-year terror campaign, called the White Terror, on the island of Taiwan and killed native Islanders as well as Han Chinese who argued that the war should be ended. The European powers funded, traded, and armed this terror.
Taiwan has been part of the nation of China for centuries. It could be argued that the distinct cultural group of native Islanders could get its own autonomous administration region, but the natives don’t have much population on the island. The island has been Chinese and is inhabited by Chinese who lost the civil war and tried to secede under the protection of the Europeans, with the Europeans motivated by having a fully dependent neo-colony by prolonging the civil war and supporting the fascist terror.
Since you are talking about historic precedence, what is called “China” today should be called West-Taiwan because the Republic of China aka Taiwan is the original China, preceding the "P"RC.
Taiwan’s position is no longer that it is the rightful ruler of China. That notion died with Chiang Kai-shek and nobody with a shred of a brain truly believes it.
The PRC won the fight over who “legitimate China” is when the UN gave them the seat for China. Also, one of these is an international superpower and the other is Taiwan.
China still fears economic and military repercussions in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.
As long as its economy is ill due to current factors like inflation, banking instability, and the inflated real estate market, we can assume that a war would be an economic and political shock right now that even Xi might struggle to navigate.
Edit: for everyone disagreeing, every foreign expert is expecting a war, and even the current US deterrence (criticized here as escalation) is not enough for most experts.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/08/us-military-deterrence-china-taiwan-war-east-asia/
Are you kidding, this is when China is starting to be most dangerous.
Internal strife of a country has always been the biggest factor on when that country goes to war. Creating a distraction for the populace and a bogeyman for them to hate is part of the autocratic playback.
Look back at the trump administration and how eager he was to bomb Iran and start a war. Or the current invasion of ukraine and the economic issues in Russia before the invasion.
It’s not the sole driver but it’s a big one.
I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. An internal strife alone doesn’t necessarily lead to military action.
A military conflict involving Taiwan would have global implications, affecting regional stability and the world economy. Xi is fully aware of that and knows that his political power extends only as far as his economy remains stable. Looking at the last BRICS meeting, we see that China is eager to compensate for any economic embargoes with a stable structure and demand from its partners – which, as of today, is still a work in progress.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian war has shown, the West can swiftly mitigate major impacts on its economy (see Germany moving completely away from gas exports from Russia). China is aware of that too and knows that while devastating, the west will work closely together to compensate such an economic distaster and cut ties with China completly.
While the current situation requires vigilance and preparation for the worst, we can at least see that China remains in absolute need of its Western allies, and a military intervention would be a complete disaster, even for Xi.
That’s likely why he’s consolidating power by eliminating political opponents and critics, but history has shown that being blinded by power, as Putin is in the case of Ukraine, leads to devastation.
It’s not even internal strife. It all comes down to it’s now or never. If they let this opportunity slip by they will never get Taiwan.
Their population is declining and there’s nothing that can be done about it in any meaningful way. Nothing has worked to get people to have more children. As they get older people of military age will decline.
Right now this generation the males outnumber the females. Which means expendable soldiers. These people will never marry and benefit the state in anyway.
The leverage China has is it’s consumers it’s one of the largest markets. But the Chinese buying things to support international companies is quite minuscule as a percentage of the population and will decline as time goes on, they get all the media attention that’s all . They’ve been struggling to boost internal consumption for years.
And it isn’t that surprising. Chinese people are one of the most tightarse people ever. They haggle everything and that’s even if they get to the point of actually going to buy it. Spending money to make money usually doesn’t factor in.
How much worse is their internal strife going to be once they lose a war? Russia was tooling along before attacking Ukraine, but now they might actually for real topple within a few years.
I doubt you will see a major shift in policy after the Ukraine war.
We will probably see putin fall but the goverment he built and is responsible for what’s happening in Russia today will still be there.
Financially Russia is largely fucked
Agreed. They’d also have to be pretty sure they’d make up the deficit from potential sanctions/lost exports. [https://trendeconomy.com/data/h2?commodity=TOTAL&reporter=China&trade_flow=Export,Import&partner=World&indicator=TV,YoY&time_period=2021,2022](20% of their GDP is exports ) with the US, Japan, and Korea making up close to 25% of that.
It’s probably why they are watching Russia so closely and investing in Africa heavily.
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, has conducted increasingly large military drills in the air and waters around Taiwan as tensions have grown between the two and with the United States. The U.S. is Taiwan’s main supplier of arms and opposes any attempt to change Taiwan’s status by force.
Can you imagine China constantly patrolling around Hawaii and threatening the USA? Stirring up tensions and trying to paint the US as the aggressor?
I love how tankies excuse imperialism for their favorite dictatorships. Y’all can’t even tell the difference between Taiwan and Hawaii.
Most of the dimensions along which Taiwan and Hawaii differ in their relation to the mainland regional hegemon are net positive for the tankie position.
-
Hawaii is much farther away from the USA mainland than Taiwan to the Chinese mainland. This makes Chinese naval exercises around the island of Taiwan much less threatening to the USA than USA naval exercises around the island of Taiwan. (Taiwan and Key West are much more comparable on distance)
-
The USA is illegally occupying Hawaii according to its own laws and international laws. The island of Taiwan has been part of the nation of China for centuries.
-
The Chinese people have been on Taiwan for centuries. White settlers have been on Hawaii for much less time.
-
The island of Taiwan is occupied by the loser in a civil war that the USA and UK protected and armed while they conducted a 40-year terror campaign called the White Terror where the purged all of their ideological opponents through mass murders, mass executions, and fascist oppression. The USA and UK happily protected, funded, and supported this. By contrast, the islands of Hawaii are occupied by settler colonists and the most violent and destructive military in world history while the original inhabitants of the island are still there and still trying to assert their sovereignty against the illegal occupation.
-
China has more experience running one country with multiple autonomous regions than any country in the history of the world. These autonomous regions have settler colonial legal structures coexisting with Chinese legal structures because China has no interest in brutal domination. By contrast, the USA brutally dominates Hawaii, denying all indigenous systems of government, and actively destroying their environment, buying up their land like cultures, and is engaged in the classic settler colonial project of indigenous genocide.
-
Taiwan is collaborating with the UK, Japan, and USA, all countries that have been actively attempting to dominate China and the Chinese people for centuries. There is no legitimate way to express Taiwanese secession that isn’t establishing it even further as a neo-colony of violent fascists. Hawaii, on the other hand, has no history of collaboration with the enemies of the USA and return of indigenous sovereignty does not mean encirclement of the continental USA.
Essentially, if China was doing naval exercises near Hawaii it would be far less offensive than the USA doing them near Taiwan, and yet, we all know the USA would be screaming bloody murder and beating the war drums louder than ever.
The fact that you think the false equivalency is in your favor shows just how ignorant of history you are.
I don’t really agree with all the points you listed, but I want to say thank you for not employing the Hexbear approach to defend your position. I gave you an upvote.
ps. before anyone berates me for not also listing reasons to defend myself: I’m tired of arguing online.
Honestly a pretty good write up, my only mild rebuttal would be involving the following quotes.
The island of Taiwan has been part of the nation of China for centuries.
The island was first colonized by Europeans, then the han, the Japanese, the qing, and finally back to the han via ROC. It kinda predates the notion of modern nation states, and thus is difficult to to claim that it’s been part of the Nation of China for centuries.
The Chinese people have been on Taiwan for centuries. White settlers have been on Hawaii for much less time.
Europeans were colonizing Taiwan before the Han, I don’t think that really justifies the colonialism any more.
These autonoumous regions have settler colonial legal structures coexisting with Chinese legal structures because China has no interest in brutal domination.
I think co-existing is granting the government a little more grace than what really exist. The settler colonial structures are just the window dressing for the same colonialism practiced throughout human history.
The Chinese government violently overthrows the ruling government and sets up an “autonomous” government filled with party loyalist. They then subsidize immigration until the native population is a minority to Han immigrants.
I think one of the problem we have in the left is that there is an a knee jerk reaction to excuse the imperialism we see in leftist states by comparing it to the imperialism of the west. Which is understandable, the west has done some horrific stuff.
However a lot of these actions are only somewhat justified in juxtaposition to the same types of actions from people like the US. It’s the same tactic that the US does when they juxtapose themselves against the actions of literal nazi. It’s kind of a low bar we keep running into.
I just don’t think criticisms of any leftist nation should automatically be followed by people calling them shills or libs. Self criticism is an essential tenant of Marxism, and it just doesn’t seem to be allowed anymore.
You missed point 7 which is that Taiwan is populated entirely by a people who already believe they’re an independent country, and want to be an independent country, and have a government that is not China and operates autonomously from China.
- Feeling threatened is no justification for invasion
- Why does legality inform your morality. Especially laws from a country you despise?
- This is blood and soil rhetoric
- Current day Taiwan is able to outgrow its fascist past by being free from its current day fascist neighbour.
- Tell that to Hong Kong, Tibet and the Uyghurs.
- Taiwan, just like any political entity should be able to associate with whichever country it wants. Advocating otherwise is arguing to colonize Taiwan.
“Imperialism”? What the fuck are you talking about?
Whoever taught the lib masses to mindlessly repeat this word needs to get the wall.
Calm down fash, no need to kill your political opponents because you got trigger by a word.
Hawaii was taken by force by white american capitalists. I think Hawaii might embrace Chinese protection. USA can’t even keep the island from burning or bring proper temporary housing for the victims.
