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this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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Why does Xi think he gets any say? He’s showing his full hand already, and it’s actually pathetic. Already saying that it will have to be taken by force. So he’s admitting that the people of Taiwan, if given a choice, may not choose to join China. Let’s give everyone a vote guaranteed by international overwatch, none of those mainland representatives.
This is just another dictator having a whiny shitstorm threatening to take territory by force just because they want their historical empire.
Because the winds are blowing in his favour. Xi (and the rest of the world) have watched Russia take land with little repercussion. The reaction to the invasion of Crimea was mild and allowed for the full on invasion years later. The rules have changed and now leaders are seeing that taking land, which used to be seen as a relic of the past, is back on the menu.
The US and a lot of the west is afraid to get involved and do what needs to be done to stop Putin, and Xi knows that if he waits for the perfect moment Taiwan will be his.
The US is building domestic chip manufacturing in case they lose TSMC, and once it's operational one of the main reasons they consider Taiwan an asset will be gone. Xi likely is hoping the war in Ukraine and Israel will continue and "news fatigue" will render people uninterested in a new conflict. I'm not sure what the final nail will be that makes him move, but a controllable president like Trump getting in is a good bet.
I think there are two differences between Taiwan and Ukraine: Putin is fucking insane and might actually use nukes if attacked directly by a NATO nation, but I don't think Xi would do that (I could be wrong on both assessments). And Ukraine doesn't really have anything the world wants, while Taiwan (like you correctly pointed out) is about the only place that makes high performance computer chips and nobody wants China to have a world-wide stranglehold on that product.
I think, before any chip maker in Taiwan is taken by chinese forces, their factories and laboritories might explode for some reason or another. I don't think that China can take them without catastrophic loss of very expensive and sensitive equipment that requires very specialised workers they don't have. All of these things can't be replaced in a reasonable time frame, especially at war.
If China follows through with an invasion, they might be after something else.
That something else is: Taiwan is an important geographic location. A separate Taiwan prevents China from having full easy access to the Pacific Ocean. If China holds Taiwan, China will be able to project its naval powers much further into the Pacific and the US does not like it.
This has always been the case since the KMT fled to Taiwan, way before Taiwan became a high-tech chip producing country. Way before Taiwan democratized. (Remember, Chiang Kai-Shek himself was a authoritarian asshole that has killed many earlier migrants to Taiwan.)
It's nice to have TSMC producing high-tech chips, but Samsung and Intel can also do so, perhaps only a process node (or half) behind TSMC, but Intel CPUs are no slouch compared to AMD's despite being a node behind. And Samsung have been producing some of nVidia's GPUs so they're not out of the game. But TSMC does need to be recognized and I don't really think it can be reproduced in the US. Taiwan has a very highly educated and underpaid engineering work force. I really don't think you can reproduce the same results in the US at the same costs. Its going to cost 5-10X more to move to the US.
Ukraine is a huge exporter of grain. Breadbasket to much of the world. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/ukraine-s-food-exports-by-the-numbers/.
but not to european and US, and that's what matter
I think Putin is out of touch and lives with a completely different world view than you or I, but I don't think he is insane or suicidal. Look at how far away he stayed from people during COVID.
I think we do ourselves a disservice by bowing down to his sabre rattling every time he reminds us he has nukes. We know, and he also knows the second one will drop on his head if he tries it. It's just posturing to get people likrnus arguing and making his land grab seem more legitimate, like there's nothing we can really do.
He will always have nukes, and if we alwuas back down because not them he will always get his way.
Ukraine has 24% of the world's supply of noble gasses used in computer chip manufacturing, along with 35% of the remaining helium on the planet.
I think the Russians want this very much and that is why Russia is even in Ukraine.
The US is providing funding for companies like TSMC and Intel to buld fabs in the US. The reality is that TSMC is having a very hard time hiring and deal with cultural gaps between Asian working mindset vs. American working mindset. There's going to be some serious pain getting these fabs up and running.
Because the world has said Taiwan is part of China. That’s why. The world needs to recognize Taiwan as its own nation. Everyone wanted that cheap labor in China and ignored Taiwan.
Unfortunately, the main reason the world won't recognize Taiwan as its own nation is because it doesn't have UN status as a nation. And the only way to get status as a nation is get all 5 votes from the UN Security Council. China is on the UN Security Council.
The US is providing military and money to help defend Taiwan from China, but at the same time does not recognize them as independent from China. The whole one-vote veto in the UN is fucking stupid.
The irony is that Taiwan once held that UN security-council seat. I do believe the people of China needs to be represented in the UN, but doing so at the cost of Taiwanese people's representation completely defeats the purpose of having a UN in the first place.
Taiwanese people don’t want the island to be recognized as its own nation though. They benefit from close economic relations with the mainland and so are happy to maintain the status quo. The majority voted against pro independence candidates in recent elections, something this article fails to mention. That of course doesn’t mean Taiwanese people trust the mainland nor do they want to be politically integrated into it. However the situation is more nuanced than many western media outlets would have you believe.
Being reported as Chinese propaganda, but as usual the truth seems to be more nuanced than that...
I will admit, I am not Chinese and my understanding of the deeper issues is imperfect at best, but according to here:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/taiwan/taiwan-already-independent
The Taiwanese people DEFINITELY do not want Unification, but at the same time, they see an official declaration of statehood as superfluous.
It's not so much that they don't WANT independence, it's that, as far as they see it, they already ARE independent, no declaration necessary.
Its nice to have something official and have recognition from the rest of the world and to be able to participate in UN or WHO and as "Taiwan" or even "ROC" instead of "Chinese Taipei" in sport contests.
But there is always a threat of war from China if Taiwan does the above. So no one wants to take that risk and be the one that starts the war, possibly WW3.
Oh, I agree, but I can also see the argument of "We're already independent!" If it were ME, I would want an official designation from the UN, but like you say, it may be more trouble than it's worth.
While we sound rabidly pro-Taiwanese, the US diplomatic position on the PRC/ROC is some wild Cold War type shit. Technically, we recognize both claims as claims that both organizations have made and that both organizations have the right to make those claims. Vague as vague can get. The State Department was seriously like "we agree to disagree... with ourselves."
At some point you have to shit or get off the pot. Either they are part of China or they are not.
Okay and as far as the Taiwanese people are concerned they apparently see that choice as a lose lose situation. Why then does it matter if they prefer the ambiguity of the status quo? Why is it so urgent that they make a choice they clearly don’t want to make?
To me, the Taiwanese people have already silently made that choice of independence. Even if independence isn't loudly proclaimed, Taiwan is still silently at war with China. Otherwise why spend so much money on war equipment from the US, and why have mandatory military service?
To me, the rest of the world powers, the G7, can jointly recognize Taiwan. At that point China will loudly complain and declare hurt feelings, but they will back off. Because there will be nothing they can do unless they want to become the world enemy.
What do you mean silently made the choice? The Taiwanese people have never really had a say. Taiwan existed under a far right wing dictatorship for decades after the Chinese civil war was left unresolved. Local opposition to the KMT government were massacred. The current democracy is still incredibly young and very flawed. It’s not surprising that they still have militaristic holdovers from the dictatorship. They still operate with the same constitution!
This is not some gotcha as you think it is. Its just a bullshit talking point.
Changing the constitution would be perceived as an official declaration of independence and a potential ignition point for war. Recognize that its a catch 22 situation. No one is going to change it until the threat of war is over.
I don’t see how you think that’s a gotcha unless you ignore everything else I mentioned. Also your assessment is just incorrect. The DPP (the pro Independence Party) made an effort to push for a new constitution but that failed because they never had enough legislative votes. The opposition wasn’t against it because they felt threatened by the mainland. Rather Chinese nationalism is still very much alive and well in Taiwan.
Only a small minority identify themselves as "Chinese not Taiwanese" nowadays. According to the latest public surveys (News article, Survey source, has English in the graphs), only 2.4% think that way (declining), 61% identify as Taiwanese (rising), and 32% as both (declining). And then you compare it to the unify-indipendence survey and see that a combined 60% still prefer the status quo, with independence behind at 25%, and unify at 10%. KMT may still have a large voter base in TW, but Chinese nationalism isn't the only reason people vote for them. You would want to look at 中華統一促進黨 for true Chinese nationalism and PRC sympathisers.
"Chinese Nationalism" is not even what you think. Very few people would even want to be a part of PRC.
There's no denial that Taiwan is a predominantly ethnically-Chinese nation. There used to be some prestige in being Chinese and "中華". The PRC and the CCP and its goons and tools has been quickly eroding that on the world stage with embarrassing acts one after another. When the PRC was closed, all of that shit was enclosed and isolated from the rest of the world. It should have remained that way.
When "Chinese Nationalism" is being discussed in Taiwan, it is more about retaining the ethnic Chinese identity and culture. (In fact, Taiwan has done a way better job in preserving the real Chinese culture than the PRC.) It is definitely not about re-unification and definitely not re-unification under the PRC.
Not all politics in Taiwan is about national politics. Even though the DPP won the presidency several times, they have narrowly won the legislative seats and didn't get the majority this round. That means there are definitely people who voted DPP for president and KMT for local seats. There are many reasons for that. Local politics come into play, economics is also an important issue (low wage jobs is an issue for young people), compulsory military service is definitely not popular, and also the KMT, being the incumbent (and only party) for decades prior, has a much strong political machinery and financial backing (all that old corrupt KMT money) than the DPP. Not to say there's no corruption in DPP.
Personally I don't understand how any benshenren would vote for the KMT, the party that has massacred and disappeared many of our older generation relatives. Maybe there are some politicians who joined KMT because the DPP side of the ticket was already occupied and they want to still try to run for the office. When my dad gets together with his brother, they still recount which neighbors on the street they used to live on has suffered a loss during those years. There's a lot of silent suffering and sadness. The younger generations don't even know because people were afraid to talk about it for a long time. Many has sacrificed to wrestle a free and democratic country out from the authoritarian KMT. For me and my family, we're allergic to the KMT brand.
Can a status quo be maintained when the other half of that equation cannot accept it?
I think there actually may be ways cement the status quo under an economic union where Taiwan maintains political independence. The US does not want anything like that to happen and has taken action to prevent it. That in turn has caused the PRC to respond with Xi making statements like this one.
So still no, but you wanna argue whose fault that is
The answer isn’t “no”. The answer is “yes but the current situation is unstable for these reasons.” I’m sorry you have a problem grasping the complexities of geopolitics.
Americans lives are guaranteed to protect them from an invasion.
Either they are part of China and we need to step away or they are a free nation which we defend.
I’ve yet to meet a Taiwanese person who wanted to merge with China. Doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. I just haven’t met one.
They just don’t want declare independence because it means war.
That sweet cheap labor tho ...
That’s been the problem. We built a hostile nation by using cheap labor, giving them technology and now act surprised when they turn aggressive. American companies have some weird notion that countries will advanced pass being cheaper labor and will be actively competing against you
That notion has always been just a nice fantasy that lets decision makers, who have any thoughts beyond maximizing profit, to lay those thoughts to rest and proceed with maximizing profits. The ones that never had those thoughts didn't need this tool. Of course that's also been sold to the rest of us, non-decisionmakers, so we don't get in the way of that profit maximization.
He’s not saying it will have to be taken by force. Where did you read that? He’s implying that China is willing to use force but he’s not asserting that the use of force is necessary if that makes sense.
If you want to understand the situation you have to understand that Taiwanese only remained politically independent thanks to US intervention in the Chinese civil war. When the nationalists fled to Taiwan the US stationed a fleet between the island and the mainland. That prevented the communists from finishing the fight against Chiang Kai-shek’s fascist KMT. The US then supported the KMT as the legitimate government of China right up until Kissinger realized the US could ally with the CPC against the USSR.
Given their long victimhood at the hands of colonialist and imperialist nations, the CPC is worried about what allowing Taiwanese independence would mean for their national security. They see foreign support for Taiwanese independence as the continued meddling of outside powers in Chinese affairs. That said I imagine they would be more amicable with maintaining Taiwanese political independence under the umbrella of an economic union if the US agreed to stop funding pro independence groups in Taiwan.
What a joke. This is the same China that whined about Japan in Manchuria while they themselves invaded Vietnam and Laos.
None of the people in this thread want historical context or material analysis. They've been propagandized to think of China as an evil empire while they live in one 1000x worse. I can't wait to watch this trend continue (/s)
Honestly I think people just get defensive when their worldview is challenged. It sucks but it is what it is.