Xi Jinping says no one can stop China’s ‘reunification’ with Taiwan
Summary
Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year’s speech that Taiwan’s “reunification” with China is inevitable.
China has escalated military activity around Taiwan, including frequent incursions near the island and sanctions on U.S.-linked companies over arms sales to Taipei.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te rejected Beijing's claims, stating Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its people.
Lai also criticized China’s restrictions on travel and education exchanges with Taiwan, calling for dignified, reciprocal relations based on goodwill and equality.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/taiwan-reunification-xi-jinping-military-b2672304.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world437
Comments219
Okay, West Taiwan.
Sounds like something south Canada would say.
You mean North Mexico?
Don't do that.
Don't give me hope.
Not North America?
Oh wait…
Get the sentiment, but just a friendly reminder that most Taiwanese people don't love the "West Taiwan" meme as it props up the outdated idea that Taiwan wants to make a claim to China, when the vast majority are in favor of just being left alone. This isn't two aggressors laying claim to each other, it's one threatening the other.
Sounds rather rapey when you put it that way, doesn't it?
Very. But I still expect to see plenty of hypocritical leninists ignoring or defending this. Telling us that Daddy Xi is only killing them for their own good. And that if they just lay back and took it that they would learn to enjoy it.
Not that it's ever made sense that they defend certain capitalists. While denouncing capitalism and other capitalist governments.
Definitely not something an imperialist would say.
Yes. “reuninifcation”.
Just like Austria was “reunified” with Nazi germany. 🤮
I mean that was also reunification. Doesn't make it a good thing, but it fits the definition of reunification.
Reading up a bit on the history of China, it looks like the Communists won the war for power in the nation and those who were supported by the West fled to Taiwan.
A better comparison would be if the Confederates fled to an island and retained their independence after losing the American civil war.
You need to keep in mind, the capitalists lost. You can live in la-la land thinking they "should have" won, but that's simply not what happened.
Capitalist lost? You seen modern day China? Hardly anti-capitalist. Taiwan should get to decide if it's part of China or not. Doesn't seam they want undemocratic dystopia.
Going to your America example, the Brits withdrew to Canada. You with Trump with invading Canada then? A 1812 rematch?
I dont get the downvotes. China is state controlled capitalism with all the negatives of capitalism like extreme wealth disparity. China couldnt be further from a stateless, classless moneyless society that communism aspires.
There are a lot of similarities between the PRC's economic model and the NEP, but this doesn't mean it's Capitalist, nor is it accurate to say it has all of the negatives of Capitalism. The PRC is in the early stages of Socialism, and this is shown through strong government control of the Private Sector, a robust and expansive Public Sector, and large-scale Central Planning. You're correct that it is far from being Stateless, Classless, or Moneyless, but at the same time you have to acknowledge that they simply can't push the "Communism button" and establish a global Republic of full Public Ownership and Central Planning and an established system of labor vouchers or other such non-money form of accounting.
The process of building Communism is long and drawn out after the revolution, and must be a global process as well.
Yes, all Socialist societies should work towards the eventual end of commodity production, however neither Marx nor Engels figured that it could be done away with immediately. From Principles of Communism:
From Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
Ultimately, it remains a contradiction that eventually the PRC will have to do away with. However, this is a gradual process that can only be accomplished through trial and error. There is a Chinese proverb often referenced in the CPC, that "one must cross the river by feeling for the stones," and this reflects their cautious strategy. Moreover, we must understand that the USSR fell, and the CPC saw that in real time. Not wanting to repeat the Cultural Revolution nor the fall of the USSR, the CPC adjusted their practice. It remains to be seen what will happen in 10, 20, 50, 100 years, of course, but currently the CPC is behaving in a manner we can understand as Marxist.
The USSR was just as capitalist as the PRC. Because it had generalized commodity production and wage-labor. You can't have a socialist mode of production in just one country, as the interaction with capitalist countries will infect your system.
The PRC is a highly technocratic advanced capitalist democracy, and yes, it will likely outpace the west in a number of key statistics over time, that doesn't make it socialist, because the productive mode is capitalism.
Oh no, please don't give that bloated orange Slurm mascot any more ideas.
The official position in both countries is that there is "one China" and that they are the legitimate one.
Unlike in mainland China in Taiwan people including most of the political elite seem to be fine with the status quo though.
I think they are both best just signing mutual recognition and moving on. Neither is the same as they where when they seperated.
everyone in Taiwan would love to do that, but Beijing can't get over being dumped.
Having markets and Private Property doesn't mean a country isn't dedicated to Socialism and eventual full public ownership. Rather, Marx and Engels maintained that even heavily developed countries could not immediately publicly own and plan all production, but that after the revolution this would be a gradual process. Focusing too much on Class Struggle and not on industrial development (which allows the Class Struggle to be accelerated as the more an industry develops the easier it is to plan it, a central observation about Capitalism that led Marx to predict the next mode of production to be Socialism), is a dogmatic mistake that led to the excesses in the Cultural Revolution.
Either way, back to the US, a more apt comparison would be decolonization and land-back for Indigenous Peoples, same with Canada.
Your saying it's not capitalist and it clearly is now.
For the US example, it's not comparable if you go back to Indigenous Peoples. That's a whole other thing.
What do you mean by China is "clearly Capitalist?" What do you think Capitalism and Socialism are?
"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."
This applies to modern China.
Communism's brief doesn't fit modern China "a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in society based on need."
Private Ownership isn't the basis of the PRC's economy, though. The PRC isn't at Communism yet, either, rather they are Socialist. The base of their economy is in the Public Sector with strong state control over the Private Sector.
To ask this in another way, are you of the belief that a "single drop" of Capitalism makes the system Capitalist? The natural conclusion to that is that neither "Capitalism" nor "Socialism" has ever existed. This is obviously wrong, of course, the answer is that the system is determined by the sector with power over the economy.
Keep reading, because you haven't gotten it yet. The communists rebelled against the KMT government and pushed them out to Taiwan. The American analogy would be if the south had won the civil war and pushed the north back to, let's say, Long Island.
personally, if the confederates f off to their own island, I would let them stay on that island, as long as they don't spill their influence back.
K, I don't use all caps a lot, but I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR.
I will not be a slave to history. My defense of Taiwan is entirely based on the here and now.
K I need to qualify that statement somewhat. History is useful for explaining why the world is the way it is today, and serves as a guide into the future, but it is useless as some kind of long term score sheet.
Well, if that's how you want to see it then the idea of "rightful owner" doesn't matter much.
It's really just who you like more at that point.
It's not that the rightful owner doesn't matter. It's that it is hard to quantify on this scale, and it is especially hard to quantify using history.
And yeah, it is in fact more about who I like more. I like the Taiwanese government because the Taiwanese people are in control of it, and I believe in every human's right to choose their own government. I hate the Chinese government for exactly the same reason, along with the fact that they're a bunch of land grabbing imperialist bastards.
I'm glad you can admit your bias and that your idea of who China belongs to is based on personal preference.
I'm glad you can admit that you consider human rights as a form of personal preference.
But my, uh, "preference" for human rights isn't actually the highest principle at play here. The highest principle here is that of internationally-agreed-upon borders. A country may not violate these borders. Period. For example, even though I like Taiwan's government more, I do not believe they deserve one square metre of mainland China.
That’s a lazy and inaccurate take. The Chinese Civil War wasn’t some simplistic ‘capitalists vs. communists’ fight. The KMT was corrupt but not purely capitalist, and the CCP’s victory came from exploiting peasant dissatisfaction and the KMT’s failures, not some inherent ideological supremacy. Comparing the KMT to the Confederacy is absurd—they weren’t separatists but nationalists fighting for control of all China. If you’re going to push historical narratives, at least try for accuracy instead of ideological grandstanding.
That's weird, I thought China has currency and all sorts of other capitalist systems.
great so that means the CCP is stepping down and letting the ROC government back into Beijing to govern a reunified China? Excellent news if true.
If Taiwan isn't building attack marine and air drones like fucking crazy right now they are incredible idiots. I would be mass producing that shit like a motherfucker and preparing to blow up the chip factories incase shit goes south.
The chip factories are wired to pop. Taiwan is an awesome country by the way
Yep. China will get nothing of Taiwan's true wealth. OTHO, see why America is pumping chips? CHIP Act.
They don't build the weapons for themselves (mostly), but the US has enormous volumes of weapons (presumably including a lot of drones) already stored in Taiwan so that they can be bought and delivered instantly if they're needed
"Expedited next day (war)shipping!"
Bit rapey.
https://toombs.earth/music/youtube/Dead%20or%20Alive%20-%20You%20Spin%20Me%20Round%20-%20PGNiXGX2nLU.m4a
It's gross how they always refer to these things as "reunifying".
I got news for you. The Republic of China also uses that same language.
Why isn't that an appropriate term? It was part of China's (Qing) territory from 1684 until the Japanese occupations, and is only disunified because of an unresolved civil war. Taiwan (officially the "Republic of China") considers themself to be China. So why wouldn't their combination be the reunification of China?
Taiwan was never part of current China though and does not want to be absorbed into that state. Reunification doesn't sound right for what China would have to do to make it happen.
It's an objective term for when states join into a single state, like the unification of Italy for example. It's not about approval or disapproval, I'm not taking a side by calling it reunification.
The re- prefix does have implications that go beyond any two states becoming one. Germany's case is a bit different anyway because it was external forces splitting the country.
The same was true for East and West Germany and that, err, merger is generally considered to be a reunification.
But I agree with the rest you wrote, so I guess it's a moot point anway.
I mean, true, but that doesn't contradict what I wrote, does it? I objected to that particular part of kshades argument, not their argument as a whole.
It's a fair argument, I wouldn't call South or North Korea forcefully annexing the other reunification either though. One state would be annihilated, both in terms of its institutions and its culture. There's no unity in that, it's conquest.
But maybe my view of the word is colored by German history. I don't know, it's just that calling what would be a horrible, grueling war "reunification" doesn't seem right, like an attempt at white-washing what would actually happen. Reminds me a bit too much of Putin's claims about Ukraine.
Get your authoritarian ass outta here😂
Not an authoritarian, not even taking a side. I'm pointing out that unification is the term for resolving partitions to form a single state.
Uh,
So its no longer an authoritarian government for 38 years now. Thanks for pointing that out!
In the mean time Xi is serving his 3rd term in PRC right now, or 4th? Ignoring the rules set up by his predecessors. And you think that's better?
Even the UN 🇺🇳 doesn’t recognize Taiwan 🇹🇼.
Because China holds a veto power. What's your point? China won't allow Taiwan to join a club that China's partially in control of. In other news, water is wet.
Interesting, the ROC doesn’t hold veto power? How can China join the club, if Taiwan is the rightful government representing all the Chinese people?
Nor does the US or Taiwan
If you want something that doesn’t want you- what do YOU call it?
What's that got to do with anything? It's still called a reunification even if both sides didn't want it. There was a whole entity, it split, and if it joins back together then that's called reunifying it.
rape
envy.
I think "invasion" would be the correct term here.
You can use both terms, there's no contradiction.
Consider the US civil war. The Confederates were (rightfully) invaded and plenty of them still aren't happy about it, the result was still the unification of the 'northern' and the 'southern' states.
Got it, let's help continental China adopt modern and true democracy then!
Work on your own imperialist fucking country first. Jesus fucking Christ you libs are insufferable.
Bro please move to .ml there are dozens of you there
Didn’t have Occupied China stepping down and recognizing the legitimate government in Taiwan on my 2025 bingo card
Oh is the PRC going to surrender to the ROC? Because Taiwan was never part of the PRC. For there to be reunification, the PRC would have to give mainland China back to the ROC.
It all hinges upon which government you consider "legitimate."
We can't pretend violent rebellions aren't eventually considered legitimate, good or bad. Look at the US.
Wow, China's propaganda in plain view in this comments section, damn!
Tankies gon' tank.
Tankies gonna downvote too. They think they are anonymous in the votes haha
We need public downvotes
They already are
Yeah, some of 'em. Most of them are just regular Chinese people repeating what they've been told, though. I've talked with all kinds of Chinese people like that, and truly, when I'm not being a dick about it, it is amazing how quickly I can change their minds. "Quickly" here means "in a month". Not during the first conversation. Be gentle.
And these people are willingly kissing his ass. They're not even Chinese people who actually grew up with propaganda, but instead make the conscious choice to believe it.
If Fascist China thinks the EU and US will give up their largest producer of semiconductors then they're severely mistaken
What do you think they would do to stop it?
The us would probably enter war to stop it, Taiwan is pretty valuable to us
Zero chance.
“Us” being? Taiwan didn’t send me a Christmas card.
Bet they made the processor you used to write that comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites
That's not where they produce their cutting edge chips though... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-will-spend-14-billion-on-manufacturing-chips-at-tsmc-report
War is necessary… so I can text grandma? Do ya’ll not hear yourselves?
More like: War is necessary... so a dictator can stroke his own ego
Remember who is the aggressor here.
The Kuomintang fought a civil war and lost, would we be okay if the Confederacy kept Florida and wouldn’t give it back?
How would you keep the imperialists from stealing land?
Are you talking about the White Terror?
Send the US navy to blockade the strait and finalise the sale of the billions of dollars worth of weapons already waiting on the island for exactly that purpose
That's a joke, right? Taiwan is literally about 90 miles away from mainland China. The USA could park every ship we have and that still wouldn't work. If China wants Taiwan, then they will get it even if Taiwan is largely destroyed doing it.
The USA already prevents the Chinese from getting the top processors from Taiwan, so blowing up the factory will hurt the USA much more than China. Not to mention kneecap Musk and the tech bros that have been supporting Trump.
No, it's not a joke. And putting a small amount of thought into it makes clear that the US believes it can effectively defend Taiwan - it wouldn't keep such volumes of weaponry there if it believed it would trivially fall into China's hands.
The US' Center for Strategic and International Studies has wargamed this 24 times for conventional warfare only and 15 times for consideration of the use of nuclear weapons. In both scenarios, they found they would likely be able to successfully preserve Taiwan's autonomy.
I think you deeply underestimate just how difficult and expensive in manpower and materiel it is to perform a naval invasion, especially against a nation whose military is specialised for pretty much exclusively that purpose.
Naval superiority is naval superiority; if you can't get your military to the other side of the strait, you can't invade the island, regardless of distance. The actual question is whether Taiwan would be able to hold off an invasion for long enough for the US navy to reach and control the strait, which is reasonably likely given the US rents a large number of naval bases in the region for just this purpose.
I'm going to just go ahead and ignore your second paragraph, since it's entirely unrelated to the US's military capability wrt to Taiwan.
Haven't both Taiwan and China both been stockpiling an essentially unlimited supply of long range anti-ship missiles for about a decade now? I can't imagine China having a fun time even landing troops but it'd be equally hellish for any US ships attempting to exist in the general area.
The US surface ships can sit outside the Chinese medium range envelope and attack only the landing forces. They don't need to hit Chinese mainland, that's what the 71 submarines are for. The long range missiles are then easy to defeat because there aren't enough to saturate the air defense.
I think you nearly overestimate the appetite of the USA government or people to engage in such a massive conflict over Taiwan. The new administration has made it clear support for Ukraine is on thin ice and a deal can be made with Russia to end the fighting. Why not with China as well?
How do you know? My impression is that any deal without security guarantees from the West will just be violated in about two years or so by Russia, and Russia would refuse to make a deal with such security guarantees for exactly that reason.
If Russia changes its mind and says it would be willing to accept such a deal, I would change my mind. Actually I still wouldn't because Russia are the lyingest bastards I know, but whatever. It hasn't happened. It would never happen.
Imperialists cannot be reasoned with without credible threats of violence. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be imperialist.
One of the primary reasons trump wants to reduce the US' focus on Russia and Ukraine is to prioritise their position towards China. That's not to say Trump might not decide against direct involvement; he's famously erratic, but the semiconductor production of Taiwan is an critical economic dependency that can't be replaced in the short term.
That's 5 hours in the open, with every weapon system in the Pacific Ocean firing at you. Good luck?
There has been work to replicate the capabilities in Taiwan on US soil. While it hasn't been going great, it has been progressing. At some point it is quite possible that Taiwan will no longer be as strategic a partner with America as they are now, which doesn't bode well for their continued assistance from America. But if there comes a time that China will take Taiwan you can be guaranteed that everything possible will be done to reduce the risk of technology transfer.
But you have to factor in deliberate effort already to eliminate the CHIPS act by Congress. I'm sure it will get the axe in the new administration.
The rush had been increased because of the efforts Western governments like the USA have made to prevent China from getting the chips from Taiwan, that encourages the Chinese to develop their own capacity but also eliminated the hit they would take if processor production in Taiwan was crippled by conflict.
The actual ace in the hole protecting Taiwan is the fact that the Chinese want the Taiwanese to join willingly, but if the Chinese economy has continued trouble than Xi will be under pressure to demonstrate strength and that is where they could make a move on Taiwan.
How does
"Naval assets filling the sky with a stupidly impossible number of militarized drone swarms using highly classified AI-augmented coordination and cyber warfare which will dump a ton of really nasty crap into an already struggling ocean"
sound?
Because that's the plan, apparently. =\
https://www.wired.com/story/china-taiwan-pentagon-drone-hellscape
So much Death. Just so much. For reference look at the aircraft carrier HMS United Kingdom in World War 2. The world's only unsinkable ship, capable of producing it's own weapons even. Now update that to 2024 with modern, missiles, torpedoes, and submarines. China would likely win a protracted, non nuclear, limited engagement. But not before significant areas in China and the entirety of Taiwan were nothing but a rubble hellscape.
So at the end of the day, the obvious price of death and destruction, even without nukes. But in the past Presidents have made clear that Taiwan is under the MAD umbrella. So non-nuclear is not a given, and of course we all lose in a nuclear scenario.
Unleash the 22
I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is the 22?
The F-22 Raptor. It's never been deployed.
Theres a single dam in China which is extremely vulnerable, if hit by a rocket the majority of Chinas food supply would be destroyed.
That's about as likely as America performing a preemptive nuclear strike on China. The international "fallout" would be pretty much the same.
The Taiwanese know of it's existence too, and have the capability to hit it. Furthermore we currently have a president who views war crimes as going above and beyond instead of criminal behavior. I would not bet against someone blowing it up.
Oh damn. Taiwan wouldn't do it now, but if China invaded, they absolutely would.
I have no doubt that Trump is capable of giving the order. As it stands, there is no way the order is obeyed. Trump will of course start trying to install loyalists in military leadership, but I doubt even the generals could successfully get such an order obeyed today. The entire military culture would need to be replaced, and I think the protections against that will require more time than Trump has to do it.
Thankfully, incompetence is a core trait of fascism, and I don't think Trump or his people have the juice.
Hitting that dam is a lot harder to disobey as an illegal order than violating Posse Comitatus. Especially if we're on the brink of nuclear war that would create massive civilian casualties anyways. We expect a big pushback if Trump tries to deploy the military domestically. Going to war is another matter entirely.
It's not the same at all. Ok the US would get blamed, but they wouldn't be fired at back with nuclear weapons
They know US can be bought for cheap and EU are too coward.
That's why TSCM now has a chip plant in Arizona, to ensure production.
The quickest way to do this is for the CCP to surrender to the ROC.
"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
You mean… “Reunified.” Think of it like Russia’s “special military operation” only with less genocide.
Are we sure this "China" is a real country?
Call it by it's name, mainland Taiwan.
West Taiwan
That works too
Totally not imperialism trust me bro.
I mean....It ain't? Taiwan, the Kuomintang, were literally the imperialists. Taiwan was always China but China changed and....yeah modern china should probably leave Taiwan alone because it's literally the old chinese government but 100 years later, but they won't, their government actually thinks in millenia
At some point Poland held Moscow for a year. We need to get it back I guess. We like to think in milenia as well.
I wouldn’t want to be getting into a shooting war after seeing what Russia has got itself into. Fuck, Russia lost its fleet to a country without a navy.
Does Xi think he can keep a land army supplied in the era of drones taking out surface combatants?
It is not the same though.
Firstly, Russians are inefficient and inept as fuck, Chinese are not.
Secondly, Ukraine had a strong support of both EU and the US. Now Trump is going to be in power and this cunt will happily let China take over Taiwan.
Thirdly, Ukraine is 600k km2. Taiwan is 36k.
Everyone in the lead up to the Russian invasion thought Russia had a world class army (besides some analysts like Philips O’Brien). Three day invasion is how many western analysts were spinning it (Michael Koffman is the one I remember talking about this). I think it is a stretch to believe that the Chinese military is any better, especially since their last fight was, what, in the 70s against Vietnam?
Ukraine doesn’t have a giant moat around it. Taiwan does. Amphibious warfare is much much much harder than land based war. Probably by like 2 orders of magnitude at least. Keeping an army supplied in that environment is very very hard and that was before drones made defense warfare extremely effective. The US stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine for a few months last year and they held the line quite well just with their drones.
China hasn't fought an interstate war in decades. The last well known example was korea. All the other fights they had were with the soviets from 1950 to present. And they lost every one of those border wars
China is very very inexperienced when push comes to shove.
I am not going to claim I am a military expert because certainly I am not. I think your arguments don't hold water though:
It is irrelevant what everyone thought, unless you are asserting Chinese army is as bad as Russian. If so, I would say unlikely on the basis of the entire technological development of both countries. There is also cultural aspect: I worked with number of Russians and Chinese. Russians were sloppy as fuck, nearly all of them. Chinese on the other hand were the most hard working people I have ever seen in my life, again almost all of them. Population size also matters.
Amphibious warfare is only harder until you land and secure even temporary harbour.
You are underestimating importance of western support. "just a few months" is not important - ask yourself where Ukraine would have been now if the US were to not supply anything to them from the very start - and this is the situation Trump is likely to put Taiwan in.
On point two you are correct only if the attacking force has air/sea supremacy like the us did in WWII. With drones I have a very hard time believing that will be the case. That is what makes it hard. Sure landings are brutal, but logistics is a nightmare when you have to supply your troops with vulnerable ships. That is why the Russian navy getting smacked about by Ukraine is so relevant.
It's worth noting that there are limited spots you can land on the Taiwan coast for an assault, and they are heavily guarded.
It's a very different war up until they can get and maintain a foothold.
Will he? Trump is soft on Russia but wasn't he pretty hard on China?
Has he ever been tough on China when the cost him anything? Being hard on China has economic consequences.
Trump represents overt corporate oligarchy taking over America. Those people don't care as long as they live comfortably. The US is building chip factories in the southwest to replace TSMC for domestic use. Once thats completed. Corpos don't care about Russians and Chinese carving out spheres of influence across the world and killing millions. They only care about their own hides and the last reason to care about overseas affairs would have become redundant.
And this is the same scenario where millions of Americans are thrown into abject poverty by the deliberate crashing of the economy as technofascist corpos like Elon musk are allowed to shape the economy to their designs.
Once again. Those corporate only care about their own kind. Everyone else is expendable assets. Whether it be lower and middle class american citizens. Or entire countries. Panama. Canada. Mexico. Ukraine. Taiwan. You can't appeal to the morals and nature of corporate oligarchs because they'd rather kill you for wasting their time.
Until he benefits personally, then he's soft. All China would need to do is promise to sell Trump goods or let him build a gaudy hotel.
I would be stunned if he was to do anything.
Trump was hard on China until Ivanka got her patents approved. After that, he was remarkably friendly with them. And now Russia is friendly with China. I'm sure those tariffs will disappear once he's been paid.
Citation needed. The Chinese largely based their armed forces on the Russian model in a somewhat combined effort, so I suspect they'd be just as shit. It will be interesting to see how much of a fight Taiwan gives them.
On the second point I have no doubt Trump won't intervene, however I do find it odd that Musk just finished fucking over the budget bill (whatever its name is) that would have helped fund chip manufacturing in the US just for them to simultaneously hand all Taiwanese chip manufacturing to China. It's almost like they have no game plan...
They don't.
Reunification? Taiwan was never a part of communist China.
Just because Taiwan was part of an empire that has common roots with communist China is no reason at all.
Let's not use their propaganda and call them communist. Communist leadership wouldn't have fascist allies around the world
man that is a ridiculous amount of lies in very few words. nice show.
Taiwan has never been your territory, Xi Smallping-energy.
Imagine being the type of loser that would downvote comments in support of a country refusing to be overthrown.
You’d think we’d have learned by now, but here we are.
Here’s for hoping these kids manage to become aware of their ignorance by the time they hit high school.
Lost Cause of the Confederacy
With the declining population and the slowing down of the chinese economy, he should be more concerned about improving their economy otherwise the Chinese population will give him mussolini treatment.
Lol thought it was already a part of China poohpants
I worry for the future generations of Taiwan and Ukraine. Trump's going to just shrug and let them die.
*Excited Putin noises
We have always been at war with Oceania.
How did this work out for Hong Kong?
The difference being several, one hong Kong is inside of China with its territorial boundaries being only legal and social. Two hong kong actually believed the laws and structure they put in place would hold while Taiwan is under no such illusion
The actual difference is most of Hong Kong was only leased by Britain for 99 years in 1898 and was returned on schedule in 1997.
except they gave it back to the wrong china.
prc didn't exist back then.
roc is the successor state to the one that made that deal with britain.
Unfortunately totally legal under international law with the United Nations blessing...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
The UN is a corrupt authority. Especially when it comes to the UNSC. 2 of its 5 permanent members legal entities ceased to exist and fundamentally different successor states assumed their place.
The case is far more aggregious with the USSR and Russia. Ukraine tried to sue in 2022 arguing russia wasn't legally entitled to just assume the USSRs position as far as the security council was concerned. "Technically Kazakhstan was the last state of the Soviet union. Etc". But ultimately. As expected. "Realists" didn't want to hear the argument. And it went nowhere
That's good, the US military is starting to get bored.
Some military strategists are expecting China to make their move in the next couple years.
I've seen similar reports. They are said to have the highest proportion of military aged men in their population between now and the early 2030's before a big downwards population-trend for the next several generations as a result of the ol' limited children policies. After that it's suspected their resources will be too constrained caring for a ballooning elderly population.
-I'll be curious to see how it all plays out.
So the coup is finally over?
Who's stopping them anyway? Just do it if you are so obsessed with it.
Uh... Taiwan is stopping them. Taiwan is a country, despite China's constant fucking attempts to pretend it isn't.
John Oliver - Taiwan
I know that. My point is China keeps saying things as if they are really held back, but the reality is they're themselves afraid of stirring the shit and getting effed up by world at large.
If you check my comment history, you'll see that I support Taiwan.
Alright.
Good man.
chaser behavior
she already said no, what the heck why are you still trying
This will somehow be treated differently than Gaza
Common sense be damned, they've got a grudge to settle!
That feel when people here do not realize their own government likely says Taiwan is part of China.
Multiply china!
I mean, he is not wrong
Mainland Taiwan will join Taiwan eventually you're right
How do you know?
No one did shit to Russia other than some easily avoidable sanctions. China attacks the US daily in the form of cyberattacks and nothing happens.
If they went and took Taiwan tomorrow the world would condemn it very hard on social media and that's about it, hell, they even did it before with Hong Kong and no one cared.
So… you seriously perceive the lack of response to one event to mean it’s a green light for everything?
Man, I hope you people don’t ever become in charge of anything important.
I hope too, I would never want to be in charge of anything, even in my house I prefer for my wife to be in charge.
I also hope I'm very wrong, I don't think I am but I hope.
I really don't think the Crimea or the Hong Kong method is going to work this time.
But if it actually did work, then yeah you might be right.
If it comes to an all out military invasion, though, you can bet that shit is not going to go uncontested.
china is awful but considering you have the president of the us talking about illegally siezing and occupying at least three sovereign territories, the west has no place to criticize.
Ah yes, the west. The monolithic political entity that definitely involves nobody who is critical of Donald Trump's ravings. Trump and his sycophants have no place to criticize thanks to his words and actions. Anybody who gets behind his proposed annexations has no place to criticize. But there's a lot of daylight between those groups and the entirety of "the west", both within and without the US. If Brazil or South Africa want to criticize Trump's annexation threats, their involvement in BRICS wouldn't invalidate that criticism so long as they are also willing to criticize the threatening words and actions of Jinping and Putin. The world is not (yet) composed of 1984-esque political monoliths, and there is no need to voluntarily give up that heterogeneity in order to silence criticism of aggressive and threatening geopolitics
"The West" wasn't fair, but "America" would be. It's not like China is a monolith either. It might be more monolithic than the US, but I guess we really have the wait and see if that holds. Fuck.
We hate imperialism, whoever does it, and justify none of it
i wasn't justifying any of it....
Sorry, your comment really came off as "because you live in a country where terrible people have elected a terrible person, you're not allowed to criticize imperialism". Which really seems like "because a horrible American wants to do it, it's ok when any other country does it" in disguise.
You may not be aware, but this is a very tired talking point from the propaganda departments of empires everywhere and I'm so far beyond tired of hearing it. So is everybody. It even has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
The empires use it to shut down all criticism of anything they do. That is why everybody here is reacting to you the way they are.
Comparing actions, especially when people are so fervently against one side, is not tired. If you’re going to “call something bad”, you’d better look inward and make sure your heart isn’t wrapped in hypocrisy.
I haven't annexed any territories, so I think it's fine.
Did you read the link I sent the other guy?
Taiwan will voluntarily reunify with China in the next two decades.
Cool story. Could use some more unicorns though, IMO
How do you know?
how do you think that would happen?
One could just change the definition of voluntarily
' ' ← thought that "voluntarily" might need some quotes