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EU says China trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine war
(www.straitstimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2026
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Well, it's certainly not it's own nation as Taiwan people are part of the Han Chinese nation. Perhaps the Han Chinese in Taiwan will eventually become a State that is separate from China. But so far that hasn't happened.
Taiwan is de facto an independent state. They have their own customs (as in economy), their own military and their own independent government.
No one officially recognizes it as independent because - as it turns out - neither China has any interest in changing the status quo. It is however very much implicitly recognized as independent considering trade deals made with mainland China do not affect trade deals with Taiwan and vice versa.
For all intents and purposes, Taiwan is more of a country than England but you'll find hardly anyone argue that England does not have countryhood.
Country / state / nation. These words have meaning. England is both a country and a nation but not an independent state. Taiwan meets the definition of a country in that it is defined territory, but it is not a nation. It is not an independent state, as it claims to be the government of China, not the government of Taiwan. It makes trade agreements as the government of China. And the reason other countries play along with this is because the US and UK decided that they would make Taiwan into a comprador proxy and invested tons of money into it, while they embargoed the shit out of China and no one was allowed to trade with both China and the USA. The evidence you are using for Taiwan being independent is actually evidence that they are dependent entirely on the USA. Without the USA, the KMT would have been stopped in their reign of terror long before 40 years were up and the province would have been reintegrated into China after 75 years of national trauma.
.. which it only does because the PRC threatens with war if Taiwan would drop it.
As it stands now, the majority of the Taiwanese no longer consider themselves Chinese, but the PRC wants to keep that illusion alive for their annexation goals to seem justified. This is solely on the PRC.
Yeah, and most Americans, Canadians, and Australians don't consider themselves European colonizers, but they don't get to decide to that, because history matters. The Han Chinese living in the province of Taiwan are Han Chinese. They are of the Chinese nation, and they have never been otherwise. They have never seceded from China.
Are you saying that the people of Taiwan have a right to secession? From where does that right derive? The Confederates didn't have a right to secession. Texas doesn't have a right to secession. Quebec doesn't have a right to secession. In pretty much every context you can think of, a secession would cause a civil war.
But imagine this: a secession with a geopolitical enemy providing massive military support. Do you think that if China came to Canada and built up a military presence in Quebec to protect their secession that this would be a totally valid thing to do and Canada should let them? Do you think the Chinese navy is allowed to encircle Hawaii and help them secede from the US and that if the US tried to stop them that would be beligerence?
No. Of course you don't think those things. You only see the narrative of Taiwan from the West. You don't see the military reality of 70 years of US military intervention and support for fascist dictatorship. You don't think through the implications of what 40 years (3+ generations) of violent mass murdering fascist political persecution for desiring reunification did to the population of Taiwan (hint, it skewed public opinion pretty dramatically for their own self preservation).
You don't even realize that Hong Kong and Taiwan were transitioned to liberal democracies at almost the exact same time, and only a few years after South Korea was beginning its transition, coinciding with the clear signs that the USSR was collapsing and the threat of global communism was coming to end. The US and UK administrators of these territories decided that they didn't need to worry about communism anymore so they allowed the transition to liberal democracy to occur. If it was going to be too dangerous, they would have kept supporting the dictatorship and colonial administration and supported the violent repression of protests, like they had been doing for decades.
The people of Taiwan province do not have a right to secession and the US does not have a right to militarily defend their secession. Taiwan has never stopped being a province of China and just because the world's most psychotic, beligerent, genocidal military is trying to tug at your heart strings with stories of resistance and democracy, the reality is that you wouldn't support this configuration in literally any other context.
So? Are you arguing that there is neither America, Canada nor Australia but only British Empire?
Because the PRC said that the moment Taiwan does so, there will be war. Taiwan is forced by the PRC to keep the 'China' label.
How is it of relevance how Quebec handles its affairs? Canada is exerting control over Quebec. The PRC never did over Taiwan. Not now, not ten, not 50 years ago. Never.
There was civil war and the PRC tried to conquer Taiwan but failed. It never established control over these parts. So there you go. De facto, Taiwan is not part of the PRC. De facto, Taiwan doesn't even want to be China anymore. It is only the PRC getting sore over an island they never controlled as they cannot accept Chinese culture beyond their control. But that's not a problem of the world, but a PRC problem.
Austrians are of German origin. Are you arguing there is no Austria but only Germany? What about the Swiss? Should they be divided by Germany, France and Italy? Belgium?
And on the contrary, are you therefore arguing that the PRC should piss off from the regions they've annexed in the past and where they enforce Han culture since? Tibet, Shinjang? All the other parts of the PRC where the Han colonised? Let me guess...
By America we will mean the USA. Don't mix the concepts of country, nation, and state. There is no nation of USians, Canadians, nor Australians. The state of the USA is a breakaway state from essentially all of the Western European empires (except Portugal I guess). Canada and Australia are still part of the Commonwealth. If that's not neocolonialism, I don't know what is. Literally Canada and Australia still recognize the British Crown. Canada, the US, and Australia are full of European national people occupying the territory of and displacing the indigenous nations of those countries.
They have had 70 years to secede. They spent 42 of those years murdering everyone who talked about secession, both in Taiwan province and abroad. The PRC didn't force them to do that. That's what the Han Chinese local government of the province chose of their own free will.
But still, no other country in the world would tolerate a secessionary movement either. The US wouldn't accept California seceding. Canada wouldn't accept Quebec seceding. Mexico didn't accept Texas seceding. Secession is always met with violence. Doubly so if the territory that is seceding is currently occupied by a geopolitical rival military that spends years talking openly about building a Pacific Kill Chain, Kill Web, and Hellscape infrastructure in the territory, as the US does regarding Taiwan.
This is a favorite line of the imperialist propaganda. The PRC is a government of the nation-state of China. China has included Taiwan as a province for over 400 years, even when it was illegitimately occupied by Japan. Ming China and Qing China are just China. The PRC is just China. China is a continuous concept that is not determined by which government it has.
Yes, but not because of secession, as we've established pretty thoroughly.
This is more equivocation and weasel language to advance imperialist propaganda. The PRC did not try to conquer Taiwan. The PRC attempted to force the KMT to surrender. The KMT were occupying the Chinese province of Taiwan, much like the Texas National Guard and the US National Guard had a stand off, the US National Guard was not trying to conquer Texas, it was attempting to enforce the law and get the Texas National Guard to stand down.
And it's very convenient to tell the story that the PLA failed to get the KMT to surrender while conveniently leaving out that the US turned the KMT into a protectorate and proxy 6 months after the PLA won civil war. Do you really think the KMT would have been able to even maintain military readiness as an isolated island? Absolutely not. The PLA's failure was in not being able to get the KMT to surrender before the Americans decided they wanted a proxy in the region to threaten China with.
Again, things are part of the PRC, they are part of China. The PRC is the government of China. The parts of the PRC are the parts of the government. The parts of China are the parts of the nation-state, and Taiwan is very much part of the nation-state of China, while not being part of the government of China. These are very distinct things. And the reason that Taiwan is not part of the government of China is literally the force of illegitimate military intervention by an imperialist super power whose goal is the subjugation of China, and who's mechanism is to carve off territory from China and use it for military violence.
Well, the Han Chinese in Taiwan don't really get to choose to not be Chinese anymore than Washington could choose not be English. If you advocate for relocating the Han Chinese in Taiwan to the mainland and establishing a state for the Austronesian nations to self-govern, that would be legitimate. But that's not what's happening. Instead, we have a genocidal military imperialist spending billions on creating a political crisis in a country on the other side of the world to advance its global spanning imperialist ambitions while it maintains the cultural genocide and occupation of many nations.
There are three distinct nations in Austria - Germans, Slovenian Slavs, and Croat Slavs. The Germans in Austria became Austrians by the military force of Western imperialists (France, UK, and US). There never would have been distinct identity of "Austrian" without it being forced on them. The Germans in Austria even tried to resist the forced split. So, what we have in Austria is another example of imperialism forcing people to adopt new identities in order to express imperialist dominance over them.
The Swiss proactively chose to form a new nation, not a new state, a new nation, over 700 years ago. Nation, the word, refers to the concept and context of birth. Belgium is the opposite. It is a bi-national state of French and Dutch people. They are incredibly distinct people and they have not merged their nations through a multi-generational process. The French, German, and Italian tribes living in Switzerland physically separated themselves from their nations of birth and then mutually agreed to integrate their tribes into a single tribe, and included everything in that choice from language to cuisine to marriage... everything became a subject of mutual agreement for the establishment of a distinct nation. Had a group if Italians just decided to do this as Italians, they would just be Italians, but by integrating multiple nations, the Swiss created a new nation. This is how nations have come about throughout human history and why we aren't all just part of the "human nation".
Chinese colonization of the region is necessarily a distinct process from European colonization. The European concept of nation-states emerged from their distinct geography which was shot through with many many physical barriers that kept people isolated. This is why Belgium and Austria are different cases than Switzerland. Belgium and Austria are geographically contiguous with their historical forebears and the borders are politically drawn, whereas Switzerland was a physically isolated territory that could hold people as they became a nation.
The geography of China is essentially a huge flat bowl surrounded by impassable barriers. In this context, warring tribes could cross the entire region limited only by their momentum. In Europe, there were natural stopping points where tribes would dominate within their physical boundaries, and thus war-like cultures were a way of maintaining their distinct identities. In the Chinese contexts war was universally devastating.
Thus, the two phenomena developed entirely differently. European culture could afford to be as violent and belligerent as they could be because nature naturally stopped them. Chinese culture discovered that runaway violence would ultimately kill everyone and they needed a different solution - The Civilizational State. Under this model, the regions maintained their own identities, but not their own localized "monopolies" on force. The concept is contradictory in this context. In Switzerland, a monopoly on force means within the natural borders of the Alps. In China, a monopoly on force within multiple groups in the region is just not a monopoly on force but rather regional warlordism.
This is why Tibet is historically a protectorate of China and not a colony or an occupied region. The Chinese state recognizes the existence, history, validity, and culture of Tibet, but it will not permit Tibet to defend itself any longer. Once gunpowder entered the combat theater, Tibet was completely unable to defend itself. In the age of industrial war, Tibet remains completely unable to defend itself. China recognizes that this means the Tibetan territory will be protected by someone other than the Tibetans. The choices are the 600-year genocidal white supremacist monocultural Western Empire, or the Chinese civilizational state. The Chinese state could be just as genocidal and Han supremacist as the Western Empire, but it's not.
History has demonstrated that this system has served all of the people in the region comparatively well at this point. In Western Imperial holdings, languages disappear, children are tortured and killed for speaking it, laws are created to criminalize being part of the occupied community, and settlers rape and murder without any accountability. Comparatively, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the other autonomous regions within China still maintain their culture, their language, their religion, their traditional practices, their history, their identity, etc. There are certainly tensions, and it would be much better if these tensions were not there and could be resolved more quickly, but unfortunately these tensions exist within the larger context of Western white supremacist genocidal empire and difficult choices are being made daily by everyone who is working to assert sovereignty against that empire and potentially aspire to a day when that empire falls.
So? Now they want to do it but the PRC threatens to throw a temper tantrum about it. Just let it sink in how a country of one billion is actively choosing to worsen its situation over an island of not even 25 million. The PRC could have moved on for a very long time and put its resources in its own prosperity instead of wasting the resources on a cause that will end in a war. It's so petty.
You can call that whatever you want. The fact still stands: the PRC wants a piece of land they never established control over.
Just what happened in Taiwan. They don't consider themselves Chinese, they are simply not allowed to openly say it due to the giant fragile red snowflake next door. We're pretending something that isn't the case just to protect the fragile feelings of a giant that cannot accept the truth.
Well, isn't that handy! :D
Germans, Slavs, Romans might have had some rivers and mountains here and there, yet have a long history of conquering each others land. Somehow that's colonialism, but when Hans crossed a river to dominate other cultures, it isn't?
Yea. The most successful being the Hans (if there are no Mongols or Japanese around). Somehow you don't seem to have a lot of problems with them establishing themselves as the master humans. Talk about double standards..
Who says so? The Chinese? The Tibetans? The Russians also liked to consider themselves as the protectors of the various cultures they dominated during whatever they labelled their respective regimes of injustice (Tsardom, SSSR,..) during the last 200 years. Of course, the self-proclaimed master humans want to whitewash their oppression. Weird that you can only see the wrongdoings of one side, while completely whitewash the other side. :D
25% want to.
The PRC is very clear that Taiwan becoming sovereign means Western empire at their doorstep. This has literally been the strategic situation for over 400 years. It's not just a "now" thing and it's not just a PRC. It's a fundamental aspect of security. Security it always mutual. The US wouldn't allow China to build a military presence in Long Island of they decided to secede, and you wouldn't call it a tantrum. It's obvious from your word choice that you don't believe China is allowed to have legitimate security concerns.
Are you serious right now? The US embargoed the PRC while it was the poorest country in the world, and prevented anyone in the Western world from trading with it, while the US and UK invested billions to develop the province of Taiwan under a fascist mass murdering dictatorship, and you think I need to let it sink in what China is doing?
This is so offensively dismissive it's clear you have no ability to reason clearly about this. China has a literal multi-century security threat on its doorstep and it's been spending money developing a military that is capable of defending against the world's largest genocidal empire and you think that was "Wasting resources". And before you go all paternalistic about China should have invested in its own prosperity, China accounts for literally all of the net poverty alleviation in the last century, while Europe and North America created more poverty than they alleviated. There are grandparents in China today that grew up subsistence farming and are now experiencing robotic self-driving vehicles. China is doing just fine developing its prosperity and also its national security posture against the world's largest ever military threat.
That is not, actually, what they want. They want to establish a security perimeter that is inviolable by imperialists. Again, literally the same motivation for almost 400 years. You consuming fan fic editorializing Chinese motivations doesn't change reality.
That's literally not what happened. At this point, you're clearly not even engaging in good faith. What happened in Taiwan, as I've stated many times, is that foreign militaries intervened in internal Chinese politics for the purpose of subjugating China militarily. That is not AT ALL like the situation in Switzerland. At all. The Han Chinese colonized Taiwan, and the dominated and oppressed the indigenous. This is far more akin to the situation in North America, where white people are still all European settlers. The Han Chinese in Taiwan are Chinese settlers and settlers don't have a claim to a new new national identity. If they did, then genocide would be the result. We have to hold this line and you don't get to have a double standard simply because you're an anti-communist.
Again, it is so obvious that you can't engage in this discussion in good faith that I the only reason I'm bothering to refute you is so that others can learn.
If you're entire grasp of history requires that everyone doing similar seeming things is actually part of the same historical process so that you can make false equivalencies to prove your point, you might not understand anything about history. It's not handy, it's reality. Of course the Chinese process is a distinct process from the European process. They were done by different people, under total different philosophies, in different geographies, with different outcomes. This statement shouldn't be controversial. The fact you want to project all the evils of your own society onto China is a way for you to absolve yourself of supporting your empire by prioritizing opposing your empire's mortal enemy.
What? No, that's not what I said at all. I said that Han colonization is a different historical process from European colonization. In the flat lands of Europe where there were no physical hard boundaries yes, the lands were constantly conquered and reconquered. That's why there is a Swiss nation but no Belgian nation and no Austrian nation. These were just stretches of territory that various nations fought for control over. That wasn't colonization. Colonization is when one group subjugated other nations in their distinct historical homelands. Europeans and Chinese did this, but they were distinct historical processes shaped by their unique geographical context which gave rise to distinct political, economic, philosophical, and technological development.
The concept of Han Supremacy is also not equivalent to the concept of Eurocentric Christian White Supremacy. Han Chauvinism, which is the idea that the Han were cosmically and divinely mandated to bring civilization to the world led to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and mass murder all over China, just like Eurocentric Christian White Supremacy did in Europe. But the result in China has ALWAYS been a multi-national multi-ethnic state, whereas in Europe the results were very often ethnostates with a single nation present.
That's not to say one is better than the other, but it's to show that they are different. In this context, the Hand "establishing themselves as the master humans" was absolutely problematic. But Han Supremacy died over a century ago and was replaced with Han Chauvinism, which was the belief that the Han knew better than anyone else. Han Chauvinism was endemic in the early PRC, but Han Chauvinism was deliberately ended under the administration of Deng Xiaoping when the CPC modified the constitution and specifically targeted the concept and its impact. Because the CPC came to the realization that even though chauvinism wasn't nearly as bad as supremacy, it was still contradictory and would lead to ruin.
All you need to do is look at the One Child Policy to understand how fundamental this change was. When China established the One Child Policy, the same people who claim that China is just as evil as Europe pointed to the policy as fundamentally cruel. However, what most people never talked about was the fact that ethnic minorities were exempted from the policy. Some were unrestricted, some were restricted but to some number above one. The people who were constrained to one child were Han. Compare that to the social outcomes in Europe and their former and current colonies and it's starkly clear that there is a fundamental difference now.
I don't have to defend Han Supremacy, nor their genocides, nor their settler colonialism. It's all bad, and the harm needs to be repaired. I'm happy to be consistent on that front.
Historians, politicians, the UN, international law. I get that it doesn't fit your narrative, but there's a real difference between a protectorate and a colony. Tibet could not have been a resource colony when it first became a protectorate because no one was able to access the natural resources and build logistics to exploit them until after the PRC was established and finally industrialized. Meanwhile, the indigenous population of Tibet has more than doubled in the last 70 years. That's not indicative of a colony. That's indicative of an active colonial project. That's indicative of a thriving autonomous region under the military protection of a larger regional hegemon.
It's not weird at all. I just operate with a different set of facts than you. China has over 250 indigenous languages with over 1000 living speakers, whereas in all of North America it's less than 100. That's a fundamentally different outcome. Of the many indigenous ethnicities in China, most of them maintain their cultural customs, celebrations, holidays, cuisines, and histories. The Chinese government actively funds the preservation of these cultures, practices, and histories. Meanwhile, indigenous folks in North America are so traumatized by European colonization that the older generations are literally disowning their own kids for abandoning Christianity. The US and Canadian governments continue genocidal programs of blood quantum, water rights, toxic dumping, and cultural erasure.
That's not true.
Yes. Instead of accepting a status quo that exists as long as the PRC exists, they still voluntarily pursue the idea of something that will inevitably lead them into war, personal suffering and economic hardship. It is a very dumb thing to do, fuelled only by nationalist ideals and the desire of petty revenge. The PRC could choose to move beyond those dastardly motives and continue living their very successful life, yet they don't.
So? Since when can you choose your neighbours? Also, this is de facto already the case for as long as the PRC exists. Yet, the PRC managed to become a leading country. What exactly is their problem they want to spark a major war for, threatening their prosperity they just managed to accumulate?
So they don't consider Taiwan as part of their country?
Yet you seem to have a problem with only one of these forms of colonialism.
If you mean by that that there's a state where one master ethnicity enforces its command on all its subdued subjects within that state, yes. That's a very weird thing to defend, though.
So you don't defend it. Yet, it is the foundation for your claim of the entitlement of the PRC to control Taiwan, as both are effectively Han states?
That has become clear. Yea, and some of these cultures, the ruling Han elite even allows to continue to exist, in a tightly controlled and monitored way. I mean, how could they do it differently, as their entire state is built on continued Han Supremacy. So as soon as a culture seems to be no longer in line with this core principle of this so-called People's rule, that in fact is actually the rule of a Han elite, you get your culture destroyed (Tibet) or yourself locked up in ~~concentration~~ re-education camps. I just love PRC apologists clamour against imperialism, while they happily and blindly defend a state that has that much imperialism in its core. I'd say a true imperialist would distance themselves as much from Western as from Eastern imperialism, as they actually oppose the idea of imperialism itself. Yet, what can instead be seen online are people that love to label themselves 'anti-imperialists', as that is a noble badge to wear, while actually only being tribalistic anti-westernists yearning for an extremely simple binary world view of bad and hence good.
The whole Chinese Civil War was heavily influenced by the respective global powers. Both the US and the Soviet Union used their respective Chinese group to achieve a result they liked. Each propped up their group in a hope to lead them to victory. Both Chinese sites were used as puppets.
So, would you say that South Korea should annex North Korea?
At this point it's obvious you're not here to discuss facts and reason about them. You're here to filter facts and misinterpret them deliberately to fit your preferred conclusion.
And then you pivot to Korea in a way that is so disingenuous and so obviously ignoring literally everything I've said about the nature of sovereignty, Western imperialism, mutual security, nationhood and statehood, that it's clear you're having a discussion with yourself and not with me.
Someone that doesn't consider themselves Chinese is seceding from China.
They do. Invading an island is as little self-defence as bombing Iran.
'Since when can you choose your neighbours' has nothing to do with 'Western imperialist goals' but is a fact that affects all countries globally.
Except it isn't. The PRC/ROC split is the result of the Chinese Civil War, just as the NK/SK split is the result of the Korean Civil War. Both wars ended in a status quo where neither side controls the entirety, de facto resulting in two separate countries since decades.
So, if you negate the possibility of such an outcome in the Chinese question, you should negate this possibility in the Korean question and hence argue for South Korea, as the stronger part, to be entitled to force 'reunification' with the crippling North, which is rightfully theirs.
This is why you're not worth talking to.
You're a completely disingenuous person.
You don't argue in good faith.
You have a delusional grasp of history that serves only your pre-selected conclusions.
And your pre-selected conclusions are exactly matched to Western imperialist goals.
And you argue like a right-wing youtuber with zero self-awareness for how transparent you are.
You can shower me with whatever compliment you feel like. It doesn't change the fact that the Taiwanese don't consider themselves Chinese anymore. So does the world that currently is entertaining this charade of 'one China' to cater to the hurt feelings of the PRC. The Swiss moved on from being German or French you said, well so do the Taiwanese.
That might well be, but it doesn't change the fact that an attack on Taiwan by the PRC is not covered by self-defence.
So be it. But still, no country, notwithstanding any label whatever faction attributes to them has the right to choose its neighbours.
To call the clearly observable outcomes of the Civil Wars of China and Korea 'delusional' sounds a lot like psychological projection.
Even if that were the case, to reject a conclusion because it 'benefits the other side' is not necessarily a sign of an open mind but thinking within hard-set boundaries. Something I bet you'd refuse.
You should invest less time on obsessing with me and more on the gaping holes in your logic. Don't blame me for it.
Let's recap:
The PRCs rule is the outcome of a civil war, which was heavily influenced by both the US and the Soviet Union, which wanted their side to win.
This rule never extended to the island of Taiwan, which remained under the control of the ROC.
Until the 70s, this ROC was internationally considered 'China', the PRC was not.
Then, the US wanted to benefit from the Soviet-Sino Split and recognised the PRC instead of the ROC. This lead to the switch of international recognition of the PRC as China instead of the ROC.
Then, we saw the PRC becoming the factory of the US and the world, with the economic reforms of Deng Ziaoping introducing the market economy and ushering in the rise of capitalist elements in the PRCs economy
Meanwhile, the ROC dropped its formerly firmly held ambition to reconquer Mainland China and instead, developed an own identity, where Taiwan was all they aspired to control.
This is strongly opposed by the PRC, which strongly wants Taiwan to keep its 'Chinese' affiliation. We both know why.
So, concluding: Taiwan is de facto a sovereign country. Just as South Korea and North Korea are. Or the PRC. The only reason why the international community doesn't call it as it is is due to the PRC threatening war for that case. Yet, this childish behaviour not worthy of one of the largest countries in the world cannot change what has been fact since the existence of the PRC: it does not hold any control over Taiwan. And not even the longest, most entangled excursion into whatever theory or story how mean 'the West' is, has been and will forever be, cannot change that.
Right and that's why countries have pledged to defend China...from itself? Is that the argument you are wanting to make? The reason its not recognized by the Un is because China is a power player with veto rights. Its all stupid politics to not upset china
You do understand the history right? The US chose to back the KMT on Taiwan, sort of like if England had decided to back the Confederates if they hold up in Florida. Except the KMT on Taiwan never seceded. In fact, they organized a fascist dictatorship on the island and they imprisoned and killed anyone who wanted to reunify with the mainland, and they also imprisoned and killed anyone who wanted to secede. The US was supporting them throughout the entire 4 decades of the White Terror wherein the government in Taiwan explicitly stated they were not a separate nation.
In fact, a bunch of Chinese people from Taiwan who fled to the US or Japan tried to build secessionary movements in exile and the KMT on Taiwan chased them down with spies and assassins to stop them.
Just because the US carries on the age old tradition of white European empires trying to pull pieces of China way from China doesn't mean Taiwan isn't part of China.
I do understand history, thanks. I mean, if you wanted to make the comparison, you got it backwards. And saying Taiwan imprisoned and killed a bunch of people for disagreeing seems to just be part of how China functions then, because mainland Taiwan has done the exact same thing lol.
Given that Taiwan has never existed as a country, your position that the two bodies are part of the same country is aligned with my position
Given that you're wrong, and that Taiwan is a country, no. Just because its not recognized by the un doesn't make it not a country lol
It's literally never been a country in its entire history. It is a province of China, it is recognized internationally as a province of China. No one has ever recognized it as a separate country. It doesn't have any legal standing as a separate country. It doesn't claim to be a separate country. And anyone in Taiwan that tried to claim it was a separate country was killed by the leadership of Taiwan for 40 years, and anyone from Taiwan that left and tried to claim it was a separate country was a target of the government on Taiwan to silence them from trying to say Taiwan was a separate country.
The only people who think Taiwan is a separate country are Westerners trying to justify why the US should have lethal military force installed and ready 4 miles off the coast of mainland China.
This is factually wrong. There has been a native population with their own governance for most of its history.
There have been some smaller trading outposts from the mainland Chinese over the course of history, but the Portuguese and Dutch traders actually had more influence on the island than those Chinese traders who carefully avoided conflict with the native population.
The claim over the island by the Chinese empire ever only existed on paper until a brief period in the late 19th ~~early 20th~~ century when they tried to brutally colonize the island only to be shortly after overrun by the Japanese who happily took over the colony.
The Austronesians of the main island lived on a couple of other islands around the mainland, but their inhabitance did not match 1-to-1 with the borders of the province of Taiwan. I agree with you that there was a country (and a nation) that the indigenous Austronesians of the region comprise, but that county is not Taiwan and that nation is not Taiwanese.
Correct, the Han Chinese were not anywhere near as brutal colonizers as the Europeans were. The Dutch in particular hunted the Formosa sika deer nearly to extinction. What that shows, more than anything, is that the Europeans shouldn't be trusted in any of their positions relative to the region since they've been violent psychotic extractivists for 6 centuries and their only motivations are their own personal enrichment and the total subjugation of everyone else.
Half truths are the worst kind. The Chinese empire invaded the region specifically to kick out the Europeans. Like, it's very explicit that the purpose of the invasion was to get rid of the Dutch East India Company. Europeans went out colonizing proactively and committing genocide because their pope said they should. The Ming invaded Formosa to get rid of foreign invaders. That wasn't in the late 19th century. The Dutch surrendered in 1662. Ming China held Taiwan at that moment. Qing China held Taiwan 20 years later when the Ming loyalists officially surrendered. When that occurred, there was a debate as to whether or not they should maintain occupation of the island. Some argued it wasn't worth it. But the argument that won day? If we don't hold, the Europeans will come back, establish their military bases on it, and attack us. Does that sound familiar? Because it's literally the exact same argument that's being made 400 years later because the Eurocentric empire is STILL establishing military bases in the region with the intent of attacking the mainland.
The Han Chinese occupation of the island is a relationship of settler colonialism. The Austronesians are the indigenous. The Han Chinese that live in the province today are not entitled to a distinct national self-determination. They are part of the Chinese nation. Taiwan seceding from China would be even less legitimate than the European colonists seceding from England because the colonists were not operating as a 70-year protectorate of a world power on the other side of the world with ZERO legitimate claims or history in the region.
I would LOVE to see to Taiwan decolonized, the place names of the Austronesians reestablished, the nation of Austronesians self-determined and self-governing. But we're not going to get that by having a bunch of comprador Han Chinese in the province align themselves with the most genocidal military in the world that continues to exterminate the culture of its own indigenous people. It's only going to happen through successive resolutions of contradiction, starting with the end of the Eurocentric empire's presence in the entire region, including The Phillipines, Indonesia, Korea, the province of Taiwan, and the Western Pacific ocean. When that happens, and China has organized Taiwan province under it's centuries-long demonstrated and proven One Country Two Systems approach, then the conditions for addressing the colonial contradiction will emerge and the work can begin. But America ripping the Han Chinese into two countries, one of them a protectorate and a proxy and the other a mortal enemy, is just a continuation of 600 years of brutal European empire building and it needs to stop.
Only semantics really.
This was a naval campaign involving a few outposts and never did anything about the majority of the island that was self governed by the native population, despite European and Chinese interference. But you are right that as a backwater it wasn't really considered to be worth the hassle at the time.
This changed in 1874 as a reaction to a brief Japanese invasion, and the subsequent subjugation of the native population was indeed a settler colonial project by the Chinese that was continued by the Japanese when they took over in 1895. The Europeans also meddled with the status during the Sino-French war in 1883/84, but it was quite inconsequential.
You are so close to getting it 😅 Taiwan was always an independent nation subject to various settler colonial efforts by the Chinese and others. The Chinese have no claim over the island whatsoever, neither the current administration of the mainland, nor the Kuomintang when they invaded and settled there.
And how exactly does further colonization by the Chinese mainland help with that goal? The Taiwanese nation is on the slow way of doing so, but they chose the peaceful way of integrating with the Han Chinese that settled there after WW2. Your focus on the specific Austronesian ethnicity is IMHO extremely racist, and restoring them as the sole inhabitants would be nothing short of a genocide of a large part of the current population that chose peaceful democratic coexistence in the last couple of decades.
Because of the way contradictory historical processes actually work. Chinese integration is not a process of colonization, it is a process of resolving the contradiction of Western imperialism. Western imperialism imposed a contradiction on top of the Han Chinese settler colonial contradiction. Resolving the Western imperial contradiction creates the conditions necessary to resolve the Han Chinese settler colonial contradiction.
I thought you just said that it was settler colonialism and not peaceful coexistence. Now suddenly saying that Han Chinese occupation is settlerdom is racist? That's like saying it's racist against white people to deny them sovereignty over the territories in the Western hemisphere. Stop the duplicitous pearl clutching. The 16 Austronesian nations of the major islands that comprise Taiwan province are not Taiwanese by nationality any more than the Lakota, Dakota, Seneca, and Navajo are American.
Peaceful coexistence under the "protection" of the most genocidal violent psychopathic military empire in the world. Listen, this would sound very compelling if it wasn't for the fact that US defense analysts and officials have spent years talking about the Pacific Kill Chain, Kill Web, and Hellscape infrastructure they are trying to build on the island of Taiwan. It would be compelling if the US didn't have special forces stationed 2 miles off the coast the mainland.
But if you actually look at what's happening, your story of peaceful coexistence is a lie by omission. Yes, all of the people of the province want peaceful coexistence, as do all of the people and nations in China. And China is an incredibly peaceful nation - no bombs dropped since 1989, no boats fired on since 1988. The majority of the world understands that peaceful coexistence is only possible after the vast genocidal white supremacist Western empire falls and their military presence is removed from the four corners of the Earth. Taiwan has peaceful coexistence except for that little nagging problem of literally being part of a genocidal empire's infrastructure for mass murder. I know it's a little nit to pick, but I'm gonna pick it.
The Taiwanese nation is no longer ruled by the Kuomintang. There has been a peaceful transition to a democratic government that includes the native Taiwanese population and the local people with Han Chinese roots increasingly self-identify as Taiwanese. It isn't perfect, and they are struggling with their settler colonial roots, but they are on the way of healing.
None of your geostrategic arguments justify in any shape or form the continued aggression by the Chinese government towards its peaceful neighbor Taiwan 🤷
Sorry what continued aggression? Do you mean bombing fishing boats with double tap strikes? Do you mean sending in death squads to terrorize the population? Do you mean sending guns, money, training, and logistical support to terrorist groups and separatists?
China is not acting aggressively towards the people of Taiwan, it is demonstrating combat readiness to the US empire who consistently states openly that they intend to turn Taiwan into military infrastructure that they will use to attack the mainland.
The fact that the Western media portrays this as aggression against Taiwan is a function of propaganda and not reality.
Pure whataboutism. And there is no realistic scenario that includes the US attacking China right now and there hasn't been one in decades. The Taiwanese military infrastructure is purely defensive in nature.
Taiwan is subject to severe diplomatic repression, regular naval blockade drills and continued threats of invasion solely based denying their right to self-govern.
https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/hellscape-for-taiwan
The Western idea of "defense" is genocide.
If your only remaining argument is more whataboutism entirely unrelated to the nation of Taiwan then I guess we are finished here.
You have no idea what whataboutism is then. You said:
and I said the definition of defense, according to the US, is genocidal force projection. If you think that's whataboutism, then you can maintain your thought-terminating cliche and ignore the fact that the empire is consistently lying to you about what defense is.
Look, if you can not honestly engage with the topic of Taiwanese self-governance and keep trying to find excuses for Chinese aggression towards their peaceful neighbor, even going so far as denying the existence of the Taiwanese nation (both historical and present) then you clearly need to do a deep self-inspection on who here is operating with "thought-terminating cliches" and needs to lay off on imperial propaganda 🤷
Again, you are characterizing Chinese national security as aggression when China is literally not committing acts of agression. I don't know why you think that's a form of honesty.
I am engaged in the topic of Taiwanese self-government - I honestly don't believe they are entitled to it and I have stated my reasons why. If you think my honesty is being dishonest because the only honest position is believing that Taiwan should be a sovereign nation, then I hate to break it to you but you have no idea what honesty is and you are using the term "honesty" to mean "agrees with me".
If you think that my arguments about nations, countries, being states having related but distinct historical processes that can be compared across continents, regions, cultures, and time periods is a set of thought-terminating cliches, then maybe I overestimated your ability to participate in discourse above the level of "I know you are but what am I".
So you were lying when you said earlier:
And it is full mask off imperialism, where you think it is justified for one nation to subjugate another. Great that you are finally honest here with anyone reading this 😏
Talk about intellectual dishonesty.
I would love to Taiwan decolonized is true statement. Like I would love to see Canada, the US, and Australia decolonized. It's also true that I don't think there is a Taiwanese nation, much like I don't think there's a Canadian nation, a USian nation, nor an Australian nation. For Taiwan to be decolonized would not mean for the acceptance of a Taiwanese nation but rather to establish the sovereignty of the indigenous nations on the islands that are not Han, and to make the Han subject to the sovereignty of the indigenous nations.
None of that is inconsistent. None of that is imperialism. None of that is subjugation.
The interlectual hoops you are jumping through to justify your cognitive disonance is truly astonishing 🤡
The Taiwanese nation is a historical and present fact as I have clearly laid out above. Your semantic arguments hold little water and arguing that only the indigious population has a right to claim nationhood is a very transparent excuse to deny the existing local population the right to self-governance (which they already peacefully do together with the indiginous population).
Comparing Chinese aggression to USA aggression in regards to national aggression finishes the argument for you?
If so, not in your favor
"Whataboutism" is weak, lazy, and intellectually insulting. Do better.
(lots of history and a good discussion until you squeezed the whataboutism turd out)
So what would you call someone trying to divert the discussion about Chinese agression towards Taiwan with an entirely unrelated agression the US does on the other side of the world? That is clearly a "but what about" argument... that is indeed weak, lazy and interlectually insulting.
Nah dawg, maybe some of the people think that. Most of think that China just needs to fuck off. It is a country, it checks all the boxes required. I just don't like the taste of boot leather
If you don't like the taste of boot leather, why are you supporting the idea that the US military should be allowed to deployed military assets to threaten China, including stationing troops just off the coast of the mainland, in the same program of the US supporting a brutal military dictatorship for 40 years that killed and tortured people just for saying they think the civil war should end and the KMT should just surrender?
Or are you a fan of the Confederates and believe the South should rise again?
Oh the mental gymnastics, no not liking boot leather means not liking boot leather. Chinese or otherwise. I like countries living in peace. Taiwan wants to be alone then they should be. Why is it ok for China to threaten others but not the us? Why the double standards?
The CPC has literally stated, for 70 years, unchanging, that they recognize that the country needs healing, not violence, and that the only way they want Taiwan to be reintegrated is peacefully. The only statements they have ever issued, for 7 decades, about violence is that they will respond to any attempt to create the conditions for an existential military threat. The conflict between the losers of the civil war and the winners of the civil war has consistently been an internal conflict that the CPC fundamentally understands as something that must be resolved through peace and dialog. It is the US that has decided that Taiwan should be an unsinkable aircraft carrier, a staging area of US missiles, and part of the USA's Pacific Kill Chain.
China has NEVER threatened military violence against the people of Taiwan. They have only ever demonstrated their military readiness to fight against US and European military build up in the province. Which of course has a long history, that you are probably aware of but can't integrate into your worldview because you are smothered in Yellow Peril propaganda.
China hasn't dropped a bomb in a conflict since 1989 - that's 37 years. Meanwhile the US continues to say that they must "contain the threat of China" and they are building alliances in the region to "address the threat of China" while they literally destroy entire countries and commit acts of terror and war crimes wherever and whenever they want.
There is no double standard. There is one standard. The US is a mass murdering global beligerent. China is not. Defending against the USA is not the same as developing a kill chain to threaten China on the other side of the world. If China was doing the same things the USA was doing, then I would have a double standard. But China is not deploying missile systems and building air bases and barracks on Cuba. It's not building military alliances with Canada and Mexico, or building a proxy state in Quebec. It's not sending entire carrier groups to patrol the Gulf of Mexico.
There is no double standard here. China is the target of USA aggression. Framing China's defensive build up and readiness as somehow equivalent is the same thing as saying that slaves slowly gathering an arsenal of weapons and building escape routes is the same thing as slave owners building an arsenal of weapons and building relationships with slave catchers.
Alright, clearly you are just regurgitating Chinese propaganda. Have a great life all the best to you!
Not the sharpest T00l in the shed
Never claimed to be, but at least i dont rabidly defend colonial nations and their shittiness, like you do lol. Anyways as I said before. Have a great life! I wish you all the best
LOL, colonial nations. You're a a goddamned anglophone from the EuroCentric world. You are projecting your heritage onto the political enemies of the Eurocentric empire.