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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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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.