Taiwan's Independence

@bread loaf- That was weeks after the start. Thats like showing up at the battle of Trenton and said the American Revolution was started by the colonists attacking the British in their sleep. They didn't see the tibetans being attacked by the Chinese before hand.

I'm meh on Iraq. While it wasn't for the right reasons and it turned into a shit hole real fast, Saddam had to go down. People seem to forget he was committing Genocide against the Kurds.

edited 14th Apr '12 6:31:46 AM by Joesolo

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Whether or not you approve of the Iraq war, the sheer number of people who are convinced Hussein helped fund/orchestrate 9/11 is saddening. But that's getting off-topic.

Getting back on-topic, I'm not sure I'm convinced that China would really go to war if Taiwan declared independence. They've said they would, yes; it's their official policy. But unless the people calling the shots in China are very stupid, deluded, and/or horrifically vain, I gotta think they'd backtrack on that at the last minute.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Yea. They may be violent, oppressive, and somewhat evil, but they're not dumb. they know World War III would end VERY badly for them.

edited 14th Apr '12 6:56:47 AM by Joesolo

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Backtracking a bit:

What right? The right negotiated by the US and the other country's government. It's really, when you get down to basics, no more than a scaled-up version of a person deciding that their friends can come to visit the person's house, while those who aren't friends can't. (And warships of foreign powers not friendly to the US have been given permission to dock at US port cities in the past, as I recall. Not regularly, no, but it's not nonexistent, either.)

And given mainland China's habit of letting quality control on products slide, my Inner Snarker(tm) says Chinese destroyers already dock at American port cities. They're just there in cargo ship holds.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

They have anyway. I can't find the page right now, but a few years back a chinese cruiser participated in a training exercise with some American ships near Pearl Harbor.

I'm baaaaaaack

Cassie, for the last time, the US argument is no excuse for taking away what the Taiwanese have or want. This is not about US.

Now using Trivialis handle.

Yeah. The Taiwanese want the status quo, end of story. That's really all there is to it. No other factor may be of any concern.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

^ Hey now, that's not entirely true. They voted pro-unification. I think that without any pressure to actually make a decision, nobody is going to make a decision.

@ Joesolo

Okay, so I have eye-witness accounts and you have what? Your own opinion?

General racism doesn't justify mass murder.

@ Nohbody

So why is the US complaining it couldn't dock at HK? Don't get permission from China, you don't get to dock.

Most of the bs is because of American domestic politics requiring US politicians to take a "hard" stance against China. And what about product slide? I love how we complain about that, yet all the products are produced by, you guessed it, American corporations. Why not blame the corporations? Were they super safe when they were manufacturing in America? Most certainly not.

You want the quality to go up, you have to talk to the US government to impose regulations on US corporations. Complaining to China is for the Chinese.

@ de facto/de jure

De jure independence is all about the scale at which Taiwan can operate politically at many different functions. They get more powers at the UN, they get to claim territory dispute, they get to wrestle over water resources, they get to have a fully functional military, they get to have full US military support on the ground and so on. There are real material differences.

If you focus just on domestic politics, the one thing the central authority in China doesn't care about, then certainly you won't see what the difference means.

When exactly did they vote that? When they voted for the KMT which ironically you so demonify? That's not voting for unification, that's voting for the status quo. As opposed to voting for outright declaring independance. Those are the two options the Taiwanese people are considering. Unification is not one of them.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

It's not ironic at all. Look at Pakistan. They keep voting for the same two shitty parties. Or hey, potshot at America, they keep voting demo/repub despite the fact they know it's going to be the same thing again.

There's only two names on the ballot, KMT or the other guys. It doesn't mean the KMT is good. Does the Yemenese voting for the current government mean it was awesome? Most certainly not (also they only had one name on the ballot anyway).

Let's not move goalposts. KMT is pro-unity and the other is pro-independence. But nobody is actually going to make a move because there's no reason to rock the boat right now. Without a major change, they're just slowly sliding closer to unity because there's less and less reason to fear China.

The main reason unification is a goal is the same one for North and South Korea. Non-Koreans can simply not give a shit about the two countries coming back together after 60 years of separation, but you have the luxury of not giving a shit. It's not your ethnicity being torn apart by conflict. It's not your country that was ripped apart by civil war. And it's not your families being separated by an artificial border.

KMT is pro-"mainland under RoC control". That's not quite the same as unification in the terms we've spoken about here. It's not that they don't want to rock the boat, that would be the pan-greens. They are ideologically all for the status quo. They want neither the PRC nor a Republic of Taiwan, but the RoC.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Yeah, they may want the Ro C to be in control of China, but all the steps they've taken are basically toward an SAR Taiwan under Chinese rule. And really I don't think polls really support any of the independence talk here. I haven't seen a single poll that showed the Taiwanese ever wanting independence. The most I've seen swinging toward that is status-quo and most of the other opinion is toward unification.

As China has become less of a threat, the primary path through which China is taking now for unification, the more the Chinese in Taiwan want unification via an SAR. So really, unification is already doing what a few of us have suggested, making China more democratic in order to get back Taiwan.

@Bread loaf- What 2 people saw means almost nothing. They were ALLOWED to see that side. You can't base everything on what a few people saw.

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Are we talking about the same government that sent tanks into a peaceful demonstration and the outright denied that anyone was killed? How about all those persecutions on pro-democracy and crackdowns on demonstrations?

It is getting better but not there yet.

I don't think they'd go to war.

The thing about those killings was that they succeeded. It was terrible, and horrific, and I condemn it absolutely. But it worked. A war over Taiwan would fail. So I don't think China would stop them from declaring independence. They'd just pretend that it never happened.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Only just. I've heard that some historians think if the Bejing army units had been sent it, they're could have been an out right revolution and civil war.

While wars usually a bad thing, that could have been an improvement, baring use of nukes.

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breadloaf, KMT is pro-unification under Republic of China, the ruling government of Taiwan. Not the same thing.

edited 14th Apr '12 5:32:39 PM by abstractematics

Now using Trivialis handle.

yea. almost no one on the island want to be controlled by the Communist government.

Up until recently the Republic of China had even claimed Mongolia and Tibet, in addition to China since that was their territory before they were pushed out the Soveit-backed maoists.

edited 14th Apr '12 6:06:33 PM by Joesolo

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Misconception much? The very government that sent tanks to splatter on people got diluted by changed members already. We now have Chinese a government that's influenced by rabid media censorship as a way of life instead. If it were still the same, the Tibet and Uyghur riots would've been bloodily different

edited 14th Apr '12 6:08:58 PM by Cassie

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

They were bloody. The media was used to stop it from spreading though.

I'm baaaaaaack

They had permission, then it was withdrawn in a manner that looked an awful lot like a child throwing a temper tantrum because someone didn't agree with them.

First off, things produced by Chinese manufacturers are not "American corporations". PRC law requires 51% ownership of a foreign company's operations in China. Really, most non-Chinese companies operating in China are really acting as subsidiaries of outside-China corporations.

Secondly, while US-produced products are certainly not perfect in regards to product safety, when was the last time US production included poisonous materials put into pet food to make it look like it had more protein content in it than actually existed, the same thing used in baby formula for the same purpose, or lead based paint used on children's toys (all of which were, IIRC, under entirely Chinese companies who were selling to US companies)?

I won't argue that US companies don't need to look more closely at what they import, because I think they do need to do so, but the manufacturers also bear responsibilities for their products.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

The current president got to his position because of hs hardline approach to Tibet. Taiwan declaring herself independent will be seen as an opportunity to "make a name for himself", and there are those in the higher ups and the populations that think they can "take the west on". The premier and his faction will oppose to war, but I doubt that they will be able to stop it (it will be just like 4th June massacre again).

@ Nohbody

You really want to point out when the last time American corporations used poisonous substances such as lead for baby toys or other items? The only reason we ever got safer products was through government regulation and we've been slacking. It's not the fault of China for these things to happen.

So first of all:

• Chinese subsidiaries act on behalf of their American corporations. How could they import products to the US without the US corporation taking a look at them first? Are we really going to go ahead and say that the actual importers can't be bothered to inspect the products for which they sell to Americans? Really?

• Manufacturer can bear responsibility sure, but who is the ultimate owner? The US corporation. This is rather insane to just suddenly divulge any and all responsibility by the corporation that sells the actual product. If it's not safe, the American corporation can cut business ties with the factory but they don't. So what does that say?

They had permission to dock at HK and then it was withdrawn after the US politically attacked China. You call it temper tantrum all you want, but don't expect countries to grovel at the feet of the US when they bash them publicly. I watched that story too. The US carrier got permission for their holiday to dock at HK. Then the US started mouthing off against China. So then China withdrew its permission.

It happens and it's called politics. You can pretend a higher ground but there is none. The US butts itself in to throw its weight behind anything anti-China and then you expect China to be happy? The US flies spy planes over its air space, moves boats to support the Japanese ridiculous island claims halfway across the oceans there (and I'm not saying that China deserves any of the islands but backing Japan is just as stupid) and then goes "Oh my gosh, the country reacted negatively". What exactly are we expecting?

@ Joesolo

I hadn't realised that tourists speaking in Canada and Sweden were also touched by the Chinese media. You're taking this whole "media censorship" way too far and accusing western media of joining into it at this point. It's not one or two people seeing a limited amount by what the "authorities" wanted them to see.

It was dozens of Canadians and Swedes who had to flee Tibet because of the riots, who had nothing to do with the Chinese authorities at any point. Stop pretending it was a bunch of saints asking for democracy. It was exactly the same riots that plagued France and UK recently.

@ Abstract

It doesn't matter what kind of unification they're asking for, it completely kills your arguments. They want unification, period. That's it. You can spin it any way you want but it's clear what they want is unification.

The only concern is how they unify.

That is my point here.

1. It does matter, Republic of China and People's Republic of China are two different things.

2. It doesn't "kill our arguments".

3. No, they don't. Even KMT has the "three no's" to preserve status quo.

Now using Trivialis handle.

To me, the word "unification" implies both groups come together willingly in an equal merger. If one group is merged with the other against its will and has its way of doing things overridden by the other group's, then that's not unification; that's conquest.

While there are a lot of people in China and Taiwan who want to see the two landmasses under the same government, the way they want that to happen is only unification only in the most literal sense.

edited 15th Apr '12 12:22:44 AM by RavenWilder

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko