Taiwan's Independence

Thank you for your opinion. Unfortunately for you, because you don't live in Taiwan (as evidenced by your willingness to talk of invasion) your opinion doesn't matter. Neither does mine, for what it's worth. The Taiwanese are the ones who get to choose what they want. Your willingness to ignore that is...well, I'm not going to insult you. But it's not admirable.

Sure, oppression and blocking you from having relations with other countries is such a good thing.

No, it's not. It's fucking bullshit. China wont even let them have relations with other countries. Their not even allowed in the UN. Dammit, PALESTINE has some representation, and their a few hobos in a shack compared to Tiwan's government.

edited 31st May '12 4:58:56 PM by Joesolo

Invasion this, invasion that. I didn't talk about it because it's a non-issue. It's something you completely made up just so my argument can appear fallible. Missiles were never pointed at Taiwan : they are pointed at possible future docking Marine Carriers. There are no evidence whatsoever suggesting that China is 'army-training' for coastal invasion. Take that into account please.

Whereas Japan and America keep on annually train in countering China. Who is the biggest internecine here?

edited 31st May '12 4:59:27 PM by Cassie

America and Japan can't be trusted, but PRC can?

I just think that that's not what's really important here, unless Taiwanese actually request their cooperation.

@Cassie: Short of invasion, China has no way to stop Taiwanese independence. Several pages ago, I remembered you making a statement saying you believed China had the right to invade Taiwan to keep it from declaring independence. If you don't believe that, I apologize for misunderstanding.

Please don't answer with a post saying the Taiwanese don't want total independence. I know. We're talking about what would be done if they decided they did.

Just a note: remember those statistics I posted last page? I accidentally typed that they showed that pro-unification support outnumbered pro-independence support, even though it's actually the other way around. I already corrected the original post, and the people who actually read the links already know this, but I thought I should let the rest of you guys know.

edited 31st May '12 6:21:59 PM by umbrellasareawesome

I don't know, this thread just seems to devolve into Americans backing independence even though polls suggest status quo is what is wanted by the Taiwanese, along with Chinese arguments that because Taiwan is a breakaway province they have special rights in how they might resolve that situation.

The thing is, I don't value an argument talking about dismissing other people's arguments and then pretending that the American viewpoint of Taiwanese independence or supremacy of the Ro C when statistics don't bear out. The pro-independence group has a slight lead over pro-unification but the actual majority want status quo. That is NOT independence. It's an important if subtle differentiation because it leaves the door open to a future choice change (ie. if they wanted to, they might rejoin China).

I think the biggest factor that will affect what the Taiwanese may decide in the future is China's domestic policies. So long as China continues to improve, pro-independence sentiment will drop.

Hey, I thought my original statistics post was relatively neutral, and I'm an American (albeit one of Taiwanese descent). Hell, I don't get the feeling most of the posters here would be up in arms if the Taiwanese did vote to rejoin their bros/cousins/whatever on the mainland.

Yeah, your posts have been very neutral. It's just I see Cassie and Joesolo going round and round on ideological grounds.

I appreciated your statistics because it finally ended what really annoyed me; the constant contention that there was a majority of people vying for independence. Such is not the case and I had the impression, confirmed by those numbers, that the Taiwanese don't know what to do one way or another.

I argue for unification mostly on the grounds that the civil war is over and it's time for reconciliation and part of that reconciliation does involve domestic policy shifts in China itself. I just dislike people who pretend that they're okay with separatist movements until it's their backyard.

I forgot to mention it earlier; but there is some indication that the Taiwanese are beginning to think of themselves in greater numbers as, well, "Taiwanese". It doesn't mean that they might not choose to reunify in the future, but it might be on terms closer to that of the British Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in particular). Just a stray thought.

Sorry, I clash hard with people. When cass started spouting all the pro-china stuff it set me off. It's up to Taiwan's people, of course.

@ Umbrella

I figure that there are now generations of Taiwanese who have grown up that never had a unified China so they are more easily able to identify as Taiwanese than as Chinese.

Historically speaking, Qing dynasty took 100 years before finally reabsorbing Taiwan into the fold. It's not entirely out of the question for P Ro C to take that long as well because, as far as the power scale goes, it's highly in favour of the P Ro C, so I really don't think unification would ever go the other way around except in some pipedream.

@ Joesolo

Yeah, I can understand that.

There is, I think, which is a bit "ethnic nationalist", viewpoint from the Chinese where Chinese want all lands where Chinese live to be under a single government. It's a sort of sense of unity. This is not any different from a sense that Americans would prefer the United States to remain whole. A separation for 60 years is basically a timescale of nothing to the Chinese.

Amusingly, in the days of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiwanese had a habit of rebelling against the various corrupt/inept officials sent to what was effectively a backwater post, eliciting one official document to make this oft-quoted complaint: "Every three years an uprising, every five years a rebellion". Just a reminder that the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland has always been a little quirky, to say the least, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

Personally, speaking as an outsider, I see no reason for the current status quo not to continue, awkward though it may be in some respects. Many, but not all, Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese, but show no willingness to submit themselves to the rule of the current Chinese government. That sounds like the current state of affairs to me.

I think a lot of the problem here comes from conflating several different uses of 'nation'. If we consider the word purely to mean a wholly self-governing territory, Taiwan is a nation in that sense. It's the realpolitik definition of a nation. The word and concept mean so much more, though. "Nation" is a cultural identification too, an emotional identification. In this sense, Taiwan is not a nation, since it seems the majority of its population do not want to break away from China in that sense.

And then we could get into pan-Chinese nationalism and how it affects politics in the region, but that's a big separate fight.

I still think it's BS China tries to keeps them out of international relations. It's just unfair. The fact we take it is worse...

I agree because in international relations it's the de facto nation that matters. Taiwan is a large self-determining entity, and I think that, not other issues, is what should matter. Yes, both governments consider themselves the legitimate rulers of all of China. So what? It affects nothing about the current situation.

Do both Koreas think themselves the legitimate rulers of all of Korea? I suspect they do.

The thing is that both Koreas were officially admitted to UN as separate nations, and are counted as such in international talks.

By the same logic both Chinas could be admitted, regardless of their official claims of jurisdiction over the other. De facto, they are two nations in the sense of political autonomy from each other.

The only reason I myself am not terribly fond of the status quo is that it requires an investment of American military support to keep functional, and stands as a pothole in Sino-American relations.

My gut feeling there is that if the price of US-Chinese relations is to stab a self-governing, democratic and successful portion of China in the back, those relations are not worth having.

However, my analysis of it, supported by a lot of people who know better than I, is that China is unlikely to make a military bid to take over the place. China's economy is very dependent on foreign trade, and it would be very painful for them to take actions that would disrupt it. It would also make them look bad in the eyes of the world at precisely the time they want to look better.

Well, I wanted to impress upon people that the US never backed Taiwan because of democracy. The vast majority of the real "military threat" days was when Taiwan was a horrible military dictatorship murdering thousands of its people in an anti-communist campaign. How it is today is democratic, and China is not yet democratic, but the military threat is gone. China isn't going to invade today so there's no sense in talking about that. In fact, the only way American military makes a difference now is if they start pushing China into a war by threatening cross-strait relations with military actions, but that's not something that USA is going to do either.

The thing is that the Taiwanese people may or may not shift toward being less Chinese or more Chinese over the next few decades, but given the economic and cultural growth of China (the further they relax their authoritarian rule, the more culture will flourish), it's hard for me to say what will happen.

In any case, I don't think there's going to ever be anywhere close to a majority of Taiwanese that want to be admitted into the UN as a separate nation. They'll like want a democratic Chinese government is what.

edited 1st Jun '12 2:54:39 PM by breadloaf

Your kinda wrong there. They DO want to be admitted as a separate nation b/c their not part of communist china. They've petitioned for it before.

As of 2010, that is incorrect. According to Wikipedia, the largest bloc (64%) wants the status quo. The next largest bloc (19%) prefers independence, followed lastly (5%) by the pro-unification bloc.

Despite the lack of UN recognition and only 23 sovereign states recognizing Taiwan, it does have a constitution and elected government independent of that of the People's Republic of China. It also has substantial military force and is a globally-recognized economic power forming part of the "Four Asian Tigers" designated economic group. At the end of the day, I think—UN recognition or no UN recognition—that Taiwan isn't going anywhere until the people of Taiwan say so.

EDIT: And while it is only recognized by 23 countries in the world, it is has substantial unofficial relations with most of the big political players, including (but not limited to):

• United States
• Britain
• France
• Germany
• India
• Brazil
• Australia
• Canada
• Turkey
• Saudi Arabia

However, it is true that they have repeatedly petitioned the UN to be recognized as an independent nation.

edited 1st Jun '12 3:46:08 PM by DerelictVessel

Well, again, the numbers prove my statement true. The vast majority of Taiwanese want status quo, not become a new nation.

Yes, but they do want UN status. They have more of a right to it than some.