Taiwan's Independence

But then we're back to a war scenario, and consider the probability of US siding with Taiwan to the point that diplomacy and trade with China is broken.

We have fairly tense relations with China, and we have treaty obligations to Taiwan. I don't think we'd accept them invading, especially since there would be a good chance of them launching pre-emptive attacks on Guam and Okinawa.

Funny enough, China's probably worried that America will pre empt too.

edited 8th Feb '12 7:26:27 PM by Natasel

Personally I think America's insane second-strike ability. Between Tomahawk missile armed Subs and Stealth jets, the days after a attack on Taiwan will be hell for China.

especially if we have secret non-nuclear missile silos in Okinawa ad Guam.

If our cruisers have them with upwards of 4000 mile range, those bases should.

Guess China will have to activate their secret Kung Fu Assassin Army all over America's China Town. Now with suit case nukes AND suicide SARS carriers.

Seriously though, Taiwan is a prize AND a player in this Game of Nations. As long as nothing too serious rocks the boat, it could slowly go either (or neither) way.

Well I'm not really seeing why China even needs to be so hostile like all of you are predicting. There seems to be this issue where you believe that China must invade and conquer in order to take land but I really doubt it. Taiwan was far more independent of China in the past but Qing Dynasty eventually took it back from Ming Dynasty remnants, but it took a 100 years and it wasn't some bloody conflict. It was a slow whimpering of Ming to Qing's much more powerful state.

In this case, if China's growth in power and economics grows substantially more than Taiwan, via trade and support (China is grabbing up most of Africa, Mideast and South America... all the players that are hurt by the West), then Taiwan will feel increasingly isolated except for having US as an ally. They'll basically become the state with no real friends in Asia (like Israel in Mideast) except for big ole USA defending them. China simply waits it out, keeps putting political pressure and offerings on the table and eventually the Taiwanese will be forced to accept to remain relevant.

Afterall, the PRC already grabbed enough support to have the UN membership support their claim of China versus the KMT. The pan-greens don't even care any more and there's not likely to be anybody but the West to recognise Taiwan as an independent nation. It'll also be seen by most of the world as American imperialism again, forcing yet another split of a country for our benefit.

This isn't like throwing Poland under the bus to USSR. It's more like saying, throwing Kosovo under the bus to Serbia, or throwing Basque under the bus to Spain and so on. Poland was never part of Russia. Taiwan has been a part of China. So you're asking to recognise a new country and ignore history here.

edited 9th Feb '12 7:37:00 AM by breadloaf

No more than you are. Taiwan has been an independent nation for over sixty years. there are over two generation of Taiwanese who think of themselves as Taiwanese, albeit of Chinese heritage, and,since the ending of the KM Ts dictatorship the idea of "one China" has fallen more and more by the wayside.

So, just out of curiosity, where are you from?

edited 9th Feb '12 7:51:11 AM by tricksterson

Poland was a part of Russia. Well technically Poland was "divided" between Prussia, Russia and Austria. lol

Well personally I'm not asking a "new country" to be recognized, but rather the pretenders in the mainland be eliminated so that the Republic of China can "go back" to what it was supposed to have been in the late 1940s.

edited 9th Feb '12 8:31:22 AM by entropy13

@ tricksterson

Canada.

Anyway, if you want Taiwan to be independent then I think demilitarisation is a very good choice. The assumption here is that if there's no large standing military that China will invade, and then a bunch of people in this thread went into some WW3 wet dream about conflict, nukes and massed armed warfare. That's all fun and all but not everybody is a violent militaristic nation.

China's people are unlikely to support a war against Taiwan, thus they are unlikely to go to war with Taiwan, democracy or not. Just because they are a dictatorship doesn't mean they can just ignore the people, no matter how much you might think China is an autocracy that's simply not how it works. China hasn't had conscription for so many generations of people now and the military is such a low priority that the elite are businessmen and for China's situation, war is bad for business.

Taiwan's independence will rely on them being a better business partner as a separate nation than as not. But then interestingly, the way to improve the situation for everyone will eventually be a eurozone style trading bloc. Then they'll likely cooperate on human rights and democracy.

That I believe is the ultimate 50-100 year goal.

edited 9th Feb '12 11:19:49 AM by breadloaf

Disarmaments a good idea, when's the PRC planning to start?

As for the buinessmen, half the businesses in China have the PLA as a partner wether they want it or not.

This is China we're talking about. Public support is all but meaningless, and they'd likely make some False Pretense For War, eg, destroying some of their older ships, and say Taiwan did it. As long as they have the military behind them, it could happen.

Now, I', not saying it WOULD, but it might.

edited 9th Feb '12 3:15:10 PM by Joesolo

This is China, not USA.

When was the last time you hear China insisting there are W M D s in Taiwan?

edited 9th Feb '12 4:28:30 PM by Natasel

Why does that matter?

Why wouldn't China send the military to reclaim Taiwan?

The REASON (asides from prestige and closing a chapter) China would want Taiwan is because its a nice modern, well developed nation with lots of top class infrastructure, international busineses, a talented/well educated people and lots of ammenities.

Those things usually disappear when you start blowing stuff up and sending guys with guns to take over.

So basically because the USA destroyed some old boats to justify Vietnam or that China has a military, those are the basis of your conclusion that China will invade Taiwan?

back on topic please. Attacks on other contries is not the point of this. Taiwan is.

But you raised the point that China would act like USA did in Vietnam and thus conclude they would do the same thing. I see no evidence that it would occur.

My point about Taiwan's reduction in military is win-win. If China does not invade, the lack of spending on the military means a much better life for people and a far better government in order to justify independence. If China were to invade, they would be able to muster 100x the military by the time such a decision were made and there is no way that Taiwan could compete in such a scenario. It would only impoverish the people like North Korea.

On NK too.

Should Taiwain become like NK, I doubt China would want it back...

edited 9th Feb '12 8:10:58 PM by Natasel

That is true, I just find that predictions of a Chinese military invasion as nothing but mental masturbation of a militant mind. If China were so keen on invading shit, why didn't they invade the last of outer Mongolia, which has virtually no defences against such an attack? There's more land than just Taiwan that China wants back and all of it has been gained peacefully thus far. In no way has it acted like the United States and there is no substantial evidence to believe it will do so and attack and conquer other land.

I think Taiwan, if they want independence, they need to keep voting pan-green. But guess what, it's a pro-unification party in power right now, so I think it bs to tell me that "Taiwanese want independence", simultaneously tell me it is a democracy while they have a pro-unification party commanding over 3/4 of the damn legislation. Anyway, I hate their pro-unification party because I think they're super undemocratic and mega-corrupt and are the successors to all sorts of crimes against humanity. If I were Taiwanese, I would vote green.

And just to repeat my view, so as no one misconstrues my views, I think that Taiwan/China will merge back together in the next 50-100 years due to the economic and political advantage of doing so, much like the Europeans banded together in the Union and despite whatever issues the EU is facing right now, it's just growing pains.

Well, if that happens, I hope Taiwan doesn't become Greece.

Taiwan is attractive because its RICH! If it came with Debts...not so much.

Think there might be a funny future reversal where Taiwan's economy is wrecked and wants to join a reluctant China to bail out?

See, that's really hard to say. Hong Kong and Macao joined China with large surpluses and continue to command large surpluses and are likely to have that for the next few decades. China is also in good economic shape looking into the future, with a few bubble burst here and there to weaken them but Taiwan is basically in the same boat. Overall, I personally think the economic prospects of all the countries are quite positive.

It's far more likely that Chinese/Taiwanese foreign investment with each other becomes so deep and entangled that the economies are inseparable, making war more unlikely, alongside political partnership to foster that trade relation. Since China's political party is all about "get rich" and the Taiwanese politics are all about "quid pro quo and status quo", they'll eventually head into a situation where they want to expand globally but doing so as a split entity becomes less and less attractive. Taiwan may want to use Chinese clout to get into foreign markets where they may otherwise be denied.

For instance, Hong Kong recently was involved in a debacle with the Philippines over the Manila hostage crisis. When Hong Kong didn't get immediately traction, big China moved in and threatened grave consequences to the Philippines if they didn't cooperate and the Philippines folded instantly over the issue. Canada was largely ignored since our government apparently doesn't care about Chinese-Canadians gunned down in a foreign country but that's another topic. This may be something that Taiwan is interested in gaining, since they themselves do not possess the same clout.

Hmmm....the very same threat of Big Bad CHINA!!! Taiwan is affraid of is the same thing Taiwan wants to threaten others with.

Irony?

Well, a little reminder that under the agreement between China and Britain for the handover, Beijing is supposed to take care of Hong Kong's military and foreign affairs. Those are the only things that China's supposed to be able to directly interfere.

So it isn't that Hong Kong asked for China's help, it is that China's supposed to help, because that's something that China's supposed to take care of.

edited 9th Feb '12 11:03:51 PM by IraTheSquire

Uh, yeah, about Hong Kong...its kinda complicated.

China had to give up Hong Kong to the British like a kid gives up lunch money to a bully because at the time, Britain could kick the shit out of China and everyone knew it.

There was a clause though, that Britain would give it back by 1997.

As a cute little trick though, before Britain left, it gave Hong Kong "Independence"

This made Hong Kong citizens happy and China pissed as a child being given a sweet, sweet gift that a parent can not take away without looking like an asshole.

Now that China got Hong Kong back, it DOES do look after and secure Hong Kong like its was China's own since it was China's own.

No real moral to the story apparently. Oh well.

That's not quite how I feel about it though. Before I left I got the impression that China was sincere in keeping Hong Kong capitalist: after all, Deng himself doesn't think less of capitalism (there's that famous quote of his involving cats) and there're rumors about how China wants to see capitalism at work, so Hong Kong is sort of like a guinea pig. Though from what can be seen the higher-ups in the Hong Kong government seems to bother Beijing with almost everything....