Are you arguing that there is neither America, Canada nor Australia but only British Empire?
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 never seceded from China.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In pretty much every context you can think of, a secession would cause a civil war.
There was civil war
Yes, but not because of secession, as we’ve established pretty thoroughly.
the PRC tried to conquer Taiwan but failed
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.
So there you go. De facto, Taiwan is not part of the PRC
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.
De facto, Taiwan doesn’t even want to be China anymore
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.
Austrians are of German origin. Are you arguing there is no Austria but only Germany?
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.
What about the Swiss? Should they be divided by Germany, France and Italy? Belgium
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”.
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?
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.
This is more equivocation and weasel language to advance imperialist propaganda.
You can call that whatever you want. The fact still stands: the PRC wants a piece of land they never established control over.
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…
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.
Chinese colonization of the region is necessarily a distinct process from European colonization.
Well, isn’t that handy! :D
The European concept of nation-states emerged from their distinct geography which was shot through with many many physical barriers that kept people isolated.
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?
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.
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…
This is why Tibet is historically a protectorate of China and not a colony or an occupied region.
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
but the PRC threatens to throw a temper tantrum about it
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
The fact still stands: the PRC wants a piece of land they never established control over.
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.
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…
Just what happened in Taiwan. They don’t consider themselves Chinese, they are simply not allowed to openly say it
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.
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.
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.
Chinese colonization of the region is necessarily a distinct process from European colonization.
Well, isn’t that handy! :D
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.
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?
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.
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…
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.
This is why Tibet is historically a protectorate of China and not a colony or an occupied region.
Who says so? The Chinese? The Tibetans?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The PRC is very clear that Taiwan becoming sovereign means Western empire at their doorstep.
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?
That is not, actually, what they want.
So they don’t consider Taiwan as part of their country?
I said that Han colonization is a different historical process from European colonization.
Yet you seem to have a problem with only one of these forms of colonialism.
But the result in China has ALWAYS been a multi-national multi-ethnic state
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
Your link says literally nothing about secession, despite my claim being about secession
You assign individual motives to a state, despite repeated attempts by me to establish that psychologizing a state it not how we understand behaviors of states
You don’t believe China has a right to self-defense
You don’t actually understand any aspect of my position despite repeated explanations about my position, as indicated by you asking whether they consider Taiwan part of China
You think I don’t have a problem with Han colonialism despite my saying I do
You avoid any and all reasoning that would establish the Han settlers on Taiwan as part of the same process you think is terrible and undermines claims of sovereignty
You repeat imperialist propaganda without any evidence, stating without evidence that Tibet has had its culture destroyed (it hasn’t, it’s thriving) and claiming that the crisis in Xinjiang was about cultural misalignment instead of the thousands of bombings, mass stabbings, and riots over multiple decades.
You hold the position that is aligned with Western imperialist goals (“Since when can you choose your neighbours?”) but also believe that everyone who disagrees with you actually has a simple Manichean worldview that cannot account for nuance when I have clearly and firmly established the multiple problems of layered contradictions in the Chinese context and established my position for the conditions required for resolution.
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.
Your link says literally nothing about secession, despite my claim being about secession
Someone that doesn’t consider themselves Chinese is seceding from China.
You don’t believe China has a right to self-defense
They do. Invading an island is as little self-defence as bombing Iran.
You hold the position that is aligned with Western imperialist goals (“Since when can you choose your neighbours?”)
‘Since when can you choose your neighbours’ has nothing to do with ‘Western imperialist goals’ but is a fact that affects all countries globally.
And then you pivot to Korea in a way that is so disingenuous
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.
Someone that doesn’t consider themselves Chinese is seceding from China.
This is why you’re not worth talking to.
They do. Invading an island is as little self-defence as bombing Iran.
You’re a completely disingenuous person.
‘Since when can you choose your neighbours’ has nothing to do with ‘Western imperialist goals’ but is a fact that affects all countries globally.
You don’t argue in good faith.
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
You have a delusional grasp of history that serves only your pre-selected conclusions.
Both wars ended in a status quo where neither side controls the entirety, de facto resulting in two separate countries since decades.
And your pre-selected conclusions are exactly matched to Western imperialist goals.
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.
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.
You’re a completely disingenuous person.
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.
You don’t argue in good faith.
So be it. But still, no country, notwithstanding any label whatever faction attributes to them has the right to choose its neighbours.
You have a delusional grasp of history that serves only your pre-selected conclusions.
To call the clearly observable outcomes of the Civil Wars of China and Korea ‘delusional’ sounds a lot like psychological projection.
And your pre-selected conclusions are exactly matched to Western imperialist goals.
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.
And you argue like a right-wing youtuber with zero self-awareness for how transparent you are.
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.
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
concentrationre-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.