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Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

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Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#111

Post by alexanderdmitri »

doomleika wrote: post #93
alexanderdmitri wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, can you elaborate on this?

Like most Southeast Asian country. Taiwan people put westerner on pedestal. It doesn't matter if you White, Black, if you came from the West, you automatically are one of the "good" person. Simple test, if you go talk to anyone on the street, in English, they will try to answer in bad English(if they can). this is especially true for young/highly educated demography like me because we are educated in western value si…

Thank you, that clarifies quite a bit for me. I've heard this happens in parts of India from quite a few people I know too.

I'd hazard a traveler's experience can highlight a culture's stereotypes more easily than it can the experience of a naturalized member of the community.

I used to love watching Bourdain's travel series for exactly this reason; he seemed to always want to get the deeper context and insight from the people he'd meet and his narration showed a firm understanding of how who he was and where he came from influenced his experience of a place/culture and the conclusions he'd draw (if any).

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#112

Post by beerandt »

nabla9 wrote: post #61
beerandt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?

Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and Ch…

I'm over here trying to have a fun, hypothetical mind-game with arbitrary & made-up rules, and you've got to go and ruin it with "it's complicated" realities. :-)

But of course, you're correct.

And Carter (and Nixon and Ford) obviously didn't have the foresight to realize the ultimate impact of the process/decision. Yet they would have been aware it was a major, influential policy decision.

Does "starting the process" count as an ultimately-weighty-political-decision?

Along the lines of "Deciding to drop the bomb on Hiroshima," if you want to count that as a decision by one person. Of course it was also just one node of a decision tree that was a long, complicated chain-of-events.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#113

Post by someperson »

magicsmoke wrote: post #87
throwitaway1235 wrote: post #35

My first reply was flagged. My question, is it okay for user to say that they strategically support China more than Taiwan and would hope U.S policy eventually follow suit?

It's certainly not illegal or violates site guidelines if you can put forward a reasonably argued position. I personally think a future where China annexes Taiwan would bring about a more stable and peaceful geopolitical relationship between China and the US because of three reasons. 1. The US is not threatened by China. The Pacific prevents any invasion of the America's, and China cannot blockade the US given its tw…

An annexation of Taiwan would have big implications for the security of US and allies like South Korea, Japan, Thailand, (formerly) the Philippines. Taiwan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier that has immense strategic value.

Vietnam and other countries (including Russia) are worried about China's territorial expansionism and annexing the South China Sea.

Public policy experts are worried about the failed policy of "appeasement" that was used in WW2. Basically territorial ambitions increase when concessions happen.

Taiwan is continues to be free to decide to unify with China by the ballet box though. If they have a free and fair election and decide to join China, the world will go along with it.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#114

Post by yyyk »

nabla9 wrote: post #61
beerandt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?

Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and Ch…

I don't think blaming Nixon is right. His action arguably made sense at the time, and didn't require sacrificing Taiwan.

The US had plenty of time to safely pivot to a different position regarding China/Taiwan (e.g. letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s; Shifting diplomatic position and recognizing Taiwan right after the Cold War was over; Not allowing Globalization to go so far in the 90s-00s). If the US didn't take that option, one can blame successor presidents rather than Nixon.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#115

Post by jonathannat »

beerandt wrote: post #40
__sy__ wrote: post #14

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way. That being said, considering the enormously strategic role that Taiwan plays in electronics supply chains (e.g. TSMC, Wistron...etc), it's always been odd to me that t…

Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?

What could have been:

If Nixon hadn't started the process, if carter hadn't recognize the communist government of China.

- Offshoring/globalization may not have been the boom it is today, due to the lack of a major source of cheap/obedient labor force. In the 70s offshoring occured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others SE Asia countries but they didn't have enough cheap labors to continue. American companies would have been timid to shift operations to Indonesia and India when they lacked severe infrastructure, with no totalitarian government to enforce cheap labor.

- As a corollary, GE/Intel would not not have shed all its capabilities to Asia, and be greatly diminished today.

- Wall street might not have been able to push companies to greatly shed cost and ship capabilities overseas due to national security issues. As a result, US unions would have been intact somewhat and the jobs would not have been shipped to China. Flyover states would have enjoyed greater strength as they did in the 60s and 70s.

- the great crash of 2008 would not have happened (Chinese entry into WTO greatly reduced manual jobs in US and Europe, crashing both economies)

- Trump would not have been elected. Trump was a reaction to much jobs lost and much sufferings in flyover states caused by China.

- Coronavirus spread around the world and all the deaths that occurred may not have happened (China would have been still a closed off country, not unlike what Xi Jing Ping is trying to do today). No mass flights out of Wuhan or Beijing.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#116

Post by brobinson »

bagacrap wrote: post #108
secfirstmd wrote: post #38

This is good. Taiwan, like any place, has the right to self determination. Sigh, it's just such a pity the clown shoes shit show of US politics this week knocked the story of 55 democracy activists in Hong Kong being rounded up.

Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. When the Southern states left the union, the world's oldest democracy went to war to prevent it. So it's a bit hypocritical of the US govt imo.

Right, it's about time the secessionists who left the ROC in 1949 get treated appropriately.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#117

Post by corty »

lumost wrote: post #91
caycep wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I think if China wanted to go all out, it could take Taiwan via massive force but it would be extremely costly for them and I don’t think the calculus of risk vs benefit adds up for them politically or practically. They certainly can maybe sink an American carrier, maybe, if their missiles are as good as they say, but that’s a big If.

In WW2 the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise ending to the dominance of the battleship, marking the first time that a power attempted to attack Battleship's by air. While this had been theorized for a few decades, all of the great powers continued to invest in battleships. No power has attempted to sink a carrier since 1945, there is ultimately limited data on how effective any anti-carrier weapon developed in th…

Modern naval mines are torpedoes waiting on the sea floor for a carrier swimming by. Place a few where you know the carrier will drive over by sub, carrier sunk. Or just use the sub directly, modern small electric subs are undetectable in exercises, the sub will only be sunk when firing torpedoes. By then it is too late for the carrier.

Saturation by long-range antiship missiles is also possible to work, if the Falkland War is any indication.

And then there are the "deorbit a tungsten telephone pole" kind of ideas that just might work on a carrier, have no defense and are within the realm of possibility for both China, Russia and basically every state with the capability to get a few tons into some low orbit.

Against sophisticated enemies, carriers are giant billboards with "shoot me" written on them.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#118

Post by strogonoff »

secfirstmd wrote: post #38

This is good. Taiwan, like any place, has the right to self determination. Sigh, it's just such a pity the clown shoes shit show of US politics this week knocked the story of 55 democracy activists in Hong Kong being rounded up.

> US politics this week knocked the story of 55 democracy activists in Hong Kong being rounded up

Among arrested is at least one US citizen (purely US, no dual citizenship with HK). I suspect there will be more fallout from this.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#119

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

the_resistence wrote: post #107
eunos wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to make Biden's admin life far more difficult. Pompeo has 2024 presidential dream.

Former SoS, Harvard Law School, top of West Point Grad, a deeply principled, extremely hard working man. We could and will be experiencing a lot worse the next 4 years.

Yes, deep principles such unwavering fealty to Mohammed Bin Salman, who had an American journalist cut into 42 pieces.

Or deep principles like yours, glorifying academic credentials. Must have been terrible when the presidency went from the Harvard Law alumni and professor to the guy who wouldn’t release his transcripts from a second-rate business school.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#120

Post by insert_coin »

safog wrote: post #65
nabla9 wrote: post #52

This will get angry response from China, but that's about it. No change in big issues: 1) US does not formally recognize Taiwan (doing so means ending diplomatic relations with China). 2) US is not altering the Taiwan relations act. No alliance, no binding security guarantees, strategic ambiguity continues. 3) Taiwan is not declaring independence.

Do angry responses mean anything? It's always been the other way round - China does something messed up and the world leaders would give out angry speeches and life would go on without much change. Let them have a dose of their own medicine for a bit.

> Do angry responses mean anything?

They don't mean anything on their own. But geopolitics is a game played in the background, calling in favors from other countries, telling them to buy less from your enemy and more from you or your allies, offering them loans, or straight up bribery. And if that country has also been treated with disdain by the superpower it's not so hard to see them accepting.

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