Live data from Hacker News

Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

economist.com

141–150 of 321 posts

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#141
post #37
post #3

All they need to do is look at what happened in Hong Kong. If China did not do what they did in Hong Kong, Taiwan may be headed to some kind on unification. Now, they would be crazy to even entertain that thought. This issue lies directly on China and no one else. If I had a say in Taiwan, I would announce it is now a independent Country.

[flagged]

Maybe they should. They didn't even seem bothered to vote against the Crimea annexation, so there's some history there.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#142
post #85

While the Chinese threat to Taiwan is not something to be dismissed completely, the article doesn’t mention just how incredibly vulnerable China is to possible sanctions targeting their food supply. China imports most of its food and as their farmland is quite poor, its hugely dependent on fertiliser to feed itself. Sanctions targeting these basics would be devastating so I really struggle to see a convincing case fo…

Also they import about 90% of their oil. They probably assumed that sanctions would not be all that severe, given their pivotal position in the world economy. Perhaps they'll reconsider after seeing the level of sanctions against Russia.

>>> ...the article doesn’t mention just how incredibly vulnerable China is to possible sanctions targeting their food supply. China imports most of its food and as their farmland is quite poor, its hugely dependent on fertiliser to feed itself. Sanctions targeting these basics would be devastating...

>> Also they import about 90% of their oil.

> They probably assumed that sanctions would not be all that severe, given their pivotal position in the world economy. Perhaps they'll reconsider after seeing the level of sanctions against Russia.

Why? Russia has successfully bypassed most of those sanctions. There have been many articles about that.

Sanctions like that will only work if the entire rest of the world lines up behind what leading western nations want, and the Ukraine war show that probably won't happen.

Russia's big exports also happen to be food and oil...

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has no business interfering in Taiwan. Period.

The free people of the world have a right to protect themselves from authoritarians and to assist other free people in doing so. That seems like a pretty fundamental moral principle to follow.

Being a vassal of the US is not freedom. Also, every instance of US "assisting" a country has resulted in creating hellish conditions for people of that country. Stop helping.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#144
post #3

All they need to do is look at what happened in Hong Kong. If China did not do what they did in Hong Kong, Taiwan may be headed to some kind on unification. Now, they would be crazy to even entertain that thought. This issue lies directly on China and no one else. If I had a say in Taiwan, I would announce it is now a independent Country.

The Taiwanese concept of "unification" is not what you're thinking of. The Taiwanese faction supporting unification (usually the KMT) does not envision a world where Taiwan is/becomes a province of the PRC, they envision a world where the ROC governs all current PRC provinces, that is where they are in the seat of power in Beijing. I.e. this is something going in the opposite direction. The opposing faction rejects t…

My wife is from Taiwan, and what you wrote is a warped understanding of how things were 40 years ago.

The official position of all Taiwanese parties is that Taiwan and China are one nation divided by temporary difficulties, because China has threatened war if they say anything else.

The inofficial position of the DPP (current government party) is that of fucking course Taiwan is de facto a separate sovereign country, and we like it that way, so let's not do anything to risk it.

The inofficial position of the KMT is that they are in the pocket of the CCP, and a big fan of every possible concession that won't scare their voters too much.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#145
From the perspective of the Taiwanese state, survival is the primary objective. In this case it is best to prolong the status quo where Taiwan is a political Rorschach test, obtaining the appearance of whatever you want depending on who looks. This satisfies the demands of Cross-Strait relations, internal politics, and the relationship with United States and other allies. Obtaining nuclear weapons or declaring independence makes no sense then because it jeopardizes national security, despite “making sense.” National security and sociopolitical logic are often at odds, by no means uniquely in Taiwan.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#146

While the Chinese threat to Taiwan is not something to be dismissed completely, the article doesn’t mention just how incredibly vulnerable China is to possible sanctions targeting their food supply. China imports most of its food and as their farmland is quite poor, its hugely dependent on fertiliser to feed itself. Sanctions targeting these basics would be devastating so I really struggle to see a convincing case fo…

I find it funny how much we in the west demonize China while we have attacked them, colonized them, consistently tampered with them, didn't recognize the PRC till the late 70s. China has never laid a finger on the west, we did, yet we keep demonizing them, meddling in their own business (HK, e.g.) all while we fight wars all around the globe, spy everyone and overthrow governments left and right.

The west has its own problems, but today's China is not yesteryear's China. China is doing and has done plenty of things in other countries. They are installing mass surveillance systems in Africa, building out African infrastructure as a sort of diplomatic capture by dept, literally stealing land from Nepal and others by building Chinese centers for villages on the edge but making sure they annex bits of land each time, literally stealing land (in the most literal sense possible) by digging up sand in Taiwanese islands, harassing Japanese islands, stealing other countries' fish such as in South American waters, stealing the worlds' intellectual property, literally cutting Vietnam's internet off, etc. They are not the "ah shucks, we stick to our borders" country they say they are.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard this take, even while in Taiwan. They aren't deluded, they know they aren't retaking the mainland. The reason they don't declare themselves a country is because China won't support it and they're worried it would trigger an invasion. China prefers Taiwan be a rebellious province rather than an independent country because it strengthens China's claim to the island. The KMT used to be feeling out a HK…

>> The Taiwanese faction supporting unification (usually the KMT) does not envision a world where Taiwan is/becomes a province of the PRC, they envision a world where the ROC governs all current PRC provinces, that is where they are in the seat of power in Beijing. > I've never heard this take, even while in Taiwan. They aren't deluded, they know they aren't retaking the mainland. I wouldn't be surprised if that's st…

China absolutely does maintain its own diplomatic fictions.

For example, a Taiwanese person travelling to the PRC needs a "Mainland travel permit for residents of the island of Taiwan", which is most emphatically neither a visa nor a passport despite fulfilling exactly those two functions.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. I'm quite familiar with the US and UN positions on China. The first link doesn't say what you thing it does, though. It is even written by the de facto ambassador of Taiwan to Japan. But even ignoring all those links, Taiwan is de facto an independent country. The PRC cannot assert any sort of power in the island, and PRC citizens are not considered Taiwanese nationals.

[flagged]

Ignoring reality doesn't change it.

Taiwan have limited and then banned mainland tourists for a while now. Chinese have zero freedom of movement in Taiwan.

China asserts zero power, politically, judicially, executive, over Taiwan. Get over it.

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#149
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas and Taiwan share very little in common in terms of history as political states and entities in the world economic system. It's a strange analogy you're asking us to make with negligible equivalencies.

What Texas and Taiwan share is that they're both territories of sovereign nations. US has no business interfering in the internal politics of other countries. It's that simple. US State Department acknowledges that Taiwan is par of China in black and white: The United States approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy**, which is…

You keep quoting this, seemingly without reading it:

From the "Six Assurances" mentioned right there:

> The United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

Additionally, the "Taiwan Relations Act" (again mentioned right there) says:

> The act authorizes de facto diplomatic relations with the governing authorities by giving special powers to the AIT to the level that it is the de facto embassy, and states that any international agreements made between the ROC and U.S. before 1979 are still valid unless otherwise terminated.

(noting the that Postdam treaty you mention elsewhere was made with the ROC government because it was in 1945)

> The TRA provides for Taiwan to be treated under U.S. laws the same as "foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities", thus treating Taiwan as a sub-sovereign foreign state equivalent. The act provides that for most practical purposes of the U.S. government, the absence of diplomatic relations and recognition will have no effect.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Assurances

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act

Re: Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

#150
post #103
post #31

The elephant in the room is that Taiwan is a Chinese province and Taiwan's legal standing is not in question [1]. This is the position held by the UN, and it's the fundamental basis for having diplomatic relations between US and China per Potsdam Proclamation [2] that was signed 77 years ago between China, the US & the UK. This position has never officially changed. And here's what US State Department says on their o…

This explanation gives an incomplete view of US/Taiwan/China relations. US policy is one of "deliberate ambiguity"[1]. As the quote above says: > we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means. An uniformed reader might take that to mean that the US doesn't support the Taiwanese government. An informed reader realizes what it is saying is that the US doe…

The reality of the situation is that UN recognizes Taiwan as being part of China and so does US in black and white on the state department page. The whole deliberate ambiguity policy has no actual legal standing, it's just US pretending that it has a right to meddle in internal affairs of China.
Post reply on HN