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Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat

economist.com

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

#171

Post by richardw »

cm2187 wrote: post #113
richardw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China needs a large amount of ships and cargo planes We're watching warfare change right now. There are many paths to success for China, given enough attention and focus. Just one: 100 million drones to deal with all the fixed defences, and then you arrive to negotiate once you've repeatedly overwhelmed the enemy for 6 months. We've spent the last few decades helping China build the biggest manufacturing engine in…

On drones, fair points but a missile is easy to hide. I suspect those chip factories would have been destroyed before China takes control of them. China’s leverage is more about denying access to those chips to the west.

Outcomes aren't binary. You can burn a few factories and many will escape but the vast majority of humans will want to get on with life and rebuild the jobs they had.

"It's been two years of no work and little food. China offers you a great salary to do what you did before the war. Do you A) Say no! B) Feed your kid and rebuild the factory."

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

#172

Post by epolanski »

bmitc wrote: post #146
epolanski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

There's so much to debate in your list, it's just not worth it.

Do you know where Italian fisheries are all of the time? North African and turkish coasts. African debt? We're kings of it as of stealing every african resource and abusing those people. Spying, really? You even barely aware how far we go with that?

The problem with modern geopolitics is that very few lead by the example.

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

#173

Post by brazzy »

yogthos wrote: post #122
VincentEvans wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only surreal if you subscribe to the notion of might makes right. US prevents the change of status quo to be done by force. A diplomatic solution is in everyone’s interest.

Might makes right has literally been the policy US has pursued throughout its history. What US is doing is creating a tension half way across the world from itself by funding and arming a separatist movement in a Chinese province. This is something US would never tolerate being done on its own territory.

A "separatist movement" that encompasses the majority of the population of a "province" that was never fully under Chinese control.

You are spreading Chinese propaganda lies.

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

#174

Post by yrdmb »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #128
yrdmb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 1.4 billion chinese who won the civil war don't want their island stolen from them. They never gained control of the island. > I think the interests of 1.4 billion chinese outweigh the losing 20 million chinese. I tend to take the view that the interests of dictatorships can be largely disregarded. The 1.4 billion people have not held an election to elect representatives to decide on the issue of Taiwan. Chinese po…

[flagged]

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

#175

Post by epolanski »

glass3 wrote: post #100
epolanski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong was leased to Britain till 1997. Very different case. As for Taiwan, if they declared independence it will be an act of war. Don't forget that US protects Taiwan on the basis it does not declare itself a sovereign country. Also, don't forget this is the official map of the Republic of China (Taiwan): https://i.redd.it/jbyegko5mkc21.jpg

Only the New Territories were leased. >The colony faced an uncertain future as the end of the New Territories lease approached, and Governor Murray MacLehose raised the question of Hong Kong's status with Deng Xiaoping in 1979.[84] Diplomatic negotiations with China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which the United Kingdom agreed to transfer the colony in 1997 and China would guarantee Hong Kon…

So what are you debating?

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

#176

Post by yogthos »

brazzy wrote: post #173
yogthos wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might makes right has literally been the policy US has pursued throughout its history. What US is doing is creating a tension half way across the world from itself by funding and arming a separatist movement in a Chinese province. This is something US would never tolerate being done on its own territory.

A "separatist movement" that encompasses the majority of the population of a "province" that was never fully under Chinese control. You are spreading Chinese propaganda lies.

No, I'm stating basic facts of the situation. Educate yourself on the subject.

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

#177

Post by brazzy »

yogthos wrote: post #125
DennisP wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the people of Taiwan want to be independent, then it seems a bit paternalistic to assume that it's only because of US propaganda.

No, we can assume that because of long and well documented history of US interfering in Taiwan and pouring billions of dollars into creating a secessionist movement there.

No, we can assume that Taiwan is an independant sovereign country in its own right according to the will of its people.

The one pouring billions into creating a secessionist movement there is China.

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

#178

Post by solarpunk »

edrxty wrote: post #43
yogthos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If any state is being propagandized into secession it's Florida right now. They, however, find themselves in a race with mother nature to see who will remove them from the continental US first.

I think you and GP should be aware of Calexit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_California

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

#179

Post by epolanski »

tablespoon wrote: post #132
epolanski wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they sound like Taiwan is unequivocally part of the PRC No, they sound like Taiwan is part of China, something the entire world and Taiwan itself officially recognizes. It's like the US had a civil war and the losing side flees to Hawaii and in 2090 we still arguing whether it is part of not of US or should it declare independence.

> No, they sound like Taiwan is part of China, something the entire world and Taiwan itself officially recognizes. That presumes the "official" position is the genuine position, which is often not the case . With regards to Taiwan, "official" positions are often lies tied in knots to appease Mainland China's sensibilities.

There's an endless number of internal and international reasons beyond appeasing the PRC.

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

#180

Post by yongjik »

yogthos wrote: post #81
Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested to know that the status of the sovereignty of Ukraine was not in question at any point right up until the very second that Putin said the Kyiv government was a Nazi government, and invaded. Russia itself was a signatory to the accord that guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, yet here we are.

And this has what to do with US interfering in the politics a Chinese province again?

If we were to stick to the legal fiction that there is only one China, you will have to follow through, instead of switching the narrative in the middle. Show me an international agreement where the government of ROC is a considered "Chinese province." In the "one China" world, foreign governments talking with a Chinese government sitting at Taipei is no more "interfering with a Chinese province" than them talking with a Chinese government at Beijing.
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