Perceptions do not change reality. Taiwan has free press and their own directly elected government.
Also, many people in China do know that Taiwan is its own country. No tax dollars are going to Beijing from Taiwan. Taiwan is completely sovereign.
They couldn't even support Taiwan as a country politically because China bribed and bullied other countries to disagree with recognising Taiwan.
Hong Kongs a different case but shows how international support can be subdued by China.
Taiwan is a reality. Its growing military force supports this too. I don't think and I hope China would never invade.
I totally agree Taiwan is a country. But internationally this isn't often recognised and might give an invasion more clout. Ukraine/russia springs to mind as a similar scenario. Not the Ukraine weren't a country but that they didn't have enough international presence for anyone to properly back them up, when invaded.
China does not have any reason to invade Taiwan. Taiwan is a peaceful nation. The people of Taiwan identify as Taiwanese, not Chinese. Taiwan is very different from the other areas you mention.
Taiwan isn't recognised internationally as a country (not fully). If China did have a reason to invade (not a crazy idea given the history) then the international response may be very lacking.
Either way, China has and does continue to try and make Taiwan powerless as in independent country. Its been fairly successful in this respect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_re...
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> If China did have a reason to invade (not a crazy idea given the history)
These two statements are in direct conflict with each other. Agree to disagree
> Either way, China has and does continue to try and make Taiwan powerless as in independent country. Its been fairly successful in this respect.
Taiwan definitely has power. It takes strength to create your own territory and government. It also takes strength for the people to elect an entirely new party into office, which just happened in Taiwan.
It's not just about who has a bigger military or more allies. There are many more variables.
Despite Chinese propaganda, many people in China and elsewhere in the world do know that Taiwan is its own country and is not part of China.
Its not a contradiction to say at the moment China doesn't have much reason to invade - but also point they have had reason before and may again. Let me put it better: they have a latent reason. As someone pointed out in this thread If Taiwan asserts its independence, Chinese have not officially ruled out an invasion. I also know this isn't the reality of current climate.
I agree Taiwan has power, and power has a lot of variables. Being a non-member state of the UN, because of China bribing other states, shows that this power has been shaped by China to some extent. Not having official embassies in many countries - shows the same thing.
People do know Taiwan is a country not part of China. But they don't always officially recognise that.
Combine this quasi-international presence with an invasion and your idea of Taiwan's power variables might shift to being based on the size of its military and its official international recognition. thats where ukraine and hong kong are relevant - to an extent.
The Taiwanese military is bigger than ever, so I think theres at least a little relevance in all this. Not relevance that theres gonna be an invasion, but relevance of the latent power plays that effect diplomatic relations.
You're certainly free to express your opinion. I disagree with your thesis that China might invade and that the world will stand by and watch.
Government workers in China produce fake social media. That only influences so much inside China, and it changes nothing outside of China.
Present China as an improving progressive regime, smooth over its human rights problems, and china can gain more influence internationally. If you are dealing with China, keeping one eye closed can be very profitable.
The UK gave Hong Kong back to China, regardless of what people living in Hong Kong wanted. They are now heavily mutually invested underwriting loans for nuclear powerplants: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-34306997
In case of invasion, this kind of thing makes a big difference. Invasion aside it continues to shape Taiwans influence - why do you think Taiwan is not a UN member state and China is?
You seem to hold government propaganda in very high esteem. I do not. I believe that free press leads to the strongest economic powerhouses. You get the best of a population when you allow them all to contribute to it.
Giving a bigger mouthpiece to a few people via authoritarian propaganda machines only sows discontent. Sooner or later, that discontent grows up, and rather than becoming productive, creative members of society, those people are imprisoned. Plus, the government needs to spend energy to lock these folks up. It drains a country of its resources.
China would help itself so much more simply by being less oppressive.
It's more that in the west we just see it as this horrible evil thing and it seems completely bizarre that anyone would be okay with it. I guess we just assume they must put up with it when in fact they have their own rational for supporting it (which ultimately is flawed, but it's still very interesting)
Have you traveled to Taiwan? I went there a few weeks ago and I found it a fascinating place. While it's definitely got it's own identity it also is definitely very "Chinese". Like more "Chinese" than probably some provinces in the mainland. And on the mainland they get TV shows and stuff from Taiwan and people know where Taipei and Kunming are on a map. People look forward to visiting Kenting some day. Families are split between mainland and Taiwan etc. So I can sorta see why they look at it all and think it's all part of the same country. (kinda how we think Canadians are basically Americans) And you're right, they definitely have no idea about how it'd actually work haha and they definitely have a complete disregard for what the Taiwanese want (needs of the many > needs of the few I guess??). One thing I heard is them wanting to have a Hong Kong type of deal with Taiwan ... to which I said: "yeah right, over all their collective dead bodies"
The Taiwanese still consider themselves a part of Chinese culture, in fact, they actually feel that they are the true "practitioners" of Chinese culture because the Mainland Chinese went through the Cultural Revolution.
> kinda how we think Canadians are basically Americans
I think an even closer analogy would be between American Northerners vs. Southerners.
As in, after the Civil War each side considers themselves to be "more American."
The best way to explain it is this: If you ask a Taiwanese person to know the greatest works of art "his people" have created "in their history," then he will name works of art created in Mainland China, but authors and artists that lived and died in Mainland China.
It is definitely a horrible evil thing.
> I guess we just assume they must put up with it when in fact they have their own rational for supporting it
Yeah, if they don't support it, they go to prison.
> One thing I heard is them wanting to have a Hong Kong type of deal with Taiwan ...
Taiwan is 100% self-governed. Today is the first day of term for their fourth directly elected president.
Consider the United States. With our free and press how many Americans would agree that they are living on land stolen from Native Americans? Or that the acquisition of Hawaii was a clear act of imperialism?
"In 1945, following the end of World War II, the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang (KMT), took control of Taiwan. In 1949, after losing control of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to Taiwan and Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law."
- From wiki's 'history of Taiwan'
(I'm not making a point, I just think this context is important to the discussion)
Regarding your questions at the end, I'd guess around half the American population would agree with those things. (You might have to explain what happened with Hawaii first, I don't know how common knowledge of that history is.) Certainly it's by no means universal, but lots of Americans do acknowledge our past (and even present) sins.
One of my opinions is that when the world breaks out into a global slaugtherfest like WW2, it becomes essential for the survivors to research the causes of such an event with the explicit goal of of ensuring that it won't happen again. As far as I have seen, not a single society anywhere has done this, rather, we have minutes of silence to remember those who took part in the heroic massacre. I would not kid myself that I wouldn't also torture and kill if I was placed in a horrible enough environment, so I have put explicit effort into reading the works of Khaneman and others. Milgram's Experiment, Stanford prison experiment, etc. I was watching a fire start in a bin outside our library the other day, counting all the people walking by as smoke came out, some of them throwing rubbish in and walking off. Fortunately I'd read about bystander apathy so I just went and told someone and they put it out.
The "moderating sensationalism" view is clearly wrong when one looks at the list of search items blocked. Let's see... Top result for Tiananmen massacre in Mandarin produces no results (六四), in English, the top result is "Tiananmen massacre a myth". How can China become a better place when it's people are forbidden from even researching such events?
Another fascinating delusion in China is the distinction between "Chinese" and "foreigner", and then perhaps "Japanese" will be refereed to separately, because fuck Japan. It's quite difficult to explain. In their minds (this is all "statistically speaking" of course", everyone takes on the "Chinese" or "foreigner" label and thus they take on distinct beliefs and behaviours associated with them. It's not trivial racism or anything, actually, they are typically more polite to "foreigners", which they call me even in my home country. One of the scary things that comes from this is the hard wired belief that "Taiwan is China", despite being and separated and independent for 70 years. I have tried explaining this very carefully to many Chinese, and they will understand each point individually, but at the end of the discussion they say "but Taiwan is China!" and continue on with their insanity. Meanwhile Taiwan has the day to day trouble of trying not to be massacred by China wanting to "save" them and "bring them back" (actually things I've heard from Chinese). It is as if one had a ex that still believed they were together and the only thing stopping them from rape was the lingering threat of getting beating up by the slightly less deranged partner (the USA). Of course, Chinese people happily assure me that China would never use force in resolving this. Actually, the official stance says they would only use force if Taiwan officially claimed independence, and the idea of Taiwan actually being independent is unpalatable, so everything is fine. So in summary, I have zero confidence when Chinese people assure me this censorship is all for the greater good.
Orwell's essay on freedom of the press (which was edited out of the first edition): http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html