Right now there is no non-violent path to achieving that because Taiwan intends to violently and militarily resist if it comes to that. Probably with the aid of America, although I’m a lot less certain of that than 5 year ago, and it’s looking like it’s a lot more likely to be with the aid of Japan as well.

Also a success by the PRC would still result in the political destruction of the Republic of China and the subjugation of its people.

It should be noted that even if Taiwan's military resistance were negligible (or on the order of Tibet's), which it's not, that would not validate invading them and taking away their autonomy. For all intents and purposes, Taiwan is a self-governing nation, distinct from China precisely because it does not wish to be part of China.

Agreed.

Taiwan is not distinct from China. Both the ROC and the PRC view Taiwan as part of China (ironically, at the cost of the mass slaughter of taiwanese to in service of the chinese).

"One China" is a political fig leaf that allows both sides to pretend the other country doesn't exist.

Back in reality, the Republic of China (Taiwan) is fully independent from the People's Republic of China and fulfills every criteria of nationhood.

Ok, nothing you said contradicts anything I said

From that perspective, the ROC is the legitimate government of Beijing.

Facts on the ground appear otherwise, but facts on the ground also imply that Taiwan is not part of the PRC's version of China.

> From that perspective, the ROC is the legitimate government of Beijing.

No. I don't understand how you came to this conclusion. Both governments claim legitimacy and only one has actual sovereignty.

In practice, they are both sovereign over separate territories.

With respect to Beijing, only one does.

There is no respect due to Beijing or the Chairman Winnie the Pooh regime on this issue.

Taiwan is an independent country.

> Taiwan is an independent country.

Taiwan is an island. It is still China. It is impossible to both give deference to the ROC and say otherwise.

Nobody is giving them more deference than the other. In a perfect world, the ROC would be the one and only surviving entity from this mess and the PRC would be a relic of history.

That isn’t what the facts on the ground are though. The ROC no more has sovereign jurisdiction over the mainland than the PRC does over Taiwan. Which is to say that at this point they are functionally separate sovereign nations independent of each other, regardless of the claims by either the PRC or the ROC. Or put another way, the way I did the first fucking time: Taiwan is an independent nation.

  because Taiwan intends to violently and militarily resist if it comes to that

I doubt Taiwan truly wants to do this. It has more to do with the US wanting to use Taiwan as a pawn to contain China's power.

If you lived in a country with local political representation and free elections, would you want your children to grow up in slavery to a dictatorship across the sea? Ask the Irish.

China has already said they'd allow one country two systems.

How’s that going in Hong Kong?

It is going fine in Hong Kong. Still operating as its own system.

The reports I’ve heard and read would be contrary to your claims. When I was in Hong Kong, for example, I saw huge protests, so I wouldn’t call it fine. Inside and out of Hong Kong, I’ve never met an HKer that was pleased about the China government’s plans. I also have heard that “its own system” is not a correct characterisation of the situation.

Have you been to Hong Kong?

Its own system? The entire local government was replaced with rubber stamp flunkies, all democracy activists were arrested, and it's basically a terror regime. No one in their right mind would move there or start a business there. If the intent was to maintain a separate system for the purpose of attracting foreign capital, so much for that.

LOL. is this a joke? Hong Kong?

No it isn't. Been in Hong Kong for years. Still the same every day life.

> Taiwan intends to violently and militarily resist if it comes to that

I sincerely wonder if the people who live there agree. I sure as hell wouldn't put up much fight if china tried to invade my country; just the opposite. If anything I wonder if voluntary unification is on the table in today's climate

> I sincerely wonder if the people who live there agree ... I wonder if voluntary unification is on the table

One of the benefits of a free democratic society is that you can ask; and people vote according to their preferences. A recent study suggests ~13% of the public support unification with China: https://www.tpof.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250214-TPO... . Taiwan's politics are dominated by the KMT and DPP parties, both of which oppose unification.

> I sure as hell wouldn't put up much fight if china tried to invade my country

Perhaps you have an unusual opinion?

>> Perhaps you have an unusual opinion?

That or a remarkably flexible sense of morality, coupled with a supine nature and a total lack of balls.

Let's not pretend it's ever moral to support the state you live under. You should support yourself and bide whatever state imposes itself on you.

It is usually morally correct to fight off literal tyrannical invasion, what are you on about?

Are you seriously suggesting it wasn't moral for the French to fight the Nazis or the people of Afghanistan to fight off the Soviets and Americans?

>You should support yourself and bide whatever state imposes itself on you.

Pathetic. Might as well go back to feudalism with that attitude.

It is not nationalism to want a sovereign nation that you have influence over, that's democracy.

Ok, so why do people not violently rise up against the us government? They clearly have never represented our values, and they use the pretense of sovereignty to act as if their behavior reflects our interest.

> It is not nationalism to want a sovereign nation that you have influence over, that's democracy.

So what's our excuse? Do we not have a democracy, or are we simply a contemptible people?

A lot of people believe that Trump represents their values. They might be dead wrong, but it's what they believe that counts.

Ever? No. Whether or not it's moral to support the state under which you live depends entirely on the circumstances. In the best case the state is mostly an expression of the will of the nation, and if your country is invaded you support the state.

But even if the state is parasitical, in the case of an invasion it's usually moral to support it.

> Perhaps you have an unusual opinion?

I live in the US. I think it's pretty obvious the PRC is more competent in every way than our own government is.

And from what I've seen of the ROC parliament, it is also an embarrassment to their own people

> I live in the US. I think it's pretty obvious the PRC is more competent in every way than our own government is.

Yes, and you wouldn't be able to express your political opinion (like you do here on HN or anywhere else) if you were living in China. People living in the US tend to overlook that minute detail.

> you wouldn't be able to express your political opinion (like you do here on HN or anywhere else) if you were living in China

Being able to express our opinion doesn't mean much if nothing ever changes or improves

I'd call the Civil Rights Act an improvement.

I'm willing to concede that the CCP may be more competent than the US government, but the Taiwanese government (despite their antics in parliament) ranks alongside Singapore and Norway in my top three most competent governments in the world. That's purely my own subjective opinion of course but I see no reason for the Taiwanese people to be embarrassed.

If you live in the US, supporting a Chinese invasion is definitely unusual.

> the PRC is more competent in every way

I guess it depends what you mean by competent. Dictatorships can be frightfully competent at certain things, but that doesn't make them a good place to be. We're talking about a country that is genociding its own Uyghur ethnic group, represses Tibetan culture, disappears its own elite athletes, and has a horrific LGBTI record. The US is far from perfect, but has nothing on China in terms of nastiness.

That's not even touching the biggest problem of dictatorship, which is what happens when Dear Leader takes a fall. I doubt Xi has much more than a decade of leadership in him, and I worry for the Chinese populace when he goes.

> The US is far from perfect, but has nothing on China in terms of nastiness.

I think you have this reversed, friend. Our culture is based on violence and death. Theirs is based on stability and prosperity.

> That's not even touching the biggest problem of dictatorship, which is what happens when Dear Leader takes a fall. I doubt Xi has much more than a decade of leadership in him, and I worry for the Chinese populace when he goes.

I pray he liberates us before he passes. I agree it's not likely but.... one must maintain hope in this world

I gave four concrete examples and you gave me hot air in return.

Cool! Make sure you let China know you're ready to surrender. China loves a quisling.

Unification, in this case, means surrendering all rights to privacy, all rights to free expression, everything.

The fact that you wouldn't fight being occupied and forced to be a slave doesn't speak highly of you, but I must admit it's an honest statement, and it's true that a lot of people might feel the same way. A majority of people everywhere are cowards, collaborators and sycophants. But they're along for the ride.

Now, if your country is Burma, I don't blame you.

> rights to privacy, all rights to free expression, everything.

Surely rights to more substantial things like healthcare make this quite an easy decision. Freedom to criticize a government doesn't matter if you can't force the government to actually give a shit about anything

Does Taiwan not have healthcare? Verbatim from Wikipedia:

> According to the Numbeo Health Care Index in 2025, Taiwan has the best healthcare system in the world, scoring 86.5 out of 100,[6] a slight increase from 86 the previous year.[7] This marked the seventh consecutive year that Taiwan has ranked first in the Numbeo Health Care Index.[8]

Access to healthcare and right to healthcare are distinct concepts

> I sure as hell wouldn't put up much fight if china tried to invade my country; just the opposite.

Realy? What is your country and why would you prefer to live under a dictatorship?

The US; and the "dictatorship" such as it is clearly values human life more than our existing government does.

Well that’s not what Amnesty International say.

I’d be careful what you wish, you might just get it.

What is your country? China is always looking for more territory. If you've got water and mineral resources, all the better.

The US. Xi Jinping, please liberate us

Fascinating! Why not? Why would you just lay down and let someone else rule over you?

In terms of survival strategies, letting someone else rule over you was sort of the OG Christian thing before they got control of the Roman Empire. It's kind of the default in most places. Declaring independence and actually succeeding at it and governing yourself is remarkably rare. The question isn't what you think is wise, or what you would do (because no one knows until they're in that situation). It's whether you feel you have anything worth preserving when you are conquered. Some people don't, evidently. Other people do.

> Some people don't, evidently. Other people do.

I like how this can be interpreted two ways, depending on whether you place loved ones above governance, or vice versa.

That's not a binary choice. Find yourself under the wrong governance and you'll find your loved ones disappear pretty quickly, even if you do toe the line. The people who treat populist politics as a sport are the people who don't have personal experience of that, or convince themselves they're insulated from the repercussions.

You simply cannot compare the experience of being conquered in a pre-modern society to being conquered by the PRC.

Premodern States simply couldn't afford the level of oppression and exploitation that is possible today. They usually just replaced the upper layers of the old hierarchy, put some small garrisons in a few places and left most local elites in charge, often with their local armies. If there was an organized rebellion, there would usually be a a few skirmishes and then a re-negotiation of the terms.

Today even Morocco could afford to turn Western Sahara into a territory with total surveillance, checkpoints everywhere and an impenetrable wall in the desert while slowly ethnically cleansing the native population.

This is an excellent point that I overlooked.

Does anyone on earth have a choice otherwise? I would rather be ruled by the PRC than the losers in DC.

The tankies are out in full force tonight.

Just my sense as an outsider, but a lot of interest in voluntary reunification got chilled after seeing China's actions in Hong Kong. A lot of it stems from lack of trust for the CCP to honor it's idea of a one county two systems form of governence.

I don't know how much the Taiwanese would be willing to fight and die in a military invasion though.

By force. Because Taiwan doesn't want to be a part of Beijing's China.

Both points are not really true.

For the China part: Yes, the "by force" part certainly exists as a position, in competition to the peaceful unification approach. It's important to keep in mind, though, that the confrontative position of the first Trump administration and afterwards the Biden administration significantly helped the "by force" faction. There was an interesting piece in Foreign Policy about that, a social scientist from the US was questioning Chinese students at an elite university on this very topic and thus had the chance to do a time series observing the attitude change following US actions.

Secondly, in Taiwanese politics, Unification is actually a big topic and even has its own party, the New Party, advocating for it (plus the fringe CUPP). Not popular right now, but certainly existing - and evidently falsifying the notion that the all of "Taiwan doesn't want to be part of Beijing's China".

So according to your logic, it only counts if it's unanimous inside Taiwan to not be taken over by Beijing but it doesn't need to be unanimous for those who want reunification with China?

No. I pointed out that both the "by force" statement for China and the "Taiwan doesn't want" statement are so oversimplified that they became factually incorrect. The "logic" is your inference and neither stated nor implied by me.

How is it not factually correct?

The existance of a faction within Taiwan that wants Taiwan to reunify with Beijing's China isn't materially relevant if they don't have any path forward to accomplish their goal.

>> the confrontative position of the first Trump administration and afterwards the Biden administration significantly helped the "by force" faction

This is the argument that you hit your wife because someone on the telephone made you angry.

This is about international relations. You won't get any insight into it if you reduce any point you don't like to argumentative metaphors.

Even within the framework of (structural) realism so popular in contemporary US politics there's this well-known problem that the buildup of defense capabilities of party A looks like aggression to party B - and vice versa. See the seminal work Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Or the relations of Britain and Germany before WW1 and WW2.

The FP article I mentioned, "Trump’s Trade War May Make Elite Young Chinese More Nationalistic" [1], illustrates the argument. You have actual empirical data, changing over time, after exposure to the "treatment". So at least a hint of causality.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/21/trump-tariffs-china-tra...

No no, I mean that one does not conduct foreign relations with fear that your approach might give fuel to the local autocracy to whip up fabricated nationalist riots.

Become a part of a country with no freedom of speech? Yep, that's destruction.

Come here, chicken. I don't want to hurt you, I just want to eat you!

China wants to destory Taiwan's democracy, as OP said quite correctly.