TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China’s military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island’s defense ministry said Monday was a daily record in recent times.
Why tf is west Taiwan so far up mainland Taiwan’s asshole?
Whats the deal with china and taiwan? Is it the same shit as russia and ukraine?
Edit: why am i being downvoted? Am i not allowed to be uninformed?
Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China (ROC), ruled by the nationalist KMT, after the defeat of Imperial Japan, which had occupied it. The KMT forces lost the civil war on the mainland against the communists and fled to Taiwan, claiming to be the true government of China. The ROC was a military dictatorship until the late 80s and responsible for the White Terror. At first, the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) couldn’t follow and invade Taiwan because they lacked a navy, and soon after, the ROC got US protection (Taiwan was in important US military base during the Korean war).
In the 70s, Nixon recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing as the legitimate government of China, and un-recognized Taipei. He also signed an agreement with the PRC stating that there is one China, and that Taiwan is part of China. White House spokespeople reaffirm this regularly when asked. They never actually properly committed to this though: In practice the US treats Taiwan almost like it is independent, but they avoid calling it that officially. So the US is arguably in breach of its agreement with China on this point, and always was (though I think this was understood by all sides at the time of signing).
In this agreement, the US also promised to work towards reunification and to demilitarize Taiwan. They did in fact remove US troops from Taiwan and scaled down weapons deliveries. Lately though, they are increasingly breaking these promises with more weapons deliveries, more US military personnel on Taiwan, and open support for pro-independence positions and politicians.
The PRC for its part promised to work towards peaceful reunification and not use military force. So far they haven’t, so this is currently a one-sided breach of the agreement by the US. Why is the US breaking an agreement that so far has prevented a military conflict?
Both Beijing, as well as the majority of people on Taiwan, are in favor of continuing the status quo for a while longer. But Beijing has made it clear that they will not accept Taiwan declaring independence, and they certainly do not want a hostile military presence so close to the Chinese mainland and important port cities. The PRC has threatened to blockade/invade Taiwan if independence is declared or if there is a military buildup.
This mostly correct.
But the US isn’t responsible for Taiwan’s increased interest in independence. Taiwan is.
After the Sunflower Movement and witnessing what happened to HK, young Taiwanese are overwhelmingly in favor of independence. So much so that independence has become all but stated as the platform of the DPP. The KMT is now the pro-unification party, but outside of the last mid-terms, they have been getting slaughtered in elections and had to tone down their pro-China rhetoric.
Status quo is definitely still the overall majority, but that is going to change with demographics and the next generation overwhelmingly favor independence.
As they should. China was not the first owner of Taiwan, and over the course of Taiwan’s history, their control of the island was relatively short. This is not even speaking of the Indigenous Taiwanese who are always left out of the conversation about Taiwan and have never been citizens of China or had Chinese heritage.
If China wanted peaceful unification they can have it tomorrow.
Cede all power to Taiwan and they can be one country. They definitely won’t be bullied by Taiwan and unlike China Taiwan would accept differing opinions. It’s been done successfully before to a large extent. East and West Germany joined together as one country without the need for border fences or two systems in one country. Just imagine what a basket case of a country if it happened the other way around. 2 systems, border fences different currencies, declining standings on corruption, political freedom etc.
But of course they’ll never do that. Because deep down it’s not the country they care about. They only care about the CCP itself.
Edit: looks like the wumaos are in force, not surprising as a large number of them are otherwise unemployed now 😂
In a short TLDR; Taiwan wants independence, China doesnt want Taiwan to be independent, claim Taiwan belongs to China
During the Communist revolution the republic government was losing pretty badly and fell back to the very defensible island. They’ve been there ever since with their official name: the Republic of China. So there’s some civil war tension there and a lot of claims of who’s the rightful ruler of China.
Taiwan’s position is no longer that it is the rightful ruler of China. That notion died with Chiang Kai-shek and nobody with a shred of a brain truly believes it.
The PRC won the fight over who “legitimate China” is when the UN gave them the seat for China. Also, one of these is an international superpower and the other is Taiwan.
China still fears economic and military repercussions in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.
As long as its economy is ill due to current factors like inflation, banking instability, and the inflated real estate market, we can assume that a war would be an economic and political shock right now that even Xi might struggle to navigate.
Edit: for everyone disagreeing, every foreign expert is expecting a war, and even the current US deterrence (criticized here as escalation) is not enough for most experts.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/08/us-military-deterrence-china-taiwan-war-east-asia/
Are you kidding, this is when China is starting to be most dangerous.
Internal strife of a country has always been the biggest factor on when that country goes to war. Creating a distraction for the populace and a bogeyman for them to hate is part of the autocratic playback.
Look back at the trump administration and how eager he was to bomb Iran and start a war. Or the current invasion of ukraine and the economic issues in Russia before the invasion.
It’s not the sole driver but it’s a big one.
I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. An internal strife alone doesn’t necessarily lead to military action.
A military conflict involving Taiwan would have global implications, affecting regional stability and the world economy. Xi is fully aware of that and knows that his political power extends only as far as his economy remains stable. Looking at the last BRICS meeting, we see that China is eager to compensate for any economic embargoes with a stable structure and demand from its partners – which, as of today, is still a work in progress.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian war has shown, the West can swiftly mitigate major impacts on its economy (see Germany moving completely away from gas exports from Russia). China is aware of that too and knows that while devastating, the west will work closely together to compensate such an economic distaster and cut ties with China completly.
While the current situation requires vigilance and preparation for the worst, we can at least see that China remains in absolute need of its Western allies, and a military intervention would be a complete disaster, even for Xi.
That’s likely why he’s consolidating power by eliminating political opponents and critics, but history has shown that being blinded by power, as Putin is in the case of Ukraine, leads to devastation.
It’s not even internal strife. It all comes down to it’s now or never. If they let this opportunity slip by they will never get Taiwan.
Their population is declining and there’s nothing that can be done about it in any meaningful way. Nothing has worked to get people to have more children. As they get older people of military age will decline.
Right now this generation the males outnumber the females. Which means expendable soldiers. These people will never marry and benefit the state in anyway.
The leverage China has is it’s consumers it’s one of the largest markets. But the Chinese buying things to support international companies is quite minuscule as a percentage of the population and will decline as time goes on, they get all the media attention that’s all . They’ve been struggling to boost internal consumption for years.
And it isn’t that surprising. Chinese people are one of the most tightarse people ever. They haggle everything and that’s even if they get to the point of actually going to buy it. Spending money to make money usually doesn’t factor in.
How much worse is their internal strife going to be once they lose a war? Russia was tooling along before attacking Ukraine, but now they might actually for real topple within a few years.
I doubt you will see a major shift in policy after the Ukraine war.
We will probably see putin fall but the goverment he built and is responsible for what’s happening in Russia today will still be there.
Financially Russia is largely fucked
Lol, I’d be surprised if any of the jets China flies in its “airforce” are even capable of firing weapons without falling apart. Their military infrastructure is a joke, relying on technology far above their manufacturing capabilities.
Agreed. They’d also have to be pretty sure they’d make up the deficit from potential sanctions/lost exports. [https://trendeconomy.com/data/h2?commodity=TOTAL&reporter=China&trade_flow=Export,Import&partner=World&indicator=TV,YoY&time_period=2021,2022](20% of their GDP is exports ) with the US, Japan, and Korea making up close to 25% of that.
It’s probably why they are watching Russia so closely and investing in Africa heavily.
