China is angered by Apple's iPhone event mentioning Taiwan
finance.yahoo.com
finance.yahoo.com
But to the spirit of your question, no there's no argument that's externally valid. The CCP has claims relating to it's legitimacy, security and territorial claims. They are not widely viewed as credible, but China has insisted on making Taiwan a red line issue so everybody else has to pretend like these claims might be legitimate.
At the end of the day it's a very large political entity trying to take complete control of a much smaller one against it's will. It's colonialism plain and simple.
It's really not that plain or simple. Any population that might have a claim to being "indigenous" to Taiwan has already been colonized by the Dutch and the Portuguese, then the Qing dynasty, then the Japanese, and finally the ROC, which is the sovereign entity that governs Taiwan today. If anything, the transition from Japanese to KMT rule was rather brutal and colonial, although Taiwan is a rather healthy democracy today and the current ruling faction, the Pan-Greens, have historically fought against that legacy.
you must be kidding yourself. just looking at news happened in the last 72 hours
-A Dupty commissioner of ROC's Transitional Justice Commission openly instructed his men to launch political attacks against a key KMT party candidate, he also urged MPs from his own party to assist him. He further pointed out that his vision for the ROC's Transitional Justice Commission is the Eastern Depot [1] style secret police. His passionate speech was secretly recorded by a member from his own party and released to the public. Your favourite pan-green forces want Eastern Depot [1] style secret police to be re-installed, yet you choose to troll here that they are progressive and better than KMT. What a bloody joke!You have to wonder what happens if the tap was not released to the public.
There no link provided but you mean the Eastern Bureau? A historical 600 year old police force? Comes across as a strange reference to make regarding current affairs.
Doesn't every country have departments within their intelligence community that operate relatively away from the public eye. Seems quite uncontroversial to me without them breaking laws, perverting justice or other nastiness.
From the mainland government's perspective, that country is the People's Republic of China, governing from Beijing. For Taiwan, that country is the Republic of China, currently governing from Taipei having fled the mainland. The civil war has never officially ended, and each lays claim to the others territory as the rightful owner.
This is the basis of the "One China Policy" that you might read about every now and then. The vast majority of countries around the world switched to recognising the PRC instead of the ROC many decades ago, and the PRC offers financial incentives for doing so, which matters to small countries, notably in the Pacific. They also threaten the opposite for anyone who recognises the ROC instead, or more recently, any entity that lists Taiwan as anything other than part of China.
Airlines were recently threatened by the PRC for listing Taiwan as a separate country instead of a region - I believe most capitulated. This is the key argument you are looking for at least in the context of corporations such as Apple, who seems to think they're big enough to stand up on this one. Qantas on the other hand, backed down immediately.
Beyond corporations though, more generally, it is not so much about China claiming sovereignty over Taiwan - it is about the opposite being the case as well. At the point where Taiwan renounces its claim on the mainland, China will consider it the first official step on the path to Taiwan's independence. It has repeatedly said that this is a red line it will not allow Taiwan to cross without a forceful response. Another red line, for example, being Taiwan's possession of nuclear weapons.
I believe Taiwan could have declared independence in the 1990s and come out on top in any military confrontation with the PRC. However, there was not enough support amongst the population at the time[1] - most people considered themselves "Chinese" as opposed to "Taiwanese". That is now starting to reverse, but IMO Taiwan is no longer in a position to successfully defend itself if the PRC decides to act. The US has given no guarantees it would defend Taiwan in the event of a unilateral declaration of independence.
So to sum up: Taiwan is not treated as a normal independent country by most entities because the PRC has enough clout (economically and militarily) to threaten those who wish to do so.
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/0...
Taipei skyline.jpg Taipei skyline. Currency New Taiwan dollar (NT$) NT$29.2 per US$ (Apr 2018) Fiscal year Calendar year Trade organizations WTO, APEC, ICC and others (as Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu) Statistics GDP Nominal: $571.5 billion
using your logic here, please don't argue further more, otherwise you'd be arguing with yourself - who care about the tiny island called taiwan.
the 1943 Cairo Declaration explicitly stated that Taiwan belongs to China and it should be "restored" to China. it is a part of the post-WWII world order.
When the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan they did not have to file for asylum or apply for a Visa. Taiwan was part of China. The Communist Party is declaring when they won the civil war they gained control over all of China, including Taiwan.
This is the narrative for Taiwan not having sovereignty, and not necessary my own views.
Another way to look at it is if the Confederacy never surrendered to the union and instead retreated to Cuba and became the dominant political force on that island.
So this analogy might work better if Confederacy was the one who won, and Union retreated to Cuba.
Today, Cuba happens to be a highly desirable location (strategically, or for resources, or etc.). So Confederates, who now control continental U.S., want to maintain their claim on it.
Meanwhile, nowadays a majority of the people in USA (a government which controls only Cuba) consider themselves Cubans, and almost no one in USA cares about regaining control of continental U.S.
But Confederates feel that, if USA renounces control of continental U.S., it would be a step towards USA independence, which would further weaken Confederate claim over Cuba. So they pressure USA to keep referring to themselves as "USA" instead of "Cuba". Additionally, they think that the "one America" stance depends to some extent on USA retaining continental U.S. in its official borders. (But in reality, no USA citizens, aka Cubans, care about these borders continuing to include continental U.S.)
I almost feel like control of Taiwan is more a matter of national pride for the PRC than geopolitics at this point. Yes, the PRC would love to get the USA out of the South China Sea, but there are already American forces in Japan that aren't leaving anytime soon. Yes, the PRC would love to add Taiwan to its territory, but it should be mostly happy enough just to continue building economic ties. However, both the government and the people see possession of Taiwan as unfinished business and this is what I think drives their dramatic reactions in cases like this Apple incident, which is what I was trying to illustrate with the analogy.
Chinese propaganda, nothing to see here.
The exact timestamp in the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFTmQ27S7OQ&feature=youtu.be...
So technically, Taiwan considers itself part of China, in an abstract sense.
I doubt very many Taiwanese people actually care about leading China or believe that ROC will ever become the de facto government over all of China.
The only reason that Taiwan gives the perception that it supports re-unification / "one China" (part of which includes maintaining its claims over mainland China) is to maintain good political and economic relations with China. Because opposing re-unification would piss off China.
KMT values economy over opposing "one China". I would say DPP values eventual independence more, but they still recognize the economic ramifications and thus seek to develop economic relations with other countries to reduce reliance on China (but how successful this has been is debated).
Anyway even DPP says they support "one China" to some degree, they're just more willing than KMT to risk supporting it to a lesser degree.
More info please, this isn't what I know of Taiwan.
Aside from escalation of tensions, pissing off PRC would likely worsen economic relations, which I think would be more damaging to Taiwan than to China (according to Wikipedia, China is Taiwan's largest import/export partner).
Absent the political/economic ramifications, I believe only a very small percentage of Taiwan's population would mind if Taiwan renounced these claims. Even "pro-reunification" KMT has stepped a bit back from its reunification stance, e.g. setting conditions like "democracy, economic development to a level near that of Taiwan, and equitable wealth distribution" for China before reunification can occur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan).
So, for many, the only reason to support an "eventual reunification" stance is it'd strengthen the economy, i.e., they don't mind China playing its word games if it means peace and Taiwan prospering.
This doesn't mean "pro-independence" pan-green party ignores the economic effects. They argue for developing economic relations with other countries, to reduce economic dependence on China, and thus make independence more practical.
The attitude has changed drastically, when all the original members of those discussions have been replaced by next generations, and no one can remember the original concilliary tones of those meetings, and all that remains are misunderstandings -- that was how the splits between Catholics and Protestants, Sunnis and Shias, probably happened, and passed down in increasingly dogmatic interpretations.
Is this a thing that people will actually do?
Assume at your own buyer's risk. For things like the Apple Watch, I would just double-check.
actually, a lot of the time: consider Xinjiang and Tibet. the fact that we can't afford to shun them as they deserve doesn't mean they're not being very, very naughty.
Geography is still very significant. The potential for others to base aircraft and ships on Taiwan keeps China contained behind the South China Sea.
Taiwan is a hard target for amphibious invasion, and amphibious invasions are hard to begin with. The seas around Taiwan are quite rough, and there are only two potential beaches for such a landing. The time frame friendly to such an operation is also quite limited.
Basically, if China keeps on ramping up its blue water naval capabilities, some kind of confrontation is inevitable between the USA and China over the South China Sea and the US position as distant ally/hegemon to Korea, Japan, and other east Asian countries.
China's Geographic Challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8uWoBtCkg8