The growing peril of war with China over Taiwan | Hacker News Reader

The growing peril of war with China over Taiwan

responsiblestatecraft.org

36 pointsporpoise21 comments

This is the same Ambassador who noted:

Tian'anmen, 1989:

“The Politburo’s response to the mob scene at ‘Tian’anmen’ stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action,” Freeman wrote at the time. “I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be.” National Review, 2020-07-31.[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Freeman_Jr.#China

Could you add your commentary to the quote? I don’t quite follow the point you are making, or how it connects to the article.

The author blames the US for chipping away its treaty agreements and paints the Taiwanese as naively pinning their hopes on US intervention, but China is far from an innocent party in this.

There would be no treaty or peace if Taiwan actively tried to arm itself back in the 80s, 90s, or 2000s.

I’m not sure what koolaid the ambassador is drinking, but we’re (as in, the US and most of the world) past any pretenses.

Not sure I agree with the ambassador that China handed Taiwan over to Japan “nonchalantly,” in 1895. He certainly is more the expert than I am, but a lot of potential “bad China takes,” in this piece.

I recently asked Chinese coworkers (young, very educated, living abroad) about what they think about this and there were both supporting forceful annexation and thought it will happen someday. Given their profile, the average Chinese staying at home is probably thinking the same too, and supporting invasion too. Pretty depressing.

I think the highly educated Chinese who ventured overseas (which you need to be affluent to do it) doesn’t really represent the majority of the Chinese population at all.

The Chinese in China are even more nationalistic and view Taiwan as a renegade province to be reigned in, forcefully if necessary.

Yes, this was the point I tried to express.

This is generally true but I'd also caution that it's a pretty big third rail topic -- for lack of better example, akin to asking your German colleagues if they think Holocaust actually happened or not -- the problem being that you're generally not likely to get a straight answer even if they were sympathetic due to fear of reprisal if a non standard answer were to be discovered out by unsympathetic peers.

what the hell? apart from some lunatics, no German person denies the Holocaust and this has nothing to do with "reprisals" and everything with proper education. The memory of the Holocaust and the Nazi era is omnipresent in Germany.

You're proving my point, that's exactly how they would how they see it. Again I'm not trying to imply the Holocaust didn't happen.

It appears to me that we’re back into imperialism before the end of the century. Who will stop China if they want to expand? Nobody stopped Russia a few years ago. Hong Kong got fucked this year and nobody did anything.

China could expand into Kashmir and definitively “own” the South China Sea, including Taiwan.

Who will go to war with China? No one.

If the US doesn't defend Taiwan then its defense treaties with Japan and Korea become all but worthless and we'd likely see a major build up if nothing else.

The real danger is if the east and South and South East Asian countries can't put their historical differences behind them and China is allowed to divide and conquer or blitz their way through South East Asia such as via naval blockades of the SCS/Malaca or environmental terrorism via Mekong dam.

I'm not sure. There is no treaty that binds the US to defend Taiwan.

It has always been that way. Just have a look at the U.S. imperialism in the 20th century.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Thus it has always been.

I have been in Taiwan multiple times on business, but all trips came in two distinct time periods: about 1998 and then 2008. Each time I have spent several weeks there - not a two day trip like airport-hotel-client-hotel-airport. I had a chance to spend weekends with colleagues, and observe how locals spend time.

During the first stint (1998) I was impressed how proudly anti-communist the Taiwanese were. Proud of their independence and held Chiang Kai-Shek in high regard. The Chiang Kai-Shek mausoleum was bustling with crowds - I enjoed strolling around there on weekends. During my second stint (2008), the Chiang Kai-Shek mausoleum was a sorry sight - almost nobody around, most of it closed off for "renovation" and it felt desolate. I also detected a significant shift towards unification with China among my colleagues. I can only hope that Taiwan paid close attention to Hong Kong. I'd hate to see such a bustling, open and full of great people country fall under Chinese control.

The truth is, China do not want to control Taiwan, and China do not want to lose Taiwan. Sounds contradict but because it is. Let's take Hong Kong for example, Hong Kong has changed China's view on this issue completely. Hong Kong would be a much better asset for China if it is independent but stay Chinese. China does not need another city. The problem is that even though Hong Kong is Chinese, the movement of seeking independence (I am sure you can find how some parliament members' display of 'fuck China' during inauguration would upset Chinese government) has lead to a stage, where Chinese government would be very worries if they don't have the control of Hong Kong. Now they are looking at this 'one country two systems' differently, because one party will not respect 'one country' and the other party will not respect 'two systems'. The same is Taiwan. One option is to have a friendly state, it is not going to happy; the other option is to have a independent state, China will not allow it to happen. Taking Taiwan does not really benefit China, but from the government's eye, if the relationship don't change, and Taiwan declare independence in one way or the other, China will be forced to react or suffer the chain reaction of the result of it.

Oh please, the independence movement wouldn't have gotten any traction had they simply continued the original strategy of imparting the changes over generations but the emperor can't appear to be weak and none of the political appointments at the leaison wanted to risk their necks to call out how stupid the strategy was.

Exactly. If the emperor shows his weakness, the empire could collapse. If you have followed the story, China has been asking Hong Kong to implement Basic Law 23 from 2008, it was a guarantee for no independence movement, and they couldn't do it until 2020, the National Security law was basically forced on Hong Kong because its inability to implement it. China was hoping to continue the original strategy but the movement has been used as evidence that the original strategy will not work. Also you have to know, there are so much wealth from Chinese officials and elite family are in Hong Kong, there would be strong power within the party to keep Hong Kong as it is, unfortunately they are losing ground because of whats happening on TV. You don't have to mention that Hong Kong was set to be a model for the one country two systems example, China has all the reasons to make it work as much as possible. Okay, I just wanted to analyze what's happened in my way of thinking, not trying to play the judge.

“Before 1997, the British colonial government introduced the Crimes (Amendment)(No.2) Bill 1996 in an attempt to concretise the concepts of "subversion" and "secession" by confining them to actual violent conduct but of no avail. The bill was voted down in the elected Legislative Council of Hong Kong amid opposition from Beijing and thus left a vacuum in the present legislation.[4]”

-Wikipedia in Basic Law 23

I think attitudes have changed a lot since events in Hong Kong, at least amongst the younger crowd.

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