China's Xi vows 'reunification' with Taiwan | Hacker News Reader

China's Xi vows 'reunification' with Taiwan

reuters.com

57 pointsgridder65 comments

This is actually good news, considering the state of China's domestic circumstances.

China knows it's not really in a position to start a war with the West, and so it's trying to gain some of the political benefit of appealing to domestic nationalism without destroying its domestic employment, economy, trade relationships, or overseas wealth as a result of an actual invasion. And it is no secret that this happens whenever China's leadership takes a popularity hit -- most recently with the electricity shortages as a result of their (now suspended) anti-coal push.

If China was really going to attack, it would not be sabre rattling like this.

IDK. Argentina has maintained its claim on the Falkland Islands verbally since forever, then in 1982 actually attempted to take them.

The Falklands have 2000 fishermen.

1. How much sabre-rattling did Argentina do in the year prior to invasion? Were they flying military planes in Falkland airspace and publicly threatening to invade?

2. While Argentina could reasonably believe that no one cared about the Falklands (and only invaded after it was mistakenly convinced that the UK would not care) this isn't the case for Taiwan. For example, how many billions in military hardware did the UK sell to the inhabitants of the Falkland islands, how many billions in mutual trade occured between the UK and the Falklands, and how many strategic key industries did the Falklands have a leadership position in? What was strength of the pro-Falkland lobby group in British Parliament?

It's one thing for Argentina to convince itself that the UK would abandon the Falklands, a different thing for China to convince itself that the West will abandon Taiwan.

Moreover China is much more dependent on the rest of the world than Argentina. Argentina can feed itself -- China can't. China can't even keep the lights on without help from Australia.

It's just a tactic to keep the the minds outside china calm (oh look china want's to go the freedom loving way), and heat the minds inside china up (how dare those Taiwanese knock off that peaceful inquiry) and buy a little bit more time to buildup the navy, air-force and army.

BTW: I don't believe that anyone would help Taiwan, there is just nothing to win (economically) and that's the really sad point...and china knows it, so does the US, neither the US nor China could win a war against each other...proxy war? Pure waste of money.

Yeah but the Domino Theory is back with Taiwan.

If ccp take Taiwan, they will be able to keep expanding and economically swallow other countries and instill their autocratic security apparatus around the world.

You are saying that sabre-rattling -- e.g. violating Taiwanese airspace, etc., is a tactic to keep people outside China calm?

I am confused about how you are getting from A to B there.

In terms of a hot shooting war with the West or coming to Taiwan's military aid, who knows if anyone would do it?

But in terms of seizing all of China's foreign reserve assets and imposing trade embargoes to destroy their economy? You bet people would do it. Without a second thought. It would instantly happen, and would be very bad news to an economy not self-sufficient in either food or energy, and with 40% of their GDP dependent on exports to the West.

The PRC airforce has not violated Taiwan airspace even if they don't recognize it as such (they may have been shot down if they had crossed that line).

They fly within the ADIZ (Air Defence Identification Zone), which is an arbitrary zone in which the Taiwanese airforce asks aircrafts to identify themselves, but well into international airspace and in a non threatening way (I.e. they fly tangentially at the margin and not straight towards Taiwan).

It’s true that China’s flights have not entered Taiwan territory. But it’s also quite obviously true that the point is to threaten Taiwan. It’s clearly saber rattling.

This is routine, like the Russians used to do (and still do) North of the UK.

If this is saber rattling, then what should be said of the 3 aircraft carriers the US and friends have dispatched to the area?

This is highly spun by the media and government agencies.

The US and friends are obviously saber rattling das well. They are sending the message that their military will sail through those waters regardless of what China wants.

But seriously are you actually arguing that China is not trying to cause fear in Taiwan by its actions? I mean seriously?

Reality is Xi hasn't done much to escalate saber rattling across strait, most of the unprecedented ADIZ flights were targeting foreign carriers in the region - trilateral carrier exercises last week in SCS, or just run of mill training.

PRC not sending H6s tasked with antiship to Bashi channels to practice sinking TW carriers. PRC hasn't remotely begun exerting military pressure on TW, most the conniptions so far is from PRC growing military capacity organically on modest 2% budget. Eastern Theatre Command isn't going to stop training because TW likes to whine about ADIZ incursions for attention. And PRC isn't going to not intercept these foreign carrier exercises off her coast regardless of SCS geopolitics. It's too close to PRC shores and critically, PRC simply has the capability to intercept US carriers now, it's going to practice using that capability going forward.

For those that follow the subject, PRC/Xi has been EXTREMELY gentle on Tsai/DPP not affirming 92 consensus. Most of the signals are status quo. Some tourism and fruit bans are nothing compared to how much TW/US has destabilized the relationship. There's a reason why report in TW suggest people aren't concerned about war, while useful idiot sin the west are losing their minds. Because PRC hasn't saber rattled that much, especially compared to drama in past cross strait crises. If PRC wants to cross the median line and make TW shit bricks, they can, trivially by shelling Kinmen and Matsu again, or test missiles in ROC territorial waters. But right now most ADIZ incursions are either normal training exercises or PRC responding to US carriers spung as PRC threatening TW.

the Taiwan ADIZ literally extends into mainland China. Taiwan itself admits "violations" are routine. It's a farce that this is getting serious coverage.

Yes, someone does want to stoke fear, but who truly benefits if there's an outbreak of war in the region? Hint: it's not China, it's not Taiwan.

In a timeline where Russia didn't invade Georgia and Ukraine I'd agree that incursion seems unlikely.

Chinese planes have crossed the bottom corner of the Taiwanese ADIZ. NOT Taiwanese airspace. Though that sensationalist report sells more newspapers, doesn't it?

An ADIZ has no legal standing, it is only a unilaterally declared area (the Taiwanese ADIZ even covers parts of mainland China). For instance the US does not recognise the Chinese ADIZ and has regularly flown bombers through it. But even the US would not dare to fly a bomber or two through Chinese airspace - the air above the actual Chinese territory and 12 miles out to sea from the coast - without being at risk of those bombers being missiled out of the sky. We saw what happened to Gary Powers when he was sent into Soviet airspace.

The United States had a formal treaty obligation to defend Taiwan... that expired in 1980.

But such a pact may soon be realized once more.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/reborn-us-taiwan-military-al...

You mean like security warranties US and UK gave to Ukraine for giving up their nukes? Yeah, that worked great.

Main incentive to keep Taiwan independent is for the USA to use the island as a literal aircraft carrier that cannot drown. It is military strategic point for the USA.

Also TSMC is one of the few thing that keep Taiwan protected.

>Also TSMC is one of the few thing that keep Taiwan protected.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28830921

>New Chip plant in Japan

Xi's reiterating boilerplate language on the issue since forever. This has nothing to do with distracting from domestic politics. It's generic status-quo messaging after recent US-Sino talks that reaffirmed One China Policy. Especially timed around PRC national day on Oct 1st and ROC national day on Oct 1th. This is routine not rattling.

this is really not news at all, it's been obvious that force was not on the table. why are people so content to consume only US sources about these issues? It's clearly the US that has been chomping at the bit for an excuse to start another war

The scarier thing is that they also laid claim to the Ryuku islands. Islands that have never been considered Chinese and have been nominally part of the Japanese sphere for 400 years. They also threatened to nuke Japan into unconditional surrender.

I've recently been really digging in on China, and the more I read / learn, the less threatening (not evil, the CCP is certainly plenty evil) I perceive them.

A starter on this is the three part polymatter series.

1) China has a monster of a demographics problem that they are clearly lying about with census data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTbILK0fxDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZWIwKdXC4

2) It's pretty well established at this point that Chinese property markets have serious issues which threaten systemic issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgVXRtq5EIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlbMsS4u5EY

3) Their resource situation, especially water issues are serious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUc4gTO-PE&t=918s

4) They have terrible Geography from a military perspective and are not nearly as militarily strong as they project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNaIKatux1E

5) And the biggest one. Chinese citizens are increasingly not prosperous enough to be ok with it. Also the gender imbalance is so severe that there are guaranteed to be 10s of millions of angry single men over the next decades, almost certain to increase social discord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87R3Lp0jd0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaA69EvHGw

They have also seriously mishandled their relationship with Australia who they really needed which was just long term cemented with the AUUKUS alliance.

Another interesting channel which I found because she was talking about evergrande default over three years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHwYF8GGE-8

Video on frequent structural disasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RElGXLwWTvI

I think over the next 30 years, the US tripping over it's own feet is a bigger risk than anything China related

All of those things could be what makes China dangerous.

The classic suggestion of how to solve a large population of restless young men is to invade somewhere. That’s not exactly a comforting thought, even if China is unlikely to invade the US.

Certainly China would not be the first country to ramp up nationalism to respond to dissatisfaction at home.

I absolutely think they will and it will be problematic. But that's NK territory. Not superpower we need to be afraid of on equal terms. They are still very different.

they certainly played some of their cards right, their positions in solar/semiconductor raw materials markets, their position in a lot of value chains is dominant, they can manipulate world wide markets as long as everyone else operate as if they were just a group of independent market participants contrary to what they are(dictatorship with full control of every strategic move their citizens/companies decide to make a political instead of economic decision)

They have enough influence in multiple countries to swing votes in UN, WHO etc.

They successfully occupied South China Sea, and built military bases on artificially created islands in strategic points to military expand in the region(as long they have navy capability, and do catch up very quickly)

They have very weird situation with their fisherman army, that invades neighboring countries waters and depletes their fishing reserves

Their position is a position of North Korea that was allowed to gain position strong enough to cause a lot of damage, and since dictatorships can afford much higher damage without precautions it's not as clear who is in a better position to negotiate/fight

If Hollywood is to be believed, then about 50% of those young men will be gay and not so unhappy about their situation...

War reduces the number of young men, including single angry young men. I hope that is not how the demographic gap will be resolved, but it is a possibility that weighs heavily in my mind.

Never thought about that angle. I have no doubt that fact has been considered by officials at some point.

Damn this is scary — you’re both right.

Another interesting historical analogue to the current situation with China is the Soviet Union - who some of us can remember was also poised to massively overtake the American economy at one point. History had other plans and in particular, things like the belts & roads initiative feel like very large echoes of this not-so-distant past.

You might say that China has learned the lessons of the failing Soviet Union's plans for expansion and domination, but so too has more democratically focused allies as things like AUUKUS & TPP (with or without USA) can attest.

Bloomberg had a good piece about this worth reading

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-12/soviet...

>the gender imbalance is so severe that there are guaranteed to be 10s of millions of angry single men over the next decades

It's crazy to me that the CCP didn't see this as a problem. There must be a reason they let it continue, more male soldiers for a potential war? Thought men were more likely to contribute to the workforce?

Additionally.. I’ve been thinking that the FL condo collapse scenario will be playing out across China over the next decades (combo of building too fast, with sub par materials, and bribed inspectors). Tho, I do disagree on a macro level with you, I don’t think your points are talked about nary at all.

The ROC also 'vows reunification' with the Chinese mainland. It's a standard line in the One China diplomatic framework which both states follow.

Edit: can we get the title changed to "Xi vows 'peaceful reunification' with Taiwan"? This better reflects the content of the article:

  BEIJING, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to achieve "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan, and did not directly mention the use of force after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.

Declaring your intentions while sharpening your weapons is never peaceful. It's already an act of aggression.

And I thought the current ROC line (at least, the leading party's line) has no interest in "One China".

Declaring peaceful intentions strikes me as the opposite of aggression.

In isolation. Saying it days after flying an air-to-ground-assault-capable wing of aircraft in the day, and a smaller strike force in the evening shows that it's nonsense.

You don't run operations against people you have peaceful intentions towards.

> The ROC also 'vows reunification' with the Chinese mainland.

Source please. All I've heard about from Taiwan in the past decade are simply calls for independance, especially since Tsai won presidency (twice).

There are calls for independence, but ROC maintains a claim over the Chinese mainland which constitutionally requires a referendum to change. Source: ROC constitution.

It's sad that UN is so useless. This kind of rhetoric by a state leader should result in sanctions.

Security Council veto. The UN is one of the more useless bodies in existence. Their principal function is to make everybody "feel good" ("the United Nations will sort <insert crisis here> out!") and issue meaningless resolutions.

> Security Council veto.

...the UNGA adopted a bypass mechanism in 1950, and it was first used in 1951 and had been used several times since.

...but almost certainly not be used to force through a resolution condemning China. The only organisation that was less ineffective then the UN was the League of Nations (minus the US)

> but almost certainly not be used to force through a resolution condemning China

Why not? The very first use of Uniting For Peace was to condemn China and call on all States to actively resist Chinese aggression.

Obligatory Taiwan China relations comment: Taiwan was never a part of the PRC and doesn’t intend to be. While not officially a country (due to China’s whining), for all intents and purposes it absolutely is.

With that out of the way, does this present anything new?

Reunification in this case is as legitimate as speaking of German reunification before 1990 or Korean reunification now.

So are the quotation marks because they are actually quoting or because of some other reason?...

In this article it seems to me that they do beyond quoting.

Why are people so suspicious of quotation marks these days? People are always having a go at the BBC for using them as well.

It's a quotation, so they've used quotation marks. It's not a mystery.

It's healthy suspicion, more than a suspicion, actually when you read this article and others.

Of course if it's a direct quotation then quotation marks are appropriate, but then it becomes something else when a term is always between quotation marks throughout the article. For instance:

"Peaceful "reunification" best meets the overall interests of the Taiwanese people, but China will protect its sovereignty and unity, he added."

Why is 'reunification' quoted there?

Since you mention the BBC, I've noticed that they now always write "democratic Taiwan" instead of just "Taiwan"...

> Why is 'reunification' quoted there?

Because it's a quotation. Someone other than the journalist said it. The quotation marks let you know that.

They are quoting a whole sentence, not a single word yet they put quotation marks around a specific word.

This is not neutral at all.

> This is not neutral at all.

I think you've got it backwards - the point is to be fastidiously neutral.

Some people think it's reunification, some people think it isn't. So instead of taking one side and saying what they think, they just tell you what the relevant person said. They aren't quoting a whole sentence, as it comes from a speech and they want to make it understandable without having to read the whole thing.

It's supposed to be simple reporting, not opinion. Especially if you look at the venue - it's a news agency.

This is all totally normal, completely above-board, best-practice journalism. I have no idea why people push back against it.

Are you possibly confusing quotation marks with scare quotes? That's not what these are. They aren't making a point using the quotation marks. They're trying to not make a point. Just to convey the facts.

But they are taking side!

Of course some people are against reunification but trying to push the narrative that this is not a matter of reunification really is propaganda and not fact.

What I quoted is not neutral journalism. Neutral journalism on this issue is extremely rare.

It has become a widespread trick to push a narrative under the cover of being neutral or irrelevant facts. Clever use of quotation marks under the pretext that not everyone agrees, systematic use of 'democratic Taiwan' are 2 examples of subtle and clever bias when it comes to reporting of cross-straight relations. Another one is today's reporting on the BBC for the 10th October (national day of ROC), which was not even subtle.

But it's hard for the public who does not know about an issue and trust what they are told. And of course there is one so blind as those who will not see.

> But they are taking side!

I don't even know which side you think they're taking! So it can't be that strong a stance can it.

It's not neutral. It means "as they say", as opposed to "as we would say", or "don't get too attached to what you think this word should mean, here we're using the meaning as used by the quoted, and we all know that bit everybody agrees on that".

It's a legitimate use of quotations IMO as it clarifies the text, in particular the relationship between the writer (the journalist) and the originator of the message being relayed and interpreted.

Perhaps you’re thinking of single quotes? I believe the ones used here are double quotes which are used to convey reported speech.

Source: was a professional writer.

I'm talking about the literary device of quoting one word of somebody's speech and inserting it in a text that that person didn't utter. By quoting the word you can make clear that it's meant to be read with the connotation of the quoted person which may not be aligned with the write nor the reader's.

I presume that the BBC is quoting “reunification” to make clear they don’t necessarily agree with the term’s usage, but use it because Xi did. I would do the same since I personally find “annexation through imperialist military conquest” to be much more honest description of the situation.

Because the history of Taiwan is complicated.

If you count Taiwan as a part to be unified under CCP rule, then by similar accounts you may as well argue that Iran and Iraq as parts to be unified under CCP rule.

From the Wikipedia page on Taiwan [1], check out the Chronological phases on the right, you can see that Taiwan has been ruled by different regimes:

* Prehistory to 1624

* Dutch Formosa 1624–1662

* Spanish Formosa 1626–1642

* Kingdom of Tungning 1661–1683

* Qing rule 1683–1895

* Japanese rule 1895–1945

* Republic of China rule 1945–present

Among them:

- the Kingdom of Tungning was a loyalist to Ming dynasty when Qing dynasty was ruling mainland China,

- later Qing dynasty partly ruled Taiwan,

- now the Repulic of China is ruling Taiwan when CCP is ruling mainland China.

Then one may ask why Taiwan should be a part to be unified under CCP rule, as Xi implies, instead of being ruled by the Republic of China.

One argument is that Taiwan has been ruled by regimes associated with Mainland China in the past (loyalist to Ming dynasty after it lost, then partly by Qing dynasty), hence by extension to be ruled by the current ruler of mainland China, CCP.

But if you accept this argument, then you may notice that the Mongol empire (Yuan dynasty) once ruled Iran and Iraq and more [2]. If we ignore the past, then we may ask if Taiwan should be ruled by the mainland Chinese regime, CCP, or should be a sovereign country ruled by the Republic of China as the President of Taiwan said [3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taiwan

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire

[3]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/taiw...

Flooding others with a mass of data is a rhetoric trick.

Again, the situation is exactly like Germany and Korea. China is currently split and this is an issue of reunification.

Taiwan is part of China and the last territory of the Republic of China, whose government was kicked out of the mainland by the communist. Today is national day in Taiwan and that commemorates the fall of the Empire and the founding of the Republic of China...

Now, some people in Taiwan are opposed to reunification because of the current regime on the mainland, some are opposed to reunification full stop and want Taiwan to remain an independent country. That's the factual situation.

But calling into question the term 'reunification' is purely propaganda in order to paint the PRC as trying to invade a foreign country like if they wanted to invade Vietnam or another neighbour. From the West's POV this is a standard divide and conquer strategy.

> Taiwan is part of China...

Which ‘China’? The political China, or the cultural China, or ethnic China (ie, with a majority heritage from Chinese descent), or what?

How do you conclude that Taiwan is part of China? And what does it have to do with Xi’ speech or CCP rule?

> But calling into question the term 'reunification' is purely propaganda...

Taiwan has de facto sovereignty, and with a majority support against unification [1]. This is the current status.

So the quote around ‘reunification’ is reflecting the current status.

> ... in order to paint the PRC as trying to invade a foreign country like if they wanted to invade Vietnam or another neighbour.

Sending fighter jets and and bombers to Taiwan sounds more like invasion than ‘reunification’ [2], if you ask me.

If you say the situation is exactly like Germany, are you suggesting that Germany was reunified through military?

And what should happen if the majority of Taiwanese do not want ‘unification’ [1]? Should Taiwan be ‘reunified’ against their will?

[1]: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/taiwan-experiencing...

[2]: https://www.economist.com/china/2021/10/09/china-is-ratcheti...

Most commentators obsession with China possibly invading Taiwan is flabbergasting. How many countries has China invaded over the course of say the last 200 years and how many the US? Violating Taiwan's airspace from mainland China is fairly easy as due to their geographic proximity both countries airspaces actually overlap in places. Just a question on how the media paints the picture.

Tibet?

Yes, China's invasions pale in comparison to US, but Tibet is relevant to the discussion because it's a disputed territory, i.e. a territory that the Chinese government doesn't recognize as a foreign country. This doesn't make it less of an invasion for people who hold the opposite view.

Since World War 2, China has invaded Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, and India (twice). The US has invaded Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan in that same timeframe.

While China has been less militarily aggressive than the US in recent history, that should not be understood as not militarily aggressive at all. Especially as three of the US invasions were in direct response to others' aggression and not naked aggression, as all of China's invasions have been.

You should be concerned if you're China's neighbor. In addition to the ones listed above, China had a border conflict with USSR in 1969 in Far East - [0]. China invaded the contested Paracel islands which was under South Vietnam's control at the time - [1]. China killed 64 Vietnamese solder in the Johnson South Reef Skirmish - [2]

Worst of all, China directly supported and controlled Khmer Rouge, causing the death of at least a million Cambodians, 25% of their population. The worst genocide since WW2 that seems to have been gradually forgotten - [3]. Note that most Western countries also bore the responsibility, albeit indirectly, by the virtue of looking the other way.

All of that happened when China was only a regional power with a poor economy.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Paracel_Islands [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_South_Reef_Skirmish [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

Agree that China is being increasingly portrayed as an enemy. Though taking it as serious economic competitor is necessary. Wish we didn’t conflate the two.

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