China says it will hold supporters of Taiwan's independence responsible for life | Hacker News Reader

China says it will hold supporters of Taiwan's independence responsible for life

reuters.com

174 pointsphantomathkg137 comments

If supporting a people's right to democratic self-determination puts me on a list, sign me up. Wherever you are, I support your right to free and fair elections of your government.

The fact that composing this post gave me pause underlines the necessity of making a clear statement.

This move is an unforced aggression by China, one that may require a reciprocal response from the rest of the planet.

The Librem 5's value proposition just got better, as has Samsung's.

Support with your wallet. Stop buying made in China.

That's way easier said than done at this particular point in history.

Very little worth doing is ever easy.

It may be difficult but it's worth the attempt.

I also fully support Taiwan's right to remain a free and independent democracy. More power to them and may China's hegemonious fascism never touch their soil

You say that now, but one day your daughter will ask you to take her to the Great Wall of China and you'll have to have this weird conversation about how your internet comments 45 years ago kind of make that impossible.

Such a conversation would include an enumeration of our rights, like free speech and the ability/duty to elect responsible leadership. It might include sharing videos of peaceful and enduring protestors getting smacked down in Hong Kong, China's attempts to erase the Tiananmen Square massacre from history, and a contemplative review of the course of history in Xinjiang.

I'd conclude by asking her to decide which rights might be worth sacrificing a visit to China or defending on our own soil.

I'd pick up the Tao Te Ching from my desk, where it lives, and show her Chapter 66.

An edit to add: one can also imagine a future where that story involves the emergence of competitive elections and free speech in currently-oppressive nations around the globe.

I asked my teenage daughter to read this. She laughed and rolled her eyes.

:).

Edit: she might connect more with video? https://vimeo.com/109486911 https://youtu.be/BpS-Y7ndNeQ

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/hong-kong-prot...

This is the good way to deal with this. Front and center.

I guess this means that every country sending athletes to the Olympics should issue guidance saying the safety of athletes who have ever expressed support for Taiwan independence cannot be guaranteed if they go to China.

No one's safety is guaranteed in China, ever. They arbitrarily detain people. No one should be sending athletes there, if they value their safety or human rights.

For those that do not know, this is the official position of the US Department of State, which warns travelers of arbitrary enforcement and exit bans:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

Cool, I was unaware it was a supported US government opinion. I mean it was obvious when they kidnapped those Canadians to hold captive as they negotiated for the Huawei executive, but still.

They also use execution vans. They will come to you!

Does it count if you support the PRC territory reunited under the auspices of the ROC?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Chinas

I often wonder why we don't use North China, and South China. I guess it boils down to influence.

I reckon it's got more to do with land area and population.

If the PRC were confident in their claim, given the land area and population, you’d think they wouldn’t give two poos what people support.

Cause the terminology is not historically relevant to the region or the way people talk about those areas

Why is “historically relevant” relevant?

People can choose how they talk about the region and how people talk about some thing frames how folks think about it.

The PRC wants to guide how people view its claims. On what basis is a different claim any less valid?

Historical relevance means using terminology that is relevant to the people who are there. North and south China have meanings to people already that aren’t the ones suggested above. That everyone isnt changing to match a drive-by attempt at terminology to satisfy no need is self explanatory.

Yeah North and South China are still mainland China to me. Taiwan is Taiwan and a perfectly useable name.

> Historical relevance means using terminology that is relevant to the people who are there.

Wouldn’t that approach needlessly advantage genocidaires?

It advantages common use by people that makes it easier to communicate, not the cultural engineering you’re imagining

Personally I prefer "Taiwan" and "West Taiwan" solely to annoy pro-CCP shills/50 cent army posters.

My favorite way to poke the 50 cent army is to say I hope that Taiwan has nukes / the US should give Taiwan nukes. It cuts right to the core dissonance between the "Taiwan was always part of China" claims and the actual sovereignty situation on the ground.

Do they not already have one of those totally peaceful, totally civilian nuclear programs?

Perhaps because both claim to be “the one China”, just figuring out who’s right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

Because of two things:

1. Taiwan is a single province of China, not a large split of the country like happened in Germany, Korea, Vietnam. In the US that would be like if a small state split from the rest.

2. Perhaps more importantly, the PRC considers that the ROC ceased to exist in 1949 and was fully superseded by the PRC. So Taiwan is really just a province of the PRC and must be referred to as such in order to walk the political/rhetorical line. For historical reasons they are very touchy about giving the impression that China is split into several states.

> Taiwan is a single province of China

No. Taiwan is not part of China. For 200 years the Qing dynasty did nothing with Taiwan. It never ruled it, never controlled the people. In 1887 the decided oneday “let’s call Taiwan a Provence”

This is the equivalent of a bunch of Americans moving to Canada and after a couple of generations America saying “let’s call Canada a state”

When the Japanese invaded Taiwan, the Qing dynasty threw in the towel immediately and said “yeah we don’t care it’s yours”. Japan then ruled Taiwan with an iron fist, implementing law and order, education, infrastructure, and teaching Japanese.

At no point in history has china ever ruled over Taiwan.

Taiwan is not a Provence.

I certainly agree that Taiwan is not a Provence.

However, it is indeed historically and factually a province of China. This is actually internationally recognised and that's why in 1945 it was retroceded by Japan to the Republic of China, where it remains.

If you want to nit-pick I will grant you that between 1683 and 1887 it was part of Fujian province rather that being an administrative province in its own right.

> This is the equivalent of a bunch of Americans moving to Canada and after a couple of generations America saying “let’s call Canada a state”

No, this is equivalent to Americans moving to Hawaii and calling it a state...

And in fact, China took over Taiwan to counter Europeans who were seizing all the land they could all over the world, and tried to seize Taiwan as well.

> At no point in history has china ever ruled over Taiwan.

Formally it did between 1683 and 1895, and then it has been since 1945.

It was a province historically, but it no longer is because that's what the people of Taiwan want. I don't think they want any part of China's totalitarianism. Texas was once its own country, but that doesn't make it a country now.

It's obvious that they don't want to be part of the PRC, especially under the current regime, but that is not equivalent to being against eventual reunification. It is still the Republic of China, that still has its National Day on 10th October to celebrate the fall of the Qing, and Sun Yat Sen's portrait is still in the Legislative Yuan. As such, formally Taiwan is the only province still controlled by the Republic of China.

A number of Taiwanese people are opposed to any reunification and want Taiwan to be "Taiwan", but it's very biased to claim that this is what 'the people of Taiwan want' as if China was a foreign country, and is frankly a narrative pushed to weaken China, the PRC mainly but really China no matter the government (divide and conquer strategy).

> but it's very biased to claim that this is what 'the people of Taiwan want' and is frankly a narrative pushed to weaken China

The vast majority of people here in Taiwan don’t want to be part of china. Especially after Hong Kong and covid.

As already written they are already part of China. They don't want to be part of the PRC, as has been the case since 1949.

That's why there is internally (in Taiwan) a struggle of opinions between this and "independence".

Trying to ignore that 'China' is not the same as 'PRC' is disingenuous at some point... Like claiming that Taiwan was never a province of China...

Doesn’t matter which way you say it. Taiwan is not part of China.

Taiwan's name is literally the Republic of China. To say they don't identify as China is incredibly misleading.

Taiwan absolutely see themselves as heirs of Chinese culture and lineage.They are split on if they want to be the sole heir or share it with the PRC. They don't want to be part of the PRC, but they are and want to be Chinese.

Indeed. Interestingly on this topic, when the Nationalists withdrew from the mainland they took the contents of the Forbidden City with them (perhaps for the better considering what happened during the Cultural Revolution).

So to this day most of the imperial furniture and art from the palace is on display not in Beijing but at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Of course. The two Koreas also want unification, the problem is that there's so much disagreement regarding the leadership of this would be unified Korea, that they're in a perpetual state of war with only a cease fire agreement and a DMZ along the 38th parallel.

The people who want Taiwan to be independent are the pragmatic lot who have given up on unification, on mainland China being part of the ROC, at least for the foreseeable future. I doubt any significant part of them want Taiwan to be part of the PRC.

The problem is the PRC /= ROC =/ China.

Delineating the current nation state of the PRC from historical nation states and ethnicity is central to the discussion.

This problem was codified by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, which recognized the PRC as the only legitimate representation of a territory and people that the PRC government never controlled.

It is as if the the UN recognized South Sudan as the sole representative of all of all Sudan when it was admitted in 2011, or South Korea as the sole representative of all Korea in 1991.

> in 1945 it was retroceded by Japan to the Republic of China

Taiwan is the Republic of China, it was never ceded to the or part of the PRC.

The PRC did not exist at the time...

I'm not sure what point your are making beyond agreeing with me, and the reality, that Taiwan is indeed part of China.

The point I am trying again and again to get across is that China does not imply PRC. For instance North Korea is part of Korea, South Korea is part of Korea, but North Korea is not part of South Korea.

Saying that Taiwan was never part of the PRC is true, and I mentioned it in another comment, but it is misleading.

Yes, maybe the ROC should work towards an eventual liberation of the territory under PRC occupation.

> However, it is indeed historically and factually a province of China.

It was a part of China.

But things change. The CCP took over the mainland but not Formosa, the rump state moved to Formosa, and these became two separate countries moving along different paths. Every year they grow farther and farther apart.

Now it's an independent country with its own government, population, currency, military, flag, land, economy, institutions, foreign policy, citizenship, and culture. They have their own academic system, their own universities, their own borders, legal system, constitution, etc.

However this country can't "declare" its own independence because of the threats of Chinese violence.

Well, that doesn't change the fact that it's a separate country. I may not "declare" that I am not a part of Roy Orbison's family, but that doesn't mean I'm part of that family.

You don't need to make a declaration of what is an obvious fact. You just go about your life with your own country and enjoy your freedom and prosperity. This will continue until China's government collapses and the threat of violence against Taiwan is gone, or until no one cares whether a declaration is made or not because the holdouts that still think that China and Taiwan can possibly be the same country will be so laughed at that no one will take them seriously.

The ROC does in a sense represent the millennia of traditional chinese culture, whereas the communists sought to destroy it (great leap forward, cultural revolution) starting 70 years ago. The ROC were the ones who also fought off Japan to save China, while the communists just waited until they were weakened from fighting Japan and just swept down to take the country from them.

As far as I can tell, it would be hard to picture the Kuomintang as goodies (in the period you describe).

Like most things, it's not black and white. I don't think it is a stretch to say defending China from Japanese Conquest was good for China (and the WW2 allies)

They certainly weren't the "goodies". Chiang Kai Shek's regime was notoriously corrupt and authoritarian, but that they fought the Japanese invaders far more than Mao's communists did from their northern stronghold is indisputable. They often fought terribly, and in the Japanese Ichigo Offensive of 1944, Nationalist losses were catastrophic, but they also inflicted major material losses on the Japanese in turn. The communists did barely any of this in comparison. Mao was very self-serving in his tactics throughout the war and no less vicious/autocratic and corrupt regionally than Chiang.

Is there a way for westerners to register en masse as supporters of Taiwan independence to overwhelm the prc judiciary?

I don't think (and hope) so, as the western world has put it's nose in way too many pots already anyways. The further a country can stay away from western influences, the better.

And besides, don't you have your own independence to worry about at home? ;)

Really dislike this whole "East" vs "West", but fwiw Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, India, etc. are often already lumped in with the "West", in terms of sharing "Western" values of democracy and human rights, and having achieved first world economies through "Western" capitalism. "West" doesn't even make sense when it's basically what all the first world countries are regardless of geography.

Oh come on. India's prime minister has organized race riots that killed thousands. Japan has had the same party in power nationally for 50 years, and the selection of the leadership of the LDP is more important than any election. Literally no South Korean president has ever finished their tenure, they all resigned at some point or another in massive scandals.

None of them share Western values of democracy and human rights. They're all barely democracies. Japan and SK are economically integrated with the West, that's all. If you mean first world country say first world country, that entire liberal values shtick is just ridiculous.

I've been to S. Korea and Japan multiple times. They have a lot more in common with us on ideas of free speech and free press, etc. China has none of that. The state controls everything. They are currently covering up top official's alleged rap of a famous tennis player. Squashing any story of it in the news and on the internet, that doesn't happen in Japan, Korea, or Taiwan. It would be headline news in all of them.

Really? You think that covering up rapes by officials doesn't happen in South Korea and Japan? Really?

Japan has state indoctrination. Openly historically revisionist units have the power to cover up and lie about history.

I assure you that such news is being squashed in SK and Japan, often and successfully. There are countless examples you can find. It wouldn't be headline news in all but a few smaller publications unless the government and it's allies were okay with it.

Is it as bad as China? No. Is it better than average? Also no. Freedom of speech is okay though in both.

India is especially egregious. There is little free speech, political freedoms, or freedom of the press. Various minority parties have their members killed, and their buildings burnt every so often.

I don't know enough about Taiwan to say anything, though.

>Is it as bad as China? No. Is it better than average? Also no.

What are you looking at for your average? I would say that the global average is pretty low when you consider each country, and Japan and SK is in the upper half. You have to take into account dysfunctional and repressive kleptocracies in the Middle East, Africa, and South America

Many dysfunctional and repressive kleptocracies fail in the exact same way as SK and Japan, ie, massive corruption and power concentration.

There are not many countries in the world that are so dysfunctional as far as democracy that the same party can stay in power for 50 years, nor that literally no single president has managed not to resign. If SK and Japan were in Africa, the Middle East, or South America and had economic outcomes commensurate with the region but on the higher end, we would call them dysfunctional and repressive kelptocracies.

Like come on, if you saw a country in Africa where the same party was in power for a lifetime and the conviction rates exceed 99%, where judges would rather resign than declare someone not guilty, and where a an extremist political faction infiltrated the educational bureaucracy and textbook publishers to prevent historical event from being taught, you would call it a dysfunctional and repressive kleptocracy. The only reason that's not extended to Japan and SK is by comparison with China and because they are our allies.

Was waiting for you to something about Taiwan.

There is definitely a fascist movement currently taking over the Republican Party via Trumpism. Fortunately I think it will move on from him, but it's currently pretty strong and the majority of the party base is currently willing to go as far as throwing out Democratic votes if it means their party will win.

> And besides, don't you have your own independence to worry about at home? ;)

What do you know about me? my profile here is anonymous.

But to answer your question: yes, being catalan I support Taiwan as a sincere act of international solidarity, just like so many Taiwanese support my country against the unwanted spanish occupation.

Makes me wonder whether they're brazen enough yet to include members of the European Parliament in the threat.

We came here with a very simple and clear message: You are not alone. Europe is standing with you, by you, in the defense of freedom, rule of law -- Raphaël Glucksmann

"Europe is standing with Taiwan in defending freedom: EP delegation" https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202111040006

They've already banned British MPs and EU MPs [0][1].

[0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56532569 [1] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re...

Thank you both for these. Somehow I had managed to miss it until now.

Not that I'm surprised exactly, but the situation must then already be even worse than I had appreciated.

They are, in fact Raphaël Glucksmann is on that list. That's also probably why the EP sent him to Taiwan instead of David Maria Sassoli.

https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/five-meps-...

Considering that Taiwan is already independent and would need to be persuaded to join the PRC, these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification".

> Considering that Taiwan is already independent

From your perspective, maybe. But not from China's perspective.

> these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification"

Imposing economic sanctions until the country has to oblige to China's request I'm sure is seen as "peaceful" from China's perspective. I think the only thing that is far away is outright war, but everything else would be considered "peaceful".

The US has imposed similar "peaceful" economic sanctions on a few countries until they obliged to requests too. This move is hardly specific to Chinese diplomacy.

They still are with Venezuela and Cuba. Both are ridiculous and only hurting the people of the country. While we regularly cavort with countries like Saudi Arabia.

Typical HN relativism and intellectualization. In its current state, Taiwan is independent, and it will require either:

a) Taiwanese consensus to officially rejoin China. b) An act of war.

We can discuss China's perspective all day, but it does not change the status quo. What about the perspective of Russia? Australia? South Africa? Which one is true? Is anything true?

We need to interpret what is meant by "Taiwan independence" here.

Taiwan is currently not part of the PRC (and never has been part of it, actually), but it is what's left of the Republic of China.

There are roughly 3 point of views and aims:

1. The PRC claims that the Republic of China ceased to exist in 1949 and that Taiwan is part of the PRC.

2. The ROC still exists but is currently only surviving in Taiwan. In this sense Taiwan is an independent state but it is still China (just not the PRC) and still ultimate goal is still to re-unify.

3. Taiwan is an independent country, not part of 'China' and not aiming to re-unify at all.

Usually, "supporting Taiwan independence" means #3.

The current state of play is #2 at least formally (Taiwan is independent but not #3). The PRC government's policy is obviously #1 but they know that the reality is #2 and that's the 'status quo', but it is #3 that is the casus belli for them.

I don't think anyone except a few hold outs in Taiwan see #2 as viable or practical. I'm a fan of 3.

>Considering that Taiwan is already independent

Not according to the PRC, and a lot of countries and international institutions either. Some (usually with close ties to China, but now always, e.g. Spain[1], probably because they do not want to give their own separatist movements any political ammunition) consider the ROC part of the PRC, others are deliberately vague on whether they consider Taiwan independent or even a nation, like e.g. the US[0].

The WHO for example is very adept at avoiding any position on Taiwan[2].

And then of course, there is this guy... [3]. (Just if you like some cringe about a serious topic)

>China's goals of "peaceful reunification".

(PR) China doesn't really talk about peaceful reunification. They officially consider Taiwan part of the country already, a part that is just a little rebellious at the moment. They are more talking about a peaceful end of the conflict, but recently use the word "peaceful" a lot less.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_of_deliberate_ambiguity

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain%E2%80%93Taiwan_relations

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z88zeQ25pjQ

Remove the "probably" for Spain, it's totally for that reason. They also have the same stance on the Republic of Kosovo with some "hilarious" moment when there was the footbal World Cup qualification match between Kosovo and Spain, with TV in Spain forces to use lower case for Kosovo, commentarists avoiding to say the K-word etc.

It's not officially officially the government-provided reason, but everybody knows what's up, sure.

I think you're conflating 'international recognition' with 'independence.'

Taiwan is functionally independent, currently, no matter what China, or John Cena or the Government of Djibouti says.

In fact there is no need for Taiwan to 'declare independence' because it has never been part of the PRC.

"functionally independent" does not buy you much if you don't have enough international recognition. And I mentioned it's not just Djibouti, it's the US, it's the EU (all of it), and so on.

>Nevertheless, 15 states recognise the ROC and have diplomatic relations with it.

Those 15 states... heavy-weights like the Holy Sea (aka the Vatican), Paraguay, Nicaragua and some tiny island nations mostly in the Caribbean and Micronesia. Basically all the nations China deemed too unimportant to pressure or buy off, and the Pope.

The only reason China didn't topple Taiwan yet is that the US (and the EU, but they do not really care that much about that) would get mad.

However, China is recently increasing the pressure more and more, this announcement only being the last one. It looks like China is preparing to see if the US is bluffing.

It might end up becoming another Hong Kong, with China pinky-swearing they will keep Taiwan "autonomous" for the time being to appease the international community, while not really doing that, knowing full well that the US is not very keen of risking an outright war with China over Taiwan.

you are just talking about pure politics. in the economic worls Taiwan does exist and applies different rules for exports and importa than China. thats recognition of it being an independent entity.

Yeah, and Hong Kong has/had the same situation, officially part of China, unofficially treated rather differently especially in the economic dimension. And now look at what's happening there.

HK was not in the same situation since 1997. It was officially a part of China at that time. No comparison possible. HK does not have its own standing army.

Taiwan is independent enough to be formally recognized by the European Parliament as such.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0431...

What is China going to do? Put all the MEPs on the Taiwan supportes list? Good luck to them. The EU is most likely going to do the same with top Chinese officials.

That may actually be what triggered this latest fit:

https://www.reuters.com/world/you-are-not-alone-eu-parliamen...

Taiwan is considered independent by the vast majority of countries, who are doing business with it and having totally normally diplomatic relationships with it. The only caveat is Taiwan embassies are called bullshit and those countries will pretend not having diplomatic with it. But this is theater only and for 99% of things that matter Taiwan is considered a country.

Let's take an example: passports. France is one of the country pretending Taiwan isn't independent while letting Taiwanese people enter its borders with a Taiwanese passport. Since when people can move around with passports from an not independent country? Other example: academic scholarships for foreigners in Japan. China and Taiwan are separated and treated vastly different things. Also money changing: I didn't had any issue changing from and to NTD the last I went to a change bureau in KIX airport. How all of this is this possible if Taiwan is not, in fact, recognized as a country?

> Not according to the PRC, and a lot of countries and international institutions either.

funny last time I remember going to Taiwan I was not subject to mainland China visa rules.

silly comment. you can deny facts all day long and pretend the sky is red instead of blue. Taiwan is in control of the territory and thats legitimacy enough.

> Considering that Taiwan is already independent and would need to be persuaded to join the PRC, these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification".

--flurben

so flurben will now be criminally responsible for life (in China)?

Correct. If flurben ever wants to go to China incl Hong Kong and Macau, and the officials there google a bit, that might be a problem. Probably not jailed, but no visa either.

It will also be a problem for companies who deal with Chinese companies. If e.g. Tim Cook started talking about the nation of Taiwan, he would probably get an email from somebody with a .gov.cn address reminding him "Nice Foxconn supplier you got there, would be a shame if something happened to your contracts... wanna revise your recent statements?"

Well, that even was a problem before this announcement, but this announcement certainly will make it worse.

> Nice Foxconn supplier you got there, would be a shame if something happened to your contracts

More like “nice market you got there, would be a shame if a PR disaster turned the whole country against you”

Huawei survived Trump, China is building a lot of international bridges e.g. with the Belt and Road initiative, the EU and US are defacto dependent on China because that's where they outsourced a lot of their product and supply chains. China never gave a fuck about what the populations in the West thought about them, because they know that even outraged Westerners will not stop buying products made in China. China had one "PR disaster" after another for years and years now, e.g. recent things like imprisoned Chinese dissidents getting the Nobel Peace price in absentia, anything happening in Hong Kong, and in the Chinese sea, and the "reeducation" camps for Uyghurs. They didn't budge after tiananmen square, they didn't budge after the Dalai Lama got popular, they didn't budge after any of the recent stuff. What makes you think they will budge in the future?

They don't really need the West, but the West needs them (for the forseeable future). Their markets may take a hit if push comes to shove with the West, but that's fine with them. And they have a home market with 1.7 billion customers, and many other foreign markets in Asia, Africa or South America that will still deal with them.

This is the golden rule of nations - no nation “owns” anything. It’s only what you can defend and get other nations to recognize.

Remember there are pro-China factions in Taiwan. All China needs to do is invade, suppress dissent and elevate the views of those few who are happy with the outcome.

And with that ‘A “rogue” state of China lead by “seditionists, Western mercenaries and reactionaries” will then have been “rightfully pacified and reunified” with China in accordance with the “will of the people”’.

And just like that…an independent country ceases to exist.

At this point I'm not sure what will happen when China eventually attacks Taiwan. It is a vital resource for the USA in terms of their sheer semiconductor industrial output. It doesn't really seem that the USA would get involved in such a fight though, or make more than a token effort. I think Taiwan missed their chance in the 80s to become a nuclear power when China was busy with other stuff, now it's too late and they are all but doomed to eventual takeover by China.

US terminated Taiwan's nuclear program in 1988. They confiscated fuel rod, data, research paper, poured cement into the labs and dismantled the heavy water reactor that was worth around 2 billion USD.

Why do they always talk about "China"? If the CCP was democratically elected, I'm willing to call it "China". But since it's a dictatorship, let's talk about "CCP says it will ...", because it really is the CCP and not the Chinese people as such, since a non-democracy cannot claim it represents the people of the nation.

Sure but it’s easier to just say China. Everybody knows we mean the awful government not the people. Chinese people are great, and most of the reason the CCP is so evil is because we’re empathetic to the horrible way they treat their citizens.

Seems like a catchy slogan: “The CCP is not China”.

> China'll

That's an interesting grammatical contraction...

Reacted to that too, seems to be because of the length limit (80).

"China will hold supporters of Taiwan independence criminally responsible for life" has 81 characters.

But this is 80 too:

"China to hold supporters of Taiwan independence criminally responsible for life."

maybe it's correct, "China II. will hold supporters of Taiwan...".

I am not a native speaker and stumbled over this massively. Had to read the headline thrice until I realized what bugged me.

That's interesting to me. I guess contractions of "I'll", "he'll", "she'll" and "they'll" are probably pretty common, but with other things, not commonly written. As a native speaker, I wouldn't have even noticed. In spoken English, I think I'd say things like this 100% of the time.

Recently, I've been learning Hungarian, which is an agglutinative language where meaning is added via endings on words. For example, "with" is the ending "-val", so "with yosito" becomes "yosito-val". I found it really hard to follow at first, since virtually every word in Hungarian is like this, and I see some similarities with contractions in English.

As a native speaker it made me faintly irritated, as the 'll informal contraction didn't fit the right tone for the title.

haha it wouldn't be an uncommon expression in informal English (depending on the region of the USA) but to see it in print like that is unusual.

This is a crime against humanity according to the Article 19 declaration of human rights.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity

in the history of the world, there seems to be a direct relationship between solidarity around a group's identity and threats related to that identity--at least that's been my impression and interpretation; as the PRC concentrates power at the top it becomes easier to destabilize and has strangely been extraordinarily successful at aligning the majority of the international community against them--regardless of any conflict--and appears to be comfortable continuing to do so; will be interesting to see how it all plays out over the next few years, including how long Xi and the leadership holds up, as well as whatever actual capabilities exist when things get real;

The world was aligned against Germany in the late 1930s. Alignment alone was not sufficient to deter a blitzkrieg.

The USSR was a treaty ally of Germany in 1939. This actually caused the blitzkrieg.

Dear friends from democratic countries, convince your governments to recognize Taiwan.

lol no

A stupid throwaway said (I paraphrase) "why should it matter, I will never visit China", but imagine the near future where China is as powerful as the US (maybe during the 2nd Trump administration, I wish I can say I'm being sarcastic). Currently if you end up in the US sanctions list, no bank will ever talk to you, imagine if China starts having the same effect.

Already corporations are bending to China's demands (Apple, NBA, Gap, and more: https://signal.supchina.com/all-the-international-brands-tha... ).

Even just employment.

If your employer's ease of access to China is at risk versus your employment.... I doubt many companies side with individual.

Yeah.. so, "chilling effects".

Soon you'll be censoring yourself: "Don't blab about that shit on Twitter, if the customer complains to the CEO and we lose the deal..."

One could argue they've already achieved this power, after all they've spent hundreds of billions per year for decades influencing politicians, institutions, and corporations abroad. E.g. a well researched book on the topic,

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/11/hidden-hand-re...

And Hollywood too, the soft power that the US had for many many decades now like Chinese money too much: https://www.cnet.com/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-...

It is an absolutely serious matter. Chilling effect that this will have is massive. .

As an example, India recently did not let two US and Spanish nationals [1,2] enter India because they were supporting farmers' protest happening in India, cancelled their OCI status (residence permit) supposed to be for life and put other supporters on a visa blacklist. Western Punjabi journalists immediately said that they will have to self-censor themselves or the link to their parents and religious places will be cut off.

Criminalization adds a very nefarious aspect to this, and at this point it might have no teeth but it will only need one guy to be made example of.

[1]- https://thewire.in/rights/outrage-as-prominent-nri-denied-en... [2] - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/amritsar/reminder-o...

Excellent now the power of global leverage won't be monopolized by US anymore. I welcome this multilateralism especially in light of US sanction addictions.

Careful what you wish for.

Why not? Like I said we already live under sanction addict US. Adding a country or two with sanction powers won't be bad.

Well, countries are already using Interpol as a weapon to make dissidents' lives miserable across the world. The next logical step is to start demanding extraditions.

But Taiwan is indeed should be a separate country from China right?

Does Taiwan pay taxes to China that its provinces pay? I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but I'd assume if they don't, and China never went after them for it, then they've acknowledged that they are a distinct non-provincial entity.

Anyone know?

No we don't. Taiwan is at least a de-facto sovereignty.

If anything, western interests should be pleased to some extent that the Nationalists never held all of China after the Second World War. Chiang's regime may have been deeply corrupt and authoritarian, not to mention inept in so many ways, but if it had won the Chinese Civil War after 1945 and ousted the communists by 1949 (instead of the other way around), The Unified Chinese state would have adapted market policies (within the framework of an authoritarian government) much more readily and quickly than the Maoists did.

Instead of a China that finally got its shit together enough to be a global powerhouse only after decades of catastrophic extreme communist misrule by Mao and his immediate successors, we could have seen a China that pulled off an economic and political success story of power decades earlier.

How that would have reflected in the world of today is an interesting speculation on global power politics, especially between the U.S and a China that had developed markets since the 60's instead of in the 1990's being applied to its immense and highly productive population.

We've been seeing this situation sliding for years, people are talking about a new cold war, I think it might be worse than that.

Many observers saw World War II coming for afar, it did not change much, and from my perspective, trying to avoid it only made the Nazi more powerful. (Daladier, Chamberlain, Munich)

Call it something with lots of L’s.

“Lower Lava Land” or something like that.

Try saying that PRC. You goons.

They probably wouldn't have a problem with the 'L's. Among Asian languages, AFAIK it's only Japanese that doesn't have a 'L'/'R' distinction. Mandarin Chinese does; for example, 老 (lao3) vs 繞 (rao3).

This has to be awkward for people who sympathize with the Chinese government.

The nationalists in Taiwan at one time claimed sovereignty over all of China, I believe. The USA would not tolerate a state wishing wishing to go independent and definitely would not allow outside interference promoting that. This is a China Taiwan issue. USA, or anyone else, should not be involving themselves.

thanks wumao

Breaking the site guidelines like this (you broke several of them badly!) will get you banned on HN. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here? We'd appreciate it.

5 points have been added to your childrens' social score.

Taiwan isn’t a state wishing to be independent.

It is a separate, already independent nation.

A more accurate analogy would be like saying the US claiming sovereignty over Canada would be a US / Canada issue and the rest of the world should not be involved. That’s not how it works.

I’m all for the people of Taiwan to determine their status for themselves, but I don’t think the people of China should get a vote on the matter.

That's a less accurate analogy in my view, because Canada was never a part of the United States while Taiwan was a part of China. It's more like the losing side in a war within the USA, militarily taking over florida and declaring itself the government of the USA only to later drop that pretension and declare Florida an independent country instead. Would you be happy for China to meddle and arm the Floridians in that situation?

Apples and Oranges. Florida, after the formation of the Union, was never as "free" or independent as Taiwan. China had their chance in the 30s/40s to stop formation of Taiwan, they didn't, and they lost claim to it. They need to just suck it up, but the macho leaders of the CCP will never accept that, so they keep poking the matter with a stick. Eventually there will be an internal calamity and the CCP will use war with Taiwan to unite the country. That's just the way politics works, if you have a common enemy it is a great uniter.

> because Canada was never a part of the United States while Taiwan was a part of China

Canada and the United States both claim to be nations that broke away from English rule. If we claim that common heritage means that Canada is rightfully part of the United States territory (in that we are the successor to English rule in the colonies) would other nations have the right to complain about that? Sure, they claim to be a separate nation, with a separate history of breaking away from English rule, but…

As long as we claim that it was always a part of the English colonies, then no other countries can complain if we claim their territory as our own?

That’s a neat trick.

> The nationalists in Taiwan at one time claimed sovereignty over all of China

Sure, but it's 2021 and the majority of Taiwan don't want to be part of china. Especially after Hong Kong and COVID.

Yes that is fair enough but that is an issue to be sorted between the people of Taiwan and China. It's no concern of anyone else. It is a divided China and one side is not content to leave it divided juat as the USA was not content to allow the confederacy to leave the USA.

>The USA would not tolerate a state wishing wishing to go independent and definitely would not allow outside interference promoting that.

Actually we do tolerate people talking about this stuff because we have the right to speak freely in the USA.

USA is allies with Taiwan. If this is a China/Taiwan issue then it's a China/USA issue by definition. If China keeps being aggressive then the USA, and their allies, will be forced to respond to protect these innocent victims.

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