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Comment by avidiax | Hacker News Reader

President Xi has more reasons to invade Taiwan now than usual. He is getting older, and Taiwan reunification has been on his wish-list for a long time, recently reaffirmed and suggesting force is on the table[1]. The U.S. is currently managing a situation in Ukraine and economic problems, and China is currently in an acute COVID crisis which sparked mass protests, and a less acute economic crisis (reduced GDP growth).

A war would be a great distraction for the local population. The inevitable sanctions and disruption of chip production would excuse poor GDP growth. To top it off, a "glorious victory" (Pyrrhic victory) is pretty likely. The U.S. has global reach, but it's still not as logistically feasible for the U.S. to fight from staged forces in Japan and the Philippines as it is for China to fight from their home territory.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/xi-jinping-speech-suggests-china-in...

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If an invasion is to happen it probably has to happen the next decade. Xi is getting older and China's population has now officially started to decline.

I can't see an invasion happening without massive loss of life on both sides and destroying Taiwan's value. Perhaps their plan is to conduct a massive long-term blockade. This would be more in-line China's typical actions of being aggressive in diplomacy and in stretching the boundaries of international law. If they outnumber the US in the Pacific what can the US do but watch? The US almost certainly would be unwilling to fire the first shot.

Given that their population is on decline, why would sacrificing many of their young population be to their benefit?

That is why I think they might be more inclined to conduct a blockade.

You take what you can while you're powerful, it's easier to defend what you have when you're weak.

Russia is in the exact same boat, they were running out of time and young people as well

It probably wouldn't be to the benefit of China as a country. But that might not matter given how much Xi has consolidated power - the question is whether it benefits him. And if he wants to end up in the history books as "great leader who completed reunification of the country" or some such, he might have to rush even if that significantly increases the costs.

(There are good reasons to believe that something similar wrt Putin is the primary motivation behind the war in Ukraine, BTW.)

That's more true of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's fertility rate is set to be the world's lowest.[1] So it doesn't seem like the population is Taiwan's advantage.

[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/04/21/asia-pacific/so...

> reunification

Gotta play pedant for a second because it's important here: using the word "reunification" doesn't make any sense when discussing the PRC's imperialist desires to invade and capture Taiwan.

No matter what lense you use, the ruling government of the PRC, that being the CPC, has never ruled any territory controlled by Taiwan. There's nothing to "reunify," there's only further territory that the CPC wishes to capture and wrest control from a sovereign nation.

There's danger also in the CPC weaponizing the word "China," which is why I'm careful to refer to the country as "the PRC," as the propagandists in the CPC are happy to engage in cultural imperialism to justify their military imperialism. "Taiwan is China, the people there are Chinese (華人），the people there speak Chinese (中文 / 華語）, they are of Chinese cultural background, we need to "reunify" these Chinese people."

If there is an imperialist invasion, and the PRC succeeds, then they will turn their eyes on other nearby "Chinese countries " filled with "Chinese people" speaking the "national Chinese language."

These are all propagandic falsehoods so there's no reason we should help them out, and those of us that are in places where it's safe to do so (outside the borders of the PRC) should communicate using the correct terms.

KMT did control the mainland before 45. How is ROC taking back mainland not "unification"?

Disclaimer: My first language is Chinese.

The second reason that the CPC taking back land a population that fled the communist revolution currently occupied is still just imperialism: it's an entirely different populace with entirely different identity.

Taiwanese identity as Taiwanese. An ROC takeover of PRC territory would be imperialism. Luckily nobody in Taiwan has any such ambutions (that the roc constitution claims PRC territory is a political hostage taking: xi jinping has threatened a trigger invasion if Taiwan changes its constitution, even to remove the given claim).

If your first language is Mandarin but you used the unexpected and uncommon example of the ROC taking over the PRC, why do you say "Mainland" instead of "PRC" or "China?"

It is technically the English translation for 大陸. I don't think it's an inherently political term.

The ROC controlled both the mainland and Taiwan before being ejected from the mainland. Before that, Taiwan was part of the Qing empire before being invaded by the Japanese.

"Reunification" is factually the correct term for the aim of having the whole of China (mainland + Taiwan) under a single government and state. That the PRC/CCP want that to be under their control is actually irrelevant here. The term does not imply 'right' or 'wrong', either.

Of course you know all of this is if you are in Taipei.

"Reunification" would only be even in the realm of possibility of a correct term if the KMT took control of PRC territory. Since the CPC has never ruled Taiwan, it's nonsensical to say unify or reunify.

In any case that's impossible, the kmt government that once ruled is gone. It's been replaced by a government that held the name but is Democratic, and the KMT party has been losing power ever since then. The people have clearly decided to detach themselves from that way of doing things.

Furthermore, given the identities of the people in the PRC and Taiwan, any term involving "unify" is just engaging in cultural propaganda. The taiwanese identify as taiwanese, and lately as distinctly anti-chinese (binary oppositional development is an important sociological concept, see the difference between femininity and masculinity in many cultures, or, the French vs the English cultural identities), the PRC people identify as chinese, these cultures and preference for forms of governance are too different to "unify."

If one government rules both of these people anytime soon it will have been imperialism, plain and simple.

"China" died at the end of the Qing dynasty imo, since then it's just been a couple han supremacist governments weaponizing the term to leverage nationalist sentiment. There's no more Chinese nationalism in Taiwan so it won't work here anymore (despite even older taiwanese government officials blundering around with han supremacist presumptions even today). I think it's still working in the PRC and that's why they're allowed to do cultural genocide there without much pushback from their citizens.

Obviously the ROC did not control the mainland, since they were eventually forced to flee to Taiwan.

> Before that, Taiwan was part of the Qing empire before being invaded by the Japanese.

Anschluss is German reunification because Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Ditto for the Sudetenland, and, well, why not the rest of Czechia, too.

Yes that's how annexation works. See for example Russia annexing Crimea. Historically Crimea has been populated by ethnic Russians since Rurik conquered the place. I think it's a good thing that wars of conquest have become taboo, but let's not kid ourselves, for the vast majority of history it was bog standard to invade a place occupied by your co-ethnics and claim it was always your territory.

Crimea had barely any Russians until the mid-19th century and no outright majority until the mid-20th.

Anyway, either we live in a civilised era where things like ethnic cleansing and genocide should be condemned, or we live in an era where it is 'bog standard to invade a place occupied by your co-ethnics'.

After WW2, ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Königsberg and Poles and Ukrainians were uprooted forcefully into the boundaries of their modern nation-states.

If wars of conquest on the basis of 'this place contains our people' become 'bog standard', the ethnic cleansing of post-WW2 Europe and the post-Soviet Balkans becomes the inevitable and logical conclusion.

> Crimea had barely any Russians until the mid-19th century and no outright majority until the mid-20th.

And it had considerably fewer Ukrainians[1]. The Ukrainian claim to Crimea is weaker than Russia's.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_P...

And that has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said; your claim was that Crimea was populated with Russians since Rurik, which is maybe true but extremely misleading because it constituted a percentage point or two at best. Bringing up the Ukrainian population accounts for nought unless you're suggesting expelling all the Slavs from Crimea and returning it to Tatar rule.

> The Ukrainian claim to Crimea is weaker than Russia's.

The Ukrainian claim to Crimea is stronger because they have a legal basis to its claim. If we return to a state of the world where claims to land are made on the basis of 'my group lives here, therefore it's ours', we will inevitably reap the consequences of post-war Europe.

On the same logic, Germany had a stronger claim to the Sudetenland than Czechoslovakia. But what did that get the Germans in the end? Complete expulsion from the Sudetenland.

Kettles calling pots black lol.

Is Zhōngguó rén not correct for Han living in Taipei? I know it used to be for Hong Kong.

That term has some mainland chinese vibes. Taiwanese usually call themselves 台灣人 [táiwān rén].

It's a big call though, to risk starting a war and pissing off the population if they're already not to happy about Covid19's handling.

In contrast, Hitler made Germans feel like they were heading for a better place so he garnered support, Xi though, doesn't seem as charismatic and popular. So it's going to be a much harder sell to start an all out hot war over something that means basically nothing to 99% of the population.

Also invading a country is one thing, hanging onto it is another, Syria, Afganistan, Vietnam etc for example. China isn't exactly going to make friends taking the country by force.

Population's attitude has been prepared by the party well in advance. Lots of people are pissed off because Taiwan is not invaded yet, not the other way around.

Are they really? A small but vocal (and sometimes state supported) group of people are actually mad. Another group will mindlessly mouth such sentiment, but the majority seem not to care and just want to get on with their lives.

tyranny of the minority, as taleb would say.

You would have very little chance of knowing what Chinese people are thinking by the fact that thinking the wrong thing, let alone vocalizing it could maybe ruin you or your families life.

If literally all people whose opinion matters to you say and provide sound arguments that Taiwan needs to be annexed then if you are normal human (not a psycho) you'd eventually believe the same. And then who cares what those people really thought, because their expressed opinion is the only one that mattered. Sad, yes. The big issue with totalitarian regimes I guess.

Xi has sold that Taiwan is part of china, and that it's weird that Chinese people can't visit without a passport

China is continuing to hold tibet as an invader of course, same with Xinjiang. America and western powers doesn't guarantee failure.

Eg. Afghanistan has never been held by westerners, but has been by the persians many times

I asked some Chinese college students about this about 10 years ago. "What is Taiwan?" "Province of China." "But don't you need a visa to visit?" "It's a special province."

Chinese college students are very likely to tell you one thing and believe another, it's a symptom of growing up in a place where having the wrong thing can get you in a lot of trouble.

People aren't that dumb, even if they are brainwashed.

How can you assume a person believes something other than what they say when there is no way for you to measure what they think except through their actions and their words?

Because I believe most people deep down don't want war, or invasion and aggression.

Most people given the choice would rather live peacefully with others. The outlier here is there is 1 billion+ Chinese furious and ready to invade China. Not the other way around.

That's your philosophical position then, are humans innately good or not. I wish it was true but in the entire history of humanity tribes fought for resources, did they change...

Try replacing "Taiwan" with "Hong Kong" and not looking like a fool.

Could you explain further?

People from Mainland China need a special permit to enter Hong Kong. I don't think anyone doubts Hong Kong is part of the PRC by now. The fact that there are border and immigration controls within China isn't something new. Of course with an independent government and military Taiwan is de-facto independent, but having to get a "visa" to visit Taiwan doesn't really mean much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit-Entry_Permit_for_Travelli...

>it's weird that Chinese people can't visit without a passport

They do visit without a passport, the same applies to ROC citizens in reverse. That's the whole point of the political amiguity on relations between the PRC and ROC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_%26_Entry_Permit

Xi is incredibly popular across the PRC, and the textbooks are changing to enforce a new cult of personality. I wouldn't risk speculating on his popularity as a measure of whether or not an imperialist invasion would happen.

The whitepaper protests clearly shows he doesn't enjoy incredible popularity, so are the massive censorship term lists that consist solely of nicknames of Xi. Why would so many of these terms exist if everybody liked him?

Leaked censorship list of 564 terms containing references to Xi Jinping from Xiaohongshu, a popular social media app, circa 2020: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9...

Leaked censorship list of 35467 terms containing references to Xi Jinping from LeTV, a once-popular video streaming service, issued directly from the State Council Information Office, circa 2016: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/%E5%9B%BD%E6%96%B0%E5%8A...

The bottom line is an invasion of Taiwan carries a high risk of ruin for the ruling clique in the CCP. There were multiple times when the ROC was in much more vulnerable positions both militarily and diplomatically (pre-Korean War and post-US-PRC approachment) and invasions didn't happen then. The PRC is much more export-dependent than Russia despite all the nationalist hysteria, and ruining all that with sanctions is going to do far more damage to themselves compared to simply keeping the propaganda machine running with inciteful editorials without organizing an actual military campaign.

> In contrast, Hitler made Germans feel like they were heading for a better place so he garnered support

I mean, the Nazi's cap'd out at 37% [1] when they initially became the largest party and that dropped to 33% by the next vote. The average German never felt that he would lead them to a better place (otherwise it'd be 50+% not 37%) and more Germans felt Nazis were doing a poor job once they started governing.

Also, this is a First-Past-The-Poll situation so parties's popularity will be inflated in the voting results. i.e. more than 10x people voted for Nazi Party than were registered members; presumably the vast majority of Germans thought a different party would do better but between the Nazis or the Communists they picked the Nazis.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_power...

> reunification

Unification

You can’t reunify something that wasn’t unified before.

Hmm? The Qing Empire, which both the PRC and ROC claims to be successors of, held both China and Taiwan for 250 years (until Japanese conquest of Taiwan)

China and Taiwan is technically still at war like North and South Korea.

Taiwan has never been under control of the Qing dynasty. The Ming dynasty pushed out the Dutch. 200 years of Qing rule did nothing with Taiwan. At the end of the Qing dynasty they decided to call Taiwan a province to deter Japan from invading. When japan invaded they threw their hands in the air and handed Taiwan over. Japan was not even convinced Taiwan belonged to China. The Qing dynasty had to convince Japan by claiming there are other parts of the world where tribes live even tho the country is ruled.

Before 1943 the CCP called Taiwan an independent nation and nationality. They advocated for Taiwan independence. Mao said they would help Korea and Taiwan seek independence.

It wasn’t until the allied forces asked KMT to adminster Taiwan until a later date that the CCP decided Taiwan belonged to them.

Taiwans claims to China are due to KMT writing the constitution. The reality is people in Taiwan don’t consider China part of Taiwan. Taiwan is its own country and they don’t care about China. They want to continue to live their life in peace.

>Taiwan has never been under control of the Qing dynasty

131 citations and 86 sources say you were wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Qing_rule

Yes most of the eastern parts were unclaimed because the concept of nation sovereignty had yet to reach East Asia, but the era of Qing rule is very much integral to the history of Taiwan because majority ethno-cultural group directly descended from those who lived under Qing rule.

>Mao said they would help Korea and Taiwan seek independence.

Mao also said his home province of Hunan should also seek independence: https://www.jstor.org/stable/652585. Sun Yat-sen wanted to drive out all Manchus in his original revolutionary manifesto yet happily accepted the new multi-ethnic ROC that completely inherited most of the land that were not historically inhabited by ethnic Han. People change their views all the time, especially politicians who have much to gain from having flexible views.

And yes "reunification" is a direct translation of PRC political jargon that carries the (false) connotation of Taiwan being a breakaway province when in reality it was the CCP who broke away from the ROC in a rebellion to create their own country. Revisionist history is bad history no matter which side it comes from.

Your Wikipedia link doesn’t dispute anything I said.

Taiwan was not under control or rule for the majority of the Qing dynasty.

People were not allowed to freely travel to the island until 1875. It was called a province for ~10 years.

The Qing dynasty rule of Taiwan was shorter than Japanese rule on Taiwan.

By saying that it belonged to the Qing dynasty, we are saying that Russias occupation of regions of Ukraine is legal and legit. They are there so therefore they must own it. Despite the people not wanting to be ruled by Russia.

>Taiwan was not under control or rule for the majority of the Qing dynasty.

Clearly you did not comprehend the linked article. Surely a regime that appointed bureaucrats to be stationed locally in their administrative areas for nearly 200 years means it was Terra Nullius all along!

By your logic British rule in India didn't begin until 1858 when the British has been colonizing India for 100 years prior. Good job being a disingenuous revisionist.

>People were not allowed to freely travel to the island until 1875. It was called a province for ~10 years.

The very fact that the Qing dynasty had effective immigration controls over a land they supposedly did not "control" or "rule" is a testament to them actually exercising control over a land they managed to govern. The Qing Dynasty did not exercise immigration controls over the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, because they did control those lands. That is not the case with Taiwan. The existence of immigration control is proof of governance. The PRC had strict internal immigration controls for the first 30 years of its existence, modelled after the Soviet Union. Would you say either of these countries did not effectively "control" or "rule" the very territories that formed them?

>By saying that it belonged to the Qing dynasty, we are saying that Russias occupation of regions of Ukraine is legal and legit.

Your nonsensical comparison to Ukraine just further reaffirms that. Nobody said a word about Ukraine until you tried to shoehorn it with gross disregard of the history of Ukraine.

>They are there so therefore they must own it.

The Qing Dynasty ceased to exist 100+ years ago and they have very little to do with the ROC or the PRC of today despite the ROC technically having legally suceeded the Qing Dynasty. So whether the Qing Dynasty "owned" Taiwan has nothing to do with cross-strait politics of today. Would you deny Tsarist Russia "owned" what is modern day Ukraine? And are you aware whether Tsarist Russia "owned" what is modern day Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with Vladimir Putin's personal claims? I'm talking about the rampant historical revisionism seen run amok in every English language discussion about Taiwan that is ultimately infantilizing the real issues faced by Taiwan, not whether the PRC "must own it" (hint: the PRC has never "owned it" and never deserves to "own it").

> Clearly you did not comprehend the linked article. Surely a regime that appointed bureaucrats to be stationed locally in their administrative areas for nearly 200 years means it was Terra Nullius all along!

So if an Island belongs to no one, but is inhabited by people, and someone decides to sail to the Island and take orders from their home country. What you're saying is that it now belongs to their home country? And that means the entire island was adminstered and accounted for?

> Your nonsensical comparison to Ukraine just further reaffirms that. Nobody said a word about Ukraine until you tried to shoehorn it with gross disregard of the history of Ukraine.

Doesn't matter if I mention Ukraine or not. You're trying to argue that sending some people in and then saying "this belongs to me because I'm here" is a valid enough claim. If you make that claim you're supporting the CCP and you're supporting Russia. That simple.

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(back later - no time to reply to the rest)

>sending some people in and then saying "this belongs to me because I'm here" is a valid enough claim

Yes that is how much of colonization in the early modern period worked. I don't make up the rules. That's simply what happened.

>If you make that claim you're supporting the CCP and you're supporting Russia.

Oh since when is the CCP controlled by the Qing imperial family? Do you seriously type that out without putting it through some basic logical reasoning? If that's your conclusion then we are done here because you clearly do not have the ability to read or comprehend basic historical facts but instead choose what is the geopol equivalent of sh*t flinging, because you had decided to that historical revisionism with name calling is somehow an adequate replacement of your entire personality.

I should've known better before clicking into this comment section as HN always have the most downright unhinged awful takes on non-tech geopol topics because it's clear some of you have never opened a single history book. Goodbye.

> The very fact that the Qing dynasty had effective immigration controls over a land they supposedly did not "control" or "rule"

I mean, they didn't. It was illegal for Han to immigrate there, but it happened anyway.

Illegal immigrants cross into Texas all the time. Does the US not control or rule Texas?

Illegal immigrants can be, have been, and are deported all the time.

Is there any evidence any Han immigrants to Taiwan were ever deported under the Qing?

Anyway, this is pretty irrelevant. It's just incorrect to say the population controls were effective.

https://danshuihistory.blogspot.com/2011/08/illegal-migratio...

The supposed population control did not last 200 years to begin with, contrary to the outlandish claims seen in this thread. Although the article mentiones "In 1759, for example, the gov't caught 25 smuggling operations in action resulting in the arrest of 990+ illegals." so it was enforced to some extent but ultimately immigration kept happening due to the natural demand.

> The law was never enforceable in the first place

Contradicting your claim the restrictions were effective.

Revise and deny history all you want. You are not doing a favour for Taiwan in the way you think you are.

That's a quote from the source you linked yourself.

Your original claim: Taiwan has never been under control of the Qing dynasty.

Backtrack: Taiwan was not under control or rule for the majority of the Qing dynasty.

Backtrack: The Qing dynasty rule of Taiwan was shorter than ...

Your latter statements are probably wrong too, but I'm too lazy to disprove you. You're welcome to come clean if you wish.

Taiwan has /never/ been under control of the Qing Dynasty. That's true.

It wasn't until 1885 when it became a provience that they attempted to rule over Taiwan. But they didn't. Remember for over 200 years they did nothing with Taiwan. Right at the very end, they tried, but failed, they didn't rule or control Taiwan. Japan did tho.

So if you take Qing Dynasty point of view, their rule over Taiwan was shorter than Japan's rule over Taiwan.

That doesn't mean that Taiwan was ruled by the Qing Dynasty.

A war would be a great distraction for the local population until the quick victories stop happening. They would only do it when they have nothing to lose. And based on the amount of children of CCP officials in Ivy League schools (including Xi's own daughter) and Wall Street firms, they do have everything to lose for the foreseeable future.

I firmly believe in the odds of a hot war being extremely low until the children of high ranking CCP officials start a mass exodus from their comfy white collar lives in the Western world, much like Putin recalling his yachts on the eve of the war in Ukraine.

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