What does China actually stand to gain by invading Taiwan? Any kind of real analysis based in anything other than nationalistic fervor or fear mongering seems to indicate that they're better served by the status quo.
Sure there are geopolitical reasons as well, but The CCP very much does not want the living proof that they are not necessary to be sitting 100 miles off their coast.
If there were ever a real democratic movement in China it would draw huge cultural inspiration from Taiwan.
This is really irrelevant to the conflict, which goes back long before Taiwan democratized (which was only in the late 1990s).
The conflict is relatively simple. Taiwan was a province of China, and still is a part of the Republic of China. The People's Republic of China sees itself as the successor state of the ROC, and is also seen as such by the rest of the world. That means that the PRC considers Taiwan to be part of its rightful, legal territory.
The issue of the territorial integrity of China is especially important in modern China because of the history of colonialism and invasion in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Both the Nationalists and Communists dreamed of expelling the colonial powers and warlords, reuniting China, and finally establishing a fully sovereign, independent state. The separation of Taiwan from the mainland, as a result of the Chinese civil war, is seen as the last vestige of the era in which China was weak and not unified.
Is this actually true? It seems that most governments accept the formal definition in a diplomatic sense because they want to avoid conflict with China. However, it seems clear that at least most western countries see Taiwan as its own country in practice. From my experience the population of western countries is either surprised to hear that Taiwan isn't supposed to be its own country or see this as some bizarre concession to the power-hungry CCP we make to keep them peaceful.
Yes. The governments of the world switched recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, and transferred "China's" UN Security Council seat to the PRC.
> However, it seems clear that at least most western countries see Taiwan as its own country in practice.
They maintain informal ties, but not formal diplomatic ties. Even the PRC has informal ties with the ROC.
> surprised to hear that Taiwan isn't supposed to be its own country
It's perhaps surprising, given Taiwan's de facto independence, but legally, it's not that surprising. Taiwan was a part of China, and it's difficult to define a point in time at which it ceased to be so. Both the ROC and PRC agreed that Taiwan was part of China for decades after the end of the civil war. The Taiwanese independence movement, which has become much stronger over the last 20 years, has changed sentiment in Taiwan itself. However, it would be a major step for other countries to decide that Taiwan no longer legally belongs to China.
What one means by belongs to China is another matter. Not saying you have, but people will conflate the government of China with China. Taiwan does not belong the current ruling government of China and you will not find many governments which say so.
If such a principle were to be accepted, that a country's territory is called into question every time there's a revolution, it would open a Pandora's box.
Recognizing Taiwan as a formally independent state would be a major step, and it would open up all sorts of previously settled questions about what national sovereignty means.
> you will not find many governments which say so
You will find almost no governments that dispute it. Again, recognizing the formal independence of a territory that has been internationally recognized as part of China would be a major break with previous conceptions of national sovereignty.
As far as I know, no country makes a distinction between China and the state that runs it. There is a handful of countries in the world that consider the ROC (i.e., Taiwan) to be the true government of China - countries such as the Vatican City and the Marshall Islands. As I understand it, the Vatican still recognizes the ROC because that's a negotiating chip it can play in its dispute with the PRC over how bishops are named in China.
Why is the CCP so intent on controlling the land of another country? Most people practically consider Taiwan independent, even if the "agreements" around it say something else. They have their own government, flag, military, trade agreements, and more
The way you frame the question already suggests that you're not interested in why China (not just the CCP - this is a broad sentiment inside China) sees things the way it does.
Taiwan is not seen as "another country" in China. It's seen as a Chinese province that is temporarily separated from China due to the civil war. This was also the view of successive Taiwanese governments for decades after the civil war ended, and it shouldn't be surprising that people on the mainland still see it this way.
I was gonna ask that but researched a little bit of history first.
So the CCP won the civil war against the government at the time, the PRC, which retreated to Taiwan. What I didn't get is that both governments consider China to include the Taiwan territory, they just don't agree on which is the legitimate government. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
On my foreigner opinion though is too late for uniting china like that because when you split the population for a long enough time the culture will evolve in a different way between those parts.
No sane Taiwanese actually believes that (1992 Consensus), it's just stating otherwise would be seen as provocation by China. CCP wants Taiwan to stay a civil war faction rather than an independent country.
(I live and grew up in the US, but my family is Taiwanese.)
That description is a generation or two out of date. It is still technically the official position, but only because China continuously threatens total war if Taiwan ever backs down from that position. Since the end of the civil war there was never, ever any plausible way in which the nationalist forces in Taiwan could have retaken the lost mainland territory. After Mao's debacles, I don't think they even wanted to. It was only General Chiang Kai-shek's stubbornness that kept the policy in place until his death in 1975. By then the idea would have been laughable.
You may have heard about "Taiwanese independence" being an issue in the news every now and then over the last few decades. Taiwan is an independent country and always has been; its territory has never, ever been controlled by the PRC. What "Taiwanese independence" is about is the idea of a national referendum (which would involve changing the Taiwan constitution) to renounce all claims to the mainland, rename the country to be just Taiwan instead of the Republic of China, and drop the whole "One China" schtick.
In polling, the overwhelming majority of Taiwanese are "for independence" in the literal sense of being against reunification. Reunification might have once been a considered option, but the fate of Hong Kong showed what would result from going down that path. Other than a small percentage of the population who are nutjob far-right Chinese nationalist extremists (every country has its wackos), nobody wants reunification anymore.
So no political movement in Taiwan expects to reclaim the mainland. No political movement in Taiwan expects to peaceably unify with the mainland either (not since 2014 at least). The current ruling party, the DDP, keeps pledging to have a referendum on independence, but never follows through because China says it's a red line for war. The opposition party, the KMT, doesn't want reconquest or reunification anymore, but advocates for maintaining the status quo for merely pragmatic reasons.
While Taiwan may have historically claimed that it should control the mainland, I don't hear this from them now. I'm sure they would be more than happy to sign an agreement with mainland that recognized them as an officially separate country with no claims to mainland.
Why can the CCP not just let Taiwan be? Why can they not be an officially separate country? What would be so bad about that?
It has the capital. Not the Know-how or expertise. If it did, it wouldn't be stuck manufacturing lower end semi-conductors. In a hypothetical scenario - where China does manage to successfully invade the island, they won't be able to keep the foundries running for long. Because most of the design, IP, machinery and chemicals used in the process are supplied by the U.S and it's allies.
Chinese people from mainland cares much less about democracy than citizens from western countries. The primary motivation for Chinese people to want reunification is that it's one of the last remaining symbols of colonialism.
None of them want to reunite with China. Even the KMT ones just believe the KMT has a better plan for avoiding reunification. Some left Taiwan because they're afraid of a forced reunification. They care about democracy in Taiwan.
The problem is sadly much more complicated than "dictatorship wants to subjugate democracy". Simplified thinking is what the elites from China, Taiwan and the US wants you to think, so powers can be held onto and wars be justified.
I suggest you to educate yourself on the topic.
They will find that the rest of the civilized world can say "No" to China, just as it has to Russia.
how do their imports compare to their exports?
Umm...except for US+EU, no one is saying No to Russian oil and other exports. Of-course, you are free to consider that the "rest of the civilized world" in your mind.
The whole point is that $52/barrel isn't (only) geopolitics, it's also about oil purity.
[0]https://www.neste.com/investors/market-data/crude-oil-prices
As an East Asian myself, the amount of stupidity that goes on in all of the East Asian countries at all levels because of “face” is astounding.
Call it “honor” or “nationalism” or “XXX Pride” - ultimately all the same thing.
> Chinese state planners when they successfully cloak their plans in a cloud of Orientalism
https://media.tenor.com/isrmdo9Xr9EAAAAC/mission-accomplishe...
In China tens of millions watched the live stream Pelosi's plane flying to Taiwan, expectantly waiting for it to be shot out of the air like their leadership insinuated. Those people believe in face saving efforts, while those in charge buy homes in Japan and send their children to American universities.
However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the US is shifting away from the One China policy. That shift is deeply alarming the Chinese government. There doesn't seem to be anyone in American politics who is capable of pressing the breaks, slowing down the drive towards confrontation, and reengaging in real diplomacy with China.
In the end, the belief in the US that there will be a show-down over Taiwan is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ridiculous.
The US has to come to grips with the fact that its power is limited, and that it must seek accommodation with other powers. If it doesn't come to this realization, we're all in for a very bad time.
Making "accommodations" over territory is what started World War 2.
John F. Kennedy didn't think so: "Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world."[0]
> Making "accommodations" over territory is what started World War 2.
First, not everything is Munich 1938, and it is very dangerous to think that it is, because it prevents rational diplomacy. It's the sort of thinking that was used to justify the American military intervention in Vietnam. It's the sort of thinking that might cause a war over Taiwan.
Second, Taiwan was legally a part of China, and it has never officially ceased to be so. The PRC is recognized as the legitimate government of China. The large majority of people in Taiwan no longer want to be part of China, but people on the mainland believe very strongly in the territorial integrity of China and are not willing to see a part of China permanently, officially severed from the country. This is an extremely delicate issue, and simply telling the Chinese to go stuff it would be very ill-advised.
0. Kennedy's "Peace Speech": https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k....
There is only one external event - an event that takes place outside of China - that can seriously disrupt the CCP's rule over China and that is Taiwan successfully declaring independence and international recognition.
It would be a humiliating loss of face for the CCP and would probably be followed by a desperate reshuffling within the party and perhaps even a civil war. The CCP is strong and rigid, but like ceramic, not like steel. Their only mandate rests on China's continued economic and diplomatic success. Taiwanese independence would be the nucleating particle for an explosion of domestic unrest and chaos.
Honest question: does it have to be? Couldn't they sneer it off and keep doing what they're doing: claim it's a rebellious province they're too busy to deal with?
Funny, from this side it looks like the opposite: the US is shifting towards greater recognition of Taiwan because China amped up its rhetoric about reunification.
China's reaction to this has been to reiterate its long-standing position, that it favors peaceful reunification but does not rule out military force as a last resort, and to increase military drills near Taiwan. China has been reactive here. For example, it held large military drills after Pelosi visited.
A lot of these developments are driven by American domestic politics, with the two parties competing to brandish their anti-China credentials. That drives then towards increasingly provocative actions, with little thought about the larger consequences of heading down this path.
The other element driving the shift in American policy is the fact that the naval balance of power in China's immediate periphery is shifting. The US Navy is still much stronger overall, but it may no longer be able to defeat China 100 km off of China's coast. In a decade, the balance will be even less advantageous for the US. This is a major motive for jettisoning strategic ambiguity, to force a change in Taiwan's status before the balance of power tilts further.
Disagree, tensions were already rising well before that. In particular Xi Jinping made a big call for reunification in 2014, which likely lead to a more vigorously pro-independence party being elected in Taiwan in 2016. Closer cooperation with the US followed from that.
https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-china-politics-identity-inde...
Given that doing so would put them on a path to an invasion by the mainland, this would seem expedient.
> indicating that both sides still see themselves as part of an abstract Chinese cultural nation.
So no, it indicates nothing of the sort.
That relatively small number is only due to China's promise of automatic and immediate invasion if they were to declare independence. Remove the threat to their life and their families, the vast majority of them would want to be Taiwan rather than be governed by a dictatorship.
Timeframe. Realistically china has only about 10-15 years to do this before demographics and horrifying rates of infertility stemming from their massive pollution and urbanization catch up to them. The idea of reunification could just be an abstract concept in perpetuity (and will be if PRC makes no moves). What takes it to being real is a question of when and that has everything to do with what's in it for the current leader in the here and now.
As an aside. If PRC were really big brained and had this as the #1 agenda they would realize that the taiwanese drive for independence is really contingent. If PRC were chill and democratic free, and not scary, Taiwan would come running back. Probably also china would actually contend to be #1 country in the world. The CPC only shoots itself in the foot.
Begin with the simple observations that reuinfication is popular with mainland Chinese people and party members and that the official position of the PRC since its inception has been that the PRC and ROC are one country. Taiwan's independence is an affront to the perceived authority of the mainland government. Reunifying China after its fracturing under imperialism is a deep cultural ethos. Material concerns are secondary to this.
> other than nationalistic fervor
And as you said, this. Jingoism can be used to bolster those in power. I don't know that Xi could use this boost at this point in his career, but as he seems to want to be Chairman-for-life, he may need it eventually.
They don't know how to run them, maintain them, use them. If they did, they'd have built their own.
Only people help them here. And yet, they still don't have them.
If China invaded tomorrow, just the power loss alone would render those fabs into useless tech, taking months to clean and repair. And they'd still gain nothing, for you can be sure China's tech spies have taken notes, pictures, stolen data, know all they would know, if they seized them in war.
> Only people help them here.
How many Hong Kongers aligned with the party after the preemptive takeover of the Hong Kong government? How many people simply cared more about making a living than fighting for their old political and legal system?
The reason is simple - China has always considered Taiwan part of China and the U.S. agreed to that position, before it first became "strategic ambiguity" and then it became "Taiwanese Independence" under President Biden.
Judge this honestly: Do you really think a super-power is going to accept a non-friendly island next door to it militarised by an opponent super-power allowing it to project power just on its border ? Do you think the U.S. would accept Chinese military aid to Cuba with the Cubans armed with Chinese weapons and the presence of Chinese troops in Cuba ? If you know an American military officer, ask this question to him and watch him laugh at you. The Chinese would be bombed within 48 hours - hell the ships would be taken out before military supplies even reached Cuba.
The U.S. could afford to play the game of asymmetric dominance because they were the sole super-power after the Cold War. That is no longer true.
Yes, but the US never agreed which government would be the sole government of a united China.
> Do you really think a super-power is going to accept a non-friendly island next door to it militarised by an opponent super-power allowing it to project power just on its border ?
This was happening through the entire Cold War between Russia and the US in the Aleutian islands. It's the status quo change of nuclear missiles in Cuba that prompted the Cuban missile crisis, prior to that Russian troops and arms were present in Cuba without any deepening of the conflict.
We accepted this exact scenario during the Cold War with Soviet troops. We wouldn't start a nuclear war to kick them out.
Moreover, attacking Taiwan guarantees that a blockade will occur.
Besides which, Taiwan probably has nukes inside the PRC. If not they are dumber than dirt.
"Blockade Taiwan" where? The Chinese fleet currently have to pass close to land to go anywhere outside their own seas, but from Taiwan it's clear blue water all the way to Hawaii.
This allows them military access to the pacific, which they don’t have now.
There’s really no positive outcome for taking Taiwan unless in 10-20yrs+ China gets out of their recent economic rut, starts rapidly growing again, and actually starts threatening not only the US but the western hegemony as a whole. Beyond just talking tough and isolating their economy, but by going to the next level of being an economic superpower that could sustain such a blow and build strong partnership with other powerful countries.
Or if other partner countries in SEA, mid east, South America, Africa, India also grow rapidly and become far stronger power players and realign towards China.
Similarly, it feels like the "Trump is just saying that for PR, he would stop doing and saying crazy stuff if he wins the election" 2016 discourse. Sometimes you should believe people when they say what they're gonna do. (See also: overturning Roe v Wade, a core idea of Republican discourse for decades.) Or "what does the US gain from invading Afghanistan and Iraq in real terms, other than just satisfying some loud calls for arbitrary blood?"
Russia was better served by the status quo but they went ahead and invaded Ukraine.
Xi Jinping is feeling his age (just like Putin). Xi Jinping sees the mere existence of Taiwan as an independent state as an historical wrong (like Putin). Xi Jinping wants to be the one what got Taiwan, he wants it to be his legacy (again, just like Putin).
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan won't be a strategic choice or even a rational choice. It's an emotional choice.
The obvious response is because they want to overthrow the government and govern it themselves. But to be more specific, they want the capacity to have a military presence on Taiwan, levy taxes, control trade, and legislate, police, people and businesses of Taiwan. All of these things help the CCP and in same ways China in general (although killing an ethnically Chinese Democracy isn’t actually doing any Chinese people favors).
Beyond this, more broadly they want to continue conquering and project power. Taiwan is their most important claim at the moment but it’s neither their first nor last. Next most obvious target is parts of Siberia and perhaps southeast Asian countries.
* Ukraine historically had been their bread basket
* It's one of several hard to defend routes into Russia. Russia needs Ukraine as a buffer.
* Eastern Ukraine has lots of mining and industry Russia needs that were critical to the UDSSR economy as well.
No, Russia doesn't need it.
I'm sure you're correct that Russia believes this, but the reality is that no one actually wants to invade Russia, and no one has wanted to invade Russia for a very, very long time. All Russia's neighbors have only been worried about invasion and oppression from Russia, ever since the end of WWII.
Somehow, the Russian people seem to collectively have a weird paranoid victim mentality, thinking they're always under threat of invasion, when in reality everyone just hates them and wishes they'd keep to themselves. They think they're entitled to controlling other neighboring countries for their own defense, but they never give a thought to those countries' defense. Somehow, places like Poland and Sweden these days are able to not worry about being invaded by their (non-Russian) neighbors, so all the other borders within Europe are completely undefended. Maybe if Russia tried being friendly with other nations instead of constantly threatening them with military action, they could have a peaceful coexistence too.
However, the world has moved on in the last 80 years. Germany is part of NATO now, Poland and Germany are friends (and France, Netherlands, etc.), and no one is worried about invasion from Germany any more. Somehow, the people of Russia never got past the mindset they had back when Hitler tried to invade.
Dignity. Healing of the last wound inflicted by invaders. China will be whole again.
And also removal of American puppet from their border and drastic decrease of US influence in the region.
Win-win.
The CCP has (right or wrong) declared that Taiwan is an inviolable part of China and a rogue province. That means that if Taiwan were to declare independence and succeed, it would be a signal failure for the CCP - a gross loss of face. The party's legitimacy (always a complicated thing for an authoritarian state) would be threatened by the demonstration of weakness.
Taiwanese independence is the CCP's soft and fleshy underbelly. Bringing Taiwan under Beijing's control eliminates the uncertainty that comes from that political vulnerability.
I would guess that there's oil or shipping lanes or aircraft bases that they would want.
Actually, it would gain China only anything other than this.
If China were to invade Taiwan, the most-advanced chip factory in the world would be rendered “not operable,” TSMC Chair Mark Liu said[1]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/apple-chipmaker-tsmc-warns-t...
[2] https://www.phonearena.com/news/if-china-invades-taiwan-us-c...
A week in, china says “ok who wants chips?” And the world world help get everything rolling again, because we need things Taiwan makes in aggregate more than Taiwan does. There are no other options. We also need things China makes.
It's like if we had a right-wing revolution in the US, and the current national government fled to Nova Scotia with the contents of the Smithsonian, the National Archives, and every important museum and library.
I was just in Central Park in NYC and there was a huge golden Civil War statue that was completely unmolested, and it's sitting smack in the middle of a very liberal city. General Sherman is very safe from liberals. I'm sure John Brown statues would be as well. Maybe it's not all the cultural artifacts, but only certain ones and the very specific things they represent?
I dunno, right-wingers seemed just as happy, or more, with the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled as anyone else.
If you mean specifically monuments to slavery, slavers, and the Confederate States of America, sure, the Right is eager to protect those and the left opposed, but for neither side is that about “cultural artifacts” as a broad class.
- TSMC: I'm not sure I need to cite the chip wars as there's an article on the front page probably every week and has been so for the last 4 years.
- Territoriality control: It gives them a greater vantage over territories, especially into the ocean. Though reference first point.
- Political: Taiwan and Hong Kong (not so much Macau, considered "resolved") have represented the antithesis to the CCP's way of thinking and propaganda. Xi and the CCP have long been touting the line that democracy is not possible in Asia and specifically in China[2,3,4] noting that "the fruit looks the same but the taste is different." Taiwan specifically demonstrates a counter to their claim that the people can be free AND prosperous at the same time. But so do other surrounding countries, but there's a larger gap and these people see large gaps between cultures where us Westerns may not see any (tensions have long been high between China, Japan, and Korea and they've been warring for centuries. Particularly bad in WW2 btw). I should also note that which ever Chinese leader "passifies the dissenters" will go down in history as doing something that no previous leader could and be a great show of strength. So there's internal politics as well that may be far less important to those of us on the outside.
I'd say these are the major aspects but each one is far deeper than this comment would lead you to believe and there are of course other factors as well.
[0] https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:115.7/cent...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line
[1.5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-politics-xi-jinping/xi...
[3] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3142130/xi...
[4] (this one responds to [3] but is also funny) https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3180490/why-xi-...
> The answer to this puzzle might lie in the confusion between two different Chinese expressions which are pronounced exactly the same: “concentration of power” (集权, or jiquan in pinyin) and “autocracy” (极权, also pronounced jiquan)... Therefore, “concentration of power”, not “autocracies”, should be what Xi referred to in his call with Biden.
I think many will even question if the distinction is meaningful here. There is also a link [5] that quotes Xi about how to describe a democracy:
> Whether a country is democratic or not should only be judged by the people of that country, and there is no place for a small number of outsiders to point fingers at this or that
Which again, feels off since his argument would conclude that the DPRK is Democratic and I think few would agree. We have a long history of watching autocracies and dictators refer to their systems as "democratic"
[5] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3152389/xi-...
The United States' One-China policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.
Since then, the US devolved first to strategic ambiguity and then recently to supporting Taiwanese Independence in the Biden Era. The Chinese are not going to take it lying down. Nationalism matters a lot to Chinese - if you think this is simply a Xi endeavour, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. Even if Xi died today, the vast majority of the high command will decide to carry forth.
Unfortunately, War is generally a snowballing, self-fulfilling prophecy. Since the U.S. has now gained access to four new Philippine bases, China will be forced to respond as well. The game of escalation will continue until the final pin drops.
Personally, I really don't think super-powers should be stubborn. There should be new negotiations and there should b e a revised Shanghai Communique. China is unlikely to accept an fully independent island so close to their border though and will want some control over Taiwanese governance. Its too much of a threat to them otherwise.
If you think the position un-reasonable, turn the situation around and judge the way the U.S. treats Cuba - strong-armed and watched over by the Guantanamo Bay military base and sanctioned to death and you might get an idea of what China's starting negotiation position will likely to be.
We have no political control in Cuba even though we did take a portion of the island.
I think the Chinese will be extremely happy with a similar arrangement. Taiwanese government can continue, there will just be a nice, big military base right next door keeping an eye.
I am sure all those folks captured and tortured in Guantanamo Bay in "independent" Cuba were very happy with the level of control the U.S. applied there. Something that would have still been hidden and a state secret if not for Wikileaks. But the guy who leaked it has now been made to pay for it and is now imprisoned and in isolation.
The US has signed no such treaty.