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Comment by captaincaveman | Hacker News Reader

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Taiwan has its own MILITARY FORCE, government, rule of law, economy, alliances for 70 years now. It is de facto an independent country. Unless someone brings that tired argument of Taiwan claims China as its own - no, China threatened to invade if Taiwan relinquishes that claim. And no, just because China forces other countries to not recognize Taiwan as a country, doesn't make it so. (if anything, most countries are now starting to freely associate with Taiwan, now that China is in decline)

Yes they do, and like I said, think they should be left to get on with things on their own. However they are a break away geopolitical state that was only enabled to do so, by support from US to protect them, if the US hadn't enabled them the CCP would of invaded many many decades ago. You can brush this inconvenient fact under the carpet, but it's not a simple and clear cut as you make out. Both sides taking the extreme stance is why it can't be solved.

Taiwan WAS a break away state 70 years ago that is an independent country FOR THE LAST 70 years. doesn't matter which ally (US, Japan, whoever) Taiwan had, it is operating as an independent country.

If China attacks Taiwan, they are attacking another country. Just like Russia attacking Ukraine. Doesn't matter what psychobabble a dictator spouts.

Well if US stops protecting Taiwan, and China invades, that will end that debate. The new debate will be, Taiwan WAS an independent state and now isn't, and some one will come along and "yeah well that was 70 years ago!".

Psychobabble or not, it boils down to how much anyone wants to get involved in a nasty fight to save someone else, which might end up causing more damage to Taiwan even if they do. I don't think this is right but is the world has always operated, not sure anything has changed.

Framing it as an internal conflict is the CPP’s framing. Don’t legitimize it.

How is it the "CPP"'s framing when both sides still claim it as their official position?

From a day-to-day perspective, they treat each other as separate countries in practice, if not in name.

That is not the position of Taiwan, and certainly not of the political party that just won the presidential election.

Taiwan still claims they are part of China. It is part of the public farce everyone is playing. To claim otherwise would throw an egg in face of China.

Surely you can provide evidence of this claim as the Taiwan state position?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China#:~:text=The%20Kuomin....

You’ve just cited a link for a CCP backed political party which just lost the election by a sizeable amount.

Governments are made out of people.

And the people elected a leader who strongly opposes what you’re saying is the independent nation of Taiwan’s perspective

Look I do agree with you. Taiwan is it's own country and deserves to be. It's treated and acts that way in every sense of the word.

You are right the KMT has now lost 4 presidential elections in a row and the tides are changing. But they still are the majority party in the legislature and will continue to exert tons of control.

My claim is only that Taiwan needs to pretend it still feels united with the mainland to maintain the political farce and keep Beijing happy. That for Taiwan to claim independence would be a political game of chess as then that means Taiwan is no longer just a breakaway province in rebellion - it's actually succeeded.

Maybe officially you are correct but you can't claim the above has no bearing on the relationships between the two nations.

It's very convenient that whenever a dictator wants to invade and conquer a neighboring country, all they have to do is declare that it historically belonged to them and suddenly the "anti-imperialists" have no problem with it.

It's the exact same rhetorical playbook Putin used with Ukraine.

I believe the problem "anti-imperialists" believe they are facing is that if they don't relativize Russian and potential Chinese wars, they feel that people get worked up into a war frency.

They believe we need a reminder that our elite are not much better and that the alleged ethnical cleansing of Gaza is such a timely reminder. As a way to not get us dragged into yet more wars.

I guess.

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