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Comment by gpapilion | Hacker News Reader

| TSMC lost the Chinese market, because their government went along headfirst with US trade war policy(similar to what Japan did in 1986, but worse in fact).

Taiwan is definitely caught between a rock and a hard place. They watched what happened in Hong Kong and no longer is interested in rejoining Xi’s China. So now they are threatened with invasion unless they rejoin China. They are reliant on the US to prevent that’s from happening. So given the choices, it’s not surprising that they are choosing the US to continue existing.

It’s crazy to me that you haven’t see more divestments in China from Taiwanese companies.

View on HN

China and Taiwan use the same language so China is still very attractive for oversea expansion for Taiwanese companies.

Ukraine and Russia also mostly speak the same language. Doesn’t mean much if the great leader decides to make a move, actually it is another reason to make a move.

About 1/3 of Ukrainians know Russian.

Ukrainian and Russian are mutually intelligible languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Slavic

Whereas different dialects of Mandarin may not be mutually intelligible

> Many varieties of Mandarin, such as those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the standard language

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

The Mandarin used in Taiwan and the Mandarin used in China are both standard Chinese and mutually intelligible.

IIRC Cantonese and Mandarin are the two big language groups that are not mutually intelligible.

But Cantonese isn’t spoken in Taiwan except a handful of Hong Kong immigrants. What’s your point?

But they do speak Taiwanese in Taiwan which you wouldn’t understand if you only spoke mandarin.

> they do speak Taiwanese

Do you mean Hakka and/or Hokkien?

Hokkien which is primarily spoken across the strait in Fujian.

Hakka is primarily spoken in Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi.

Xi himself was the Party head of Fujian for most of his career and Xi's father was the Party head of Guangdong when he was rehabilitated in the Deng Xiaoping era.

This is why most manufacturing in China ended up coastal Southern China - most Chinese Taiwanese trace their heritage to there barely 2-5 generations ago at most.

The younger generation (post-1989) in Taiwan speaks and understands Mandarin.

This whole thread has a bunch of answers which are confusing the topic.

The issue is why would Taiwanese businesses care about the China market? Aside from the fact that the China market is massive, there is a simple answer: Taiwan and China have the same business language, and that is Standard Chinese aka Mandarin.

Yes, lots of Taiwanese people also speak other Sinitic languages that are not Mandarin, and are not mutually intelligible with it. And lots of Chinese people also speak other Sinitic languages that are not Mandarin and are not mutually intelligible with it. And even some variants of Mandarin itself are not mutually intelligible. But - outside of Cantonese in HK and Macau - none of those languages are used as the primary business language anywhere in either China or Taiwan, so it's an interesting side note but doesn't change the point.

All that said, aside from the Chinese market being massive, and the common language being convenient, there is a much bigger elephant in the room that explains why Taiwanese companies might not have a fun time doing business in China: politics.

It doesn't matter how much money Taiwanese companies might want to make if the CCP can threaten to turn off the spigot any time they want to influence Taiwanese politics, which unfortunately nowadays appears to be all the time. Sure, it's leaving a lot of money on the table, but doing business with Japan or the US or other countries that aren't run as a single party dictatorship whose leadership has a stated platform of dismantling your own government might be a less risky option.

> none of those languages are used as the primary business language anywhere in either China or Taiwan

我同意。

I was just trying to dig into what OP meant by "Taiwanese" as a language.

It's always going to be Mandarin for anything commercial.

That said, you can't deny the benefit the Hakka and Hokkien diaspora provided to China's manufacturing capacity - it was diaspora Chinese from Thailand (CP Group was the first foreign private company to incorporate in China), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Taiwan had on PRC's catchup.

In Taiwan it’s called Taiwanese. It’s similar to Hokkien which is why it’s often referred to as Taiwanese Hokkien. But it’s not 1:1. And people outside of Taipei will assume you speak it and understand it.

> Xi himself was the Party head of Fujian for most of his career and Xi's father was the Party head of Guangdong when he was rehabilitated in the Deng Xiaoping era.

This is because the CCP does not trust southerners (people from Fujian/guangdong especially) and will send northerners in to manage/rule those provinces. China is still afraid of Fujian revolting and joining Taiwan.

Yea no.

If that was the case, then Hakka wouldn't be so overrepresented within the CCP.

Deng Xiaoping himself was Hakka, as were most of the the core CCP leadership until recently [0]

Hakka is the primary language spoken in TW after Mandarin btw.

If you're a fellow Bay Area native, maybe visit Fremont or Richmond District in SF sometime and actually learn about us Asian subcommunities.

[0] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/654189

Deng Xiaoping was born/raised in sichuan, only his ancestors were kejia. I’m sure if you look at anyone in china’s family tree long enough, you’ll find a lot of mixing, which is about as weird as a German having ancestry from Italy or France. It’s even weirder, as the paternal side was originally from Sichuan moving to GD during Ming and back to Sichuan during Qing.

> Deng Xiaoping himself was Hakka, as were most of the the core CCP leadership until recently [0]

I’m going to not believe your source given how much wrong you’ve gotten already. But even if true, Chinese identity politics are more attuned to region than ethnicity. Southerners also were trusted because the KMT was heavily southern biased while the communists were the opposite. This is why the capital is in BJ and not NJ.

> Hakka is the primary language spoken in TW after Mandarin btw.

No no no. It is definitely Hokkien, a dialect of Min, which is the base dialect for Fujian.

> If you're a fellow Bay Area native, maybe visit Fremont or Richmond District in SF sometime and actually learn about us Asian subcommunities

Is that some kind of Asian American thing? You can learn plenty about Chinese ethnicities in China, why bother doing it in the states? Southern ethnicities are also over represented in overseas Chinese communities given the propensity of people from GD or FJ to go abroad, and then cultures kind of diverge a bit (another reason the CCP doesn’t trust GD/FJ).

> Deng Xiaoping was born/raised in sichuan

Guang'an, the town he was born, was and is Hakka speaking, after the Hakka-Punti wars were lost by the Hakka.

> Chinese identity politics are more attuned to region than ethnicity

I can agree with that with the post 1970 generation. Deng Xiaoping and his ilk were from before that era, during the Long March.

> It is definitely Hokkien

Yes, Hokkien is prominent in TW but so is Hakka. Around 10% Hakka speaking based on the last census.

> Is that some kind of Asian American thing

Taiwanese (and HK) American specifically. Iykyk I guess. Hence why I equally smell shit from your response.

My perspective is primarily mainland where I lived for 9 years, and primarily interacting with mainlander coworkers (eg from Fujian, talking politics was ok).

you're correct. My taiwan colleagues visit HK, they request "no cantonese please"

Outside of Taipei, a lot of people speak Taiwanese. (While they also speak mandarin if you don’t know Taiwanese you can only understand a bit of what people say)

Nearly every Ukrainian understands Russian, but many Russians would only understand the gist of what Ukrainians are saying, because the languages only share about 60% of their vocabulary.

A lot of common, everyday words differ in Ukrainian and or arise from different roots (e.g Polish).

Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no?

Now I wonder if this number, provided it is a real one, went up or down during the last 30 years. I would bet on lower but it's only a gut feeling.

> Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no?

It's plenty for communication, not plenty for a conversation.

(It's also a mirror for colonialism, by the way, where the occupied speak the language of the occupier, but the occupiers can't be arsed to learn the language of the occupied.)

It's not even necessarily enough for communication. With the Pareto curve on word commonality it's really quick to get high percentages of vocabulary. But it's the words you don't know on a sentence that are usually the important ones.

You are right. 60% is nothing, especially given the political situation

can't even talk about chips and language without being attacked by the crew

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295035

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39294267

• https://german.stackexchange.com/a/53783

It's a linguistic topic. Good luck trying to talk with Germans as an English speaker.

Ukrainian shares 84% of vocabulary with Belarusian, 70% with Polish, 66% with Slovak.

English and German share 60% of vocabulary.

Except English, German, and Dutch are not mutually intelligible.

Although as an English-speaking native who has studied German, Dutch often maddeningly looks like it should make sense, but it doesn't.

> Whereas different dialects of Mandarin may not be mutually intelligible

Except for some slang words which nobody would use in business anyway, Sichuanese is largely intelligible to native Mandarin Chinese speakers if spoken slowly and repeated a couple times. People from Sichuan can also speak standard Mandarin. The written language is identical.

As for Taiwan and China it is even less an issue. The very few words that are different may be the source for some humor sometimes but that's it. It's kind of like how British people say "lift" and Americans say "elevator". If you're not brain-dead you'll figure it out pretty quickly and maybe crack a joke or two about it. When you see a sign that says "lift" you don't panic and say that it's not intelligible, you can make some sense of the word.

It's a non-issue in practical terms.

I was born in Kiev and spoke Russian at home. Can barely understand Ukrainian unless it's spoken slowly by a native Russian speaker. I can get the gist of what Zelensky is saying in an interview but can pretty much never understand native Ukrainian speakers. I think there's also a gradient of dialects and accents West to East, so I'm sure you can find some Ukrainian villager I would understand better but in general they're not mutually intelligible (to me).

Wow. Did you attend Russian language-only schools when growing up? Is this common in your generation?

Moved to the US as a kid (by way of Estonia and then Italy), went to a year of Russian language "transitional" school here. So don't have any insight on the Ukrainian school experience.

How close is mandarin to Cantonese?

About as close as English and Swedish.

I have warm memories as a kid going with my Mom to the daily market, and watching people communicating by furiously writing words in their hands, in addition to the simplified tradespeak between the language groups. It's an interesting thing, having both a shared writing system and mutually unintelligible spoken language!

Maybe it should be more recognized that what the quote "a language is a dialect with an army" means is that borders of nations don't coincide with borders for languages, or put more simply, it has such two meanings that, there are languages that are realistically just weird accents on one another, and one "language" that are realistically two or more.

I have some confidence with dialects of my primary language(not Chinese) within ~150mi of where I am; beyond that, mutual intelligibility with local dialects isn't guaranteed. Yet, those dialects are rarely considered(including by speakers) to be separate from the standard. They're just local accents. That aren't even intelligible to city dwellers.

To me, cantonese may as well be a separate language from Beijing Mandarin.

I mean it is?

"Cantonese (traditional Chinese: 廣東話; simplified Chinese: 广东话; Jyutping: Gwong2 dung1 waa2; Cantonese Yale: Gwóngdùng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages"

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

I simply left room for error.

Around 1/3 are native speakers but the number of know Russian is significantly higher as it’s the formal business language the way English is in a lot of the world. Hard to find exact numbers, but according to Wikipedia a 2008 gallop poll had 80% of Ukrainians claim to prefer Russian as the language of business.

Ahh TIL! Thanks.

Well, this is pretty much dated. You would be surprised to learn how the tables started to turn starting from 2014 and finished turning today.

Is this an anecdote of your experience or?

11 years does not seem like long enough time for a language to first start declining and then end as being the primary formal language.

It’s not “declining” but rather being actively replaced and rejected by the population. When your nation suffers brutal aggression perpetrated by the neighbor - it makes it no longer fashionable to speak the language of the aggressor. The fact that Russia also denies that Ukraine and Ukrainians are even a real nation and culture distinct from Russia fuels the sentiment too.

Organically, no, 11 years is not long enough.

But you may recall that in 2014, a few political directives regarding culture and language use have been made by the Rada, and then a few political decisions were made in the Kremlin, and then everything turned to shit (To put it simply).

It's easy to do a lot in 11 years when you start banning foreign-language media, stop using a language for government services, stop teaching it, etc, etc.

Still, that 80% hasn’t died off so those people still know the language

February 2014 Moscow occupied Crimea. 12.04.2014 Moscow occupied Slovyansk.

Name "few political directives" in 2014 before Moscow invasion. Ukraine actions are direct response to Moscow aggression. People don't want to be occupied by Moscow like Donetsk, Luhansk. Life is awful there, million fled from occupation. That's why changes were supported by majority of Ukrainians.

Still occupants language was learned in schools, media could use it though eventually quotas set to use Ukrainian too. And officials continued using it.

Ukraine policies fought discrimination of Ukrainian in Ukraine. Discrimination that stems from centuries of occupation by Moscow. In 2016 state stated at least 60% TV should be on Ukrainian. Only in 2017 education in schools was switched from occupants language to Ukrainian. Since 2019 Ukrainian should be used in services unless requested otherwise by customer. People switch to Ukrainian voluntarily, state provides means.

Ukraine is a democratic state, check out Euromaidan. Stop pretending like changes is anything but result of Moscow agression.

There was a bit of a coup against one of the branches of government on Feb 2014, it's odd that it's missing from your timeline, given that it kind of precipitated everything else that followed.

But perhaps that's how you think democracies work - when you don't like the government, you bring your friends to wear funny hats and storm the capitol, and get a new one... Should Americans do that the next time an unpopular politician ends up heading the executive? It certainly speeds up the transfer of power, even if it drops the 'peaceful' aspect of it...

Euromaidan was response to violent dispersal of protesters. Government escalated, eventually killed hundred of citizens. Do you claim Americans would do nothing if killed in hundreds? No persecution, approved by "unpopular politician", passed laws on dictatorship (16.01.2014).

Moscow invaded Ukraine (Crimea) 20.02.2014. Yanukovych fled 21.02.2014. Occupation does not just "happen", it was staged. Ukrainians felt that as betrayal, seen as occupants population cheared in support. That hurts, breaks cultural ties. In a few months Moscow invaded east of Ukraine while spreading lies. Lies obvious for Ukraine citizens, believed by occupants population.

> Do you claim Americans would do nothing if killed in hundreds?

They'd blame the people who died. At least, that's how Kent State went down (And the students there weren't even trying to overthrow the government).

There's a process for peaceful transfer of power. Some countries have good processes for this, some have bad ones, some are in between. As far as I'm aware, though, no country has a process of 'Enough people storm the capitol' for determining when that happens.

When you don't follow the permitted process, this compromises a democracy's legitimacy. Now, obviously the coup was only carried out against the executive, not the legislature, so the resulting government was partially legitimate - at least, the legislature remained representative of the public (And the issue was resolved in the subsequent election).

But that aside, just because the coup only finished on the 21st, and the invasion happened on the 20th, doesn't mean that the weeks of the revolution leading up to it weren't intimately related to the start of the war.

Laws on dictatorship passed 16.01.2014, copied from Belarus, Russian Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-protest_laws_in_Ukraine

Peaceful transfer of power is not possible in Belarus or Russian Federation. Ukrainians have no guns, democracy is not stable, judiciary and special forces are not independent, media influenced by state and oligarchs. Euromaidan saved Ukraine from Belarus fate.

Moscow invasion staged not in preceding weeks but in years. Putin revealed intentions in 2007, occupied Georgia in 2008.

"Name "few political directives" in 2014 before Moscow invasion."

"On February 23, 2014, the second day after the flight of Viktor Yanukovich, while in a parliamentary session, a deputy from the Batkivshchyna party, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, moved to include in the agenda a bill to repeal the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy". <...> The bill would have made Ukrainian the sole state language at all levels. <...> However, the move to repeal the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy" provoked negative reactions in Crimea and in some regions of Southern and Eastern Ukraine. It became one of the topics of the protests against the new government approved by the parliament after the flight of Viktor Yanukovich." [0]

And more generally: Ukrainization Post-1991: Independent Ukraine. [1]

"check out Euromaidan."

“The mob, whatever it is, has no legitimacy before the sovereign people expressing themselves through its elected representatives.” [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#Att...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization#Post-1991:_indep...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/world/europe/macron-pensi...

Something about having your country invaded and missiles fired at your cities tends to change perceptions of the culture initiating said aggression.

But they do not make you forget a language is the point.

I thought we were talking about the 80% who "preferred" it as a language of business. Surely that... has dropped like a stone.

That and the way people respond to polls now is gonna change.

In any case I think going forward you'll see English's fortunes rise in Ukraine, and probably Polish as well.

The parent comment of this thread by @Waterluvian is whether they understand the Russian language.

not anecdotal, I speak both languages. The trend now is to reject everything russian even though you do understand it, no way around this. And yes, the “kitchen language” for many ukrainians, especially east part, remained russian. However, on public or outside ppl try their best to speak Ukrainian. The younger generation will be more like the one in the baltic counties or Georgia. Understand russian but rather speak their native language.

anecdotal means your personal experience.

Based on the recent (September 2023) social study:

Which is your native language? 2012: 57% Ukrainian, 42% Russian; 2023: 82% Ukrainian, 16% Russian

Which language do you speak at home? 2023: 63% Ukrainian, 27% mixed, 7% Russian

Coincides with my andecotal experience. Source: https://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukraine/soc_olog_chne_dos...

I’m sure it is, but terrible relations doesn’t make people forget a language and we’re only speaking to the number who know the language. I’ve no doubt a generation from now that number will be a lot lower if things continue on this path.

In reality it’s certainly over 90% (probably closer to 99%)

The only Ukrainians I've that that didn't speak Russian are 2nd gen immigrants outside of Ukraine. Often hilarious because their parents often barely speak Ukrainian themselves.

"83% of Ukrainians responding to a 2008 Gallup poll preferred to use Russian instead of Ukrainian to take the survey." [0]

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20100518073110/http://www.gallup...

Most of their construction material comes from China and most of Taiwanese exports go to China. Taiwan will never compete on the global market for most of its products. This current policy is economic suicide, and anyone not blinded by ideology knows it.

Not a single US president pushed for a FTA with Taiwan. So far every single one has opposed it, while on the back bullying Taiwan to open their markets to dump cheap American pork into it, completely against the will of the Taiwanese people by the way.

The current result is that Taiwanese wages have stagnated for decades and as a result save for a select few that go to Japan and the US, a lot of other people look for opportunities in Mainland China.

What made Taiwan so successful in the past is what makes Dubai and Singapore so successful now. Open trade with everyone, and easy business opportunities. Both things that it no longer engages in.

BTW the big joke nobody really seems to know is that the pro independence party has never submitted a bid for independence, while the pro China party has.

Why people keep believing that "open trade" solves everything and makes "easy business opportunities"?

You can have open trade but also subsidy a portion of your economy to make that "open trade" not so open anymore. I'm not against it, just saying that a single specific decision makes Dubai and Singapore success is a reductionism that helps in nothing the discussion. Let take OPEC in matters, would you say they follow a "free trade" ideology?

Many wrong things with comments. Your pro-china KMT bias is showing

> Taiwan will never compete on the global market for most of its products.

the aggregate brand value of Taiwan's 25 largest brands totaled US$13.84 billion in 2023, a 5 percent rise from 2022 and marking the fourth consecutive year of the value surpassing the US$10 billion mark. https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202312020012

> The current result is that Taiwanese wages have stagnated for decades

The average annual salary for full-time employees in Taiwan reached an eight-year high of NT$694,000 (US$22,242) this year (2023). https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202311290017

Taiwan to surpass Japan in GDP per capita this year (2023): JCER https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Taiwan-to-surpass-Japan-in-G...

> The average annual salary for full-time employees in Taiwan reached an eight-year high of NT$694,000 (US$22,242) this year (2023).

I am the complete opposite of a CCP shill, but that is by definition stagnation.

The 2015-16 recession was brutal in Taiwan [0]. It basically was a lost decade.

South Korea and Japan ate Taiwan's market in the upper bracket, and China ate Taiwan's market in the lower bracket.

[0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/taiwan-gdp-falls-for-first-t...

Not really seeing a "stagnation" using a graph, in the last 6 years

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/taiwan/annual-househol...

13k in 2017, 17k in 2022, 30% increase. and 22k in 2023, 30% increase.

the stagnation from 2011 to 2017 is due to the pro-China president from 2008 to 2016, which fueled market and investment losses going to China. That reversed in 2016 with the Pro-Taiwan president.

When you actually show the rate of change from e.g. 2014-2022, it's about 3.5%. Inflation being about let's say 2% over those years. Although the fact that it's reported in USD probably matters as well to really understand the economy. Anyways, the average salary in Taiwan across the entire workforce was just under NT$41,000 per month (median being surprisingly close to that figure), which is comparable to many cities in China. Also you can't compare 2008-2016, the US caused GFC caused a lot of issues. 2015-2022 household income also corresponds with how China was doing in terms of exports, since China was rapidly expanding exports around that time showing probably there's a pretty strong tie/correlation between the two regions.

The fact that Taiwan GDP per capita is close to surpassing Japan's, shows how poorly Japan has been doing despite its stock market.

I tend not to trust CEIC - they have had issues converting data over time periods, which is critical for the NTW as it has been extremely volatile over the past decade.

For now, let's use Monthly Household Income sourced from the Taiwanese DGBAS and in NTW [0]

In 2016 it was NTW 84000 but by 2022 it was NTW 99000, which isn't a significant change, especially factoring the craziness the NTW has had since 2016.

> stagnation from 2011 to 2017 is due to the pro-China president ... That reversed in 2016 with the Pro-Taiwan president

It wasn't a DPP vs KMT issue. China had a stock market crash in 2015-16 [1], and Taiwanese companies were heavily exposed, as China is Taiwan's largest trading partner by a longshot. On top of that Taiwanese companies were already facing the brunt of the collapse of the CSSTA [2].

[0] - https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/disposable-personal-inco...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_Chinese_stoc...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Strait_Service_Trade_Agr...

Taiwanese companies run most of the major hightech manufacturing in China. For example, Foxconn is a taiwanese company. Most of my dealings with these types of manufactures has been in discussions of how to circumvent tariffs, not in really exiting manufacturing in the mainland.

When I look at what occurring, I think it has more to do with their cheapest labor force is in China. So the scale and profit is hard to leave.

The Chinese labor force has been reaching parity recently. Hence pushes into Vietnam & India for manufacturing.

> Hence pushes into Vietnam & India for manufacturing.

Doesn't help Taiwanese companies long term.

They had an advantage in Mainland China being Chinese speaking. Already in India, Tata is becoming the Indian version of Foxconn for most manufacturers and VinGroup or Korean Chaebols like Lotte (SK has a FTA with Vietnam) the Vietnamese version of Foxconn in Vietnam.

While South Korean and Japanese companies were actively de-risking in China by returning to ASEAN+India in the early-mid 2010s, Taiwanese companies only began doing this in the late 2010s after the 2015-16 recession.

It’s more than that: most of the Taiwanese companies are owned/controlled by mainlanders who still have a lot more economic power than native Taiwanese, even if the latter has more political power these days.

Taiwan is basically "captured" by:

1) Being too close and too dependent on China mainland

2) Enjoying a huge amount of surplus with China (it overweights everything else combined, and almost doubled)

IMO, there is really no point for China to invade Taiwan, even if Taiwan declares independence. The best move of China, when and if that happens, is to simply grab Jinmen and Mazu (the two small islands close to Xiamen), and then start a economic debacle of some sort. They don't even have to put up a physical debacle -- the only thing they need to do is to remove that surplus by removing all economic preferential policies. The best move for Taiwan, is always to be on the brink of independence without actually getting into it. After all, it is independent in all other ways and it's fine as long as US is strong enough.

Now the real point is: Can China put military equipment in Taiwan to break through the so-called first island chain? I think it's a Yes given enough time. I guess that's why NATO has been busily working on the second chain.

> there is really no point for China to invade Taiwan

Which is why, historically, it didn’t. But Xi isn’t rational: he’s a dictator.

It wasn’t rational for him to force his way onto Hong Kong; the territory would automatically become China in a few decades. Same for his corruption/loyalty purges and decimation of China’s tech sector. Irrational, short-term sacrifices of China’s long-term potential for his short-term politics.

> It wasn’t rational for him to force his way onto Hong Kong

When that happened, Hong Kong was involved in ongoing riots and people were proclaiming (Hong Kong) independence on the streets for months. The legislature was stormed in an event that was not unlike Jan 6 Capitol Hill in the US (we sure did feel the awkward resemblance of the two events...)

Everyone can have their views on whether suppressing the riots was morally justified, but Xi had to do something to assert the CCP's sovereignty over Hong Kong. It was the only rational move unless they were prepared to give up Hong Kong.

> the territory would automatically become China in a few decades

Not sure which place you're talking about. Hong Kong is already part of China at least since the 1997 handover. And Taiwan will never become under CCP rule if status quo is preserved. Don't think there's any mechanism for "automatically" taking over Taiwan.

I don't know how familiar you are with the history, but long-term thinking and patience was essentially the reason China was able to gain back control Hong Kong from the Brits, pretty much on China's terms. They took advantage of the 99-year lease on the New Territories, waited until the Brits started developing on the leased (as opposed to ceded) land, and caught them with their pants down when they realized they had no feasible plan to partially hand back the territory when the lease expired.

Hong Kong has always been a template (in the CCP's mind at least) for taking back Taiwan, I don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that they would forego long term potential for short term gains. It's like you're talking as if they already invaded Taiwan and you're shaking your head over the stupidity of it. (No, it hasn't happened yet.)

The threat of course always seem real enough. It's all a game of chicken. The one who seems most crazy wins. Back then during the 1970s, China also threatened to invade Hong Kong if the Brits didn't hand it back to them. They want you to think the leadership is irrational. Makes them harder to predict.

China was forcing HK to accept China laws and HK didn’t want it. They protested.

Don’t try and and make it sound like HK were just randomly protesting nothing.

HK is part of China.

And it was part of 1 country 2 systems.

Which proved there is no such thing. Because the CCP still has their foot in HK and making sure there is no 2 systems.

> Hong Kong was involved in ongoing riots

Because Xi ham-fistedly forced through a badly-written security law [1] and intervened in its politics [2]. It’s like stupid Tiannamen Square.

> long-term thinking and patience was essentially the reason China was able to gain back control Hong Kong from the Brits

China was rational under the CCP. It’s myopic under Xi.

> don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that they would forego long term potential for short term gains

They already did.

Hong Kong’s mess was avoidable. Most Taiwanese identifying as Taiwanese and not Chinese was avoidable [3]. The trade wars, and China being reëclipsed in manufacturing by U.S. + Japan + Deutschland, were avoidable [4]. The bank losses on overseas loans were avoidable [5]. The corruption in the rocket forces, which guarantees no Taiwan action until China’s military strength is past its relative nadir, was avoidable [6].

All of these missteps would not have happened under proper CCP leadership. They are expressions of Xi’s personal hubris. China sacrificed the immortality of its state for the favour of its mortal dictator; it’s possibly the luckiest geopolitical stroke for America after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

> during the 1970s, China also threatened to invade Hong Kong if the Brits didn't hand it back to them. They want you to think the leadership is irrational

But they didn’t. That’s rational.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_b...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56264117

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/16/most-peop...

[4] https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/top-10-manufacturi...

[5] https://www.ft.com/content/da01c562-ad29-4c34-ae5e-a0aafddd3...

[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-military-rocket-f...

> Because Xi ham-fistedly forced through a badly-written security law [1] and intervened in its politics [2]. It’s like stupid Tiannamen Square.

[1] has no mention of Xi. [2] is in 2021, way after the protests/riots.

I have reliable sources (not mass media, especially not western mass media) telling me that the security law was championed by the Hong Kong government (Carrie Lam in particular). The Chinese Central People's Government was not actively involved until the whole thing spiraled out of control.

I won't/can't tell you how involved I was in the events, but Trust Me Bro ™ I'm not just reading the news and coming to the conclusions that I wrote.

> have reliable sources (not mass media, especially not western mass media) telling me that the security law was championed by the Hong Kong government (Carrie Lam in particular)

Sure. This was in the open. That doesn't preclude Beijing's feet on the scales, which from everything I saw, in the open and with Trust Me Bros, what clear as day.

There were better ways to handle Hong Kong. Xi handled in a way that made sense for him. It cost China dearly in the medium term, and may prove to have been a geostrategic blunder in the long term.

> That doesn't preclude Beijing's feet on the scales, which from everything I saw, in the open

This is what I'm telling you didn't happen. My sources are not public, and you're free not to believe it.

I know you love the CCP and try your best to defend them, doesn’t change the fact that one of the primary reasons for the protests was the security law which came from Beijing.

> championed by the Hong Kong government

There was a significant divide within LegCo (local parliment). So no, it was not "championed". For other readers: The head of state (CEO) is hand selected by CCP. (Yes, I know about the elitist voting system to select a CEO, but the choice needs to be pre-approved by CCP.) Saying the person who was pre-selected by CCP is "championing" a proposed law by CCP isn't saying much. That was her job.

The appointment of Carrie Lam was a mistake and I have no idea why the CCP did it. If the original claim is that CCP/Xi was irrational for appointing somebody who had a past record in somehow inciting mass protests (she was responsible for the reform bills in 2014 that sparked protests on similar scale), then yea sure I'll take that.

What I was responding to was the claim that "Xi ham-fistedly forced through a badly-written security law". This really isn't the case, and if your argument is that "well, everything done by the government is attributed to Xi personally, I rest my case.", I guess you're right then. Whatever you please.

> But Xi isn’t rational: he’s a dictator.

This is a non-sequitor. There's no reason, a priori, to believe a dictator is any less, or more rational than a popular idiot (and we've elected quite a few of those).

(You also don't stay a dictator for very long by being a madman or an idiot, whereas an elected official usually at least gets to finish their term.)

Leaders serve the interests of those that have a say in whether or not they stay in power—in democratic countries with wide enfranchisement, that’s the population in general, in other systems it might be a combination of the military, party, international supporters, and the populace.

I think what people mean when they say a country “acts rationally” or doesn’t is that decisions are made that vaguely make sense in when analyzed by applying the rationalism framework to ”the country,” usually used as a shorthand for the populace. But of course, this would only make sense if the leaders decide that the best way to stay in power is to serve the interest of the populace. Which isn’t the case in a non-democratic country.

Rationalism is a framework in international relations, and it makes sense that some terms-of-art will sneak out into informal English. Unfortunately, in English, “irrational” is also, basically, a fancy way of saying somebody makes stupid decisions. And lots of countries that are, broadly, antagonistic toward the US are not representative democracies*. So it seems to have basically morphed into a way of saying that my country’s adversaries are stupid. An unfortunate end for an otherwise interesting term.

* not to say that we haven’t been willing to morally compromise ourselves and ally up with dictators or overthrow democracies.

> no reason, a priori, to believe a dictator is any less, or more rational than a popular idiot (and we've elected quite a few of those)

Dictators are less constrained and longer serving. The latter is particularly damning, since it means the need to save face prevents course corrections.

I'm concerned that Xi might be more concerned with leaving a legacy than with practical goals when it comes to Taiwan. The civil war was never fully won and resolving that seems important to him. I hope it's just posturing.

On the feasibility of an invasion: there was a very good episode of the Sinica podcast on wargaming this: https://thechinaproject.com/2023/08/17/wargaming-a-taiwan-in...

Very scary for everyone and especially the US. Think several lost carriers within the first 24-36 hrs

Edit: important to note that at the end of the episode they discuss that the wargaming exercise assumed < 100 dedicated amphibian landing boats, but Chinese officials have previously said that they'd use their merchant marine which would mean we are talking about thousand of ships! The whole thing is unfathomable and clearly unprecedented since WWII

I don't think anyone is going to come to Taiwan's aid if a major invasion comes up. There will be material and intelligence support, for sure, but sending troops? Not so sure.

I agree that Xi probably wants some legacy coined to him, but he is only 70 and looks pretty healthy (as far as I see) so I guess he can still wait it out.

I still don't believe there is going to be an invasion of Taiwan happening in the next few years, but if it does, I think it's going to be a lot bigger than just Taiwan. From this perspective, it is scary.

Declaring closed straits to Chinese military surface vessels on the Taiwan-Philippines and Taiwan-Japan gaps, along with resupply of Taiwan from the east, seems a reasonable response for the US (and possibly Japan).

China's calculus changes if they have to strike Japanese and Philippine sovereign territory (even if it's hosting US forces) in order to accomplish their goals.

And it's unclear if even Xi is willing to send as many ships and bodies as it would take to the bottom of Taiwanese straits to get an invasion force across. (Which then faces a guerrilla insurgency in mountainous terrain)

If Xi sees Taiwan as a gateway to Pacific hegemony, maybe that math is worth it...

But asking a populace to support that in the face of economic weakness and high youth unemployment is a tall order. The COVID lockdown riots demonstrated that even China's social control is a fine line.

Many leaders have discovered that war against an external enemy is a powerful unifier, at least in the short to medium term. I would never assume that Xi won’t eventually take advantage of that.

Honestly, Russia invading Ukraine, the global economic response to Russia, and China seeing all of that... probably saved Taiwan.

China doesn't have the natural resource base within its borders (they're digging up their iron ore reserves faster than any country, and they have to import oil) that Russia does.

Consequently, economic sanctions slow their economy down a lot faster than Russia's.

War may be an internal unifier... but unemployment, poverty, and scarcity is a rapid internal disintegrator.

>"unemployment, poverty, and scarcity is a rapid internal disintegrator."

Looking at "disintegrated" Cuba...

China is in no shape to invade, being in a great depression https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/01/22/chinas-..., up to its eyeballs in debt, and having horrible demographics. And having horrible tax base.

For reference, when Germany and Japan was expanding, they had great, young demographics, and thus very good tax base. Japan had very low debt in 1920 when they started the wars https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/s15_0004.html. Germany had suspended the gold standard and financed the war by borrowing, something China cannot do today.

Another way to think about this is, instead of all the possible money China made that it could have spent on war, instead it decided to build half-finished tofu dreg buildings, then the CCP elites took those dirty money out of China and into western economies :). Even the elites knew China was no match for the combined wealth/forces of western countries.

Also, the Chinese army in general is probably non-functional. Too much corruption, case in point: Corrupt Chinese Officials Filled Missiles With Water, Report Says https://www.newsweek.com/china-missiles-rocket-fuel-corrupt-...

That is piss-poor journalism. Most military rockets are solid fueled, for one.

Perun covers the topic of Chinese military readiness with excellent sourcing and great detail, as always:

https://youtu.be/vhI_tTEE2ZQ

What state was Russia in before the Ukraine invasion? Putin and Xi aren't leading democracies, they can do whatever they want. Their countries are basically their property. Neither will go hungry if their country has a famine, etc

I agree China is probably not in the best shape regarding fighting, but for a different reason: bureaucracies don't like wars. They are hugely unpredictive, and more importantly, wars bring generals into the front row, so if you are not a general you are going to stand back, lose power and receive order from somewhere.

For example, usually the party provincial secretary (most powerful man in that province) concurrently serves as the first secretary of the provincial military region party committee, but he doesn't have real power in the military. When war comes, it's the group of people who are more experienced with military (the generals) going to make the call, and everyone else is not going to be happy.

Think Politburo and the Central Military Commission. When war comes it's the CMC who is going to make the call. Some people take seats in both but some not. They all stand in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party -- but power distribution is going to shift when things move.

That's why I think the biggest resistance comes from the party itself, not depression. Depression, historically, usually leads to wars, not from them.

But you also need consider that the Chinese demographics are basically only going to get worse from here. Their dependeny ratio is going to get really bad, like it could be 1.5 retirement age people per 1 working age person.

Are they gonna try and fight a war while the average soldier has more then one aging parent back on the mainland?

Who would do the domestic production to support the effort?

If China ever wants to do it they need to do it in the next couple decades

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts...

I actually don't think they want a war. They are preparing for a war, that's for sure, but to start one, with NATO? That's not a good idea. Time is China's friend at least for the next decade as you mentioned.

Where is NATO in this picture? There is no alliance trigger with a Taiwan invasion.

There isn't in the case of Ukraine either, but NATO has mostly stepped up anyway. Sure we are not putting troops on the ground (yet???) but NATO has provided a lot of support.

Countries like South Korea, Japan, Philippians, and Australia are likely to get scared if China does too much and send some form of help.

> Where is NATO in this picture?

Nowhere. The relevant alliances are AUKUS [1] and the Quad [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS

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

> Being too close and too dependent on China mainland

This is changing quickly.

New investments in China by Taiwanese companies declined 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year (2023) to US$758 million...That follows an almost 14 percent decrease in such investment last year.https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2023/04/21/2...

Exodus of Taiwanese businesses from China: push and pull factors amidst trade and tech tensions https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3573

We are going to see when the 2024 report is out. AFAIK the huge trade surplus is still there.

The Republic of China (aka Taiwan) had never any interests in effectively and finally surrendering to the communists on the mainland.

The "threat of invasion" has been the case since 1949. The communists stopped and did not 'finish the job' because it was hard, because of a deal with the Nationalists, because they got distracted in Korea, whatever other plausible reasons. This has been the situation since.

Interestingly this does not mean that the people, especially pro-KMT, are necessarily 'pro-US'. Those people are rooting for China but not for the communists and see the US as a necessary 'evil', so to speak.

There is an enormous amount of skepticism towards the US TSMC deal in Taiwan, in the sense that Tsai Ing-wen “sold out” Taiwanese IP and top engineers due to political pressure.

And in fairness, the US does not have a strong track record wrt its overseas military shenanigans actually helping locals, to put it lightly. A lot of people in Taiwan are anti-CCP, but at the same time, not pro-US because they see the US as an untrustworthy or at least unreliable military ally.

> And in fairness, the US does not have a strong track record wrt its overseas military shenanigans actually helping locals, to put it lightly.

Furthermore the looming US presidential election is making people nervous even in countries that don't depend strongly on the US...

OTOH it seems fairly safe to build a TSMC factory in the US and loan us some engineers. I mean it isn’t as if we’re actually going to make the long term investments in the education of our people required to steal TSMC’s secrets.

> There is an enormous amount of skepticism towards the US TSMC deal in Taiwan, in the sense that Tsai Ing-wen “sold out” Taiwanese IP and top engineers due to political pressure.

I followed that story in the media for months. I never saw this sentiment. Can you share some sources? I couldn't find anything from mainstream media.

This is one of the most articulate explanations of KMT. You hit it on the nail that KMT isn’t so much pro-Communists as it is pro China.

But, How would you separate one from the other (China from government)?

Sounds like a strawman for them

The same way you can be pro-Korea and anti-communist or, in the past, pro-Germany and anti-communist...

'China' does not mean the People's Republic of China, which is the communist state that occupies mainland China (from KMT's point of view). Taiwan is China, too.

The majority of Taiwanese people do not even consider themselves partially Chinese and none of the major political parties have any interest in political unification with China.

Some people in Taiwan might wish the people of China well because they have family there, but this is no different to how members of the Chinese diaspora around the rest of the world feel about the country.

The pro-China political parties in Taiwan are primarily right-wing parties, which is to say they are much more interested in the Chinese market than in Chinese politics.

There's an issue in how these polls are being conducted and it's hard to tell what's happening especially with Western articles that don't fully give all information or give the polling questions. The word "Chinese" have many different ways of stating it in Chinese. So when they ask in polls e.g. are you "Chinese", it really depends on which word they use. They can use 中国人, which does mean Chinese, but it also has a much stronger political connotation related to the mainland. So most people in Taiwan will say no they aren't 中国人, since they have their own government. However if you were ask, e.g. are you 华人 also a word for "Chinese", etc, they will more likely say yes. After all the official country's name is 中華民國. Mainland Chinese people will also say they are 华人 too.

Kind of like how russian has русские (russkiye) which means ethnic Russians and россияне (rossiyane), which are Russian citizens.

Making the 華人 distinction is like asking white Americans if they consider themselves ethnically European or Irish or Italian or whatever. Just as people in the US with European heritage may have an interest in what is happening in the nation of their ancestors, people in Taiwan with Chinese heritage may have an interest in theirs. But in neither of these cases do the majority of people see the nation of their ancestors as the country that they call home.

The context of these surveys in Taiwan is trying to determine if Taiwanese people see their own country as a different or perhaps more legitimate version of China, and the contemporary answer - unequivocally - is no. The only people pushing the myth that most Taiwanese people see themselves as citizens of China is the ruling party of China.

I don't think 华 is necessarily the same as ethnicity as it's interchangeable with the concept of "China" itself. 中華民國 translates into Republic of China the official country's name, of which Taiwan is mere province of. It's the same "hua". I think most Chinese historians recognize that China as a concept has often been "split" in the past, with different governments each stating their legitimacy. It happened e.g. during the Three Kingdoms period, the North and Southern dynasties period. It happened during the Song dynasty, etc., etc. It's happened an awful lot for long periods of time. To Westerners the Taiwan and China situation seems a bit odd, but not really in the context of Chinese history and the Chinese mindset. Regardless each government still saw themselves as the "legit" Chinese government with all that entails, e.g. mandate of heaven, etc..

If we are talking about ethnicity I believe that the large majority would say they are 漢人, which is more equivalent of an America saying he's Irish, Italian, etc. Huaren is more equivalent to saying you're Chinese, culturally, ethnically, etc... 华裔 is basically saying you have Chinese blood, which may be also different conceptionally.

中国人 used to not have such a huge political connotation to mean only PRC people but was more interchangeable with 中华, 华人, etc., but that's now not the case, and the polls reflect that change in mindset.

I don't disagree that there are many different overlapping terms and identities related to the concept of "China" and the people who have an ancestral connection to it. However, I think it is incorrect to blend all of these together and come out with the conclusion that at the end of the day there is only One China and One Chinese People and these concepts are immutable, inescapable and eternal.

The CCP and other historical leaders have used these concepts to try lay claim to every land that a Chinese person ever walked across, every sea they ever sailed and every fen they ever earned, but that has to be understood as the imperialism it is. Inside the empire it behooves the subjects to not publicly challenge that narrative, but outside of it people have the freedom to define themselves as they see fit.

Polling shows that the vast majority of Taiwanese people today do not consider themselves Chinese citizens (中國人), nor do they support Chinese unification (中國統一). If you put a Taiwanese person on the spot and ask them "well, in the context of the last five thousand years, could there ever be a scenario in which the island of Formosa is ruled by the same leaders as the region of East Asia along the Yangtze, Yellow and Pearl rivers?" they might say yes, because in those last five thousand years there were a couple of hundred when that was indeed the case. But that doesn't mean that they see themselves right now as having any deeper connection to the PRC than the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, US, Canada or anywhere else.

I'm pretty sure at this point we are just talking pass each other. Taiwanese people don't consider themselves 中国人, because zhongguoren is now considered to mean a PRC citizen (although historically this was not necessarily the meaning). This is of course true, because Taiwan has their own government that runs pretty much independently from the mainland government. However, I don't think this means they don't see themselves as "Chinese", but simply that POLITICALLY they see themselves as not citizens of the PRC, but not necessarily that they aren't "Chinese".

And I think you're quite wrong that people in Taiwan don't have a deeper connection to Chinese in China. Diaspora in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc., have largely mixed with the indigenous cultures in those areas. Most of the later generations often speak a broken form of Chinese, or Singlish, etc., and if they do speak Chinese, perhaps they speak a Chinese dialect (brokenly) and probably practically illiterate in Chinese. In Taiwan this is simply not the case, by and large they all speak Mandarin and by and large all share the same history, know the same legends, pray to basically the same deities, can watch and read each others films/media, still uses the same flag as the one that represented China 80-100 years ago, often have close enough relatives still in China that aren't e.g. 5th removed since Taiwan's population double in size post '49, etc. Although there's a difference in traditional and simplified characters, it's not enough that someone who is fluent in one or the other and spends maybe a few months trying to learn the other would have much difficulty. Not to mention I believe most people say that if they already know traditional characters, it's easier to learn simplified, with simplified characters often being the running or grass script form of the traditional character. Moreover because there's actual communication between mainland China and Taiwan, Chinese spoken in both areas won't drift like it did between N.K. and S.K.

What makes you "pretty sure"? Clearly not the polling, which as I have pointed out does not support your view of the situation. Do you have personal experience that provides anecdotal evidence contrary to the polling?

I am not Chinese, but I lived in China for several years and now I live in Taiwan. Anecdotally, I have not met or spoken to a single Taiwanese person who sees China as their true and native home. Many Taiwanese people have never visited China and don't have any close family living there. Of course, some do, but even those have spent far less time in China than a migrant worker like me, and are less in touch with the contemporary culture of the country.

Sure, Taiwanese people still have a lot in common with Chinese people. Nobody disputes that. But Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Canadians and Brits all watch the same shows and listen to the same music and eat the same food and speak the same language and pray to the same god, and yet nobody would suggest that they are a monolithic people, destined to inevitably unite under a single flag. That's not how emigration works. People emigrate and then they find a new identity, and that's just as true of Chinese people as every other people.

Taiwan as a country is in an unfortunate situation of having been under a military dictatorship for 40 years, and by the time the first democratic elections came about, the die was already cast. The constitution cannot be changed, the flag cannot be changed, the official name of the country cannot be changed - any of these things are likely to trigger a Chinese invasion, because of some politicking that happened between China and the US while the people of Taiwan were still under the jackboot. This status quo is not liked by anyone, but most Taiwanese people have made peace with it. Three decades ago. No candidates in the recent election stood on a platform of uniting with China. Nobody cares about that. The idea that Taiwanese people are all secretly holding on to a dream that they could one day be part of a Greater China is a fantasy held mostly by people who live in present-day China.

That's historically and factually illiterate on many levels but it would be too tedious and likely fruitless to attempt to develop.

Just pointing out, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, UK all have the same monarch. And perhaps the situation between them and e.g. the US, with its five eyes program, is actually closer to something that could occur between China/Taiwan.

On this, we agree. Perhaps some day the governments of China and Taiwan could find themselves congenial enough to have a "special relationship" that builds on the shared history of the people. I think that best describes the hopes of the pan-Blue parties and their supporters in Taiwan today. Unfortunately, the current Chinese government have staked out such an extreme position on Taiwan that it would be hard for them to walk it back and accept a sovereign but friendly neighbor without losing face. I think this mixed messaging is a big challenge for pan-Blue parties who want to convince voters of their vision on cross-Strait issues.

And usually in the mainland the whole of China is referred as 中华.

For other readers, please note that 华 is the simplied form of 華. Outside of mainland China in Southeast Asia, most ethnic Chinese will refer to themselves as 華人/华人 -- roughly "Chinese descent". Most Chinese language speakers (and readers) in the region understand 中国人 to mean citizen of mainland China (and much more rarely Taiwan).

That's a great way to put it. In the US we describe things as some "freedom vs communism" conflict. I kind of had that point of view until I went to school in Hong Kong, long ago. I found that in general the Chinese in HK had more sympathy or patriotism for China then Europe (particularly England!) or the US.

They may not have wanted to be part of the Chinese mainland government as it was, but they were very supportive of a strong China. They felt very aggrieved about how Western Powers had treated China in the past.

I think the problem is-- thinking about my friends in Hong Kong-- is that it is hard to find a third way and that may not be stable in the long run.

Regardless of your observed relative sympathy towards China versus UK/US, how do you explain the multi-year protests against the proposed security law? Maybe the sympathy isn't so strong after all. Mostly, people didn't want to lose their freedom. They could clearly see the security law was the "beginning of the end" for their democratic freedoms, include free speech, right to protest, and voting for their choice of leaders (excluding CEO).

He explained.

Hongkong is a part of China that was seized by foreigners for 150 years. Inhabitants are Chinese in China. Just look at HK movies that often depict Chinese' struggle against Europeans with the 'white guys' usually the bad guys.

But that obviously does not mean that they would necessarily support the communist party or agree to relinquish their (very new) rights.

This is the same everywhere. People may oppose the government but it does not imply that they are not belonging to their country. Obviously.

It's quite extraordinary to see the depth of the anti-China narrative. Only them can be forcibly invaded and still be the bad guys when they peacefully recover their territory.

> no longer is interested in rejoining Xi’s China.

I am not clear about this statement.

1. When were they ever an actual part of China (less so Xi's china?) 2. When were they ever interested in giving up their sovereignty?

> It’s crazy to me that you haven’t see more divestments in China from Taiwanese companies.

There is a ton of divestment, what do you mean?

According to a survey conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, over a quarter of surveyed Taiwanese firms with operations in China had already moved some of their production or sourcing out of China, while another third were considering doing so in the near-term. https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3573

Apple Aims to Make a Quarter of the World’s iPhones in India. Supplier Foxconn plans to build more factories and give India a production role once limited mostly to China https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-aims-to-make-a-quarter-of-the...

> New investments in China by Taiwanese companies declined 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year (2023) to US$758 million...That follows an almost 14 percent decrease in such investment last year

How's total investment going? If the flow is still greater than zero, then presumably the stock is still increasing... It's a funny sort of 'divestment' where you have more invested (and at risk) every year.

Investing less every year is how you eventually get to investing nothing and finally to reducing total footprint every year in China.

It makes sense that this is a slow process when you consider the massive scale and complexity of the supply chains involved.

A decrease of prior investment level is divestment, just not happening all at once. If you want to see that kind of activity:

Foreign investors have snatched back nearly 90% (!!!) of the money they put into Chinese stocks this year (2023) https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/china-econom...

> Foreign investors have snatched back nearly 90% (!!!) of the money they put into Chinese stocks this year (2023)

So, they left in China 10% of the money that they sent to China? I'm still not seeing how this equates to a net decrease... 10% > 0%.

That is the story if you read western media but it is important to remember that there is a massive world outside the west where that story is turned on its head: Here the US is a frail aging empire that just cannot handle the peaceful rise of China, and the idea of it no being the top dog, and thus lashes out in an increasing desperate manner.

Speaking as someone who now lives in Singapore, this is not the universal view outside the west and the rise of China is perhaps not warlike in the invading territory sense but people are wary of them.

Sorry - just to be clear - just as "Xi is an evil dictator" is common but not universal point of view in the west; the "US is a declining and aggressive empire" is a common but not universal point of view in the rest of the world.

But that is its own form of exaggerated propaganda from the opposing side. In reality, America is playing on geopolitical easy mode and is essentially too big to fail.

- It has vast natural resources, some like its oil surplus are resources that even China needs to import.

- It has a vast, diverse economy that includes high representation in high-complexity high-value products like software, airplanes, and, yes, semiconductors (Intel manufactures 75% of their products in the US).

- It is highly developed and highly educated with particular strength in higher education

- It is essentially impossible to physically attack

- It produces a crazy amount of food

- Its multinational corporations own a large amount of foreign assets, with a banking system that is entangled with the rest of the world

- It is close allies with basically everyone that matters except China and Russia, and arguably China is more dependent on the US than the US depends on China.

- NAFTA countries are a huge strength to the US. The US now buys more from Mexico than China.

- The world’s second largest military and navy are basically non-existent, and the US military is unmatched in logistics.

The US empire can fall apart without the US mainland being invaded or even threathened. Just like the UK empire was intact after the second world war but over the next three decades completely fell apart.

Simplified empire is about ever increasing conquest and exploitation. At one point the conquests and military upkeep becomes more expensive than the spoils and the whole process starts going in reverse.

Of course I am not saying that this is what is happening right now; maybe Russia and China are falling apart and we are entering another unipolar moment.

The difference is that the US is not an empire. It's an economic hegemony (if you're looking at it from a relative power perspective).

Its power stems from sovereign, contiguous territory with resources, or a network of global treaties both economic and military.

In contrast, Britain was a globe-spanning empire, which disintegrated with national independence movements.

The equivalent would be if California and Texas decided to split from the United States.

And as the quip goes... the next few largest economies, including China, are pretty incentivized to keep the global economy rules as-is, because they benefit.

De-dollarization is happening, but is going to be a slow shift, with an uncertain outcome.

I think the word empire is too loaded to be useful. And mechanisms of conquest and exploitation are different. But the core mechanism is the same.

And I think in two hundred years when history is written by someone who is dispassionate about it, the US empire will be seen a continuation of the UK and Dutch empires that was before it.

IMHO, the Dutch arc is definitely a more sound comparison. Albeit, as you say, with the military force of the British.

The key difference with the post-WWII economic world order was that the US generally tried to ensure that everyone else got theirs.

Granted, the US got more, but there was insight that a global economy that benefited all was more stable than a system that left powerful economies outside, with an incentive to topple it.

What happened in HK left a sour taste in the mouth of a lot of people. I’m all for China rising but all I see is a country still closed to the world.

> US is a frail aging empire that just cannot handle the peaceful rise of China

Not seeing that by the numbers

1.) The heavy market losses in 2024 come hot on the heels of a bruising run last year, when the CSI 300 index, comprising 300 major stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell more than 11%. By contrast, the United States’ benchmark S&P 500 index climbed 24% in 2023, while Europe’s grew almost 13%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 soared 28% last year and is still going strong, notching gains of nearly 10% so far this month. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/22/business/china-stock-market-f...

2.) China suffers from deflation, while the rest of the world combats inflation. Not only does deflation signal a stagnating economy, it can lead to high unemployment, unaffordable debt repayment, and dismal outcomes for businesses. In the worst cases, deflation can lead an economy into a recession, or even a depression. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/deflation-worries-deepen-in-...

3.) Crushing debt. Going back further, China accounts for over half of the entire world’s total debt-to-GDP increases since 2008. https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/backgrounder-china-econo... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-01-06/bloomb...

4.) China’s youth unemployment rate hit consecutive record highs in recent months. From April to June, the jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-olds reached 20.4%, 20.8% and 21.3% respectively. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/14/economy/china-economy-july-sl.... For reference, G7 countries is at 10%, US is at 8% https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm

Take a moment to consider what you just said. It’s just that - a story you are getting from the media. If these stories change from source to source maybe they’re not an authority you should appeal to.

Yep.

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