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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

> they’ll be willing to let China have the islands now too

The islands are Chinese. The US back Taiwan as an anti-communist and anti-China (divide and conquer) tactic, including because its location. If the communists had lost the civil war, the mainland and Taiwan would all have remained under ROC control and it would have been interesting to see what the US would have come up with, instead (academic and thought experiment but interesting to imagine nonetheless).

In Ukraine the US don't want to be dragged in a war against Russia and things have played well for them so far (really the US are the only winners so far).

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> The islands are Chinese.

"In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese".[33] In 2015, a poll conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90 percent of the population would identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.[34]" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people

That is quite irrelevant in addition to being misleading.

The same way as Ukrainians wanting to live in an independent country is irrelevant?

Change of subject? Russia's main aim in Ukraine was/is regime change ('main' because they obviously do want to annex the Donbas), a bit like what happened in Iraq in 2003...

I did not expect to be able to seriously discuss geopolitics here, TBH, it never works and it is never possible to dig deeper. Case in point...

Actually I agree with you - if Russia's main aim in Ukraine was changing the regime, that would have turned Ukraine into something like Belarus, which I don't really consider independent...

I like thought experiment.

let's think

1. CCP took over California by force 2. CCP killed everyone who resists 3. CCP leaved, but built a puppet regime 4. The puppet regime rewrite schoolbook, taught everyone they're not American 5. 100 years later, a poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as Californians

I must admit this is a bad thought experiment because Americans lives in a stolen land, it's not same as Taiwan

Taiwan has an aboriginal population as well, there are very few countries where the original settlers are recognizable as the current population without squinting. China is one of the worst offenders, with the westward expansion of the Qing Empire contemporary with American westward expansion. Moreover, when America started serious decolonizing in the 20th Century (Philippines) and ending residential schools, China invaded Tibet and continues to pursue aggressive assimilation in its Western regions.

China is not a single-ethnicity country. For thousands of years, most of the time, the majority and minority ethnic groups have lived together on this land. There have been wars and integrations thousands times and thousans years. this must be hard for you to understand, right? I can understand that you might unconsciously use your own history to comprehend the history of Asia. In addition, all forms of ethnic separatism have the support of the United States. But I think you already know this.

BTW, the Qing Empire is rule by a minority ethnic(满族)

And, by race, we are all Asians, can you understand the difference?

You are like comparing the genocide of Native Americans to a war between two Native American tribes.

We wouldn't let native american tribes take each others land nowadays either.

as I said, it's a bad thought experiment

let's go furthur abt this experiment

1. native american tribes took each others land, in the end, it became a single national country - Amerikka, for hundreds years 2. CPC came, colonized Amerikka, when it leaves, it splited California, did things I listed above

still, a bad thought experiment, because

> We wouldn't let native american tribes take each others land nowadays either

you've already took all their land, so they can not take each others land anymore

as i said it's hard for you to understand such things, you are in the totally different history background, you're in the colonizers' view, colonized America has became the status quo to you

If the US is currently in a state of division, with one part being a puppet regime under CPC (or Russians) control, you would find it easier to understand this problem.

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