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Comment by tw1984 | Hacker News Reader

tw1984

> give the CCP a reason to invade. So it will only make things worse.

CCP is not threatening taiwan because it might go for independence. it is _ALL_ about kicking the US out of the west Pacific. because of that, it is never about what people in Taiwan believe/say/do.

It is only about the military balance of the west Pacific.

> And a lot of people are sympathetic with the Chinese, just not their government.

sympathetic of what?

20 years ago, you might be able to play the "CCP regime repressing the people in China" joke, you can't do it anymore especially in such topic of Taiwan. quality of life is significantly better in literally every aspect in China. Taipei in 2026 is getting more and more like a tier-3 Chinese city in 2016.

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> it is _ALL_ about kicking the US out of the west Pacific

I think you are underestimating Chinese nationalism here quite dramatically!

Chinese views of sovereignty are quite independent of other concerns. Take for example their actions against Vietnam in the South China Sea, forcing Vietnam closer to the Philippines and even the US: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

> it is _ALL_ about kicking the US out of the west Pacific.

Hardly. It is all about Xi having declared that taking Taiwan by... I think it was 2049, but could be misremembering. Anyway, Xi made that a test of the legitimacy of the CCP, in some very public statements.

So, no, it's not about kicking the US out of the west Pacific. It's about Taiwan, and it's because if they don't, the CCP is illegitimate, by Xi's own word.

Xi will not be in power in 2049 because he will be dead. He'd be 96yo.

Countries often set goals beyond the lifetimes of the current leaders.

The point is that the goal is far enough into the future that the person making it can't be held accountable for failing to meet it.

If Xi had said "the CCP is illegitimate unless it takes Taiwan by 2025", he would be at real risk of being replaced in 2026. Anyone who opposed him (or just wanted power) would have a perfect reason to replace him.

When Xi makes a goal with a "deadline" he won't live to see, he takes no risk of personally failing to meet the goal. If his successor misses the deadline, he can say things changed, Xi failed to consider factors X,Y,Z, etc.

> If his successor misses the deadline, he can say things changed, Xi failed to consider factors X,Y,Z, etc.

That's not how the CCP operates though.

They are not a country where the puppets matter so much, like in most of the western countries. You would very very rarely see a leader being critical of their predecessor even if they are changing policies (which Xi Jinping definitely did). Because they are the same party and thus they are attacking themselves. The party is really more important than whoever happens to be at the top. The party is always right. Even when the party is wrong. Which it is not because it's always right.

No, if this promise disappears it will be silently. Never to be mentioned again, or else. It just never happened.

By 2023 Xi ordered the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

But that doesn't mean they plan to invade Taiwan by then. One common reading of it is that it was a plan to build up the military to that state with a definite goal date (in the same way the "600 ship navy" plan had a goal date).

https://www.reuters.com/world/cia-chief-says-chinas-xi-littl...

It seems to be about much more than just regional power. To China it's a matter of pride and it's a big factor in the century of humiliation.

Even when a country other than the US does something to benefit Taiwan, Beijing is super offended.

And by sympathetic I mean feeling kinship. And the whole concept of bringing everything down to a matter of wealth is so American.

> And the whole concept of bringing everything down to a matter of wealth is so American.

They said "quality of life". Even if they had said wealth that correlates with quality of life so that wouldn't be a very good gotcha by itself, but they didn't say that.

But calling Taipei a "Tier-3" city does refer to economic prowess, that's what I mean.

If you like to say what you think, then trust me, Taipei has much better quality of life. If you see people like Naomi Wu being arrested and gagged just for pointing out a vulnerability in software (which we all agree here is a good thing to do for everyone except the bad guys), that is terrible.

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