9 ms·

It’s 2019. I think we can all admit that Taiwan is a real country, whether China likes it or not.

by lisachu 8y ago

TheChaplain 8y ago
You can and a lot do, but if you want to have any business with China then you have to do it the way they want it done.
- quicklime 8y ago
  Not just business, but if a country wants diplomatic relations with mainland China, then it needs to not recognize Taiwan as a country.
plugger 8y ago
Yea nah. In theory I agree with you. In practice I don't believe Taiwan has much time left on the clock. My expectation is that sometime in the 2020s Taiwan will be Crimea'd.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi... > Chinese commanders fear they may be forced into armed contest with an enemy that is better trained, better motivated, and better prepared for the rigors of warfare than troops the PLA could throw against them. A cross-strait war looks far less like an inevitable victory for China than it does a staggeringly risky gamble. ... > Easton estimates that Taiwanese, American, and Japanese leaders will know that the PLA is preparing for a cross-strait war more than 60 days before hostilities begin. They will know for certain that an invasion will happen more than 30 days before the first missiles are fired. This will give the Taiwanese ample time to move much of their command and control infrastructure into hardened mountain tunnels, move their fleet out of vulnerable ports, detain suspected agents and intelligence operatives, litter the ocean with sea mines, disperse and camouflage army units across the country, put the economy on war footing, and distribute weapons to Taiwan’s 2.5 million reservists. > There are only 13 beaches on Taiwan’s western coast that the PLA could possibly land at. Each of these has already been prepared for a potential conflict. Long underground tunnels—complete with hardened, subterranean supply depots—crisscross the landing sites. The berm of each beach has been covered with razor-leaf plants. Chemical treatment plants are common in many beach towns—meaning that invaders must prepare for the clouds of toxic gas any indiscriminate saturation bombing on their part will release. This is how things stand in times of peace.
  - adventured 8y ago
    I don't disagree with the war assessment, it makes reasonable points. It doesn't consider the very plausible scenario where Taiwan chooses not to fight (or chooses not to fight for very long). Instead they choose capitulation as an ideal decision to spare the enormous destruction they'd suffer, so as to keep their relatively high standard of living intact. Among nations with at least 10m people, Taiwan ranks around #21 in GDP per capita with a very respectable $25k. They've built something nice for themselves over a long, difficult climb. China can play a long-term game of decimation, spanning years. They don't have to invade short-term, they can flatten Taiwan with non-stop bombing, terror-inspiring hits (when is the next air raid going to go off?!?), wait them out until inevitable capitulation. It's about long-term territorial gain and the national premise of unifying greater China, they can easily spare the loss of economic output from Taiwan's devastation. Just 15 years ago Taiwan would have been a huge share of Chinese output if unified; today that's no longer true and China is increasing the gap by the day. Who's going to stop the stand-off rain of missiles and bombing that can go on indefinitely against Taiwan? The people eventually give up, China has no need to invade to win a war. They'll approach it as a hundred plus year project as needed. The only thing that might change that style of thinking, is if Xi needs to prop up his position (through military adventure, gaining prestige from reclaiming Taiwan), which may be eroded if China's economy falters.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      > Among nations with at least 10m people, Taiwan ranks around #21 in GDP per capita with a very respectable $25k. They've built something nice for themselves over a long, difficult climb. The Taiwanese are aware of what waits for those who cooperate with the PRC. Look at Hong Kong. Where’s their freedom now? Look at Xinjiang, at the treatment of Falun Dafa. Taiwan will be colonised, again. First the Dutch, then the Japanese, then Guomindang and finally the CCP. http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/01/reflections-on-chinas-stalinist.html http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/01/reflections-on-ch... > After the Party seized power in 1949, Mao would systematically apply the same techniques to one group of Chinese after another: “landlords” and village leadership; gamblers, gangsters, and criminals; Christian congregations, Daoist temples and the Buddhist sangha; business circles, corporations, and stock-jobbers; universities, schools, and intellectual clubs; hospitals, aid workers, and relief organizations; minor political parties and independent political groups; workers associations and unions; clan groupings and ancestral schools; martial artists and Confucian hold-overs—any set of organized and self-governing citizens was soon a target of a struggle campaign. In time each would be destroyed or brought into a subservient relationship with the Communist Party. ... > Today The Cause has flipped—officially—from socialist revolution to national rejuvenation. The Party works under the same schema but has shifted the “people” that Mao identified with specific economic classes to the nation at large.[6] Mass mobilization campaigns have been retired. But struggle and united front campaigns have not. Xi’s great corruption purge, the Uyghur labor camps of Xinjiang, the attack on Christians across China—these all follow the same methods for crushing and coercing “enemies” developed by Mao and the Party in the early ‘40s. “One Country, Two Systems,” interference campaigns in the Chinese diaspora, the guided, gilded tours given to Musk and his ilk—these all follow the same methods for corrupting and controlling “allies” developed by Mao and the Party that same decade. The tools have never changed. The only thing that has changed is the Party’s assessment of who is an "enemy" and who is part of the "people." You’re quite right that if China puts conquering Taiwan above all other aims they can do it, if the US and Japan let them. If they back Taiwan up it’s not happening. The US is quite capable of defending Taiwan all by itself and if the US doesn’t back Taiwan up its credibility as an ally is dead.
- eastendguy 8y ago
  Even if we ignore the military aspects that Taiwan, unlike Crimea, can defend itself for a while, there is a key difference that matters even more: On Crimea at least some percentage (20%, 30%,...??) really wanted to belong to Russia. In Taiwan, the amount of Taiwanese that want to be "unified" by force is 0%. Good luck ruling a country that hates you. (Sure, it can be done by force, but at what price?)
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > Sure, it can be done by force, but at what price? Tibet would like a word.
  - O_H_E 8y ago
    ...and till when? It surely happened before in history, but never lasted long enough.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Two major factors: 1. Amphibious invasions are hard. The Taiwan Strait is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a military with no recent experience in conducting one like the PLA/N. 2. Taiwan has a far more economic impact upon the global economy than Ukraine. Other nations would be far more disturbed by the disruption of a first world economy, than a developing one like Ukraine’s. I don’t think we’ve seen the loss of as an economy as significant as Taiwan’s in recent history.
- cjhopman 8y ago
  Isn't Taiwan in it's current position because it was Crimea'd 70 years ago?
gambiting 8y ago
Doesn't matter. I work at a company that releases software there and we have to remove Taiwan as an option for a country when setting up your account or the product simply won't be allowed to be sold in China. Our personal views on the subject don't matter.
- devoply 8y ago
  We in the West should not tolerate this sort of behavior. I am sure if we wanted to we could force them not to do this by threatening them with sanctions on certain things.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    The "West" has priced in a lot of economic growth into its debt. They are in no position to threaten China with sanctions, which could reduce trade. Need to keep those 10%+ returns coming for the underfunded pension funds. It couldn't even do anything about Russia and Crimea, much less China.
- prewett 8y ago
  There are things more important than money. Maybe the China market isn't worth sacrificing one's values for. It's not like they want to you to succeed in their market, anyway. And if the company is willing to sacrifice its values, then clearly those weren't its actual values.
  - chrischen 8y ago
    What values are those? The value of treating China as the enemy simply because? "The position of PRC is that the ROC and PRC are two different factions in the Chinese Civil War, which never legally ended. Therefore the PRC claims that both factions belong to the same sovereign country—China. Since, as per the PRC, Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to China, the PRC's government and supporters believe that the secession of Taiwan should be agreed upon by all 1.3 billion Chinese citizens instead of just the 23 million residents of Taiwan.[15] Furthermore, the position of PRC is that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, which states "Recognizing that the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations", means that the PRC is recognized as having the sovereignty of all of China, including Taiwan." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan Basically a bunch of the wealthy class fled to Taiwan, claimed the land, also claimed all of China and Mongolia (to this day), yet denied citizenship to the billions of Chinese people on the mainland (only overseas/wealthy Chinese were allowed Republic of China citizenship).
cjhopman 8y ago
That's an interesting position. It then follows that you believe we should consider the Crimean Peninsula as properly part of Russia?
- dingaling 8y ago
  I don't see how that follows. Taiwan has been self-governing for 70 years. If Kosovo could be classified as a nation after a few weeks of independence it's only hypocrisy to deny the same to Taiwan.
  - goblin89 8y ago
    Thought experiment: imagine that during the communist revolution in old Russia, the non-communist elites fled to Kosovo. Subsequently, USSR claims that Kosovo is part of it, while Kosovo’s claim is, fundamentally, to the entire territory of Russia. That, from my understanding, has been the historic position of Taiwan vs. China, and why this conflict, while not causing a lot of violence now, could be less straightforward to resolve than a claim of an ethnicity to a geographic area. In the above alternative reality, could Kosovo be recognized as a separate entity counter to USSR’s desires? Maybe but the question doesn’t make much sense in the first place, since that (being a separate territory) would be almost the opposite of what Kosovo wanted.
  - akvadrako 8y ago
    So you're saying if a region declares independence and gets foreign allies to provide effective military protection for X weeks/years, then the original country has lost any right to that land? You might like the idea, but it's not commonly held. For one thing it encourages armed invasions against weaker nations.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      > So you're saying if a region declares independence and gets foreign allies to provide effective military protection for X weeks/years, then the original country has lost any right to that land? This is how the United States claims to exist, by the way.
triplesec 8y ago
Spot the PRC PR army account created just for this HN post
- cjhopman 8y ago
  You realize that you are replying to a freshly made account that is spreading the ROC position, don't you?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - triplesec 8y ago
    Looks like I misread the post, thinking it said Taiwan was not a country. Not quite as terrible but still not ideal, freshly-created accounts for such.
grecy 8y ago
This kind of thing happens in a few places in the world. If you go into Morocco with a map on your vehicle that shows Western Sahara as a separate country, you'll have a hell of a time with the Moroccan police/immigration. I met people that were detained for 5 hours because of it. Morocco want everyone in the world to believe Western Sahara is simply part of Morocco. I cut that part off my map before I got there. I'm told same story for the border in the East between Egypt and Sudan. Egypt want you to believe it's a straight line, Sudan want you to believe it goes up a bit (making Sudan bigger). Again, I met people that had problems with this.
akvadrako 8y ago
Even the Taiwanese government doesn't claim they are a separate country from mainland China; they both are say they're the rightful rulers over all China. It looks a lot like an internal dispute and I don't think the rest of the world should be meddling in their affairs.
- mb_72 8y ago
  Nice in theory, but China goes out of it's way to force it's viewpoint on others outside of China and Taiwan (eg political interference in Australia, propaganda distribution in Australia, the whole South China Sea debacle where China actively tries to prevent ships navigating international waters, debt-trap loans to various Pacific and other nations etc etc) . The relationship between Taiwan and China is just one aspect of this, and you better believe there will be some kind of military action taken to defend Taiwan if China decides to go that way, something even more destabilising to the region. So, just 'staying out of it' and silent is not really an optimal option, IMO.
dmurray 8y ago
Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) don't agree that Taiwan is a real country either. The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. "Admitting" Taiwan is a "real country" seems kind of sensible, but it's not compatible with the narrative of either the PRC or the ROC, and it's completely understandable that you shouldn't formally recognize as a nation anyone making such a ridiculous claim.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. > it's completely understandable that you shouldn't formally recognize as a nation anyone making such a ridiculous claim. I've heard more ridiculous claims. As a matter of history, this is completely correct. It's just that the rebels have really entrenched themselves. This position is fundamentally identical to the position of a king-in-exile. Sometimes they made it back home. Sometimes they didn't.
  - Markoff 8y ago
    except they are not technically in exile, they are just in different province of same country
- dis-sys 8y ago
  > The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. According to the same government in Taiwan, Mongolia is not an independent country, it is a part of "the Republic of China". See its official map here [1]. [1] http://www.chinayouth.org.hk/China/rocmap.html http://www.chinayouth.org.hk/China/rocmap.html
- ddeck 8y ago
  It is indeed a somewhat ridiculous claim, but domestic constitutional restrictions aside, the enactment of the Anti-Secession Law in the PRC in 2005 has made it challenging for the ROC to claim that they are instead an independent country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law
taneq 8y ago
But if you do that, you've always been at war with EastAsia.

It’s 2019. I think we can all admit that Taiwan is a real country, whether China likes it or not.

TheChaplain 8y ago

You can and a lot do, but if you want to have any business with China then you have to do it the way they want it done.

quicklime 8y ago
Not just business, but if a country wants diplomatic relations with mainland China, then it needs to not recognize Taiwan as a country.

plugger 8y ago

Yea nah. In theory I agree with you. In practice I don't believe Taiwan has much time left on the clock. My expectation is that sometime in the 2020s Taiwan will be Crimea'd.

barry-cotter 8y ago
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi... > Chinese commanders fear they may be forced into armed contest with an enemy that is better trained, better motivated, and better prepared for the rigors of warfare than troops the PLA could throw against them. A cross-strait war looks far less like an inevitable victory for China than it does a staggeringly risky gamble. ... > Easton estimates that Taiwanese, American, and Japanese leaders will know that the PLA is preparing for a cross-strait war more than 60 days before hostilities begin. They will know for certain that an invasion will happen more than 30 days before the first missiles are fired. This will give the Taiwanese ample time to move much of their command and control infrastructure into hardened mountain tunnels, move their fleet out of vulnerable ports, detain suspected agents and intelligence operatives, litter the ocean with sea mines, disperse and camouflage army units across the country, put the economy on war footing, and distribute weapons to Taiwan’s 2.5 million reservists. > There are only 13 beaches on Taiwan’s western coast that the PLA could possibly land at. Each of these has already been prepared for a potential conflict. Long underground tunnels—complete with hardened, subterranean supply depots—crisscross the landing sites. The berm of each beach has been covered with razor-leaf plants. Chemical treatment plants are common in many beach towns—meaning that invaders must prepare for the clouds of toxic gas any indiscriminate saturation bombing on their part will release. This is how things stand in times of peace.
- adventured 8y ago
  I don't disagree with the war assessment, it makes reasonable points. It doesn't consider the very plausible scenario where Taiwan chooses not to fight (or chooses not to fight for very long). Instead they choose capitulation as an ideal decision to spare the enormous destruction they'd suffer, so as to keep their relatively high standard of living intact. Among nations with at least 10m people, Taiwan ranks around #21 in GDP per capita with a very respectable $25k. They've built something nice for themselves over a long, difficult climb. China can play a long-term game of decimation, spanning years. They don't have to invade short-term, they can flatten Taiwan with non-stop bombing, terror-inspiring hits (when is the next air raid going to go off?!?), wait them out until inevitable capitulation. It's about long-term territorial gain and the national premise of unifying greater China, they can easily spare the loss of economic output from Taiwan's devastation. Just 15 years ago Taiwan would have been a huge share of Chinese output if unified; today that's no longer true and China is increasing the gap by the day. Who's going to stop the stand-off rain of missiles and bombing that can go on indefinitely against Taiwan? The people eventually give up, China has no need to invade to win a war. They'll approach it as a hundred plus year project as needed. The only thing that might change that style of thinking, is if Xi needs to prop up his position (through military adventure, gaining prestige from reclaiming Taiwan), which may be eroded if China's economy falters.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    > Among nations with at least 10m people, Taiwan ranks around #21 in GDP per capita with a very respectable $25k. They've built something nice for themselves over a long, difficult climb. The Taiwanese are aware of what waits for those who cooperate with the PRC. Look at Hong Kong. Where’s their freedom now? Look at Xinjiang, at the treatment of Falun Dafa. Taiwan will be colonised, again. First the Dutch, then the Japanese, then Guomindang and finally the CCP. http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/01/reflections-on-chinas-stalinist.html http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/01/reflections-on-ch... > After the Party seized power in 1949, Mao would systematically apply the same techniques to one group of Chinese after another: “landlords” and village leadership; gamblers, gangsters, and criminals; Christian congregations, Daoist temples and the Buddhist sangha; business circles, corporations, and stock-jobbers; universities, schools, and intellectual clubs; hospitals, aid workers, and relief organizations; minor political parties and independent political groups; workers associations and unions; clan groupings and ancestral schools; martial artists and Confucian hold-overs—any set of organized and self-governing citizens was soon a target of a struggle campaign. In time each would be destroyed or brought into a subservient relationship with the Communist Party. ... > Today The Cause has flipped—officially—from socialist revolution to national rejuvenation. The Party works under the same schema but has shifted the “people” that Mao identified with specific economic classes to the nation at large.[6] Mass mobilization campaigns have been retired. But struggle and united front campaigns have not. Xi’s great corruption purge, the Uyghur labor camps of Xinjiang, the attack on Christians across China—these all follow the same methods for crushing and coercing “enemies” developed by Mao and the Party in the early ‘40s. “One Country, Two Systems,” interference campaigns in the Chinese diaspora, the guided, gilded tours given to Musk and his ilk—these all follow the same methods for corrupting and controlling “allies” developed by Mao and the Party that same decade. The tools have never changed. The only thing that has changed is the Party’s assessment of who is an "enemy" and who is part of the "people." You’re quite right that if China puts conquering Taiwan above all other aims they can do it, if the US and Japan let them. If they back Taiwan up it’s not happening. The US is quite capable of defending Taiwan all by itself and if the US doesn’t back Taiwan up its credibility as an ally is dead.
eastendguy 8y ago
Even if we ignore the military aspects that Taiwan, unlike Crimea, can defend itself for a while, there is a key difference that matters even more: On Crimea at least some percentage (20%, 30%,...??) really wanted to belong to Russia. In Taiwan, the amount of Taiwanese that want to be "unified" by force is 0%. Good luck ruling a country that hates you. (Sure, it can be done by force, but at what price?)
- pjc50 8y ago
  > Sure, it can be done by force, but at what price? Tibet would like a word.
- O_H_E 8y ago
  ...and till when? It surely happened before in history, but never lasted long enough.
Apocryphon 8y ago
Two major factors: 1. Amphibious invasions are hard. The Taiwan Strait is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a military with no recent experience in conducting one like the PLA/N. 2. Taiwan has a far more economic impact upon the global economy than Ukraine. Other nations would be far more disturbed by the disruption of a first world economy, than a developing one like Ukraine’s. I don’t think we’ve seen the loss of as an economy as significant as Taiwan’s in recent history.
cjhopman 8y ago
Isn't Taiwan in it's current position because it was Crimea'd 70 years ago?

gambiting 8y ago

Doesn't matter. I work at a company that releases software there and we have to remove Taiwan as an option for a country when setting up your account or the product simply won't be allowed to be sold in China. Our personal views on the subject don't matter.

devoply 8y ago
We in the West should not tolerate this sort of behavior. I am sure if we wanted to we could force them not to do this by threatening them with sanctions on certain things.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  The "West" has priced in a lot of economic growth into its debt. They are in no position to threaten China with sanctions, which could reduce trade. Need to keep those 10%+ returns coming for the underfunded pension funds. It couldn't even do anything about Russia and Crimea, much less China.
prewett 8y ago
There are things more important than money. Maybe the China market isn't worth sacrificing one's values for. It's not like they want to you to succeed in their market, anyway. And if the company is willing to sacrifice its values, then clearly those weren't its actual values.
- chrischen 8y ago
  What values are those? The value of treating China as the enemy simply because? "The position of PRC is that the ROC and PRC are two different factions in the Chinese Civil War, which never legally ended. Therefore the PRC claims that both factions belong to the same sovereign country—China. Since, as per the PRC, Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to China, the PRC's government and supporters believe that the secession of Taiwan should be agreed upon by all 1.3 billion Chinese citizens instead of just the 23 million residents of Taiwan.[15] Furthermore, the position of PRC is that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, which states "Recognizing that the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations", means that the PRC is recognized as having the sovereignty of all of China, including Taiwan." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan Basically a bunch of the wealthy class fled to Taiwan, claimed the land, also claimed all of China and Mongolia (to this day), yet denied citizenship to the billions of Chinese people on the mainland (only overseas/wealthy Chinese were allowed Republic of China citizenship).

cjhopman 8y ago

That's an interesting position. It then follows that you believe we should consider the Crimean Peninsula as properly part of Russia?

dingaling 8y ago
I don't see how that follows. Taiwan has been self-governing for 70 years. If Kosovo could be classified as a nation after a few weeks of independence it's only hypocrisy to deny the same to Taiwan.
- goblin89 8y ago
  Thought experiment: imagine that during the communist revolution in old Russia, the non-communist elites fled to Kosovo. Subsequently, USSR claims that Kosovo is part of it, while Kosovo’s claim is, fundamentally, to the entire territory of Russia. That, from my understanding, has been the historic position of Taiwan vs. China, and why this conflict, while not causing a lot of violence now, could be less straightforward to resolve than a claim of an ethnicity to a geographic area. In the above alternative reality, could Kosovo be recognized as a separate entity counter to USSR’s desires? Maybe but the question doesn’t make much sense in the first place, since that (being a separate territory) would be almost the opposite of what Kosovo wanted.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  So you're saying if a region declares independence and gets foreign allies to provide effective military protection for X weeks/years, then the original country has lost any right to that land? You might like the idea, but it's not commonly held. For one thing it encourages armed invasions against weaker nations.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > So you're saying if a region declares independence and gets foreign allies to provide effective military protection for X weeks/years, then the original country has lost any right to that land? This is how the United States claims to exist, by the way.

triplesec 8y ago

Spot the PRC PR army account created just for this HN post

cjhopman 8y ago
You realize that you are replying to a freshly made account that is spreading the ROC position, don't you?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- triplesec 8y ago
  Looks like I misread the post, thinking it said Taiwan was not a country. Not quite as terrible but still not ideal, freshly-created accounts for such.

grecy 8y ago

This kind of thing happens in a few places in the world. If you go into Morocco with a map on your vehicle that shows Western Sahara as a separate country, you'll have a hell of a time with the Moroccan police/immigration. I met people that were detained for 5 hours because of it. Morocco want everyone in the world to believe Western Sahara is simply part of Morocco. I cut that part off my map before I got there. I'm told same story for the border in the East between Egypt and Sudan. Egypt want you to believe it's a straight line, Sudan want you to believe it goes up a bit (making Sudan bigger). Again, I met people that had problems with this.

akvadrako 8y ago

Even the Taiwanese government doesn't claim they are a separate country from mainland China; they both are say they're the rightful rulers over all China. It looks a lot like an internal dispute and I don't think the rest of the world should be meddling in their affairs.

mb_72 8y ago
Nice in theory, but China goes out of it's way to force it's viewpoint on others outside of China and Taiwan (eg political interference in Australia, propaganda distribution in Australia, the whole South China Sea debacle where China actively tries to prevent ships navigating international waters, debt-trap loans to various Pacific and other nations etc etc) . The relationship between Taiwan and China is just one aspect of this, and you better believe there will be some kind of military action taken to defend Taiwan if China decides to go that way, something even more destabilising to the region. So, just 'staying out of it' and silent is not really an optimal option, IMO.

dmurray 8y ago

Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) don't agree that Taiwan is a real country either. The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. "Admitting" Taiwan is a "real country" seems kind of sensible, but it's not compatible with the narrative of either the PRC or the ROC, and it's completely understandable that you shouldn't formally recognize as a nation anyone making such a ridiculous claim.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. > it's completely understandable that you shouldn't formally recognize as a nation anyone making such a ridiculous claim. I've heard more ridiculous claims. As a matter of history, this is completely correct. It's just that the rebels have really entrenched themselves. This position is fundamentally identical to the position of a king-in-exile. Sometimes they made it back home. Sometimes they didn't.
- Markoff 8y ago
  except they are not technically in exile, they are just in different province of same country
dis-sys 8y ago
> The official position of the government of Taiwan is that all of China is one country, whose rightful government is currently based on the island of Taiwan, but whose land is 99% occupied by Maoist rebels. According to the same government in Taiwan, Mongolia is not an independent country, it is a part of "the Republic of China". See its official map here [1]. [1] http://www.chinayouth.org.hk/China/rocmap.html http://www.chinayouth.org.hk/China/rocmap.html
ddeck 8y ago
It is indeed a somewhat ridiculous claim, but domestic constitutional restrictions aside, the enactment of the Anti-Secession Law in the PRC in 2005 has made it challenging for the ROC to claim that they are instead an independent country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law

taneq 8y ago

But if you do that, you've always been at war with EastAsia.