13 ms·

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people

by __sy__ 6y ago

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way. That being said, considering the enormously strategic role that Taiwan plays in electronics supply chains (e.g. TSMC, Wistron...etc), it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry.

beerandt 6y ago
Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?
- nabla9 6y ago
  Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and China.
  - mc32 6y ago
    They both share the blame. One enabled it and the other one did it. It was probably Kissinger with rosy “divide and conquer” thinking given Moscow & Beijing had a fall out.
  - beerandt 6y ago
    I'm over here trying to have a fun, hypothetical mind-game with arbitrary & made-up rules, and you've got to go and ruin it with "it's complicated" realities. :-) But of course, you're correct. And Carter (and Nixon and Ford) obviously didn't have the foresight to realize the ultimate impact of the process/decision. Yet they would have been aware it was a major, influential policy decision. Does "starting the process" count as an ultimately-weighty-political-decision? Along the lines of "Deciding to drop the bomb on Hiroshima," if you want to count that as a decision by one person. Of course it was also just one node of a decision tree that was a long, complicated chain-of-events.
  - yyyk 6y ago
    I don't think blaming Nixon is right. His action arguably made sense at the time, and didn't require sacrificing Taiwan. The US had plenty of time to safely pivot to a different position regarding China/Taiwan (e.g. letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s; Shifting diplomatic position and recognizing Taiwan right after the Cold War was over; Not allowing Globalization to go so far in the 90s-00s). If the US didn't take that option, one can blame successor presidents rather than Nixon.
    - blackrock 6y ago
      > letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. The same is true today. If America arms Taiwan with too many advanced weapons, then it will also trigger a casus belli event on China’s part. If America couldn’t beat China in North Korea in 1950, when the Chinese were literally fighting with bows and arrows, and America had air power and carpet bombing, then do you really think America can beat China in 2021? Or 2030? Or 2050?
      - yyyk 6y ago
        >Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. At that time, the PLA was in a poor state. China simply did not have the ability to invade Taiwan or even get air superiority. They'd have lost, badly, so long as the US kept supporting Taiwan, quite likely the US wouldn't have had to even get involved directly. That's a consequence the CCP can't afford, they'd have had to get used to nukes. Of course, now the balance has changed and that's not practical. E: You're assuming China always gets stronger over time. Recently that's true, but at the time China was picking itself up from the Cultural Revolution, while the US was rearming after Vietnam. US had a far bigger advantage in 1975-1985 over China than in 1950. This scenario would have also required the PLA to make an air or amphibious assault without (at the time) sufficient airplanes or boats, while 1950 was just a land assault.
      - jeffdn 6y ago
        That’s a pretty disingenuous way to put it — first of all, there were plenty of Soviet fighter aircraft during the Korean War, and the Chinese were not literally arming the bulk of their troops with bows and arrows. Additionally, Korea shares a land border with China, and transport and logistics (such as they were) were thereby greatly simplified. A war with Taiwan is a completely different story.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  Nixon was the one who started that process.
- jonathannat 6y ago
  What could have been: If Nixon hadn't started the process, if carter hadn't recognize the communist government of China. - Offshoring/globalization may not have been the boom it is today, due to the lack of a major source of cheap/obedient labor force. In the 70s offshoring occured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others SE Asia countries but they didn't have enough cheap labors to continue. American companies would have been timid to shift operations to Indonesia and India when they lacked severe infrastructure, with no totalitarian government to enforce cheap labor. - As a corollary, GE/Intel would not not have shed all its capabilities to Asia, and be greatly diminished today. - Wall street might not have been able to push companies to greatly shed cost and ship capabilities overseas due to national security issues. As a result, US unions would have been intact somewhat and the jobs would not have been shipped to China. Flyover states would have enjoyed greater strength as they did in the 60s and 70s. - the great crash of 2008 would not have happened (Chinese entry into WTO greatly reduced manual jobs in US and Europe, crashing both economies) - Trump would not have been elected. Trump was a reaction to much jobs lost and much sufferings in flyover states caused by China. - Coronavirus spread around the world and all the deaths that occurred may not have happened (China would have been still a closed off country, not unlike what Xi Jing Ping is trying to do today). No mass flights out of Wuhan or Beijing.
  - ojbyrne 6y ago
    This seems like cherry-picking. Creating a narrative where some recent events are dependent on a political event from the seventies seems suspect. Just to pick a specific example, the US has had depressions/recessions almost from inception, most of which make 2008 look mild. Also you left out that in your alternative narrative you would probably be typing on a larger, slower and heavier phone (or laptop).
  - blackrock 6y ago
    In your fictional view, you are giving America way too much credit. The Chinese would’ve come online, sooner or later. The WTO sped up the process of course, but China’s technological ascendancy was inevitable. The other theory is that if China was denied entry into the WTO, then they would’ve just created their own international trading agreement. And in 2020, they did just that, and called it the RCEP. Besides, without China, then your iPhone would’ve probably never been created. Apple would’ve never made enough money from the iPod, to justify further investment into the iPhone. China and the iPhone, really are symbiotic. Instead, we might all be living in a Blackberry world.
throwitaway1235 6y ago
75 million Americans don't have the right to self-determination. I could care less what Taiwan wants.
adventured 6y ago
The US placates Beijing to try to delay or avoid Beijing just going ahead and invading and taking it by force (if China ultimately believes there is no other path). The US can't stop China from taking Taiwan. 20 or 30 years ago it would have been very difficult to stop that, today it's impossible. The US isn't even ready yet for that confrontation, it needs to deploy a massive number of ballistic missiles along the island chain off the coast to have a chance to at least make it a costly annexation (targeting their navy, as the US navy won't be able to get close enough). China's Deng Xiaoping strategy of hide your strength and bide your time, that's a stall tactic to buy time (in that case the time between when something is actual and something is publicly known, a knowledge-time gap). The US placating China is also a stall tactic, hoping to buy time for a better scenario favoring the US and Taiwan more than China (for example a liberalized China, which was still a naive hope as recently as 10 years ago; that was always unlikely but it was better than driving China toward forced annexation sooner).
- someperson 6y ago
  As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I used to think it was inevitable that China will be able to successfully invade Taiwan, but its almost impossible to pull of an amphibious invasion. Taiwan's geography makes this particularly difficult.
  - caycep 6y ago
    This. I think if China wanted to go all out, it could take Taiwan via massive force but it would be extremely costly for them and I don’t think the calculus of risk vs benefit adds up for them politically or practically. They certainly can maybe sink an American carrier, maybe, if their missiles are as good as they say, but that’s a big If.
    - lumost 6y ago
      In WW2 the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise ending to the dominance of the battleship, marking the first time that a power attempted to attack Battleship's by air. While this had been theorized for a few decades, all of the great powers continued to invest in battleships. No power has attempted to sink a carrier since 1945, there is ultimately limited data on how effective any anti-carrier weapon developed in the last 80 years would be in practice.
doomleika 6y ago
It's awesome because you are a westerner.
- TechnoTimeStop 6y ago
  YAY MORE CHINA POLITICS ON HACKER NEWS. GET THIS CRAP OUT OF HERE.
- alexanderdmitri 6y ago
  Interesting, can you elaborate on this?
  - doomleika 6y ago
    Like most Southeast Asian country. Taiwan people put westerner on pedestal. It doesn't matter if you White, Black, if you came from the West, you automatically are one of the "good" person. Simple test, if you go talk to anyone on the street, in English, they will try to answer in bad English(if they can). this is especially true for young/highly educated demography like me because we are educated in western value since very young. If you came from southeastern, say, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam. There's very good chance you see people look them in distain. Because those are usually imported labor for manual tasks.
    - alexanderdmitri 6y ago
      Thank you, that clarifies quite a bit for me. I've heard this happens in parts of India from quite a few people I know too. I'd hazard a traveler's experience can highlight a culture's stereotypes more easily than it can the experience of a naturalized member of the community. I used to love watching Bourdain's travel series for exactly this reason; he seemed to always want to get the deeper context and insight from the people he'd meet and his narration showed a firm understanding of how who he was and where he came from influenced his experience of a place/culture and the conclusions he'd draw (if any).
- akamaka 6y ago
  > It's awesome because you are a westerner. Are you really sure only westerners are having an awesome time in Taiwan? Have a look at the data for who travels most to Taiwan (and presumably enjoys it): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan
blackrock 6y ago
> Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way Would you say the same thing for the Hawaiians? A lot of them want independence from the colonial United States. They want their nation and its territory back. So, using your logic, would you grant them their wish? I think not.
- trynumber9 6y ago
  If Hawaiians elect a state government with that goal, and then pass a referendum with high turn out I'd be open to considering it. But it's a false equivalency anyway given that: 1. No such efforts are underway. 2. Taiwan is not presently part of the PRC. 3. Taiwan merely seeks de jure recognition of its de facto independence.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Didn’t the Southern States do exactly this? And formed the Confederate States of America. Where did that end up?
    - trynumber9 6y ago
      They had a civil rights issue (slavery) the remainder of the states could not ignore. It is another false equivalency as the PRC has never ruled over Taiwan. And the CSA did not enfranchise their populace fairly. Any such referendum was not an expression of the will of the people but merely the slave holding classes.
      - marcusverus 6y ago
        > They had a civil rights issue (slavery) the remainder of the states could not ignore. It is not true that the United States waged the war to end slavery. Though of course slavery is why the Southern states seceded, the North prosecuted the war to preserve the Union. After all, the institution of slavery remained legal in the US at the outset of the war in '61, with no end in sight--Lincoln had been selected by the Republicans specifically because he was not a radical abolitionist. Only after the North struggled to defeat the South in a timely manner (in large part due to the fact that slave labor allowed the South to field ~80% of able bodied free men) did Lincoln put out the Emancipation Proclamation in '63--expressly as a matter of military necessity. The document gave only a cursory nod to it being "believed to be an act of justice", and it only freed Southern slaves.[0] Slavery remained legal in the United States until 1865. [0] https://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation-text https://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation-text
powerapple 6y ago
It is never about Taiwan. This move itself is to attack China. Everything to do with Taiwan is not about Taiwan, 1972 and 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan
disown 6y ago
> I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. Are you the guy that keeps spamming blogs about "TSMC, chips and how taiwan is so important to the US" to HN? > Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled. > and our support if they decide to go their own way. Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place. > it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry. Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan. Every week, there is some bullshit blog spam about how important TSMC is. Why is that? Who is paying for it?
- kilroy_jones 6y ago
  > Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled. What does population have to do with self determination? > Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place. Except they were allied with the US and deals were drawn up that should be honored. > Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan. He said in a strategic industry, which semiconductors are. If there is TSMC spam it's probably because this is a tech forum and they is a lot of movement in the field in the last year, mostly related to the failings of Intel and the rise of TSMC.
  - disown 6y ago
    > What does population have to do with self determination? Because the entire chinese population ( mainland china and taiwan ) claim taiwan is part of china. Taiwan is called ROC( the Republic of China ) for a reason. Using your logic, if china invaded the US and then separated oregon from the US, it would okay for oregon to "secede" from the union despite the wishes of 330 million other americans. You do realize that secession has been ruled unconstitutional in the US right? And far greater percentage tried to secede ( civil war ). > Except they were allied with the US and deals were drawn up that should be honored. We were never "allied" with taiwan. The chinese who fled to taiwan were our vassals. After they lost the chinese civil war, we foolishly and greedily, intervened to keep taiwan separate from china. Sooner or later, that's gonna cost us. All anybody has to do is look at a map. > He said in a strategic industry, which semiconductors are. As opposed to everything else right? > If there is TSMC spam it's probably because this is a tech forum and they is a lot of movement in the field in the last year, mostly related to the failings of Intel and the rise of TSMC. There is this bullshit TSMC spam because there is a trade war with china and people are funding it. No different than any other propaganda campaign whether it involves suits or geopolitic issues. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html All the propaganda campaigns you see news, media and online are pretty much funded by some billionaire elites somewhere. If you really cared, then you should be demanding the "taiwanese" be forced out and return taiwan to the aborigines who live there. But then we'd have to return the land back to the natives, aborigines, etc ourselves so I doubt that'll happen any time soon.

by __sy__ 6y ago

beerandt 6y ago

Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?

nabla9 6y ago
Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and China.
- mc32 6y ago
  They both share the blame. One enabled it and the other one did it. It was probably Kissinger with rosy “divide and conquer” thinking given Moscow & Beijing had a fall out.
- beerandt 6y ago
  I'm over here trying to have a fun, hypothetical mind-game with arbitrary & made-up rules, and you've got to go and ruin it with "it's complicated" realities. :-) But of course, you're correct. And Carter (and Nixon and Ford) obviously didn't have the foresight to realize the ultimate impact of the process/decision. Yet they would have been aware it was a major, influential policy decision. Does "starting the process" count as an ultimately-weighty-political-decision? Along the lines of "Deciding to drop the bomb on Hiroshima," if you want to count that as a decision by one person. Of course it was also just one node of a decision tree that was a long, complicated chain-of-events.
- yyyk 6y ago
  I don't think blaming Nixon is right. His action arguably made sense at the time, and didn't require sacrificing Taiwan. The US had plenty of time to safely pivot to a different position regarding China/Taiwan (e.g. letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s; Shifting diplomatic position and recognizing Taiwan right after the Cold War was over; Not allowing Globalization to go so far in the 90s-00s). If the US didn't take that option, one can blame successor presidents rather than Nixon.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    > letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. The same is true today. If America arms Taiwan with too many advanced weapons, then it will also trigger a casus belli event on China’s part. If America couldn’t beat China in North Korea in 1950, when the Chinese were literally fighting with bows and arrows, and America had air power and carpet bombing, then do you really think America can beat China in 2021? Or 2030? Or 2050?
    - yyyk 6y ago
      >Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. At that time, the PLA was in a poor state. China simply did not have the ability to invade Taiwan or even get air superiority. They'd have lost, badly, so long as the US kept supporting Taiwan, quite likely the US wouldn't have had to even get involved directly. That's a consequence the CCP can't afford, they'd have had to get used to nukes. Of course, now the balance has changed and that's not practical. E: You're assuming China always gets stronger over time. Recently that's true, but at the time China was picking itself up from the Cultural Revolution, while the US was rearming after Vietnam. US had a far bigger advantage in 1975-1985 over China than in 1950. This scenario would have also required the PLA to make an air or amphibious assault without (at the time) sufficient airplanes or boats, while 1950 was just a land assault.
    - jeffdn 6y ago
      That’s a pretty disingenuous way to put it — first of all, there were plenty of Soviet fighter aircraft during the Korean War, and the Chinese were not literally arming the bulk of their troops with bows and arrows. Additionally, Korea shares a land border with China, and transport and logistics (such as they were) were thereby greatly simplified. A war with Taiwan is a completely different story.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
Nixon was the one who started that process.
jonathannat 6y ago
What could have been: If Nixon hadn't started the process, if carter hadn't recognize the communist government of China. - Offshoring/globalization may not have been the boom it is today, due to the lack of a major source of cheap/obedient labor force. In the 70s offshoring occured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others SE Asia countries but they didn't have enough cheap labors to continue. American companies would have been timid to shift operations to Indonesia and India when they lacked severe infrastructure, with no totalitarian government to enforce cheap labor. - As a corollary, GE/Intel would not not have shed all its capabilities to Asia, and be greatly diminished today. - Wall street might not have been able to push companies to greatly shed cost and ship capabilities overseas due to national security issues. As a result, US unions would have been intact somewhat and the jobs would not have been shipped to China. Flyover states would have enjoyed greater strength as they did in the 60s and 70s. - the great crash of 2008 would not have happened (Chinese entry into WTO greatly reduced manual jobs in US and Europe, crashing both economies) - Trump would not have been elected. Trump was a reaction to much jobs lost and much sufferings in flyover states caused by China. - Coronavirus spread around the world and all the deaths that occurred may not have happened (China would have been still a closed off country, not unlike what Xi Jing Ping is trying to do today). No mass flights out of Wuhan or Beijing.
- ojbyrne 6y ago
  This seems like cherry-picking. Creating a narrative where some recent events are dependent on a political event from the seventies seems suspect. Just to pick a specific example, the US has had depressions/recessions almost from inception, most of which make 2008 look mild. Also you left out that in your alternative narrative you would probably be typing on a larger, slower and heavier phone (or laptop).
- blackrock 6y ago
  In your fictional view, you are giving America way too much credit. The Chinese would’ve come online, sooner or later. The WTO sped up the process of course, but China’s technological ascendancy was inevitable. The other theory is that if China was denied entry into the WTO, then they would’ve just created their own international trading agreement. And in 2020, they did just that, and called it the RCEP. Besides, without China, then your iPhone would’ve probably never been created. Apple would’ve never made enough money from the iPod, to justify further investment into the iPhone. China and the iPhone, really are symbiotic. Instead, we might all be living in a Blackberry world.

throwitaway1235 6y ago

75 million Americans don't have the right to self-determination. I could care less what Taiwan wants.

adventured 6y ago

The US placates Beijing to try to delay or avoid Beijing just going ahead and invading and taking it by force (if China ultimately believes there is no other path). The US can't stop China from taking Taiwan. 20 or 30 years ago it would have been very difficult to stop that, today it's impossible. The US isn't even ready yet for that confrontation, it needs to deploy a massive number of ballistic missiles along the island chain off the coast to have a chance to at least make it a costly annexation (targeting their navy, as the US navy won't be able to get close enough). China's Deng Xiaoping strategy of hide your strength and bide your time, that's a stall tactic to buy time (in that case the time between when something is actual and something is publicly known, a knowledge-time gap). The US placating China is also a stall tactic, hoping to buy time for a better scenario favoring the US and Taiwan more than China (for example a liberalized China, which was still a naive hope as recently as 10 years ago; that was always unlikely but it was better than driving China toward forced annexation sooner).

someperson 6y ago
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I used to think it was inevitable that China will be able to successfully invade Taiwan, but its almost impossible to pull of an amphibious invasion. Taiwan's geography makes this particularly difficult.
- caycep 6y ago
  This. I think if China wanted to go all out, it could take Taiwan via massive force but it would be extremely costly for them and I don’t think the calculus of risk vs benefit adds up for them politically or practically. They certainly can maybe sink an American carrier, maybe, if their missiles are as good as they say, but that’s a big If.
  - lumost 6y ago
    In WW2 the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise ending to the dominance of the battleship, marking the first time that a power attempted to attack Battleship's by air. While this had been theorized for a few decades, all of the great powers continued to invest in battleships. No power has attempted to sink a carrier since 1945, there is ultimately limited data on how effective any anti-carrier weapon developed in the last 80 years would be in practice.

doomleika 6y ago

It's awesome because you are a westerner.

TechnoTimeStop 6y ago
YAY MORE CHINA POLITICS ON HACKER NEWS. GET THIS CRAP OUT OF HERE.
alexanderdmitri 6y ago
Interesting, can you elaborate on this?
- doomleika 6y ago
  Like most Southeast Asian country. Taiwan people put westerner on pedestal. It doesn't matter if you White, Black, if you came from the West, you automatically are one of the "good" person. Simple test, if you go talk to anyone on the street, in English, they will try to answer in bad English(if they can). this is especially true for young/highly educated demography like me because we are educated in western value since very young. If you came from southeastern, say, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam. There's very good chance you see people look them in distain. Because those are usually imported labor for manual tasks.
  - alexanderdmitri 6y ago
    Thank you, that clarifies quite a bit for me. I've heard this happens in parts of India from quite a few people I know too. I'd hazard a traveler's experience can highlight a culture's stereotypes more easily than it can the experience of a naturalized member of the community. I used to love watching Bourdain's travel series for exactly this reason; he seemed to always want to get the deeper context and insight from the people he'd meet and his narration showed a firm understanding of how who he was and where he came from influenced his experience of a place/culture and the conclusions he'd draw (if any).
akamaka 6y ago
> It's awesome because you are a westerner. Are you really sure only westerners are having an awesome time in Taiwan? Have a look at the data for who travels most to Taiwan (and presumably enjoys it): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan

blackrock 6y ago

> Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way Would you say the same thing for the Hawaiians? A lot of them want independence from the colonial United States. They want their nation and its territory back. So, using your logic, would you grant them their wish? I think not.

trynumber9 6y ago
If Hawaiians elect a state government with that goal, and then pass a referendum with high turn out I'd be open to considering it. But it's a false equivalency anyway given that: 1. No such efforts are underway. 2. Taiwan is not presently part of the PRC. 3. Taiwan merely seeks de jure recognition of its de facto independence.
- blackrock 6y ago
  Didn’t the Southern States do exactly this? And formed the Confederate States of America. Where did that end up?
  - trynumber9 6y ago
    They had a civil rights issue (slavery) the remainder of the states could not ignore. It is another false equivalency as the PRC has never ruled over Taiwan. And the CSA did not enfranchise their populace fairly. Any such referendum was not an expression of the will of the people but merely the slave holding classes.
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      > They had a civil rights issue (slavery) the remainder of the states could not ignore. It is not true that the United States waged the war to end slavery. Though of course slavery is why the Southern states seceded, the North prosecuted the war to preserve the Union. After all, the institution of slavery remained legal in the US at the outset of the war in '61, with no end in sight--Lincoln had been selected by the Republicans specifically because he was not a radical abolitionist. Only after the North struggled to defeat the South in a timely manner (in large part due to the fact that slave labor allowed the South to field ~80% of able bodied free men) did Lincoln put out the Emancipation Proclamation in '63--expressly as a matter of military necessity. The document gave only a cursory nod to it being "believed to be an act of justice", and it only freed Southern slaves.[0] Slavery remained legal in the United States until 1865. [0] https://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation-text https://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation-text

powerapple 6y ago

It is never about Taiwan. This move itself is to attack China. Everything to do with Taiwan is not about Taiwan, 1972 and 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan

disown 6y ago

> I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. Are you the guy that keeps spamming blogs about "TSMC, chips and how taiwan is so important to the US" to HN? > Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled. > and our support if they decide to go their own way. Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place. > it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry. Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan. Every week, there is some bullshit blog spam about how important TSMC is. Why is that? Who is paying for it?

kilroy_jones 6y ago
> Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled. What does population have to do with self determination? > Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place. Except they were allied with the US and deals were drawn up that should be honored. > Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan. He said in a strategic industry, which semiconductors are. If there is TSMC spam it's probably because this is a tech forum and they is a lot of movement in the field in the last year, mostly related to the failings of Intel and the rise of TSMC.
- disown 6y ago
  > What does population have to do with self determination? Because the entire chinese population ( mainland china and taiwan ) claim taiwan is part of china. Taiwan is called ROC( the Republic of China ) for a reason. Using your logic, if china invaded the US and then separated oregon from the US, it would okay for oregon to "secede" from the union despite the wishes of 330 million other americans. You do realize that secession has been ruled unconstitutional in the US right? And far greater percentage tried to secede ( civil war ). > Except they were allied with the US and deals were drawn up that should be honored. We were never "allied" with taiwan. The chinese who fled to taiwan were our vassals. After they lost the chinese civil war, we foolishly and greedily, intervened to keep taiwan separate from china. Sooner or later, that's gonna cost us. All anybody has to do is look at a map. > He said in a strategic industry, which semiconductors are. As opposed to everything else right? > If there is TSMC spam it's probably because this is a tech forum and they is a lot of movement in the field in the last year, mostly related to the failings of Intel and the rise of TSMC. There is this bullshit TSMC spam because there is a trade war with china and people are funding it. No different than any other propaganda campaign whether it involves suits or geopolitic issues. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html All the propaganda campaigns you see news, media and online are pretty much funded by some billionaire elites somewhere. If you really cared, then you should be demanding the "taiwanese" be forced out and return taiwan to the aborigines who live there. But then we'd have to return the land back to the natives, aborigines, etc ourselves so I doubt that'll happen any time soon.