8 ms·
China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that i
by thereddaikon 2y ago
China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
I'm not saying China is right in wanting to invade Taiwan. But that's closer to their real motivations than anything having to do with economics or technology. And its important to understand your potential adversaries motivations because that will inform their decisions and tactics.
- glenneroo 2y agoYou speak as if you have some special insider knowledge. I personally would guess that the 9-dash line also has something to do with them wanting to take Taiwan.
- thereddaikon 2y agoInsider knowledge? Not really, unless you count asking actual chinese and taiwanese nationals what they think about it instead of assuming their world view is the same as my own.
- glenneroo 2y agoThanks for clarification. Do you believe nationals of these countries (or any country in the world) know what the CCP actually wants i.e. its true goals?
- bitmasher9 2y agoI think their true goals are pretty transparent, but the specifics of how they plan to achieve them are more secretive. The CCP primarily wants to gain power. Political, economic, and social. The levels of ambition probably vary by individuals inside the party, but generally involves a uniform level of control across all regions of China (including Taiwan from their point of view), and enough global power to give them a free hand in East Asia. Chinese nationals may put more emphasis on increasing prosperity. Taiwan nationals may put more emphasis on strict control and global power. Individual reactions largely vary. Out of both groups, limitations on personal liberties cause the harshest criticism of CCP, with the one child policy almost universally seen unfavorably.
- smaug7 2y agoThis to me is the correct answer. A lot of times in war it's not about logic or reason, it's about emotion and feeling. Throughout Chinese history, a leader is only "legitimate" or dare I say, have the Mandate from Heaven, when they have unified the country under one banner. It is a stain on their authority that there is "rouge" state outside the CCP's control. They will do anything to unify their country for national pride.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skyyler 2y ago"rouge" means red "rogue" means rascal
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- itishappy 2y agoIn context, both kinda work.
- selimthegrim 2y agoI guess KMT had red on its flag, but definitely wasn’t communist
- jagged-chisel 2y agoSometimes, we know just the word we want. And we know how to spell it. But we fat-finger it. Or our fingers trip. Or our brains just get the finger-tapping order a bit off. None of these things requires an education in using the incorrect word. “Irregardless”? Give ‘em what for! Their/there/they’re? A nice reminder. Swapped a couple letters is a plausible explanation? A simple correct spelling followed with a * would suffice. rogue*
- skyyler 2y ago
- legitster 2y agoIt's worse than a rebellious province. It's a more successful rebellious province. For China, they hold up all of these technical accomplishments and quality of life improvements they have made under their one party system. But now over here is Taiwan that never bought in and is doing even better! It undercuts all of their messaging. If the communist party could wave a magic wand, they would take Taiwan and not just extract wealth, but also pump out a lot of propaganda that says Taiwan is doing even better under party rule and Western-style democracy was holding it back.
- axus 2y agoHong Kong is a test case for what would happen to Taiwan (but with less shooting).
- knowitnone 2y agothe US made China it's manufacturing arm and now the US wants to take that back? Kind of late. If China invades Taiwan, the US is to blame. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.
- xxpor 2y agoAnd China made the US its source of income. The relationship works both ways. The consumer market in China is a disaster.
- ethbr1 2y agoHard to have a strong consumer market with 17%+ youth unemployment.
- xxpor 2y agoAnd the reason there's 17%+ youth unemployment is because there's a weak consumer market! This is what happens when you structure your entire economy around exports: artificially weak currency, capital controls, artificially low wages, etc.
- wnevets 2y ago> China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since. We know this version is closer to the truth because Mao tried to take Taiwan
- thereddaikon 2y agoIts an imperfect analogy but I'm trying to illustrate an idea in a more relatable way. If you pick at the details it will fall apart.
- wnevets 2y agoI'm trying to help further the analogy by pointing out the fact decades prior to TSMC existing Mao Zedong used forced in an attempt to take Taiwan.
- dehrmann 2y ago> They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province Is it really this, or is that just cover for it being in the first island chain?
- geysersam 2y agoIt is really that. It's part of their country (according to them).
- joeguilmette 2y agoYes except it’s not as if they went to Cuba, it’s more like the confederates fled to Long Island.
- genman 2y agoYou are unfortunately not understanding how you are being deceived. Confederate in this store didn't flee. They won and there really is the Real America on Long Island.
- joeguilmette 2y agoI won’t push back on that. I wasn’t trying to assign one side as victor or morally superior by comparing the Taiwanese to the Confederates.
- preisschild 2y ago> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since. In reality while the confederate states were part of the United States, the Republic of China (Taiwan) was never part of the Peoples Republic of China (communist China), its the reverse.
- CDRdude 2y agoAnalogies don’t have to be 100% perfect. The Confederate analogy gets the point across just fine.
- genman 2y agoIt only deceives.
- corimaith 2y agoNot really, because it likes to the conflate the negative connotations of the confederates and their slavery to the ROC, when it's more like if the Union Government was in a civil war with the Confederates with the Union controlling most of the land, but then the British/Mexicans/Canadians, etc invaded and the Union broke it's back holding that back, then when the invaders finally retreated the Confederates were able to reorganize and defeat the Union, so then it would be the Union that retreat to Long Island or something. Instead of doing blind analogies, it would be alot better just to directly describe the events of what occurred, but that's going to be inconvenient for the CCP and their supporters to introduce some nuance into the conversations.
- nine_k 2y ago> a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba No, it's the other way around. Imagine that the South is victorious, and the last remnants of the North forces remain in, say, Long Island, calling themselves the original American Republic, claiming their lineage from the revolution of 1776. Technically they would be! The Taiwanese regime is a remnant of the original Republic of China established in 1914, and Kuomintang is one of the original democratic parties of that republic. The Communist regime are the "rebels" of the Communist revolution of 1949. But, as they say, a rebellion can never succeed, because if it does, it's called another way.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago> They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. We can argue about what the exact desire is - there's 100M people in the CCP - we'll probably never know an exact answer. The important thing is - China is willing to spend a LOT more money to take Taiwan than it is economically worth. So this idea that 1) China wants Taiwan for chips, 2) War would cost more than chips, 3) Therefore, Taiwan is logically safe - is a fallacy. The war in Ukraine is never going to pay off for Russia. They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rtkwe 2y agoThere's one big strategic thing the Ukraine war offers Russia and that's a nice balmy port and (if they'd managed the original 3 days to Kiev) removing a potential invasion front on it's juicy underbelly.
- genman 2y agoThe only reason Russia is against NATO is the article 5 - it makes attacking peaceful nations more expensive and risky for them. That is all there is.
- dragonwriter 2y ago> The only reason Russia is against NATO is the article 5 Nah, they are also against Article 4 (regional security), which while not as concrete of a commitment, applies much more broadly, and which leads to things like the current support for Ukraine, not just Article 5 (mutual defense), which only affects hem when they would want to target a NATO member’s territory in and in a couple areas close to Europe or North America.
- greedo 2y agoWhat port? They already have Crimea (since 2014) and the Black Sea isn't really 'balmy.'
- dilyevsky 2y agoChina is basically circled on all sides by US-allied forces and with Taiwan being one it really limits their force projection capabilities in the Pacific. That's the actual pragmatic reason, not some ideology thing, imho
- dralley 2y agoEveryone wants to think there is always a "pragmatic" reason. It helps to think that there is always a rational cause for everything, every decision that is made. And we map cynicism about our own politicians onto everyone else, thinking that surely they don't mean what they say either. There's not always a rational reason. Ideology and nationalism are real things. World leaders do not always act in "rational" ways, nor are they always playing 4D chess.
- RealityVoid 2y agoBingo! Trying to assign reason to emotional decisions is like reading tea leaves. And we're all subject to these emotional forces.
- dilyevsky 2y agoOn the contrary - i don't see the value in playing couch psychoanalyst when there's a perfectly legit realpolitik reason available.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gwd 2y ago> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since. I mean, for a decade or so, try to re-unify, sure. But 75 years later, with slavery abolished and a completely different governmental system? I'd like to think most Americans would have accepted the New Normal by that point. If anything this tells me how irrational Chinese and Russian attitudes are.
- slt2021 2y agoTaiwan's elites are Japanese, and they are universally despised on the mainland.
- hayst4ck 2y agoThere is no “reason” or justification. The decision to invade has already been made, all these explanations exist for the sole purpose of making it easier to do nothing about it when the invasion happens. Chinese people feel they way they are taught to feel. China's fundamental argument distilled to its most pure form is "we are strong enough to do this, what are you going to do about it?" A world where the strong do whatever they want because no one can do anything about it is not a world anyone should want to live in. All of the Chinese expressing these opinions from a position of safety can’t seem to put themselves in the shoes of Taiwanese. The inhumanity of an invasion is being hidden by high level ideas like history. The American civil war comparison fails. No American sits and thinks about invading the UK to “complete” our revolution and that’s much closer than your scenario.
- helixfelix 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dikaio 2y agoAre you implying Brexit and Trumps second term is due to propaganda?
- ta1243 2y agoCertainly these were due to social media manipulation
- peterbecich 2y agoIn my opinion it is a populist movement, and we should accept this hard truth. Trump is in office due to "manipulation" to the same extent that any speech is manipulation. He is a salesman and has sold his vision for the country successfully.
- account42 2y ago> and have been calling themselves the real America ever since This isn't really the situation with Taiwan though. The main reason Taiwan is still officially called the Republic of China is because changing that will likely trigger the PRC.
- infinet 2y ago> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since. It is a great analogy. However, in this case, that small island was taken by China even before the American Civil War. To put it into perspective, it was during the time when Isaac Newton was working on gravity. And one episode of Open To Debate [1] argued Taiwan is the worst possible place to confront China: > I used to give battlefield tours at Gettysburg, an extraordinary place. ... a certain cavalry General John Buford ... surveyed the ground and he knew right away he looked at the hills and said, this is good ground, ... The geography favors us. Well, I want to tell you folks, he saved our country that with that appreciation. But this is the opposite. This is bad ground. This is the worst possible place to confront China [1] https://opentodebate.org/debate/taiwan-indefensible-0/ https://opentodebate.org/debate/taiwan-indefensible-0/
- leshenka 2y ago> I'm not saying China is right in wanting to invade Taiwan. I find it very surprising that a lot of otherwise intelligent people have trouble with telling endorsement from explanation. Like when I tell people about some political (or not) figure's opinions and worldviews, I'm somehow defending them. I'm not! I'm doing it exactly to > understand your potential adversaries' motivations Happens all the time on the internet.