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Why can't they just leave them alone? Taiwan is not a threat to China. They just want to live their lives their way. Are they willing to kill millions of people

by wolvoleo 10mo ago

Why can't they just leave them alone? Taiwan is not a threat to China. They just want to live their lives their way. Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride?

RegnisGnaw 10mo ago
Taiwan is a threat to China, not military but socially. The CCP (and Xi in particular) has made "One China" a key point. The deaths of a few million Taiwan people is not a big deal to ensure the future survival and stability of China and the CCP.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  I don't really see how. The Chinese people don't look up at Taiwan as a beacon of democracy. Most Chinese citizens are fine with the status quo. It's not a sentiment that actually lives among the people. And there's plenty of other democratic countries to take examples from if they so desire. And killing millions of people in another country to ensure a regime's survival is surely a big deal.
  - RegnisGnaw 10mo ago
    Most mainland Chinese support merging Taiwan back to China, either through a 1C2S deal or directly with force. Sentiments can be changed as needed through proper guidence of public opinion. The survival of China and the CCP is the #1 goal, the deaths of a few million people isn't a big deal to achieve that goal.
AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
Taiwan isn't a threat to China in the military sense. Taiwan is not going to wake up tomorrow and decide to invade China. But Taiwan is a threat indirectly. Chinese people, but with much more political freedom than in the mainland, and with more prosperity - that's a threat to the Communist Party's legitimacy as ruler of China, in the same way that Ukraine is a threat to Putin's rule of Russia. It's somebody just next door, with approximately the same people, who's doing much better and is much more free. It makes the Chinese and Russians start to get ideas that maybe they could have that, too. And Taiwan is more directly a threat, because Xi has explicitly made reunification with Taiwan a measure of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi's mouth made that problem, and now he can't back down without losing face. > Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride? In a "face" culture? Yes, they may be.
- tjpnz 10mo ago
  Heaven forbid their own people get to see how a rational actor behaves on the world stage, the character of the reciprocal relationships they maintain with other nations and the treatment Taiwanese citizens receive when traveling.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  I don't think Taiwan is actually doing better economically. China is growing much faster. They're certainly doing a lot better on human rights and democracy but I don't see that being a big point of contention in Chinese society.
mittensc 10mo ago
Taiwan is a rich country (23M people 1T GDP country) Taiwan has critical tech and industry that is hard to replicate which china doesnt have access to but the west relies on. So, if they take it peacefully they both grow in strength and weaken the rest of the world. If they take it by force then they don't really lose much (barring nuclear exchanges) and cripple the rest of the world. If the US intervenes then it's another discussion but depends on their military strenght calculations... They might want to fight conventionally the US outside their borders and get the US to give up like vietnam and win over their region by force... That and historical reasons. If Xi pulls it off he's comparable to Mao.
- CamperBob2 10mo ago
  If they take it by force then they don't really lose much (barring nuclear exchanges) and cripple the rest of the world. If they take it by force, they will take a smoking hole in the ground where all that "critical tech" used to be. If Xi pulls it off he's comparable to Mao. Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason?
  - mittensc 10mo ago
    > If they take it by force, they will take a smoking hole in the ground where all that "critical tech" used to be. Sure, but first, it's the rest of the world that loses it. With that tech manufacturing base gone, rest of the world might be forced to buy from china. China doesnt buy from Taiwan. Second, people and documents will still be around similar to germany's rocket scientists, they can be put to work. > Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason? Sure, that too. Dictators don't care about pople... (Putin is doing it too and if anything, killing your own people solidifies power...) I was thinking more how he's perceived like some sort of deity by chinese people and was untouchable power wise.
    - ThrowawayR2 10mo ago
      > "With that tech manufacturing base gone, rest of the world might be forced to buy from china" There are plenty of other advanced chip fabs outside of Taiwan. The ignorati on HN like to talk shit about Intel, a fair bit of which is deserved, but they have the second most advanced fabs in the world. Samsung, I believe, has the third best.
coffinbirth 10mo ago
The US is actually sending weapons to China, similar to Ukraine 10 years ago (Javelins authorized and delivered by Trump). As so often, the US is the aggressor here, not China. Just look at Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Irak, Iran, Russia, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, etc. the list of countries destroyed by the USA is basically endless. I wish the US would simply accept the multipolar world.
- AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
  By helping a country to be able to defend itself against aggression, the US is the aggressor? Both your logic and your morals are worthy of condemnation.
  - throwaway_dang 10mo ago
    [flagged]
sarkron 10mo ago
I believe that as long as an independent, democratic and prosperous Taiwan exists, the communist party in China will perceive it as an existential threat, as it might inspire Chinese people to demand a similar regime. Chinese people need to know that there is no alternative to the rule of the Communist Party. It is for this reason that Taiwan needs to be crushed.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  But then every other democratic country could be perceived as a threat by them. Taiwan is not special in that sense. Also, there is no big anti CCP sentiment in China. Most people are happy with it as weird as it seems to me.
  - Teever 10mo ago
    That's absolutely right. Authoritarians abhore freedom and consider every instance of it to be a threat to their continued existence and control. The implication of this is that once they're done with Taiwan they'll come for other countries. This isn't anything new either. The struggle between authoritarians and people who want to be free and autonomous in their day to day activities is eternal. We've made tremendous strides as a species to vanquish many kinds of authoritarians, with the last few centuries seeing the elimination of many monarchs. With those victories over the old authoritarians we've seen the rise of new kinds of authoritarians -- people who call themselves fascists or communists. Setting aside the minutiae of how closely their actions match those new labels they're no friends of mine and it is in our best interest to align the people who they intend to oppress be they in Taiwan or Ukraine.
- throw4r5yeet 10mo ago
  If that were true, then China would be going after Singapore too.
Fricken 10mo ago
The whole reason for Taiwan's existence is to be a thorn that western powers can press into China's side. It would never have come into existence in the first place if it was not propped up by hostile meddling foreign powers.
tim333 10mo ago
I think it's just human nature for autocratic types to want to take over and control everything even against the wishes of those they bully - see Putin and Ukraine, Xi and Taiwan, Trump and Greenland. It's like that song Everyone Wants to Rule the world. Maybe having AI run things would be better.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
tjpnz 10mo ago
Because that's what authoritarians have always done - all the way back through history.

Why can't they just leave them alone? Taiwan is not a threat to China. They just want to live their lives their way. Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride?

RegnisGnaw 10mo ago

Taiwan is a threat to China, not military but socially. The CCP (and Xi in particular) has made "One China" a key point. The deaths of a few million Taiwan people is not a big deal to ensure the future survival and stability of China and the CCP.

wolvoleo 10mo ago
I don't really see how. The Chinese people don't look up at Taiwan as a beacon of democracy. Most Chinese citizens are fine with the status quo. It's not a sentiment that actually lives among the people. And there's plenty of other democratic countries to take examples from if they so desire. And killing millions of people in another country to ensure a regime's survival is surely a big deal.
- RegnisGnaw 10mo ago
  Most mainland Chinese support merging Taiwan back to China, either through a 1C2S deal or directly with force. Sentiments can be changed as needed through proper guidence of public opinion. The survival of China and the CCP is the #1 goal, the deaths of a few million people isn't a big deal to achieve that goal.

AnimalMuppet 10mo ago

Taiwan isn't a threat to China in the military sense. Taiwan is not going to wake up tomorrow and decide to invade China. But Taiwan is a threat indirectly. Chinese people, but with much more political freedom than in the mainland, and with more prosperity - that's a threat to the Communist Party's legitimacy as ruler of China, in the same way that Ukraine is a threat to Putin's rule of Russia. It's somebody just next door, with approximately the same people, who's doing much better and is much more free. It makes the Chinese and Russians start to get ideas that maybe they could have that, too. And Taiwan is more directly a threat, because Xi has explicitly made reunification with Taiwan a measure of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi's mouth made that problem, and now he can't back down without losing face. > Are they willing to kill millions of people just to protect their own pride? In a "face" culture? Yes, they may be.

tjpnz 10mo ago
Heaven forbid their own people get to see how a rational actor behaves on the world stage, the character of the reciprocal relationships they maintain with other nations and the treatment Taiwanese citizens receive when traveling.
wolvoleo 10mo ago
I don't think Taiwan is actually doing better economically. China is growing much faster. They're certainly doing a lot better on human rights and democracy but I don't see that being a big point of contention in Chinese society.

mittensc 10mo ago

Taiwan is a rich country (23M people 1T GDP country) Taiwan has critical tech and industry that is hard to replicate which china doesnt have access to but the west relies on. So, if they take it peacefully they both grow in strength and weaken the rest of the world. If they take it by force then they don't really lose much (barring nuclear exchanges) and cripple the rest of the world. If the US intervenes then it's another discussion but depends on their military strenght calculations... They might want to fight conventionally the US outside their borders and get the US to give up like vietnam and win over their region by force... That and historical reasons. If Xi pulls it off he's comparable to Mao.

CamperBob2 10mo ago
If they take it by force then they don't really lose much (barring nuclear exchanges) and cripple the rest of the world. If they take it by force, they will take a smoking hole in the ground where all that "critical tech" used to be. If Xi pulls it off he's comparable to Mao. Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason?
- mittensc 10mo ago
  > If they take it by force, they will take a smoking hole in the ground where all that "critical tech" used to be. Sure, but first, it's the rest of the world that loses it. With that tech manufacturing base gone, rest of the world might be forced to buy from china. China doesnt buy from Taiwan. Second, people and documents will still be around similar to germany's rocket scientists, they can be put to work. > Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason? Sure, that too. Dictators don't care about pople... (Putin is doing it too and if anything, killing your own people solidifies power...) I was thinking more how he's perceived like some sort of deity by chinese people and was untouchable power wise.
  - ThrowawayR2 10mo ago
    > "With that tech manufacturing base gone, rest of the world might be forced to buy from china" There are plenty of other advanced chip fabs outside of Taiwan. The ignorati on HN like to talk shit about Intel, a fair bit of which is deserved, but they have the second most advanced fabs in the world. Samsung, I believe, has the third best.

coffinbirth 10mo ago

The US is actually sending weapons to China, similar to Ukraine 10 years ago (Javelins authorized and delivered by Trump). As so often, the US is the aggressor here, not China. Just look at Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Irak, Iran, Russia, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, etc. the list of countries destroyed by the USA is basically endless. I wish the US would simply accept the multipolar world.

AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
By helping a country to be able to defend itself against aggression, the US is the aggressor? Both your logic and your morals are worthy of condemnation.
- throwaway_dang 10mo ago
  [flagged]

sarkron 10mo ago

I believe that as long as an independent, democratic and prosperous Taiwan exists, the communist party in China will perceive it as an existential threat, as it might inspire Chinese people to demand a similar regime. Chinese people need to know that there is no alternative to the rule of the Communist Party. It is for this reason that Taiwan needs to be crushed.

wolvoleo 10mo ago
But then every other democratic country could be perceived as a threat by them. Taiwan is not special in that sense. Also, there is no big anti CCP sentiment in China. Most people are happy with it as weird as it seems to me.
- Teever 10mo ago
  That's absolutely right. Authoritarians abhore freedom and consider every instance of it to be a threat to their continued existence and control. The implication of this is that once they're done with Taiwan they'll come for other countries. This isn't anything new either. The struggle between authoritarians and people who want to be free and autonomous in their day to day activities is eternal. We've made tremendous strides as a species to vanquish many kinds of authoritarians, with the last few centuries seeing the elimination of many monarchs. With those victories over the old authoritarians we've seen the rise of new kinds of authoritarians -- people who call themselves fascists or communists. Setting aside the minutiae of how closely their actions match those new labels they're no friends of mine and it is in our best interest to align the people who they intend to oppress be they in Taiwan or Ukraine.
throw4r5yeet 10mo ago
If that were true, then China would be going after Singapore too.

Fricken 10mo ago

The whole reason for Taiwan's existence is to be a thorn that western powers can press into China's side. It would never have come into existence in the first place if it was not propped up by hostile meddling foreign powers.

tim333 10mo ago

I think it's just human nature for autocratic types to want to take over and control everything even against the wishes of those they bully - see Putin and Ukraine, Xi and Taiwan, Trump and Greenland. It's like that song Everyone Wants to Rule the world. Maybe having AI run things would be better.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

tjpnz 10mo ago

Because that's what authoritarians have always done - all the way back through history.