Amid heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a former Taiwanese president who supports unification that the countries “belong” together.
“Differences in systems cannot change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to the same country and nation,” Xi said.
“External interference cannot stop the historical trend of reunion of the country and family,” Xi said, in comments reported by Taiwanese media and published by Reuters.
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Beijing claims the independent island of Taiwan is a Chinese province and has threatened to use force to achieve unification. China frequently sends warplanes and naval vessels to circle the small island democracy and has been mounting an increasing number of military drills over recent years.
Because the world has said Taiwan is part of China. That’s why. The world needs to recognize Taiwan as its own nation. Everyone wanted that cheap labor in China and ignored Taiwan.
Unfortunately, the main reason the world won’t recognize Taiwan as its own nation is because it doesn’t have UN status as a nation. And the only way to get status as a nation is get all 5 votes from the UN Security Council. China is on the UN Security Council.
The US is providing military and money to help defend Taiwan from China, but at the same time does not recognize them as independent from China. The whole one-vote veto in the UN is fucking stupid.
That’s been the problem. We built a hostile nation by using cheap labor, giving them technology and now act surprised when they turn aggressive. American companies have some weird notion that countries will advanced pass being cheaper labor and will be actively competing against you
That notion has always been just a nice fantasy that lets decision makers, who have any thoughts beyond maximizing profit, to lay those thoughts to rest and proceed with maximizing profits. The ones that never had those thoughts didn’t need this tool. Of course that’s also been sold to the rest of us, non-decisionmakers, so we don’t get in the way of that profit maximization.
Taiwanese people don’t want the island to be recognized as its own nation though. They benefit from close economic relations with the mainland and so are happy to maintain the status quo. The majority voted against pro independence candidates in recent elections, something this article fails to mention. That of course doesn’t mean Taiwanese people trust the mainland nor do they want to be politically integrated into it. However the situation is more nuanced than many western media outlets would have you believe.
Being reported as Chinese propaganda, but as usual the truth seems to be more nuanced than that…
I will admit, I am not Chinese and my understanding of the deeper issues is imperfect at best, but according to here:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/taiwan/taiwan-already-independent
The Taiwanese people DEFINITELY do not want Unification, but at the same time, they see an official declaration of statehood as superfluous.
It’s not so much that they don’t WANT independence, it’s that, as far as they see it, they already ARE independent, no declaration necessary.
Its nice to have something official and have recognition from the rest of the world and to be able to participate in UN or WHO and as “Taiwan” or even “ROC” instead of “Chinese Taipei” in sport contests.
But there is always a threat of war from China if Taiwan does the above. So no one wants to take that risk and be the one that starts the war, possibly WW3.
At some point you have to shit or get off the pot. Either they are part of China or they are not.
Okay and as far as the Taiwanese people are concerned they apparently see that choice as a lose lose situation. Why then does it matter if they prefer the ambiguity of the status quo? Why is it so urgent that they make a choice they clearly don’t want to make?
