Everybody knows about the backstory, there was a civil war, KMT fled to Taiwan creating two Chinas sort of, maybe, neither recognises the other, whole thing. ROC (Taiwan) ended up transitioning from military rule to a multi-party democracy, while the PRC (mainland China) didn’t do that (they did reform economically, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and all that, but still a one-party state, not a multi-party democracy). The status quo right now is that Taiwan is in the grey area of statehood where they function pretty much independently but aren’t properly recognised, and both sides of the strait are feeling pretty tense right now.
Taiwan’s stance on the issue is that they would like to remain politically and economically independent of mainland China, retaining their multi-party democracy, political connections to its allies, economic trade connections, etc. Also, a majority of the people in Taiwan do not support reunification with China.
China’s stance on the issue is that Taiwan should be reunified with the mainland at all costs, ideally peacefully, but war is not ruled out. They argue that Taiwan was unfairly separated from the mainland by imperial powers in their “century of humiliation”. Strategically, taking Taiwan would be beneficial to China as they would have better control of the sea.
Is it even possible for both sides to agree to a peaceful solution? Personally, I can only see two ways this could go about that has the consent of both parties. One, a reformist leader takes power in the mainland and gives up on Taiwan, and the two exist as separate independent nations. Or two, the mainland gets a super-reformist leader that transitions the mainland to a multi-party democracy, and maybe then reunification could be on the table, with Taiwan keeping an autonomous status given the large cultural difference (similar to Hong Kong or Macau’s current status). Both options are, unfortunately, very unlikely to occur in the near future.
A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan becomes a recognised country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.
What are your thoughts on a peaceful solution to the crisis that both sides could agree on?
edit: Damn there are crazies in both ends of the arguments. I really don’t think giving Taiwan nukes would help solve the problem.
I think the current best solution, looking at the more reasonable and realistic comments, seems to be to maintain the status quo, at least until both sides of the strait are able to come into some sort of agreement (which seems to be worlds away right now given their current very opposing stances on the issue)
The reality of what people in Taiwan now think, not alternative history scenarios regarding a different USA reaction to Taiwan at specific points of divergence. I think a majority of the would-be pro-independence bloc across Taiwan likely do wish to move towards independence, but feel it unrealistic and dangerous to do so because of the potential reaction from China, and so answer “status quo” or “status quo, decide later” on polls out of that specific resignation.
Just alternate present scenarios, gotcha.
Right, and I think a majority of the would-be pro-unification bloc across Taiwan feel currently feel that unification is not necessary because there isn’t a looming alien invasion.
You’re acting as though “pro-independence” or “pro-unification” are just these abstract things that can be understood in a vacuum, utterly unconnected to geopolitical realities, except, for some reason, when the geopolitical realities pertaining to China are involved. But these positions will always be dependent on what they actually mean for the people Taiwan, in existing reality. US investment breaks this vacuum, this “Platonic form” of pro-independence just as security concerns from the PRC do.
You cannot, fundamentally, talk about what they would support “in a vacuum” or “if security concerns did not exist” because they will never be in a vacuum and security concerns will always exist. This gets back to something I asked previously:
One specific one, I suppose.
You think an alien invasion is on the same level of likelihood of a Chinese change of policy here?
China could hypothetically change in a number of ways that would change pro-independence attitude itself, but assuming nothing else changed within China but their willingness to accept an independent Taiwan - I think Taiwan would move pretty fast on this. I suppose the USA could also change and behave in such a way that alienates Taiwan from their position and drive them to the mainland, but I maintain strongly that the only reason that ‘status quo/status quo-choose later’ currently lead the polling on this issue in Taiwan is due to the well-understood threat from China to Taiwanese people if the Taiwanese decide to formally explore pathways to official independence. ‘Status quo’ itself is a halfway house that no-one in Taiwan or China is especially happy with, but works well enough for both sides to last at least as of now - a long time (which is why I am not calling for any independence moves for Taiwan).
What we also do know is contained within the site that you linked me are also polls on Taiwanese identity, and that the population has broadly moved towards seeing themselves as and identifying as prominently Taiwanese over Chinese. This tells me that a sense of national identity is taking hold within Taiwan, and combined with the actual pro-independence outlook being about 4 times more popular than unification according to polls, I think I’m making fairly reasonable observations.
Never said anything that would remotely imply that, no.
Exactly! You get a 1000 political philosophers around a table, and not one of them would invent such a scenario or describe it as ideal or logical. But that doesn’t matter. It is a “vulgar” compromise that doesn’t allow for abstract principles to be satisfied. But it is an effective compromise that has worked and has maintained the peace.
In what universe are we supposed to judge political solutions to conflicts based on how much they satisfy abstract principles, how “neat” they are in the abstract, instead of the actual results they produce in reality??? And in what way is someone “pro-independence” if they support that position purely as an abstract ideal, if what they actually support in practice, and when asked, is the status quo? To be in favor of the status quo is to support in in practice, as pretty much no one supports it in the abstract.
The thing I find completely baffling is that you seem to think that the abstract world is in some way more real or more relevant than material reality. That the only way we could know what the Taiwanese people “actually” support is by placing them in a vacuum. This is nonsense. What they “actually” support is what they do support, in the actual, real world as it currently exists. But, despite insisting that “the world as it is now is what I care about,” you try to say that what actual matters, what actually reveals their true preferences, is this hypothetical reality where you arbitrarily remove China as a factor, and the opinions of your mental model of Taiwanese people in that hypothetical somehow “overrules” what they say they want in material reality.
You made the comparison.
Sure. And I haven’t said it should suddenly stop, so no idea why you keep saying this.
I think there’s a fundamental difference between not supporting your regions independence because you think it economically non-viable and not supporting your regions independence because another nation threatens to invade you if that happens. Especially as Taiwan is already de facto independent in the first place. You aren’t even disputing my analysis here that the wider population can be reasonably observed to be far more pro-independence than pro-unification, you’re just saying that I can’t point out that they only don’t push for it further because of Chinese intimidation and threats because it makes their ideal outcome rooted in hypothetical circumstances.
I don’t at all see how you’ve concluded that at all from anything I’ve said.
I’d also add that status quo is already de facto independence, so in that sense, a supermajority for status quo is effectively a majority for independence as best they can within the circumstances that exist.
What they (a majority) want, I suspect, is independence officially already - but will continue on settling for ‘status quo’ and relay this on polls on grounds of not wanting to antagonise China and inciting them to bomb them (The Taiwanese rather like not being bombed or blockaded more than directly pursuing independence in this way). You don’t even seem to dispute this. You just complain about it being a hypothetical that could only be realised if China backed off.
Dammit! I get it from everything you say! Like:
How can you claim that they “want independence officially already” and then immediately say that they would rather maintain the status quo than pursue independence?? You’re contradicting yourself. The only possible way to make sense of that is if you consider what they want in the abstract to be somehow “more real” than what they actually do want in reality.
Or:
Why do you keep trying to reduce it to this false dichotomy? These are not the only options, the status quo is what the majority of Taiwanese people support. Why do you not consider the status quo to be a “real” answer? The only explanation I can see, is that you think the abstract world is somehow “more real” than material reality.
I don’t see the difference. In both cases, your position is that independence is not likely to result in desirable outcomes.
As I said in a follow-up, “status quo” is de-facto independence which a supermajority support via polling. Not many people support the “status quo but move towards unification” option, yet they could. Why is this?
I know they are not the only two options. I’m saying that if you omit that for the purposes of comparison and directly compare the pro-independence and pro-unification sentiment then the pro-independence sentiment is 3-4 times stronger. I am also arguing that if the world in some ways changed in such a way that it was no longer felt necessary for security reasons to maintain status quo, then it is more likely that the Taiwanese people would move towards independence than unification.
Of course you don’t. A regions economy not being strong enough, or viewed as strong enough to support itself is fundamentally an internal issue within the regions own borders. A regions people feeling too intimidated to push for independence (even though they already are effectively independent) because of threats from a nearby global power just seem to me to be such self-evidently different phenonemons when observing a regions attitude to self-determination.
Why do you keep acting like I’m arguing in favor of unification? When have I ever said anything to make you think that? I support, just like nearly everyone in Taiwan does, the status quo. Which you can’t seem to concieve of as an option, because you think the realm of the abstract is somehow “more real” then reality.
Why? Why would you omit them? There’s no basis for it! Why are the only two positions you’ll consider “independence” and “unification” when those collectively represent only 5%, and are both clearly bad options a fact you obviously agree with as evidenced by the fact that you don’t actually support breaking the status quo in practice. The only way I can understand this is if you think the abstract world is somehow “more real” than material reality.
Only if the region we’re talking about is North Korea. Every country is connected to and influenced by the global economy, in no way can a region’s economy be considered a purely internal issue. No man is an island.
After the American Revolution, there was a question of whether the states would unify into a single, cohesive entity, or be loosely aligned, or completely independent. The threat posed by European powers was a major reason why the states joined together in a union.
Do we need to go back in time and nuke Europe so that the states can truly and freely decide whether they want to be together or not? It’s nonsense. Security concerns always exist and always factor in to such decisions, and have since the very formation of states. Again, you are trying to let people decide these things in a vacuum, but there are no vacuums anywhere and never have been.
I didn’t say you were. I was just asking you why very few people in Taiwan seem to go for supporting “status quo, but move towards unification” when it doesn’t confer the same risks as “status quo, but move towards independence” in antagonising China if enough people polled that way.
As I’ve said multiple times now, status quo is in itself a soft-form of independence and that I regard continued supermajority support for it in itself to be pro-independence in itself, but the next step (formalisation) is still broadly desired, but considered unrealistic currently on grounds of not antagonising China (which is a terrible situation they should not be placed in).
Right, okay, but still aspects within its own economy in relation to the rest of the world would be considered to make it non-viable. Not only is Taiwan already effectively independent anyway, formalising it and becoming officially independent would make no change to anything here.
No? What a strange comparison. There are many points of observation we can use to determine whether or not the states within the USA continue to consent to being in the union even if their original fusion was indeed unification on grounds of intimidation from others. A national identity did form from that, as indeed a national identity seems to now exist within Taiwan.
You know you’re simply not going to change my position on this issue. I do believe that pro-independence as an option on Taiwan is far more popular than pro-unification, and that status quo in itself is already a form of soft-independence in itself.