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)
It’s extremely simple: my point isn’t that changing systems is inherently bad, but that’s your core premise. The reason I am confident that socialist revolution in the US Empire would be dramatically positive (not at all free of conflict or struggle, of course) while collapse of socialism in China would be devastating for most people is because I look at history, not just the abstract, metaphysical idea of change being bad.
For example, when looking at the transition between tsarism and socialism in Russia, we saw a chaotic period of revolution followed by tremendous progress in key life metrics like life expectancy, housing rates, literacy rates, women’s rights, and more. It was not perfect, and it did involve violent revolution, but the new system was dramatically progressive and uplifted the people.
When we look at the dissolution of socialism in Russia, we see skyrocketing poverty rates, increased prostitution, drug abuse, disparity, homelessness, drops in education, life expectancy, and more. Many of these metrics are still behind the soviet union in the modern Russian Federation.
By looking at historical example, and comparing the general with the particular characteristics in the US Empire and the PRC, I can say which I support and why.
Of course, but this suffering pales in comparison to the tyranny of the present capitalist dictatorship and the constant genocide the US Empire exports. If there was an easy, simple, peaceful option to bring about socialism in the US Empire, I’d take it in a heartbeat. The problem is that there isn’t, and I can say so because I study the processes of growth and development, of change, ie dialectical materialism.
It’s based on the analysis of how capitalist systems are run. Bourgeois “democracy” cannot truly represent the will of the people, only the will of the ruling class, that class being the capitalists that control the large firms and key industries. This isn’t something leftists believe out of dogma, but observed analysis of history and the process of growth and development of society over time.
That’s a self-tell, Rimu spread Heritage Foundation propaganda about “organ harvesting” by the PRC. There’s absolutely no credible evidence for this, meaning Rimu believes it due to seeing Chinese people as subhuman. It’s the same strategy colonizers used to dehumanize those living in colonies, believing lies about them and seeing them as “savages.”
My point was that Rimu’s views impact the development of PieFed, and thus we need to contextualize PieFed’s development with his views. There is no such thing as a process in the abstract, as a static and unrelated thing, instead everything exists in context with everything else. Your rejection of contextualization is anti-scientific.
This is the point you made, not the point said ex-pat made. Said ex-pat has deliberately stated that they want socialism to fall and the capitalist ROC to dominate the mainland. To answer your question, you should stop running interference for these kinds of things.
Anti-communism is right-wing. I don’t consider all non-communists to be right-wing, though, for example anarchists are left-wing. Opposing socialism and wishing for the instatement of capitalism is right-wing, and I can’t see how you’d argue otherwise.
Running cover for right-wingers that, from our interactions purely, have all had anti-China positions. It seems like you’re trying to dance in rhetoric to defend and legitimize those that oppose the PRC and the socialist system it has against any meaningful criticism. I say “dance in rhetoric” because you seem entirely uninterested in talking about the flaws in your analysis, like your metaphysical framing of concepts and your rejection of history having an impact on modern conditions. You see history not as an unfolding process, but as a series of snapshots, and you refuse to engage with my critique of this error whenever I bring it up.
So the suffering during the interim transition phase and potential collapse (I think it’s pretty absurd to believe a socialist revolution in the USA would somehow be successful or develop in a way that you precisely would want) is actually irrelevant to you.
Yes, I know the basics of how your worldview works here.
This logic makes zero sense as to his motives. Also, this stuff got as far as the OHCHR, and was reported on by many different press outlets across the world at various points. The notion that somehow means he is subhuman is absurd.
Okay?
And many PRC people say the opposite. What’s your point?
So there we have it. I’m already right-wing according to you no matter what I say here about any of these issues.
I’m not remotely interested in being lectured from you about Communism and how you think its the ideal outcome. I know you regard what you do here on the fediverse as instructional and that you believe you have an obligation to ‘educate’ others. In that sense, it’s not unlike many forms of evangelism. But I’m just not even slightly interested in depating or being convinced into communism by you.
No, it isn’t at all irrelevant. It’s acknowledged as a necessary consequence of the dying away of capitalism, which is a social, material process, and the transition on to socialism. It isn’t avoidable. Capitalism cannot last forever, and is dying away as we speak, so the most necessary task is to effectively organize so as to steer the revolution in a positive direction, with as little instability and bloodshed as possible, and the lowest chance of collapse.
Just saying you think it’s absurd to believe a socialist revolution would be successful in the US Empire doesn’t actually serve as a substitute for a point on why you believe so. Since we have many historical examples of successful revolution, I see no reason to belive revolution to be impossible in the US Empire.
You seem to understand that communists don’t believe bourgeois democracy is truly democratic, but not the underlying reasons behind that analysis.
It makes a great deal of sense for Rimu’s motives, you have to contextualize everything, not abstract it. Further, regarding the hysterical claims of organ harvesting, here’s an example of how the “evidence” was gathered:
Do you also believe Saddam had WMD? Or that Iraqi forces took babies from incubators and left them on the floor? Or that there’s white genocide in South Africa? Or that Venezuela is a narco state? There are endless examples of the same atrocity propaganda schtick played by the west.
Taiwan is already a part of China, the mainland doesn’t want to “dominate” them, and the CPC is fine with waiting until the people of Taiwan decide to fully reintegrate.
I mean, if you oppose socialism and support capitalism, then yes, by definition. Leftism means progressing on to the next mode of production, rightism preserves capitalism and imperialism. Do you support capitalism and oppose socialism?
I’m not evangelizing, though, I’m an activist trying to organize the working classes. Trying to equate political activism with “evangelism” is just trying to substitute the reasoning for my views with religion, rather than grounded, scientific analysis and a desire for a better world. You have no evidence of religious foundations for my views, yet you attack them as such anyways. I understand you don’t want to learn more about communism, but you don’t even seem to be willing to debate your own logical fallacies and anti-scientific dogmatism.
And someone might say that the interim period of suffering of the hypothetical collapse of the PRC would be worth it to usher in a representative democratic system. I think both would be wrong, to be frank - but I see no reason to prefer your outcome of USA collapse over a China collapse (or vice versa).
We also have many examples of failed revolutions.
Simply saying that I understand why you say it, but I do not share it. So therefore you saying it is irrelevant to me.
No, it doesn’t. Nothing from Rimu that I have ever seen suggests he has a single racist bone in his body. It’s a vile hateful smear.
And officially, China is already “apart of” Taiwan in the same sense but reverse. The user we are referring would likely regard the CCP as already “dominating” PRC and as threatening, one day, to also “dominate” the Taiwan. You are doing some comical pearl-clutching over a comment made by someone of Chinese descent.
Sure. So pretty much everyone you speak to on here will be a right-winger (barring specific instances - I assume social democratic viewpoints are more common, or if people are socialist - they’re not likely to hold revolutionary ideals in order to attain that). So what’s your point then?
The purpose here is effectively missionary. It’s not a religion, but the methods are similar in many ways. Instead of scripture, you have theory which everyone is encouraged to read and understand in order to acquiesce to your position. You have presuppositions loaded into your worldview that you use as assertions when interacting with people outside of it. You use the space given as a space to spread your ideals here.
And I am, and many others here just not remotely interested in that.
China already has democracy. In China, they have direct elections for local representatives, which elect further “rungs,” laddering to the top. The top then has mass polling and opinion gathering. This combination of top-down and bottom-up democracy ensures effective results. For more on this, see Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance.
The dissolution of the US Empire would dramatically uplift the global south, whose surplus value is stolen by the US Empire daily. The millions who die regularly from sanctions would now survive.
Correct, so the solution is to learn from both successful and failed revolutions, not to not try at all.
Your flaws in analysis stem from metaphysical frames of analysis. It’s plain, clear, and obviously holding your reasoning back.
A vile, hateful smear is sharing far-right propaganda about “organ harvesting” the way colonists spoke of colonized people. Believing outrageous lies about foreigners simply due to the fact that it justifies Rimu’s opposition to communism doesn’t change the fact that this is a chauvanistic view.
The difference being that the CPC is overwhelmingly supported, while the KMT violently took over Taiwan and slaughtered resistance for decades in a millitary dictatorship.
The majority of westerners are right-wingers, yes. Socialists are overwhelmingly revolutionary, though, this question was already answered definitively well over a century ago.
Word salad.
I am a political activist, that uses real, materialist analysis of social structures and history to guide how I organize in real life, like any decent communist. Your argument is effectively against any kind of analysis and education, it’s pure anti-intellectualism. You speak of political science like Flat Earthers speak of Astronomy.
I understand that not everyone is interested in communism, I exist in the real world. I also know that, by numbers, this is rapidly changing, and more and more people turn to tried and true methods of analysis and organizing to answer the problems of today that communists already accurately analyzed over a century ago, and continue to develop and analyze.
Genuinely not interested.
No reason to believe that a hypothetical US revolution wouldn’t meet the same outcome.
I’m not giving you any analysis, just telling you that we are at a fundamental impasse.
Not sure what that has to do with Taiwan as it is now, or how that means that them having great approval ratings in China means people on Taiwan automatically share those views.
You can think he’s sharing propaganda, conspiracy theories etc but then claiming he does it because he thinks that Chinese people are subhuman is a nasty, vile smear.
And all you want to do on here is political activism, and nothing else on here. I’m not interested in being politically preached at.
Trust me bro.
Facts scare you, but you sure seem to love spreading far-right propaganda, got it. Checks out.
There’s every reason to believe that if we learn from successful revolutions and avoid the pitfalls of unsuccessful ones that we will succeed.
No, you are giving me analysis. You equate the collapse of socialism in China with the dissolution of capitalism in the US based on abstracting them from their context, ie metaphysics.
History is a process impacted by what came before it, not a series of random, static snapshots. You need to understand historical context to understand the future, what you are doing is an example of metaphysics.
If someone shared a story of Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs off the street, would you not say that this is baked in racism? If neither are baked in reality but are instead pushed to support an agenda, then it’s quite obvious that racism plays a part.
Is it not my right to advocate for better when abiding by the rules?
What have I spread?
This doesn’t change the fact that most people on Taiwan don’t want to be governed by the CCP and their history of emerging from a brutal dictatorship doesn’t invalidate what they are now.
It is your right to evangelise, but it’s going to put people off.
The ‘organ harvesting’ stories, accusations, investigations etc have been around for years, decades and been at a much higher level of investigation than the baseless, completely random claims of Haitians eating cats and dogs in Springfield as shouted out suddenly by Trump during the debate. It also concerns allegations towards government practices, as opposed to casting aspersions towards people purely because they’re of Haitian ancestry (or alleged - as much of the claims in the USA often just made the assumption that if a black person did something related to these claims, they must be of Haitian heritage).
How does your polling data contrast to young people’s opinions on communism as compared to 2015, 2005, 1995 etc? Do we have historical data to compare this to?
You legitimized the blatant propaganda about “organ harvesting” in order to defend Rimu.
Nope, but it contextualizes why, as the US Empire decays and pulls out of Taiwan, it’s likely that reunification will become dominant as Taiwan lags economically behind the PRC.
My activism seems to only put some people off, and these kinds of people are the ones that already have their minds made up, like yourself. I know that my work in real life and my posting online has directly contributed to creating more communists, which is net positive for sure.
Likewise, I have seen your PieFed evangelizing put people off of PieFed, but likely by people that wouldn’t want to use PieFed anyways.
“Trust me bro.” Seriously, investigate the McCain institute claims you’re repeating with an ounce of intellectual honesty. They are baseless and rely on “eyewitness reports” alone, typically from the Falun Gong, itself a far-right cult. Here’s an example of investigating claims made by the Falun Gong about organ harvesting, with no evidence found. You’re repeating far-right propaganda.
Not the same institute, but polling in favor of socialism/communism has been steadily increasing in the US over time. This is backed up by consistent polling.