Summary
Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year’s speech that Taiwan’s “reunification” with China is inevitable.
China has escalated military activity around Taiwan, including frequent incursions near the island and sanctions on U.S.-linked companies over arms sales to Taipei.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te rejected Beijing’s claims, stating Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its people.
Lai also criticized China’s restrictions on travel and education exchanges with Taiwan, calling for dignified, reciprocal relations based on goodwill and equality.
Okay, West Taiwan.
Sounds like something south Canada would say.
You mean North Mexico?
Don’t do that.
Don’t give me hope.
Not North America?
Oh wait…
Get the sentiment, but just a friendly reminder that most Taiwanese people don’t love the “West Taiwan” meme as it props up the outdated idea that Taiwan wants to make a claim to China, when the vast majority are in favor of just being left alone. This isn’t two aggressors laying claim to each other, it’s one threatening the other.
Sounds rather rapey when you put it that way, doesn’t it?
Very. But I still expect to see plenty of hypocritical leninists ignoring or defending this. Telling us that Daddy Xi is only killing them for their own good. And that if they just lay back and took it that they would learn to enjoy it.
Not that it’s ever made sense that they defend certain capitalists. While denouncing capitalism and other capitalist governments.
Definitely not something an imperialist would say.
Yes. “reuninifcation”.
Just like Austria was “reunified” with Nazi germany. 🤮
I mean that was also reunification. Doesn’t make it a good thing, but it fits the definition of reunification.
Reading up a bit on the history of China, it looks like the Communists won the war for power in the nation and those who were supported by the West fled to Taiwan.
A better comparison would be if the Confederates fled to an island and retained their independence after losing the American civil war.
You need to keep in mind, the capitalists lost. You can live in la-la land thinking they “should have” won, but that’s simply not what happened.
Capitalist lost? You seen modern day China? Hardly anti-capitalist. Taiwan should get to decide if it’s part of China or not. Doesn’t seam they want undemocratic dystopia.
Going to your America example, the Brits withdrew to Canada. You with Trump with invading Canada then? A 1812 rematch?
I dont get the downvotes. China is state controlled capitalism with all the negatives of capitalism like extreme wealth disparity. China couldnt be further from a stateless, classless moneyless society that communism aspires.
The official position in both countries is that there is “one China” and that they are the legitimate one.
Unlike in mainland China in Taiwan people including most of the political elite seem to be fine with the status quo though.
I think they are both best just signing mutual recognition and moving on. Neither is the same as they where when they seperated.
everyone in Taiwan would love to do that, but Beijing can’t get over being dumped.
You with Trump with invading Canada then? A 1812 rematch?
Oh no, please don’t give that bloated orange Slurm mascot any more ideas.
Keep reading, because you haven’t gotten it yet. The communists rebelled against the KMT government and pushed them out to Taiwan. The American analogy would be if the south had won the civil war and pushed the north back to, let’s say, Long Island.
K, I don’t use all caps a lot, but I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR.
I will not be a slave to history. My defense of Taiwan is entirely based on the here and now.
K I need to qualify that statement somewhat. History is useful for explaining why the world is the way it is today, and serves as a guide into the future, but it is useless as some kind of long term score sheet.
Well, if that’s how you want to see it then the idea of “rightful owner” doesn’t matter much.
It’s really just who you like more at that point.
It’s not that the rightful owner doesn’t matter. It’s that it is hard to quantify on this scale, and it is especially hard to quantify using history.
And yeah, it is in fact more about who I like more. I like the Taiwanese government because the Taiwanese people are in control of it, and I believe in every human’s right to choose their own government. I hate the Chinese government for exactly the same reason, along with the fact that they’re a bunch of land grabbing imperialist bastards.
I’m glad you can admit your bias and that your idea of who China belongs to is based on personal preference.
I’m glad you can admit that you consider human rights as a form of personal preference.
But my, uh, “preference” for human rights isn’t actually the highest principle at play here. The highest principle here is that of internationally-agreed-upon borders. A country may not violate these borders. Period. For example, even though I like Taiwan’s government more, I do not believe they deserve one square metre of mainland China.
That’s a lazy and inaccurate take. The Chinese Civil War wasn’t some simplistic ‘capitalists vs. communists’ fight. The KMT was corrupt but not purely capitalist, and the CCP’s victory came from exploiting peasant dissatisfaction and the KMT’s failures, not some inherent ideological supremacy. Comparing the KMT to the Confederacy is absurd—they weren’t separatists but nationalists fighting for control of all China. If you’re going to push historical narratives, at least try for accuracy instead of ideological grandstanding.
That’s weird, I thought China has currency and all sorts of other capitalist systems.
great so that means the CCP is stepping down and letting the ROC government back into Beijing to govern a reunified China? Excellent news if true.
If Taiwan isn’t building attack marine and air drones like fucking crazy right now they are incredible idiots. I would be mass producing that shit like a motherfucker and preparing to blow up the chip factories incase shit goes south.
The chip factories are wired to pop. Taiwan is an awesome country by the way
Yep. China will get nothing of Taiwan’s true wealth. OTHO, see why America is pumping chips? CHIP Act.
They don’t build the weapons for themselves (mostly), but the US has enormous volumes of weapons (presumably including a lot of drones) already stored in Taiwan so that they can be bought and delivered instantly if they’re needed
“Expedited next day (war)shipping!”
Bit rapey.
Didn’t have Occupied China stepping down and recognizing the legitimate government in Taiwan on my 2025 bingo card
Oh is the PRC going to surrender to the ROC? Because Taiwan was never part of the PRC. For there to be reunification, the PRC would have to give mainland China back to the ROC.
It all hinges upon which government you consider “legitimate.”
We can’t pretend violent rebellions aren’t eventually considered legitimate, good or bad. Look at the US.
Wow, China’s propaganda in plain view in this comments section, damn!
Tankies gon’ tank.
Tankies gonna downvote too. They think they are anonymous in the votes haha
We need public downvotes
They already are
Yeah, some of 'em. Most of them are just regular Chinese people repeating what they’ve been told, though. I’ve talked with all kinds of Chinese people like that, and truly, when I’m not being a dick about it, it is amazing how quickly I can change their minds. “Quickly” here means “in a month”. Not during the first conversation. Be gentle.
And these people are willingly kissing his ass. They’re not even Chinese people who actually grew up with propaganda, but instead make the conscious choice to believe it.
If Fascist China thinks the EU and US will give up their largest producer of semiconductors then they’re severely mistaken
What do you think they would do to stop it?
The us would probably enter war to stop it, Taiwan is pretty valuable to us
Zero chance.
“Us” being? Taiwan didn’t send me a Christmas card.
Bet they made the processor you used to write that comment.
That’s not where they produce their cutting edge chips though… https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-will-spend-14-billion-on-manufacturing-chips-at-tsmc-report
War is necessary… so I can text grandma? Do ya’ll not hear yourselves?
More like: War is necessary… so a dictator can stroke his own ego
Remember who is the aggressor here.
The Kuomintang fought a civil war and lost, would we be okay if the Confederacy kept Florida and wouldn’t give it back?
How would you keep the imperialists from stealing land?
Are you talking about the White Terror?
Send the US navy to blockade the strait and finalise the sale of the billions of dollars worth of weapons already waiting on the island for exactly that purpose
…trump’s trivially manipulated: the next four years are china’s best shot and they know it…
That’s a joke, right? Taiwan is literally about 90 miles away from mainland China. The USA could park every ship we have and that still wouldn’t work. If China wants Taiwan, then they will get it even if Taiwan is largely destroyed doing it.
The USA already prevents the Chinese from getting the top processors from Taiwan, so blowing up the factory will hurt the USA much more than China. Not to mention kneecap Musk and the tech bros that have been supporting Trump.
No, it’s not a joke. And putting a small amount of thought into it makes clear that the US believes it can effectively defend Taiwan - it wouldn’t keep such volumes of weaponry there if it believed it would trivially fall into China’s hands.
The US’ Center for Strategic and International Studies has wargamed this 24 times for conventional warfare only and 15 times for consideration of the use of nuclear weapons. In both scenarios, they found they would likely be able to successfully preserve Taiwan’s autonomy.
I think you deeply underestimate just how difficult and expensive in manpower and materiel it is to perform a naval invasion, especially against a nation whose military is specialised for pretty much exclusively that purpose.
Naval superiority is naval superiority; if you can’t get your military to the other side of the strait, you can’t invade the island, regardless of distance. The actual question is whether Taiwan would be able to hold off an invasion for long enough for the US navy to reach and control the strait, which is reasonably likely given the US rents a large number of naval bases in the region for just this purpose.
I’m going to just go ahead and ignore your second paragraph, since it’s entirely unrelated to the US’s military capability wrt to Taiwan.
Haven’t both Taiwan and China both been stockpiling an essentially unlimited supply of long range anti-ship missiles for about a decade now? I can’t imagine China having a fun time even landing troops but it’d be equally hellish for any US ships attempting to exist in the general area.
The US surface ships can sit outside the Chinese medium range envelope and attack only the landing forces. They don’t need to hit Chinese mainland, that’s what the 71 submarines are for. The long range missiles are then easy to defeat because there aren’t enough to saturate the air defense.
I think you nearly overestimate the appetite of the USA government or people to engage in such a massive conflict over Taiwan. The new administration has made it clear support for Ukraine is on thin ice and a deal can be made with Russia to end the fighting. Why not with China as well?
a deal can be made with Russia to end the fighting [in Ukraine].
How do you know? My impression is that any deal without security guarantees from the West will just be violated in about two years or so by Russia, and Russia would refuse to make a deal with such security guarantees for exactly that reason.
If Russia changes its mind and says it would be willing to accept such a deal, I would change my mind. Actually I still wouldn’t because Russia are the lyingest bastards I know, but whatever. It hasn’t happened. It would never happen.
Imperialists cannot be reasoned with without credible threats of violence. If it were otherwise, they wouldn’t be imperialist.
One of the primary reasons trump wants to reduce the US’ focus on Russia and Ukraine is to prioritise their position towards China. That’s not to say Trump might not decide against direct involvement; he’s famously erratic, but the semiconductor production of Taiwan is an critical economic dependency that can’t be replaced in the short term.
That’s 5 hours in the open, with every weapon system in the Pacific Ocean firing at you. Good luck?
There has been work to replicate the capabilities in Taiwan on US soil. While it hasn’t been going great, it has been progressing. At some point it is quite possible that Taiwan will no longer be as strategic a partner with America as they are now, which doesn’t bode well for their continued assistance from America. But if there comes a time that China will take Taiwan you can be guaranteed that everything possible will be done to reduce the risk of technology transfer.
But you have to factor in deliberate effort already to eliminate the CHIPS act by Congress. I’m sure it will get the axe in the new administration.
The rush had been increased because of the efforts Western governments like the USA have made to prevent China from getting the chips from Taiwan, that encourages the Chinese to develop their own capacity but also eliminated the hit they would take if processor production in Taiwan was crippled by conflict.
The actual ace in the hole protecting Taiwan is the fact that the Chinese want the Taiwanese to join willingly, but if the Chinese economy has continued trouble than Xi will be under pressure to demonstrate strength and that is where they could make a move on Taiwan.
What do you think they would do to stop it?
How does
“Naval assets filling the sky with a stupidly impossible number of militarized drone swarms using highly classified AI-augmented coordination and cyber warfare which will dump a ton of really nasty crap into an already struggling ocean”
sound?
Because that’s the plan, apparently. =\
https://www.wired.com/story/china-taiwan-pentagon-drone-hellscape
So much Death. Just so much. For reference look at the aircraft carrier HMS United Kingdom in World War 2. The world’s only unsinkable ship, capable of producing it’s own weapons even. Now update that to 2024 with modern, missiles, torpedoes, and submarines. China would likely win a protracted, non nuclear, limited engagement. But not before significant areas in China and the entirety of Taiwan were nothing but a rubble hellscape.
So at the end of the day, the obvious price of death and destruction, even without nukes. But in the past Presidents have made clear that Taiwan is under the MAD umbrella. So non-nuclear is not a given, and of course we all lose in a nuclear scenario.
Theres a single dam in China which is extremely vulnerable, if hit by a rocket the majority of Chinas food supply would be destroyed.
That’s about as likely as America performing a preemptive nuclear strike on China. The international “fallout” would be pretty much the same.
The Taiwanese know of it’s existence too, and have the capability to hit it. Furthermore we currently have a president who views war crimes as going above and beyond instead of criminal behavior. I would not bet against someone blowing it up.
Oh damn. Taiwan wouldn’t do it now, but if China invaded, they absolutely would.
I have no doubt that Trump is capable of giving the order. As it stands, there is no way the order is obeyed. Trump will of course start trying to install loyalists in military leadership, but I doubt even the generals could successfully get such an order obeyed today. The entire military culture would need to be replaced, and I think the protections against that will require more time than Trump has to do it.
Thankfully, incompetence is a core trait of fascism, and I don’t think Trump or his people have the juice.
Hitting that dam is a lot harder to disobey as an illegal order than violating Posse Comitatus. Especially if we’re on the brink of nuclear war that would create massive civilian casualties anyways. We expect a big pushback if Trump tries to deploy the military domestically. Going to war is another matter entirely.
It’s not the same at all. Ok the US would get blamed, but they wouldn’t be fired at back with nuclear weapons
Unleash the 22
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what is the 22?
The F-22 Raptor. It’s never been deployed.
They know US can be bought for cheap and EU are too coward.
That’s why TSCM now has a chip plant in Arizona, to ensure production.
Pooh wants his hunny
Seems more like he wants someone elses hunny.
Taiwan is China!
China will take back Taiwan!
Taiwan belongs to China!
Nothing can stop China from taking Taiwan
so which is it Poohboy? either it’s yours or it ain’t. once you make up your mind and decide to stop this weak bitch posturing come and get it. The Navy will be waiting.
The quickest way to do this is for the CCP to surrender to the ROC.
Are we sure this “China” is a real country?
Call it by it’s name, mainland Taiwan.
West Taiwan
That works too
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