#China-Taiwan relations

[eelhound]

"[Van] Jackson 

Since the 1970s, America had repeated military buildups in response to perceived threats. Whether it’s the Soviet military buildup, or the War on Terror, there have been multiple periods where we do these large-scale buildups. This is why America’s military is so ginormous. We have done that under conditions where we don’t raise taxes in four different instances since the 1970s, and because we don’t raise taxes and spend so much on the military, we have to bring in large amounts of foreign capital to finance it. And so, you create global imbalances when you’re the giant sucking machine sucking foreign capital into your economy.

The result of that is not just global imbalances, which produce things like the Asian financial crisis, but it also produces imbalances in our own economy, too. It creates real estate bubbles. So, this is a giant volatility machine to the global economic order and the financial pipes that bring the capital to us. We know it’s a giant volatility machine. It’s driven by high risk financial instruments and speculation, and all of this is pretty destabilizing, in a financial and creating bubbles sense, but it also creates a system where all of these developing economies in Asia have to suppress labor rights to be competitive in the export market because their models of development rely on exports. This system that we perpetuate in the name of supporting military primacy, and military primacy is supposed to in turn support the system, prevents domestic redistribution and balanced capital labor relations in these other Asian economies and countries.

And so, not only are we creating conditions where labor rights get repressed, and imbalances in other countries, it creates systems of kleptocracy and oligarchy, which is rampant in Asia — not everywhere, but it’s pretty prominent. It’s structural violence, and structural violence is what gives way to greater political insecurity, and makes countries need Chinese capital. Chinese capital spreading around Asia is one of the things American foreign policy is so worried about, but we’re creating conditions that we don’t like, and then we do things that worsen those conditions.

[Nathan J.] Robinson 

Yes, it seems ultimately kind of self-defeating, even though we might say that what lies beneath the rhetoric of freedom and openness is the desire to pursue dominance and hegemony, or what the U.S. would call 'U.S. interests.' Ultimately, I think one of the conclusions of your work is that our current approach is not actually leading towards a world where the United States gets everything it wants, but, in fact, is putting not only other people but also ourselves in quite a bit of danger. 

Jackson 

Yes, the thing that Washington has to wake up to, and that I’m worried that it will not because it has incentives not to, is that the requirements of peace and primacy are deeply at odds with each other. Peace requires a certain degree of economic interdependence, regional cohesion, inclusivity in various ways, and above all, military restraint. Primacy requires the opposite of all of that. It requires the formation of rivalry and geoeconomic blocs. It requires containment against your rising rival, arms racing, and weapons proliferation.

It’s patently obvious that by pursuing primacy, we’re making ourselves the enemy of what remains of the Asian peace. It’s that insistence on primacy, coated rhetorically as openness, that is undermining the sources of the Asian peace. The preservation of stability the past 44 years is something that we somewhat take for granted in Washington, and we shouldn’t because it’s eroding rapidly, and Trump was simply a very vibrant data point along a larger trend line. And so, we’re not on a good track."

- Van Jackson being interviewed by Nathan J. Robinson, from "Why This Foreign Policy Expert Thinks Americans Dangerously Misunderstand China." Current Affairs, 16 May 2023.

[quotesfrommyreading]

How did we get to this point? The origin story of Taiwan most familiar to Americans begins in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, locked for years in a civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists, were defeated. Along with much of his remaining army, Chiang fled to Taiwan and set up a government-in-exile called the Republic of China. That government was recognized by the United States. But within a few years of Richard Nixon’s 1972 Cold War opening to Beijing, the U.S. formally switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic. Ever since, Taiwan’s status has been cloaked in ambiguity. The U.S. acknowledges Beijing’s claim to Taiwan without recognizing its sovereignty over the island. To help deter a Chinese effort to seize Taiwan by force, the U.S. has pledged to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

That origin story explains Taiwan’s curious geopolitical status, but it leaves a lot out. When Chiang fled to Taiwan—with roughly 2 million Chinese from the mainland—there were some 6 million people already living on an island that was just emerging from 50 years of Japanese rule. Most of the people living on the island when Chiang arrived could claim roots in Taiwan going back hundreds of years. They had their own languages and culture. So too did the island’s many Indigenous groups, such as the Amis, the Atayal, and the Paiwan. To subjugate the island, Chiang killed and imprisoned tens of thousands over decades—a period known as the White Terror. He set up a military dictatorship under the leadership of his Chinese nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) and, from this offshore platform, vowed to reclaim mainland China.

Taiwan is different now. With its broad boulevards, glass towers, military monuments, narrow side streets, night markets, and ample signs in English, Taipei today presents an ambience of blended cultures: Chinese, Japanese, Western, and distinctly Taiwanese. Bubble tea, a Taiwanese invention, is everywhere. But consider what it was like to grow up in the shadow of Taiwan’s postwar history, and you can better understand the profound ways in which younger generations have been remaking the island’s politics and identity.

Emily Y. Wu is a professional podcaster who blends a focus on youth culture with an urgent concern for Taiwan’s political present. (One of her shows is called Metalhead Politics.) She is among dozens of Taiwanese I spoke with during the past year, first on Zoom, then in person in Taipei. Wu was born under KMT martial law in 1984. Her family did not come over with Chiang; they had lived in Taiwan for generations. “Chiang Kai-shek brought China over,” she told me. “I grew up always knowing that there was this alternate history: It was Taiwanese history, which was not taught in school.” Students were taught Chinese history and geography under the presumption that the KMT would one day govern China again. Mandarin was spoken in class, and speaking Taiwanese was discouraged. Wu recalled Lesson 9 of her childhood textbook: “ ‘Hello teachers, hello students, we are Chinese!’ ”

But a movement for democracy was building. “We grew up hearing these names, knowing that there was a group of activists, scholars, lawyers that tried to imagine a free Taiwan,” Wu explained. Many of those people were members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which currently governs Taiwan. In 1987, the KMT lifted nearly 40 years of martial law. Wu’s political consciousness was shaped by the protests, marches, and hunger strikes that led to Taiwan’s first true presidential election, in 1996.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Taiwan was becoming ever more democratic—and ever more Taiwanese. The school curriculum changed: Taiwan’s distinct history was taught, as were Taiwanese languages. Taiwan also began to celebrate its Indigenous population. After the election of President Ma Ying-jeou, in 2008, links of trade, investment, and travel helped reduce tensions with China. Ma was from the KMT, and the party’s Chinese heritage and its ties to Taiwan’s business elite eased the way to détente with Beijing. But many Taiwanese, particularly the young, feared that forging too close a connection could ultimately give Beijing leverage over Taiwan. In 2014, in what became known as “the Sunflower Movement,” named for the flower that served as a symbol of hope, students occupied the Taiwan legislature to oppose a free-trade agreement with China. After a tense standoff, they succeeded in stopping the deal. They also helped propel a political wave that in 2016 brought the election of the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen as president.

As Taiwan was becoming more democratic, China was becoming more autocratic. And as Taiwan was becoming more Taiwanese, China was becoming more fervently nationalist. After the ascent of Xi Jinping to the head of the Communist Party, in 2012, Beijing shifted from incentives to coercion. Xi’s government proved adept at bullying companies and entire countries to stop doing business in Taiwan and to recognize China’s narrative of sovereignty. Xi also began escalating crackdowns on China’s periphery—in Xinjiang province and in Hong Kong.

  —  Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion

[ennuijpg]

literally hate seeing taiwan trending on twitter like i do not need to see what a bunch of white westerners and elon musk bros think abt cross strait relations i am exploding them all in my mind

[zhuhongs]

i think i need to do a bit more digging into chthonics music before i make judgements abt their politics bc all the translated articles i see saw they mostly deal with stories of the indigenous people of tw. also theyre anti kmt. so cool, but like the enemy or my enemy is necessarily my friend yk

[theculturedmarxist]

At the Richard Nixon Foundation’s Grand Strategy Summit last month, former US national security adviser Ambassador Robert O’Brien suggested that the US might destroy Taiwan’s semiconductor factories in the event of a Chinese invasion, as reported by Army Technology. 

“If China takes Taiwan and takes those factories intact – which I don’t think we would ever allow – they have a monopoly over chips the way OPEC has a monopoly or even more than the way OPEC has a monopoly over oil,” O’Brien said. 

In addition, as reported by Bloomberg in October, the US may be planning to evacuate the island’s semiconductor engineers in the event of a Chinese invasion. The source says unnamed US officials said that accelerated preparations had been made for an action plan to evacuate such skilled personnel to the US in the worst-case scenario.

China’s satellite coverage in the Western Pacific has doubled since 2018, the Pentagon reported last week in its annual assessment of the Chinese military. That gives China the ability to detect American surface ships with an array of sensors that can guide its 2,000 land-based missiles to moving targets, including US aircraft carriers.

The Defense Department’s November 29 report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” reflects a grimly realistic rethinking of China��s military capacity in its home theater.

China hawk Elbridge Colby, a prominent advocate of a Western Pacific military buildup to deny China access to its adjacent seas, tweeted on November 6, “Senior flag officers are saying we’re on a trajectory to get crushed in a war with China, which would likely be the most important war since WWII, God forbid.”

The strategic takeaway is that the United States cannot win a firefight close to China’s coast, and can’t defend Taiwan whether it wants to or not. That view in the Joe Biden administration’s Department of Defense (DOD) persuaded the president to discuss “guardrails” against military confrontation in his November summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Republican hawks appear to have come to the same conclusion. The United States will enact a scorched-earth policy in Taiwan, destroying its semiconductor industry, if the PRC seizes the island, former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien told a conference at the Richard Nixon Foundation on November 10, reports army-technology.com. 

“If China takes Taiwan and takes those factories intact – which I don’t think we would ever allow – they have a monopoly over chips the way OPEC has a monopoly, or even more than the way OPEC has a monopoly over oil,” O’Brien said. 

A much-read paper by two Army War College professors published this year proposes that “the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain.”

[A bunch of technical information about Chinese satellite coverage and the development and deployment of its electronic arms and other military capabilities]

A noteworthy observation in the new Pentagon report is that China now has only 30,000 marines, compared with a US Marine Corps of about 200,000 including reserves. Only 200 Chinese marines are deployed outside the country, at China’s sole overseas base in Djibouti. China has about 14,000 special forces versus an American count of about 75,000. This isn’t consistent with the report’s claim that China wants to “project power globally.”

[trendynewsnow]

Taiwan's Cautious Diplomacy Towards Trump's Return to Office

Taiwan’s Cautious Approach to Trump’s Return In a notable diplomatic moment in 2016, Taiwan’s president reached out to Donald J. Trump to extend congratulations following his victory in the presidential election. This call marked a significant event, as Mr. Trump became the first American president or president-elect to engage in direct conversation with a Taiwanese leader in decades. However,…

[ricisidro]

What Trump's win means for Ukraine, Russia, NATO, Israel and Palestine in the Middle East, Iran, Taiwan and China - BBC News

#US #Trump #ForeignPolicy #transactionalism #bilateraltransaction #Ukraine #Russia #NATO #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Lebanon #MiddleEast #Iran #Taiwan #China #IsraelPalestineWar

#IsraelHamasWar #IsraelHezbollahWar

https://bbc.com/news/articles/c2dl0e4l7lzo

[saxafimedianetwork]

Taiwan’s Presence In Somaliland: Interview With Ambassador Allen Lou

Discover how #Taiwan & #Somaliland's partnership offers a democratic alternative to #China's #BRI in #Africa. Amb Allen Lou shares insights on mutual respect, sustainability & self-reliance, highlighting a people-centered approach. #Democracy

Continue reading Taiwan’s Presence In Somaliland: Interview With Ambassador Allen Lou

[creativemedianews]

Taiwan's President vows to reject 'annexation'

Taiwan's President vows to reject 'annexation' #Beijingreaction #Chinarelations #cross-straittensions #peacestability

[theknowledgeemporium]

#5 The Taiwan Dispute Explained: Part 2 by The Knowledge Emporium

[quotesfrommyreading]

More existential, though, is what could happen after a Chinese invasion. If China takes Taiwan, Wu suggested that the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions could extend to the East China Sea, threatening Japan; to the South China Sea, where China has built militarized islands and claims an entire body of water bordering several nations; to the Indian Ocean, where China is expanding influence and could establish military bases; and to the Pacific Ocean, where China is working to establish security pacts with island nations. In a world with nationalist-strongman politics ascendant on nearly every continent, Wu’s presentation was at once a dire and plausible picture of the stakes for geopolitics as well as human freedom. “If we allow China to continue to expand,” Wu told me, “then democracies will be in danger.”

  —  Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion

[headspace-hotel]

I don't mean it in a creepy way I promise, but I feel a kinship with China, Japan and Korea i wish more people from my region shared, because...we have sister ecosystems!

It's actually amazing, there are so many plant genera that are not closely related to anything else and just have a couple living species: One (or two) from mid latitude Southeast Asia, and one from the Southeastern USA.

For example, the two living lotus species (sacred lotus and American lotus), the two living tulip tree/ Liriodendron species, the Chinese and American sweetgums (Liquidambar spp.) the Chinese and American trumpet vines (Campsis spp.) the Chinese, Japanese and American wisteria (Wisteria spp), the Chinese, Taiwan and American sassafras (Sassafras spp.) I KNOW i'm forgetting many of them because there are so many. Twins!!!!

And there's so many iconic plant groups shared in common between East Asia and SE USA. Like dogwoods, magnolias, rhododendrons, we even have our own bamboo!!!

I think a lot of how strangely familiar each ecosystem would feel to someone visiting from the other one.

And I bet there's a lot of ecological knowledge and insights we could share with each other...

Sister ecosystems...

[rhk111sblog]

Taiwan loses another Ally as Nauru switches Side to China

Another major Diplomatic Victory for China recently as it was able to convince another of the few remaining Countries in the World that recognize Taiwan as a Country to switch Sides. The small Island Country of Nauru has now cut off Diplomatic Relations with Taiwan and switch its Alliance to China.

This latest move resulted in Taiwan being recognized as a Country by only a dozen other Countries around the World which includes the Vatican, Eswatini, Belize, Haiti, Guatemala and Paraguay. Nauru only has a Population of around 12,500 People

Here is the Link to the News Report at The Manila Times (TMT) Website: https://www.manilatimes.net/2024/01/16/world/asia-oceania/nauru-switches-ties-from-taiwan-to-china/1928301

SOURCE: Nauru switches ties from Taiwan to China {Archived Link}

Check out the Links to my other Social Media Accounts at https://linktr.ee/rhk111

If you like my Work, buy me a Coffee to help support it at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/rhk111