#anyway taiwan now has universal healthcare that covers dentistry

[persimmonlions]

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i am so fucking tired of non-asians speaking over asians — actually not even stopping to consider asian viewpoints — on this. stop undermining the work of sk & taiwanese political activists, hundreds of thousands of whom were jailed, died, or disappeared in the 40s–80s, when the us was, yknow, still supporting those autocratic govts.

taiwan is even more of a unique situation bc the autocratic govt was imported. taiwanese people had been agitating for greater political autonomy since 1947, just after the handover from japan when the kmt was still based on the mainland.

even into the 70s there was a huge social distinction b/w benshenren (the large majority of the population) and waishenren to the point intermarriage was hugely frowned upon. benshenren were not allowed to speak their own language at school (enforced by corporal punishment), were implicitly excluded from good jobs, etc. and ofc benshenren — not even wealthy landowners — were not represented in the govt at all.

a lot of the push towards democracy in taiwan came from benshenren, some working from the outside and some from the inside to eventually transition to democracy. and a lot of that was because the hundreds thousands of people who were locked up or had family who died wanted to change that. not, like, because anyone thinks the us was any good to taiwan (japan at least built taiwan railways and universities!)