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?
I don’t know. Am I doing that when I say that Taiwan should ideally be an independent state because that’s ultimately what they want?
What they actually want, according to polls, is to maintain the status quo.
And you’d be foolish to think China’s rhetoric and threats doesn’t impact how people vote on that. In any case, “Reunification” is very much the least favourite choice from all of them.
And Taiwan is already a de facto independent state.
Well, fortunately I have Westerners to tell me what the Taiwanese people want so I don’t have to worry about what they actually say.
Right, which is why throwing the situation into chaos to force a non-issue is completely absurd.
I can literally read their polling on this and in a binary choice between official independence and “reunification”, the former wins out.
I didn’t say anything should change. Just that they do not want to be incorporated into China.
Reducing it to a binary choice is the very definition of a false dichotomy.
That’s not what you said. What you actually said was “Taiwan should ideally be an independent state because that’s ultimately what they want?” That sounds a lot like calling for formal independence, not the status quo.
I do believe it’s what they want, but geopolitical pressures and reality ultimately get the response we see above. What we can see is that, eliminating the safe, friction-free option of status quo that about 7-8% want to unify and 25-26% want to officially seek independence.
Now this isn’t me saying they should actually do that now, but simply that is how I interpret the data.
No, eliminating the safe, friction-free option of status quo shows that 4% want to officially seek independence.
The majority wants to maintain the status quo without moving in either direction. A supermajority wants to maintain the status quo while moving in one direction or the other. But all of their voices are ignored by chauvinistic Westerners who want to ignore what they want and force the issue because that’s what they want, and the actual popular will can easily be written off and disregarded with these nonsense excuses like “they only say that because they’re being influenced by the existing material conditions” and “if we ignore 95% of the responses, people actually agree with me.”
As compared to 1% wanting unification.
Who is doing this? Name people actively trying to encourage this.
Do you think people answer polls like this with no understanding or regard of actual geopolitical reality, or something? Do you think the reality on the floor is of no relevance to them? Material conditions suddenly have no relevance, do they?
No? I would question it being what they want as a whole I’m not sure it’s that clear an issue. But if that’s all you said then my comment obviously doesn’t apply to you. ???
I’m not saying it’s a big issue, but status-quo or status-quo with a view to independence (combined constitute a majority of polling on the matter) very much indicate wanting to maintain independence de facto - combined with a majority of pro-Taiwan identity in polling.
“Reunification” scores very badly.