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)
By this logic, you could say any criticism of China is inherently racist.
Evangelists don’t force conversion. They’re just shouting in the street at people holding their scripture. They may pester, or holler at people walking by.
And yeah, a hypothetical libertarian or MAGA type would be similar.
I don’t spread it. You bought it up to me originally.
Or people’s understanding of socialism widens and changes. There is a rise to it, but I don’t know if I’d say it’s notable larger than a recent revival to social conservatism as many other polls have depicted.
Google search seems to suggest PSL doesn’t release its membership figures publicly, so not sure what data you’re referring to.
You are also assuming, or seem to be assuming that any relatively rises in communism (which, to be clear is not specifically laid out by any empirical data) will somehow hold and it will keep growing progressively.
You’re losing and you know it
No? I criticize the PRC from time to time, just on the basis of material reality, not baseless allegations by a far-right cult magnified by the western press as easy propaganda.
Cool, so that doesn’t apply to me, then.
You brought up “evidence” and said it had a good deal of history and investigation. If you haven’t investigated it, then don’t just do that and legitimize the narrative.
Contradictions are sharpening, the left is becoming more consistently socialist/communist while the right is becoming more reactionary. Both are true, because this is a dialectical struggle of two opposing tendencies, one seeking to progress forward, the other seeking to wind the clock “back,” so to speak. It isn’t “either-or,” it’s “both-and.” This is yet anothet example of metaphysics in your analysis, and is why you need to adopt a dialectical viewpoint if you want to accurately see the world.
PSL membership is increasing, this is coming from the members themselves. They don’t release hard data because they aren’t stupid, but 2024-2026 in particular have had tremendous growth.
The trends for increasing socialism/communism coincide with capitalist decay, which is an observable, material process. It isn’t something that happens because people discuss it alone, but because life has been getting harder and harder for the statesian working classes year over year.
This is why you need to apply dialectical materialism to understand the world accurately.
I would assume many people who echo or read the claims here about organ harvesting are convinced, at least somewhat, by the many articles and groups that have investigated it. It has much more body behind it in writing than Trumps claims about Haitians eating cats and dogs which is an attack against individuals Haitians vs. Chinese government.
Small group says they’re growing. What a surprise.
You are, from what I can see monitoring reasonable rises in ‘socialism’ identification (which could mean a number of things) and then just assuming it’ll continue growing and then also saying it must also be heavily filtering down to communism based on one poll specifically, and which we have no historical polls to compare it to.
Lol, no it doesn’t. You just make this baseless claim because you happen to believe baseless accusations against China but not agent against immigrants. That’s why you can vaguely gesture at the claim that there’s evidence for it, but can’t actually produce that evidence.
Sorry, it really just does. It has reached many different organisations across the board over decades of accusations and investigations. Trumps just came out of his mouth after some advisor mentioned it to him minutes before the debate.
And I didn’t say I “believed” the accusations. I’m just comparing the hugely different levels between the two.
“It Just Does!”
Still no actual evidence though
I didn’t claim there that I had specific evidence. Just explaining the major difference in history between the two things.
The “cats and dogs” thing is more comparable to COVID scare comments about asian people during 2020-22 period.
“I didn’t say there was evidence, I just said that there’s a major difference in evidence!”
And these people would be falling for far-right propaganda, same as the anti-Haitian nonsense. The “body behind it” is built on shakey eyewitness testemony from a far-right cult, and counter-investigation has found nothing supporting the cult’s claims. This is just Saddam and the WMD allegations all over again, which also had a “large body of writing” that ended up being gibberish to anyone actually investigating it.
I gave you other polls, but more importantly I’m not just assuming proven trends will continue without basis, but by comparing it to other historical trends where support for socialism and communism rose. It climbs in response to decaying material conditions, which are observable in the US Empire. Your intention to ignore context, and to try to analyze everything as a static, unmoving abstract is again an example of metaphysics on your part, which is anti-scientific in analysis.
And yet I don’t think people who believed in WMD stuff from then thought Iraqis were subhuman either. Just a detail there.
No, you gave me one other data-point from statista that measured attitudes to socialism (not communism). Your other link just referred back to your original communism poll with 30% of under 30s. That same poll also asked people’s opinions on socialism, which is what it also spoke about.
Except they did. Anti-Iraqi bigotry was all over the news, manufacturing consent for war. The racism played a part in selling the lies about WMD.
I gave you an earlier poll from 1978 as well, you can feel free to revisit my earlier comments and find it. None of that changes your metaphysical outlook on the world around us, which is the fundamental problem here, one you refuse to even acknowledge as such.
Anti-Hussain/Baathist rhetoric for manufacturing consent from the administration and associated sources. That isn’t to say some people didn’t also peddle anti-Iraq bigotry but they aren’t inherently the same thing. But in any case, someone believing the claims about WMDs would not be necessarily, inherently racist here.
That poll was, if I recall, referring to attitudes towards the Soviet-Union so it’s not 1-1 - but we’re missing data points from the 80s through the early 10s in any case.
Can you answer why you’re insistent on analyzing processes outside of the context they exist in? That’s all this comment does as well. If you’re not going to respond to my criticisms of your metaphysical outlook, then defend it, otherwise all I can do is continue to point out that you keep trying to slice away context and view processes in a vacuum that doesn’t exist and doesn’t represent reality accurately as a consequence.