> I feel like most of the escalation is coming from the West though. They're the ones tossing around sanctions and national-security noise on speculation-- China might invade Taiwan.
China is free to anytime declare their intention of never invading Taiwan. China is free to anytime officially recognize the fact that the PRC and the ROC are two separate governments of two separate countries. China is free to anytime clarify to the world that they truly value peace. But really it doesn’t seem that they do.
The US is free at any time to stop invading other countries, trying to overthrow other countries, and enter into conflicts thousands of miles from their borders. But really, it doesn't seem that they do.
The US has invaded or attacked over 120 countries since 1991[1]. Absolutely none of them were a threat to the United States. How many countries has China invaded in the same period? How many has it bombed? Imposed sanctions on? Occupied?
The article is about prospects of war between the US and China. According to official US policy, which is the One China policy, Taiwan and mainland China are the same country, and any disputes between the mainland and Taiwan is an intra-chinese dispute, not a dispute between two separate countries, and not anything that involves the U.S. at all.
Now if, for some reason, Taiwan declares independence, then it will be up to other nations to recognize that declaration of independence or not. But that has not happened.
Let me ask you, did you recognize the independence of Donetsk People's Republic, Lugansk People's Republic, South Ossetia, Kurdish Republic in Iraq, or The Republic of Tigray? Each of these had de facto control -- they have their own police, flag, they control their territory, etc. Some even have oil. These actually declared independence whereas Taiwan never did.
But you will respond, other nations didn't recognize their independence, to which I will ask, who recognizes Taiwanese independence? Not even Taiwan. So what we have here is the phenomenon of a "breakaway region". That is, territory in one nation that is not under the control of the central government, but under local control in that territory, but which no one recognizes as an independent nation. There are many such breakaway regions in the world. Usually the central government tries to conquer the breakaway region, and sometimes it fails. This is generally not considered an "invasion".
Do you think it was an invasion when Georgia tried to reconquer South Ossetia, or when Ukraine attacked the DNR and LPR or when Ethiopia attacked Tigray? Or did you view that as an internal matter, of putting down a rebellious breakaway region? Think carefully before you answer, as we are looking for consistency. What about Serbia and the province of Kosovo? Moldova and Transnistria?
It does seem like there is a whole lot of cherry picking going on here, where if there is an enemy of the U.S. fighting a breakaway region, then we have to honor the bold independence movement, but when there is a friend of the US fighting a breakaway republic, then we condemn the evil separatists. In both cases, the US ends up fighting on one side of what is really a civil war we have no business involving ourselves in, and because we choose sides purely based on friend/enemy distinctions and not according to any consistent principles, it sure looks a lot like more international meddling.
Therefore I reject any moral impetus that forces the US to get itself involved in trying to support or oppose separatist movements half way around the world, or to pick sides in civil wars. We lack the military capability, we lack popular support, and we need to stop adopting these self-destructive and globally destructive policies.
> The article is about prospects of war between the US and China. According to official US policy, which is the One China policy, Taiwan and mainland China are the same country, and any disputes between the mainland and Taiwan is an intra-chinese dispute, not a dispute between two separate countries, and not anything that involves the U.S. at all.
The US has never recognized PRC claims to Taiwan. The US “One China Policy” does not include “Taiwan is part of PRC territory”.
But I’ll admit the US policy is a bit vague and confusing so many people (including apparently you) don’t understand US policy in this matter.
> The US has never recognized PRC claims to Taiwan. The US “One China Policy” does not include “Taiwan is part of PRC territory”.
The U.S. does not have to do that to do what the GP says -
"> According to official US policy, which is the One China policy, Taiwan and mainland China are the same country, and any disputes between the mainland and Taiwan is an intra-chinese dispute, not a dispute between two separate countries"
- rather they have historically recognized the ROC's claims to Taiwan, and to the mainland as well, which of course is a diplomatic fig leaf at this point.
U.S. policy officially considers it as a part of China (i.e. the ROC). That is de facto not a viable reality for many decades now, but it is the de jure legal fiction. As such, your criticism of the GP is incorrect. Because they were correct in asserting "According to official US policy, which is the One China policy, Taiwan and mainland China are the same country", Washington just disagrees with Beijing which that same country is.
You seem to refer to some fictional country when you use “China”. Basically all people refer to an actual country that does exist: the PRC. So when I say the US policy is not that Taiwan is part of China, I mean that US policy is not that Taiwan is part of the PRC.
So I’m not really sure what your point is. Is your point that US policy states that Taiwan is part of the PRC? If you’re not staying that, you’re not disagreeing with me.
> You seem to refer to some fictional country when you use “China”.
That's precisely how the One China policy works. That's literally what strategic ambiguity is about.
In a 1972 joint communiqué with the PRC, the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" and "does not challenge that position."
So it's talking about a hypothetical sovereign authority that extends over both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. At present, the U.S. government recognizes the ROC, based in Taipei, as that government. It's a legal fiction, yes, but one that remains unchanged since 1972.
> Is your point that US policy states that Taiwan is part of the PRC?
The point is U.S. policy states that mainland China is part of the ROC!
> The US has never recognized PRC claims to Taiwan.
This is false. And the US also promised to remove all military forces and installations, which they have never done. There are today US troops in Taiwan. The constant lying to China by the U.S. matches the lying about the Minsk 2 agreements to Russia, and this has created a huge blow to American credibility as a negotiating partner.
"11. The Chinese side reaffirmed its position: the Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations between China and the United States; the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China which has long been returned to the motherland; the liberation of Taiwan is China's internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere; and all US forces and military installations must be withdrawn from Taiwan. The Chinese Government firmly opposes any activities which aim at the creation of "one China, one Taiwan", "one China, two governments", "two Chinas", an "independent Taiwan" or advocate that "the status of Taiwan remains to be determined".
12.The US side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all US forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes. The two sides agreed that it is desirable to broaden the understanding between the two peoples. To this end, they discussed specific areas in such fields as science, technology, culture, sports and journalism, in which people-to-people contacts and exchanges would be mutually beneficial. Each side undertakes to facilitate the further development of such contacts and exchanges."
The U.S. betrayed Taiwan 50 years ago by accepting China's rule over Taiwan and ceasing to recognize it as an independent nation.
Threatening to try to dissuade the Chinese from invading is the only thing Biden can do. When Xi finally gives the "go" he'll make up some excuse not to intervene militarily. He'll slap sanctions on China, for sure , but those will merely be a pinprick.
The US voted against replacing the ROC with PRC in the UN.
The position of the US has never changed. It has always maintained that any unification must be peaceful and that Taiwan cannot be forced. It gets to decide for itself.
Taiwan has changed in the last 100 years. Majority of the ROC is gone, those here now have no desire to be part of China, don't consider themselves as part of China or Chinese. They just want to continue to live their lives as they are now.
The US does not consider Taiwan as part of China. The One China Policy states that they acknowledge the position of China that Taiwan is part of it. The equiv of me saying to you "i accept that you think the sky looks like the inside of a watermelon".
All of this ignores that Mao and the CCP considered Taiwan an independent nation and nationality prior to Taiwan being handed to the ROC.
The original post you were replying to was attacking China for it's threats to invade, and was defending sanctions.
That point is valid.
So yes, sanctions against china are justified, which was the original context, and they are justified because of the points about China threatening to invade.
> is the only thing Biden can do
Actually, the US can continue what we have been doing for a while, which is continue to sell more and more weapons to Taiwan.
The more weapons we give to Taiwan, the more invaders will die in any invasion.
Maximizing their ability to increase invader death numbers, by continuing to do this, is also a good plan.
Do other powers have to make these promises? Does anyone pester Rishi Sunak for guarantees they won't he won't try to retake Massachusetts?
It feels like any sort of restrictive foreign-policy promise is a no-win. A "no invasion" promise would be a license for every seperatist element to push their agenda, which feels like losing a huge amount of influence. It also seems like it could tie their hands in an actual crisis (i. e. a terrorism scenario where the Taiwanese government refused to cooperate in investigation/prosecution)
Do you understand that Taiwan would love to do exactly that, but that China would take such a statement as a declaration of independence and would engage in military action?
Taiwan literally wants to do exactly what you proposed. They want to renounce having anything to do with China.
They do not want to take over china, and they do not claim that china belongs to them.
Instead, what is happening is that they are not clarifying this stance publicly, because if they clarify that they are not part of china, then china will threaten military action against them.
Taiwan is already independent, has no intention of unifying with china, and instead just has to play this game because china threatens them.
Preservation of national sovereignty is one of the touchiest issues in modern Chinese politics.
This has to do with Chinese history. For China, the modern era essentially began when British gunboats arrived in 1840 and forced the Qing dynasty to open up its ports to the opium trade. There followed a series of conflicts in which China was progressively humiliated and ever more dominated by foreign powers - the Europeans and Japanese. China had to allow opium in, had to exempt Europeans from Chinese law on Chinese territory, and had to give the Europeans and Japanese enclaves and spheres of influence within China. The British took Hong Kong, the Germans took Jiaozhou Bay, various countries took parts of Shanghai. When Chinese peasants rebelled against foreign influence and started killing Europeans, a eight-nation army landed at Tianjin,[0] marched to Beijing, burned down the Summer Palace, and forced China to pay a massive indemnity. After the Chinese people overthrew the imperial system, the new republic was, in fact, controlled by various local warlords. The Japanese progressively took more of China, before launching a full-blown invasion of the rest of China in the 1930s. A core goal of both the Nationalist and the Communist parties was to re-establish Chinese national sovereignty.
What put an end to all of this was the end of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the "New China," as the Chinese call their post-1949 state.
Because of this history, the issue of national sovereignty is incredibly sensitive in China. It's easy to say, "China should just give up its claim to Taiwan," but that would be an incredibly explosive suggestion in China, especially if it were something that China was forced to do under outside pressure.
Finally, I'll add that in China, the ROC is not seen as a separate country from the PRC. Taiwan is seen as the last redoubt of the old Chinese government. This is also how the ROC understood itself until fairly recently. For most people in China, asking them to cede Taiwan is asking them to cede part of China, which is a non-starter.
Taiwan was never Chinese to begin with and never has been. Just because the Nationalists fled there doesn't give them the right to invade or lay claim to the island.
They could, for all I care, invade Taiwan and relocate all the Chinese to China and leave Taiwan well alone.
Taiwanese indigenous peoples are 2% of the island's population. Many of the pre-1949 Chinese settlers have some aboriginal ancestry, however. I don't suppose you know the difference between benshengren and waishengren, nor care to know.
The China of 1895 no longer exists. There are now three successor countries: Taiwan/ROC, China/PRC and Mongolia. Taiwan has never been part of the country today known as “China”.
The PRC is the only internationally recognized successor state to the China of 1895.
You don't have to go back to 1895, though. In 1971, the PRC was given "China's" UN Security Council seat, which had previously been held by the ROC. Most countries withdrew their recognition of the ROC, and recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate representative of China.
> Taiwan has never been part of the country today known as “China”.
Countries continue to exist, even after they have revolutions or civil wars. In the view of international law, "China" has never ceased to exist. The 1911 revolution didn't extinguish it, nor did the end of the civil war in 1949, nor did the international recognition of the PRC as the sole legitimate representative of China in the 1970s.
Taiwan becoming an independent state would be a revolution of sorts. You may support that change, but to pretend that it's not a change? China is not going to be fooled by that.
> Taiwan becoming an independent state would be a revolution of sorts.
Your post is correct other than for this point. It would not be a revolution, it would a reconciling of governments into the de facto reality since 1949, that Taiwan has been able to self-govern apart from the mainland (even though its economy has since then gotten quite coupled with it over the past few decades).
It might be revolutionary from a legal standpoint, but the PRC/ROC distinction is truly a one-off in modern geopolitics, akin to the Korean War still technically not yet over but instead legally being a frozen conflict for seventy years. The reason why Taiwan's status has not caught up with reality yet is because of course no party is willing or able to resolve this deadlock.
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China is free to anytime declare their intention of never invading Taiwan. China is free to anytime officially recognize the fact that the PRC and the ROC are two separate governments of two separate countries. China is free to anytime clarify to the world that they truly value peace. But really it doesn’t seem that they do.