Taiwan

So NR  are you not aware of the fact that Taiwan is an island province of China. The Chinese flew airplanes in their own airspace and you think it is a provocation. The fascists losers of the Chinese civil war fled to Taiwan and from 1949 to 1972 they insisted that China was one country and they were the rightful government and most of the "free" world agreed with them. The Chinese government allows them far more autonomy over their affairs than the US allows Puerto Rico. I also know that if one believes in the people ruling then it has to be noted that the Taiwanese are almost equally split over whether they want to be controlled by China or be independent. The best thing for them would be for us imperialists to just let them decide for themselves.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

So NR  are you not aware of the fact that Taiwan is an island province of China. The Chinese flew airplanes in their own airspace and you think it is a provocation. The fascists losers of the Chinese civil war fled to Taiwan and from 1949 to 1972 they insisted that China was one country and they were the rightful government and most of the "free" world agreed with them. The Chinese government allows them far more autonomy over their affairs than the US allows Puerto Rico. I also know that if one believes in the people ruling then it has to be noted that the Taiwanese are almost equally split over whether they want to be controlled by China or be independent. The best thing for them would be for us imperialists to just let them decide for themselves.

Taiwan independence - Wikipedia 

----------------

Public opinion

According to an opinion poll conducted in Taiwan by the Mainland Affairs Council in 2019, 27.7% of respondents supported Taiwan's independence: 21.7% said that the status quo has to be maintained for now but Taiwan should become independent in the future, while 6% said that independence must be declared as soon as possible. 31% of respondents supported the current situation as it is, and 10.3% agreed to unification with the mainland with 1.4% saying that it should happen as soon as possible.[44]

Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation poll conducted again in June 2020 showed, 54% of respondents support official independence for Taiwan: 23.4 percent prefer maintaining the status quo, 12.5 percent favor unification with China, and 10 percent do not hold any particular view on the matter. This represents the highest level of support for Taiwan's Independence since the survey was first conducted in 1991.[45]

----------------

Accordng to these polls few Taiwanese want to be controlled by China. Almost 90% seem to want Taiwan to be sovereign, either as an independent province or independent state.

I think it's fair to say that most Taiwanese support basically the status quo, namely maintaining their independence from China without becoming an independent state.

Poll shows highest ever support for Taiwan independence

---------------

Over 50% of Taiwanese favor de jure sovereign state, less than 13% support unification with China.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Over half of Taiwanese support formal independence for their country, according to a survey released by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (TPOF) on Monday (June 22).

Around 54 percent of respondents support official independence for Taiwan. Meanwhile, 23.4 percent prefer maintaining the status quo, 12.5 percent favor unification with China, and 10 percent do not hold any particular view on the matter, the survey found.

----------------

I basically agree with you. Sovereign nations should be governed by their own people and Canada should only intervene in other nations if the U.N. Security Council explicitly supports such an extreme action.

only intervene in other nations if the U.N. Security Council explicitly supports such an extreme action.

I highly doubt that will ever happen again after what happened with Libya. Those days are over unless there is a complete rehaul of the UN Security Council.

The UN is now as irrelevant to the world as the League of Nations was in 1936 because the US/NATO empire does not follow international law and the UN has no way to enforce it. Canada follows the US in illegal sanctions against other countries and in illegal incursions into sovereign territories and the UN says nothing.

Empire strikes back: China deploys fighter jets to Taiwan

https://youtu.be/Kcjzu5bvLbY

"Ever greater closeness between Taiwan and Washington, puts the longstanding 'One China' doctrine in jeopardy..."

An excellent historical backgrounder as well:

Why Taiwan is an Explosive Flashpoint For A US-China War

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/16/taiw-o16.html

"As the Biden administration ramps up its aggressive confrontation with China, Taiwan is rapidly becoming the most immediate and dangerous flashpoint for war between the world's two largest economies - both armed with nuclear weapons.

To understand the great dangers posed by the Biden administration's deliberately inflammatory actions, it is necessary to examine the historical background. To justify its menacing military build-up in the region and the inflaming of this flashpoint, the US portrays Taiwan as a thriving democracy confronted with a growing Chinese threat of aggression.

Taiwan, today, separate from China, is the creation of US imperialism..."

What is a Canadian warship doing in the waters  between Mainland China and its province Taiwan?  Imagine a Chinese warship in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or in the Gulf of Mexico between Mainland USA and the US territory of Puerto Rico. Why does Canada act as a colony of the USA?  Taiwan is none of their business either, but historically the USA militarily supported the KMT of Chiang, losers, in 1949, of the Chinese Civil War, to the GCD-Gong Chan Dang  (Party-Communist-Mao).  Chiang, on Taiwan, was recognized as President of Mainland China by the USA until 1975. 

Michael Moriarity wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

The UN is now as irrelevant to the world as the League of Nations was in 1936 because the US/NATO empire does not follow international law and the UN has no way to enforce it. Canada follows the US in illegal sanctions against other countries and in illegal incursions into sovereign territories and the UN says nothing.

I agree with all points.

Me too.

Ottawa needs to develop a modern policy for Taiwan*

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ottawa-needs-to-develop-...

*No it doesn't because Washington has quite obviously already developed one for Ottawa already. And one that the customary contingent of Canadian 'progressives' including the Hill+Knowlton party will endorse, cheerlead and run interference for just as they always do.

"...Today's Taiwan also exists under constant threat of annexation - and at risk is the stability of the entire Indo-Pacific region. The continuous military presence of like-minded countries in the region therefore provides an essential deterrent against a Chinese attack on Taiwan. If we are to do our part in this endeavour, we must make sure we have the capabilities to do so..."

Despite the frequent protestations that 'Canadians aren't interested in foreign policy', one can always count on exceptions being made in the case of official warmongering & 'calls to arms' against Washington's perceived rivals/enemies Russia or China. Perhaps this will help...

"Power is controlling what happens; absolute power is controlling what people think is happening. Imperial narrative control is therefore the source of all our biggest problems..."

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/it-takes-a-lot-of-education-to-keep-us...

US Marines on Taiwan: Major Provocation...

https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2021/10/us-marines-on-taiwan-major-pr...

"Western media and Western governments themselves have deliberately misled the public into thinking Taiwan is an independent country and that China is 'bullying' it.

In one breath, commentators will claim Taiwan is a 'democratic country,' while in the next claiming that Taiwan declaring its 'independence' is imminent. Left unexplained is how an independent, democratic country could declare independence - declare independence from whom, and why they would need to in the first place.

At face value the narrative is a contradiction, but like so much of what the West does geopolitically, its narrative regarding Taiwan is based on a multitude of conflicting lies aimed at preying on the public emotionally, diverting attention away from contradiction, and in the case of the One China Policy, simply omitting it from public discussion.

Considering the United States' official stance on Taiwan, its placement of US forces on Taiwan is essentially a de facto invasion and occupation of Chinese territory...In Taiwan's case, the US actually is clearly involved in shaping the opinions of the Taiwanese population as well as directing the moves of the current government. The Taiwanese are not arriving at the decision to pursue independence on their own.

A 'declaration of independence' by Taiwan would at the very least cause China to constrict economic flows to and from Taiwan, strangling the economy and undermining the government responsible for provoking Beijing in ways a military assault on the island could never achieve. The United States has neither the means nor the time left before China irreversibly surpasses the US economically and militarily, rendering whatever military presence the US has on the island moot and allowing Beijing wide leeway for actions to reintegrate the wayward province.

US provocations including the new unprecedented deployment of US troops on Taiwan and those within the Taiwanese administration aiding and abetting them threaten the current status quo which includes the smooth, incremental integration of Taiwan into a growing prosperous mainland China. The current status quo represents the 'peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question' as agreed to by the US government itself with Beijing in its communiques.

The issue is not that this settlement stands in contradiction of Taiwan's best interest or Beijing's, but rather Washington's. And it is based on this actual pretext that the US has involved itself in China's internal affairs in this highly provocative and dangerous manner, threatening war where the prospect of war did not exist, and inching the entire Indo-Pacific region toward conflict and instability - the same conflict and instability the US claims it is protecting the region and the world from."

It is disingenuous to ignore the will of the people of Taiwan. Do we support self-determination or not? 

Or is it that the US is now our enemy and the friend of our enemies (Taiwan) is our enemy because we are on the side of China?

It's so gross how quickly Canadians jump at the opportunity to back the old Anglo-American empire. Absolutely no clue about history-just a bunch of neoimperialists giddy at the chance of sending warships back to police Queen Victoria's old stomping ground. 

We can potificate about what we want to happen in China and Taiwan all day long but the reality is we have no say. On the other hand we do have the power to tell our government to not send warships to the South China Sea. Why pretend otherwise?

It is also a fact that our empire is based on ignorance. How many Canadians do you think know that the monarchy that is on our money first sent warships to China's coast in order to force their government to stop resisting their economy being flooded with British Opium(bombing villages from gunboats and seizing Hong Kong along the way)? I'd bet less than 15%. How many people in China do you think know that history? I'd bet at least 95%. So this conflict is being fueled by the different realities of the people in an empire that remembers too well and of those of us who live in an empire that barely remembers at all.

epaulo13 wrote:

..we are talking to the folks on this board. no one else.

..from what we see going on in taiwan we can take lessons from. we can be in solidarity with. can understand what they face.

..looking at it from empire positions and then asking folks to choose sides is a dead end. not productive. it's a false debate.

When I joined this board, it had an anti-war character and that was the focus of a lot of the activists here. That wasn't considered a "false debate" and it wasn't considered taking Saddam's side for thinking that opposing Canada's involvement in the war was more important than theoretical (true?) debates about how Iraqi democracy might come about if he was magically disappeared without superpower involvement.

..again i say a closer look inside taiwan is needed to ascertain what the people feel. just like we looked inside iraq

..i believe now we are talking about 2 different things. i don't disagree on what you just said. i'm talking about something different.

..i'll be going to bed in a while and i i have to stop. otherwise my mind will be spinning about this and i'll have a terrible sleep. i may have already push it to far. :) 

..good night!

Biden and his hawkish handlers have greatly increased the chance of world terminating war with nuclear China just now by dropping the decades old US "strategic ambiguity" policy:

Biden Says United States Would Come to Taiwan’s Defense
US 'not going to change any of our views'
by Jason Ditz Posted on October 21, 2021Categories

"The US has long tried to avoid directly needling China over Taiwan, by taking a position of ambiguity as to whether the US would immediately go to war to prevent a Chinese takeover of the island. President Biden has done away with that ambiguity now, however, saying he absolutely would go to war over Taiwan.
....
Biden has been pushed to take this stance by anti-China hawks. At this point it’s not particularly necessary, as Taiwan is currently such an important trade partner for the whole region that such a war would be damaging to all sides.

China and Taiwan are going through some tensions lately, with China accusing Taiwan of behaving provocatively in acting as though they are autonomous.

The US position on Taiwan is bizarre, and has been for decades. After initially recognizing Taiwan as rightful government of all of China, they reversed and recognized the PRC.

Officially, then, the US doesn’t recognize Taiwan at all anymore, and has no embassy or diplomatic relations, apart from some work-alike “unofficial” facilities run by the State Department.

On top of maintaining an “unofficial” relationship, US law also commits the US to massive arms sales to Taiwan, which have been very large in recent years. Those arms sales similarly fuel tensions with China...."
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/21/biden-says-united-states-would-come-...

This of course has hardened China's position as the US claims it will "defend" what China has always considered part of China, (and indeed, Taiwan until very recently has also officially proclaimed the "One China" stance with its own government in Taiwan as the rightful government of all China).

China: No Room for Compromise or Concessions on Taiwan
US and China are unwilling to reach understanding on island
by Jason Ditz Posted on October 22

"President Biden set out his preparedness to go to war to defend Taiwan from China, while ruling out any concessions to China that might open up a route to avoid such a war.

Chinese officials are following suit, similarly announcing that there is “no room” for any compromise or concession on Taiwan in their policy. Once again, China isn’t laying out a path to avoid a military confrontation.

This is a dangerous position. China’s position is that Taiwan is part of China, and they will get it back. They see the US as driving efforts to keep them from recovering the island. The US, by contrast, doesn’t recognize Taiwan at all, but has a policy of arming the island to resist China, and President Biden now reiterates his willingness to go to war to keep it in this position of nominal independence...."

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/22/china-no-room-for-compromise-or-conc...

All acts of wanton US aggression since WWII have framed as a response to a threat. The US and its slavish MSM have been ratcheting up the anti-China fearmongering throughout the Trump/Biden years. The pro-US, but anti-interventionist think tank, The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft provides much background. Days ago Daniel Larison was fearful of what has now transpired in Biden's extreme brinkmanship of dropping the "strategic ambiguity" policy:

Taiwan
Let’s talk about those Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone
Nothing could turn an imaginary crisis into a real one faster than a fearmongering media and an explicit US pledge to defend Taiwan.

October 8, 2021
Written by
Daniel Larison

Dozens of Chinese military flights through parts of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the past month have caused an unwarranted panic that hawks in the U.S. have stoked and exploited for their own purposes.

Media hysteria and misinformation about these events have served to ratchet up tensions unnecessarily and to create an impression with the public that China is behaving far more aggressively than it is. The eagerness with which some national security analysts and reporters have mischaracterized what these flights represent has been alarming, because it shows how quickly any Chinese actions can be used to create a crisis atmosphere when there is no reason for it.

Contrary to many sensationalist reports and social media posts, Chinese forces have not violated Taiwanese airspace, nor have they flown “over” Taiwan. In fact, these Chinese flights have mostly taken place in one corner in the southwest of Taiwan’s ADIZ hundreds of miles from the island, and they have all been operating in international airspace. Whether through sloppiness or a desire for clicks, media outlets and analysts that should know better have effectively misled their audiences into thinking that China has been routinely committing acts of aggression against Taiwan when it has not done that. Kevin Baron, the executive editor of Defense One magazine, claimed that the flights had gone “over” Taiwan, compared the flights to Russian military intervention in Ukraine, and then suggested that the Chinese government was “testing” the United States and preparing to do something similar here.

An ADIZ is defined as an area well beyond a country’s airspace, and that airspace extends only 12 miles out from the coasts. Several countries, including the United States and China. have established ADIZs to provide them with advance warning of approaching aircraft, and other governments send their own planes into these zones without notifying the other side on a semi-regular basis. The U.S. has repeatedly sent bombers through the ADIZ that China established over the East China Sea in 2013, and Russia sometimes sends its planes into the American ADIZ around Alaska. Part of Taiwan’s ADIZ even overlaps with a portion of the Chinese mainland itself....

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/08/lets-talk-about-those-chine...

Meanwhile "foreign influence" by way of cash payoffs to influential think tanks from regimes that support violent US hegemony is ignored with a yawn by the MSM:

Taiwan funding of think tanks: Omnipresent and rarely disclosed
June 17, 2020
Written by
Eli Clifton
....
But five of the capital’s most prominent think tanks have been producing policy papers urging closer U.S. ties with Taiwan — a territory locked in an uncertain legal status that threatens to be a flashpoint between Beijing and Washington. These seemingly impartial research institutions are pushing for expanded arms sales and trade agreements with Taiwan without widely disclosing their high-level funding from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwan’s equivalent to an embassy.

The five think tanks — the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress*, the Center for a New American Security, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Hudson Institute — all disclose their funding from TECRO but bury it deep on their websites or annual reports.

None of their researchers disclose the potential conflict of interest between Taiwanese funding and advocating for more security guarantees for and trade with Taiwan....

https://quincyinst.org/2020/06/17/taiwan-funding-of-think-tanks-omnipres...

melovesproles wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:

<p>..we are talking to the folks on this board. no one else.</p>

<p>..from what we see going on in taiwan we can take lessons from. we can be in solidarity with. can understand what they face.</p>

<p>..looking at it from empire positions and then asking folks to choose sides is a dead end. not productive. it's a false debate.</p>

When I joined this board, it had an anti-war character and that was the focus of a lot of the activists here. That wasn't considered a "false debate" and it wasn't considered taking Saddam's side for thinking that opposing Canada's involvement in the war was more important than theoretical (true?) debates about how Iraqi democracy might come about if he was magically disappeared without superpower involvement.

In this case it is China threatening to invade Taiwan and force reunification on them.  Yes, people in Taiwan want peace above all but that includes not being invaded by China. Unlike Iraq, Taiwan welcomes US presence as a deterrent to war. We are anti-war right?

That in no way makes the US the good guys as opposed to China bad guy. They are both bad guys. 

The conclusion to the in-depth study I quoted included the following caution.

Ultimately, Taiwan can neither afford to ignore the competing interests of the PRC and the United States, nor the reality that improving relations with one will likely come at the expense of the other. Taiwan also cannot ignore the possibility that both sides may prioritize relations with each other at Taiwan’s expense. The U.S.-Taiwan relationship is currently experiencing a historic high, with the recent passing of the TAIPEI Act in the U.S. Senate and two high-level visits by senior U.S. officials. However, recent history has also shown the dangers that Taiwan faces—caught as it is in an ambiguous position of sovereignty, with its security in large part dependent on the greater U.S.-China relationship.

I don't and won't defend the US but neither will I worship China. There is no "good guy" in the equation. 

I know almost nothing about Taiwan but I am willing to bet their politicians and ruling class abuse their own populations as Canada does so they aren't the good guys either. They look to their own power. 

From the poll the people of Taiwan support the status quo ambiguous though it may be which is very understandable. They don't want to provoke China by declaring independence but neither do they want China to have any greater involvement. The current arrangement is an uncomfortable stalemate.

I think it is safe to assume they don't want to be a proxy battleground between China and the US.

Ken Burch wrote:

For whatever it's worth, here's my take:

If two things can be true at the same time, these two things are true of the China/Taiwan situation

1) The U.S. and "The West" have no right to militarily intervene here.

2) Just as it was the case that China had no justification for or need to impose PRC-level repression in Hong Kong, it has no justification for or need to do anything like that on Taiwan.  Therefore, people on the Left should neither ally themselves with the Western powers or the Chinese government on this issue or any other involving the interactions between those two countries.

These two things are also true

1) Before the 20th Century, Taiwan was never an independent country- Chiang Kai-Shek's right-wing Nationalist regime was implacably opposed to Taiwanese independence prior to 1949, and then he led an ethnic-Han/Mandarin minority off the mainland onto Taiwan and into dictatorial power on Taiwan, continuing the long-term oppression of the native Taiwanese population- a population which has consistently rejected the idea that anyone else, including any other government on the mainland, has the right to hold power over them. Just as is the case with the Irish, the Palestinians, and all other oppressed peoples, the native Taiwanese population has the right to self-determination.

2) The people of Taiwan want peace w/the PRC, but they also don't want to be forced to live under the exact same level of absurdly paranoid repression the PRC imposes on the mainland, so there is no reason for the PRC not to just leave them alone.  Also, the current government of Taiwan, which is made up of the opponents of Chiang Kai-Shek's old right-wing Kuomintang party, have created a largely democratic, non-confrontational and internationally neutral state that has essentially nothing in common with Chiang's old police state regime- weirder still, Chiang's old party now favors reunion- and therefore absolute PRC-style police state repression- on Taiwan.   

Is not the reasonable, progressive, internationalist position simply to call for everybody in all the great powers to simpy leave Taiwan be?

It can only be reactionary and unjust for the place to go under direct rule from Beijing's right-wing nationalist state, and it can only be reactionary for "The West" to impose its will on the situation.

Is there anyone who finds the position I've taken on this to be unreasonable or unacceptable?