I got into an argument with a guy on Reddit because he kept insisting that Taiwan was a sovereign nation and I kept telling him that Taiwan does not view Taiwan as a sovereign nation. At one point he asked me if we sold weapons to China and when I said definitionally yes he lost his shit.
A June 2013 poll conducted by DPP showed an overwhelming 77.6% consider themselves as Taiwanese.[140] On the independence-unification issue, the survey found that 25.9 percent said they support unification, 59 percent support independence, and 10.3 percent prefer the “status quo.” When asked whether Taiwan and China are parts of one country, the party said the survey found 78.4 percent disagree, while 15 percent agreed. As for whether Taiwan and China are two districts in one country, 70.6 percent disagree, while 22.8 percent agree
The DPP (pro-Independence party) polling seems to differ a bit from National Chengchi University’s yearly poll where “maintain status quo indefinitely/decide later” were the two most popular selections.
I agree the polling is a bit different, I don’t think it contradicts the DPP study though. Setting aside the question of national identity (not addressed in the NCU study) vs national policy goals, NCU went 32/28/21 for status quo maintain/decide later/move toward independence. 1.6 wanted status quo + move toward unification. 21 > 1.6. Thanks for providing further evidence!
If you’re only looking at the “immediate action” options it’s 4.5% independence vs 1.6% unification
Grouping the camps together, the graph shows 25% vs 8% currently while not too long ago in 2018 it was 20% vs 16%. It’s a contentious issue, and opinions wax and wane depending on the diplomatic situation with the only consistency being that the majority of people favor maintaining the status quo. However, I think as more of the older generations die off, much like in South Korea, identification with a cross-border national project will likely diminish.
If your views can only be propagated through violence, don’t you think they should be reconsidered?
Please share this pearl of wisdom with the US government, if you’re successful you’ll literally save millions of lives and no one on the planet will ever be more deserving of the Nobel prize. Please also share this sentiment with the soldiers in question, they’re literally involved in killing hundreds of thousands when it’s not millions to supposedly propagate American views on freedom and democracy (but in reality installing puppet governments for geopolitical power or to facilitate the theft of natural resources).
I would love for a nonviolent approach to a different path. The PCI tried that in Indonesia and the US backed a massacre of over a million people and secretly bombed Indonesian territory under the pretext of popular discontent (see The Jakarta Method); Allende tried that in Chile, and the US backed a bloody coup, replacing him with the dictator Pinochet; this was tried in Afghanistan, in return for which the US backed terrorism with the express purpose of undermining reform, and with the result of worsening women’s and underprivileged rights and eventually returning to bomb the country and kill hundreds of thousands; Sankara was killed in. US-backed coup, so on and so forth, read Frantz Fanon “On Violence.” Instead of this critique being leveled at the US and their military apparatus, it is slyly redirected, and then the claim is put forward that the revolutionary only understands violence, can only operate through it. We see no peaceful road to liberating the third world from imperialism, not because this is what we wish but because any attempt is met with terror and bombs. I am not afraid to say that as a consolation the rabble will get on top by other means. Fuck America.
I agree with your sentiment, but we should refrain from using these emotionally charged words. We must remain polite so that people reading this thread will get a bad impression of Hexbear.
Chinese Taipei is not a place name. It is the name people in Taiwan use to participate in sports. Like it or not, the island is called Taiwan, whether they are their own nation or just a province of China.
But it does? I mean it’s a long article, I’m not going to read the whole thing for something this uncontroversial, but I’ll back up my very factual assertion with evidence from the opening paragraph.
Taipei (/ˌtaɪˈpeɪ/),[4]
This implies Taipei exists, thus backing up my assertion that “Taipei is” and “is”.
officially Taipei City,[I]
Since it’s named Taipei city, this is circumstantial proof that Taipei is a city.
is the capital[a]
Capitals are cities, this backs my assertion that Taipei is a city.
and a special municipality of Taiwan.[7][8]
Taiwan is a location in China, this backs my assertion that Taipei is a city associated with China if you combine it with the rest of the sentence. Technically it could still be somewhere else.
Located in Northern Taiwan,
This means that Taipei is on Taiwan, so now the information presented has changed from being associated with to being inside of.
Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city of Keelung.
This provides specificity in case there are multiple places named Taiwan, since we now also know it’s close to Keelung which is also in China.
Most of the city rests on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed. The basin is bounded by the relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city’s western border.[9]
This doesn’t provide additional information for my purposes, but they reiterate that it’s a city and in proximity to locations in China.
70% of US adults believe in angels, but that doesn’t make it true. No countries with any actual amount of power on the global stage recognize the ROC (see the US’ One China Policy), which means that regardless of whatever views people claim to have when surveyed, Taiwan is de facto part of the PRC.
Please cite the principle of international law which requires the present day iteration of a state’s government to have had past administration of a breakaway territory in order to assert a claim of ownership over said territory.
Please also cite any supporting state practice and opinio juris.
How do you go from there - economic dependence and decreasing recognition - to not being self sovereign? They run a government and have elections. As another hexbear pointed out
true enough a lot of that works out to semantics, such as their having “Economic, Trade, and Cultural Offices” instead of formal embassies despite them doing largely the same thing
This is without contending your points about their economic situation and degree to which the mainland coerces the language of the relationship held between Taiwan and other nations.
How do you go from there - economic dependence and decreasing recognition - to not being self sovereign? They run a government and have elections. As another hexbear pointed out
At a basic level, to be a sovereign country is for the people of that country to have the ability to determine their own collective destiny. Now, sovereignty is not a simple binary but a scale since powerful countries have the potential for greater influence than smaller countries who must fight against the influence of larger countries.
Vietnam has sovereignty. It has an independent military that is battle-tested through winning numerous wars against its neighbors and the US, it has a seat within the UN where it can lobby its interest before a global body of nations, it has international treaties with numerous countries and is free to sign more or back away from treaties if it’s in its geopolitical interests, it is part of many international organizations like ASEAN, and it has an extremely savvy ruling party who knows how to play off the blocs against each other for Vietnam’s benefit. It’s even taking steps to be completely food independent so they won’t get fucked over by sanctions and climate change. The only real mark against their sovereignty is the PRC (and ROC) presence in the SCS.
Taiwan, in contrast, has little to no sovereignty. Its military is completely dependent on the US. If it wasn’t for the 7th Fleet constantly bailing out Taiwan, Taiwan would’ve long since been reunited with the Mainland. It has no seat in the UN. A grand total of 12 UN states, many of them Pacific islands that Taiwan constantly bribes for their continued recognition, plus Vatican City recognizes Taiwan. Because Taiwan is not a UN state, it cannot belong to a lot of organizations. Just a few days ago, Taiwan got expelled from the Central American Parliament. The Central American Parliament isn’t some hugely important organization and that’s part of the point. Taiwan has already been shut out of important organizations like the UN and the WHO and now they’re even being shut out of even less important ones. Taiwan has to compete in the Olympics under the humiliating title “Chinese Taipei” and instead of boycotting the Olympics, they choose to compete with that humiliating title, further cementing their inability to move beyond what the PRC and the rest of the world has placed them in. Neither the KMT and nor the DPP are pursuing policies that would bolster Taiwan’s little sovereignty, with the KMT thinking if they can kiss the PRC ass enough times, the PRC won’t invade Taiwan and with the DPP thinking if they can lick Uncle Sam’s boots enough times, the US would save Taiwan and not abandon them like the US did with Afghanistan. Taiwan is also overly dependent on trade with the PRC and in general, Taiwan’s economy is intertwined with the PRC, meaning if the PRC does shit like temporary ban some Taiwanese imports, the entire economy feels the strain.
This is a country that’s economically dependent on one country and militarily dependent on another country. This is not a sovereign country. This is a pawn that’s being played by two countries that are belligerent with each other.
I commend you for recognizing to dispute the sovereignty of Taiwan it helps to start with a definition. Unfortunately for you the definition you provided is vague and at ends with more formal definitions. I’ll reference you to the indisputable democratic source of knowledge wikipedia (feel free to edit the page if you it can be improved):
Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority.[1] Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states.[2] In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change existing laws.
The PRC and the USA do not pass and enforce laws in Taiwan. The Taiwan government, elected by the people of Taiwan does. They are self sovereign.
You’ve brought a lot of good points which I ought to go through in detail, but briefly: Vietnam great analysis but different country. Military - is Japan sovereign based on reliance on US? Are there only a handful of actually sovereign states (the superpowes) in your schema? Regarding not provoking PRC no shit they don’t want to get slaughtered. As has been pointed out they have organizations and relationships that are de facto diplomatic if they are not called that because of the gun to their head.
Curious, what’s your stance on Palestine’s sovereignty? I think they can be considered sovereign, I don’t see that spectre of other powers potential influence as taking that away. I don’t see why all you guys need to make the bar seem so high, if you individualize it this much the word changes its meaning. A nation doesn’t need to be uncontested among all other nations to be sovereign. If its not the Taiwan government who is sovereign there? Your position would require there be an “unsovereign” condition, unless you actually believe its the PRC sovereign there. Unless its contested within the borders I don’t see how you could make the argument a nation is unsoverneign.
In practice, Taiwan is not internationally recognized as a country. It doesn’t get to participate in many important international bodies like the UN or WHO, for instance. I get your implied point that this doesn’t mean much because it really only matters on the diplomatic level, and true enough a lot of that works out to semantics, such as their having “Economic, Trade, and Cultural Offices” instead of formal embassies despite them doing largely the same thing.
I appreciate this last comment in contrast to the former which glibly compares 24 million peoples national identity beliefs to religious views. Belief in a national identity manifests the identity whereas the other are supernatural sky fairies.
and true enough a lot of that works out to semantics
Not sure what the dispute is then. As things stand, a much more powerful nation uses its influence to deny another representation on a world stage. That doesn’t make them “not a country.” They rule within their borders and those that live there by and large consider themselves Taiwanese. The OP I replied to was denying this, I think you and I made good points that they are self sovereign.
The dispute at this point is over how we define a country, especially because Taiwan clearly falls in a grey area within that definition. I claim that they are fundamentally unable to exercise their sovereignty given they aren’t formally recognized as a country by even their greatest allies and benefactors, thus they fail. You claim that they can fulfill the roles of the state, have a national identity, and have various semantic work-arounds for that fundamental illegitimacy, thus they pass. There’s also the question of the legitimacy of their founding, with me saying that the ROC was originally an oppressive colonial military dictatorship, but then you would say that it’s been long enough and their government has changed enough that it doesn’t matter, then we bicker over what constitutes a democracy.
Ultimately the argument would continue indefinitely and I don’t think there’s much chance either of us would be convinced by the other.
As an aside, the point of the prior comment was that surveys of beliefs can very easily be detached from reality, and so aren’t good evidence for claims.
The dispute at this point is over how we define a country, especially because Taiwan clearly falls in a grey area within that definition. I claim that they are fundamentally unable to exercise their sovereignty given they aren’t formally recognized as a country by even their greatest allies and benefactors, thus they fail. You claim that they can fulfill the roles of the state, have a national identity, and have various semantic work-arounds for that fundamental illegitimacy, thus they pass.
I am willing to agree with you (albeit with some rephrasing there) if you were at least consistent. So, do you consider Palestine to be sovereign or not. I consider them sovereign. I am consistent. For you to be consistent in your views would require you to view Palestine to lack sovereignty. Mind you China recognizes Palestine as sovereign. If you say yes they have sovereignty then it demonstrates you’re just trying to bring politics into semantics which in truth is what’s going on in this whole thread. A political faction is attempting to coop the language to suit their narrative whether it requires logical consistency or not.
Given that Israel is militarily occupying and actively colonizing Palestine, I would say that Palestine is unable to exercise its sovereignty. Should it be granted more sovereignty? Yes, but that seems as though it will require either the radical reformation or outright destruction of Israel.
Except no country or international institution would agree with your criteria for a nation-state since that definition also gives legitimacy and sovereignty to lovely people like ISIS when they administered a huge chunk of Iraq or any number of autonomous or semi-autonomous breakaway regions that the international community consistently refuses to acknowledge as sovereign states.
Yeah! As long as you don’t read the Montevideo Convention or ask any international legal scholars, your conception of international law is totally correct!
The territory of the Republic of China according to its existing national boundaries shall not be altered except by resolution of the National Assembly.
Which means they’re not independent of the rest of China. They also claim parts of Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Russia, and according to Vietnam parts of Vietnam. Their territorial claims aren’t ancient by the way, they were revised in 2002, when they accepted Mongolia’s sovereignty.
So the “nation” that doesn’t even consider itself independent sounds independent to you?
They cannot claim themselves independent or else China would attack. Don’t you think it’s kind of ludicrous that a country can force another “region” to not be independent by threatening them?
@diablexical@lemm.ee was not actually claiming that China is not independent. They are trying prove that Taiwan is independent through reductio ad absurdium. Basically, they try to derive something absurd (in this case China not being independent) from your claims.
You can’t prove independence through logical contradiction. It’s a state of foreign recognition. China clearly won the war enough to be recognized. Taiwan did not.
For context: the DPP is the pro-indpendence ultranationalist party founded by local landed elites who collaborated with the Japanese empire during wwii. To this day many Taiwanese ultranationalists around the DPP deny Japanese atrocities such as Nanjing and Unit 731. This may not be the most reliable source, three pinocchios!
Interesting that you choose to present a 10 year old poll conducted by the pro-independence party instead of easily accessible recent polls conducted by well regarded Taiwanese universities.
I guess those other cherries just didn’t look as ripe, eh?
“However, in a more stripped-down poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (TPOF, 台灣民意基金會) with only three choices and no nuanced timeline questions, 50% chose independence, 11.8% unification and 25.7% maintain the status quo.”
Being a sovereign nation is when you don’t have a seat in the UN and most sovereign nations refuse to recognize you as an independent nation.
I really don’t think this is the view people on the left should hold. Someone could say the same thing about many nations or groups that don’t have a seat in the UN and aren’t recognised but are still supported by communists and anarchists.
Sovereignty as a concept in international relations stems from the Treaty of Westphalia, in that each nation has an absolute say within its own borders and that said borders are inviolable.
Whether a nation or people is sovereign or not is a statement of reality, and part of sovereignty is whether other sovereign countries are able to vouch for your sovereignty. Just formally acknowledging your sovereignty like having an embassy is the bare minimum, but there’s more like defense treaties, economic deals, and joining organizations. At the end of the day, there will be other countries and entities that will seek to challenge and destroy a country’s sovereignty and unless you have a fleet of Gundams, you’ll need other countries to rush to your defense when it’s challenged. Nobody can do it alone.
If you’re talking about cases like the ROC being in the UN instead of the PRC even though the PRC is de facto far larger than the ROC, remember that the UN isn’t an immutable organization. There’s nothing stopping the ROC from denouncing the UN as a sham organization after getting kicked out and starting their own rival organization called the League of United Nations or something and getting other countries to cosign to this new organization. There’s nothing stopping the ROC from campaigning their allies (ie the West and various Western vassals) to leave the UN and join the LUN. But for obvious reasons, a LUN would never happen because the ROC doesn’t have many allies. Most countries, including its so-called allies, see Taiwan as a US unsinkable aircraft carrier that’ll inevitably be reunited with the Mainland, whether peacefully or by force, or be completely destroyed in the process of a US-China war.
Do you know what a sovereign nation is? Whether a state has a seat in the UN is not an indicator of sovereignty. By the way, do you know why the ROC does not have a seat in the UN? The old China, ROC, quitted preemptively so as to not get kicked out by the new China, PRC. By your logic, evidently, a nation can decide whether another nation is sovereign.
TBH I don’t think “legitimacy” matters. They function as an independent country. They issue passports, and flights between them and the mainland function as international flights despite both countries making up legal mumbo jumbo that calls it “cross-strait travel”. There are countries with more widespread “legitimate” recognition that are functionally less of a nationstate than Taiwan.
Taiwan is currently a Chinese settler colonial regime that functions as an American military base and microchip factory. If they want sovereignty, they should give the land back to the natives they stole it from and return the billions of dollars worth of gold and artifacts they looted from the Qing coffers after they (catastrophically) lost the easiest civil war in history.
The ideological makeup of Taiwan has nothing to do with whether or not they are entitled to sovereignty from a diplomatic perspective. International relations isn’t about right and wrong. In fact, the KMT and CPC are in agreement in maintaining the status quo - the KMT and the CPC work together to oppose any attempts at renouncing claims to mainland China by Taiwan and formally becoming the Republic of Taiwan.
Give the land back to the natives? And how exactly would that be done? Handing the government over to them? I would say that 99% of the natives would not want that. The government of Taiwan is already doing enough to make up for the horrible deeds done: the natives enjoy a ×1.35 boost on exams, their statuses and cultures are protected legally, and the government is also pushing natives to learn their native languages.
Is it really that wrong for a government to loot things from its land? In any case, they are also taking good care of the artifacts and opening them up to visitors who wish to see them. The civil war was not that easy either.
There’s no valid argument for Taiwan’s independence as a Chinese settler colony. As proof, the entire DPP argument depends on Chinese settlers pulling a Liz Warren and pretending to be native. It’s also totally incoherent to claim they’re a separate country but were also justified in looting billions of dollars worth of gold from “its” land, as if Beijing isn’t a thousand miles away from Taipei.
As for the civil war being easy, the KMT had the support of every US president, Stalin, and Hitler, which is just to say they had everyone’s support. The KMT flag would be over China right now if they had simply not tried to murder the communists in cold blood. I guess they did make things hard on themselves.
The KMT flag would be over China right now if they had simply not tried to murder the communists in cold blood.
I disagree. Had Chang Hsueh-liang not kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek back in 1936 demanding that he stop fighting communists and form a united front against Japanese, things probably would have been very different. I do not understand why you think that KMT would still rule the entire China if they had not fought the communists.
excerpt from Wikipedia about the Xi'an incident in 1936
On April 6, 1936, Chang met with CPC delegate Zhou Enlai to plan the end of the Chinese Civil War. KMT leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at the time took a passive position against Japan and considered the communists to be a greater danger to the Republic of China than the Japanese, and his overall strategy was to annihilate the communists before focusing his efforts on the Japanese. He believed that “communism was a cancer while the Japanese represented a superficial wound.” Growing nationalist anger against Japan made this position very unpopular, and led to Chang’s action against Chiang, known as the Xi’an Incident.
In December 1936, Chang and General Yang Hucheng kidnapped Chiang, imprisoning him until he agreed to form a united front with the communists against the Japanese invasion. After two weeks of negotiations, Chiang agreed to unite with the communists and drive the Japanese out of China. When Chiang was released on December 26, Chang chose to return to the capital city of Nanjing with him; once they were away from Chang’s loyal troops, Chiang had him placed under house arrest. From then on, he was under constant watch and lived near the Nationalist capital city, wherever it moved to.
I got into an argument with a guy on Reddit because he kept insisting that Taiwan was a sovereign nation and I kept telling him that Taiwan does not view Taiwan as a sovereign nation. At one point he asked me if we sold weapons to China and when I said definitionally yes he lost his shit.
Taiwan #1
The DPP (pro-Independence party) polling seems to differ a bit from National Chengchi University’s yearly poll where “maintain status quo indefinitely/decide later” were the two most popular selections.
me deciding what I’m going to do today
I agree the polling is a bit different, I don’t think it contradicts the DPP study though. Setting aside the question of national identity (not addressed in the NCU study) vs national policy goals, NCU went 32/28/21 for status quo maintain/decide later/move toward independence. 1.6 wanted status quo + move toward unification. 21 > 1.6. Thanks for providing further evidence!
If you’re only looking at the “immediate action” options it’s 4.5% independence vs 1.6% unification
Grouping the camps together, the graph shows 25% vs 8% currently while not too long ago in 2018 it was 20% vs 16%. It’s a contentious issue, and opinions wax and wane depending on the diplomatic situation with the only consistency being that the majority of people favor maintaining the status quo. However, I think as more of the older generations die off, much like in South Korea, identification with a cross-border national project will likely diminish.
How can they possibly be Taiwanese if they don’t speak any of the Formosan languages?
How can Americans possibly be Americans if they don’t speak American?
Exactly. Death to America!
Bring it loser.
Death. To. America. Every one of your soldiers will be spit on and shot.
If your views can only be propagated through violence, don’t you think they should be reconsidered?
America has been at war for all but like 7 years of its entire 239 year existence and they started almost all of them.
so… Death to america.
Please share this pearl of wisdom with the US government, if you’re successful you’ll literally save millions of lives and no one on the planet will ever be more deserving of the Nobel prize. Please also share this sentiment with the soldiers in question, they’re literally involved in killing hundreds of thousands when it’s not millions to supposedly propagate American views on freedom and democracy (but in reality installing puppet governments for geopolitical power or to facilitate the theft of natural resources).
I would love for a nonviolent approach to a different path. The PCI tried that in Indonesia and the US backed a massacre of over a million people and secretly bombed Indonesian territory under the pretext of popular discontent (see The Jakarta Method); Allende tried that in Chile, and the US backed a bloody coup, replacing him with the dictator Pinochet; this was tried in Afghanistan, in return for which the US backed terrorism with the express purpose of undermining reform, and with the result of worsening women’s and underprivileged rights and eventually returning to bomb the country and kill hundreds of thousands; Sankara was killed in. US-backed coup, so on and so forth, read Frantz Fanon “On Violence.” Instead of this critique being leveled at the US and their military apparatus, it is slyly redirected, and then the claim is put forward that the revolutionary only understands violence, can only operate through it. We see no peaceful road to liberating the third world from imperialism, not because this is what we wish but because any attempt is met with terror and bombs. I am not afraid to say that as a consolation the rabble will get on top by other means. Fuck America.
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Ooh that period was a deliberate choice, and it is not paying off
I agree with your sentiment, but we should refrain from using these emotionally charged words. We must remain polite
so that people reading this thread will get a bad impression of Hexbear.Where do they live again?
Chinese Taipei of course, comrade.
Is that what the majority of people who live there would say?
Only when they want to participate in the Olympics
I’m pretty sure they would rather use Taiwan as their name in Olympics if China allowed them to.
Haha you got me there! Guess that settles it.
Question - do you know if they include Taiwan’s gold medal count with mainland China’s?
No, absolutely not.
Chinese Taipei is not a place name. It is the name people in Taiwan use to participate in sports. Like it or not, the island is called Taiwan, whether they are their own nation or just a province of China.
Taipei is a city in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei
I can accept you claiming that Taipei is a city in China, but the Wikipedia article you link to does not seem to agree.
But it does? I mean it’s a long article, I’m not going to read the whole thing for something this uncontroversial, but I’ll back up my very factual assertion with evidence from the opening paragraph.
This implies Taipei exists, thus backing up my assertion that “Taipei is” and “is”.
Since it’s named Taipei city, this is circumstantial proof that Taipei is a city.
Capitals are cities, this backs my assertion that Taipei is a city.
Taiwan is a location in China, this backs my assertion that Taipei is a city associated with China if you combine it with the rest of the sentence. Technically it could still be somewhere else.
This means that Taipei is on Taiwan, so now the information presented has changed from being associated with to being inside of.
This provides specificity in case there are multiple places named Taiwan, since we now also know it’s close to Keelung which is also in China.
This doesn’t provide additional information for my purposes, but they reiterate that it’s a city and in proximity to locations in China.
70% of US adults believe in angels, but that doesn’t make it true. No countries with any actual amount of power on the global stage recognize the ROC (see the US’ One China Policy), which means that regardless of whatever views people claim to have when surveyed, Taiwan is de facto part of the PRC.
Taiwan is not a part of the PRC, de facto or de jure. Say that Taiwan is a part of China all you want, but it never has been a part of the PRC.
The German Democratic Republic was never part of the Federal Republic of Germany either. Until it was.
What a completely irrelevant exercise in pedantry.
The truth, like it or not, is that PRC has never, ever seized control of Taiwan. Hopefully it never does. This is not pedantry.
Please cite the principle of international law which requires the present day iteration of a state’s government to have had past administration of a breakaway territory in order to assert a claim of ownership over said territory.
Please also cite any supporting state practice and opinio juris.
de facto huh. What does that mean in practice?
Taiwan is completely economically dependent on the Mainland and is recognized by an ever shrinking pool of nations?
How do you go from there - economic dependence and decreasing recognition - to not being self sovereign? They run a government and have elections. As another hexbear pointed out
This is without contending your points about their economic situation and degree to which the mainland coerces the language of the relationship held between Taiwan and other nations.
At a basic level, to be a sovereign country is for the people of that country to have the ability to determine their own collective destiny. Now, sovereignty is not a simple binary but a scale since powerful countries have the potential for greater influence than smaller countries who must fight against the influence of larger countries.
Vietnam has sovereignty. It has an independent military that is battle-tested through winning numerous wars against its neighbors and the US, it has a seat within the UN where it can lobby its interest before a global body of nations, it has international treaties with numerous countries and is free to sign more or back away from treaties if it’s in its geopolitical interests, it is part of many international organizations like ASEAN, and it has an extremely savvy ruling party who knows how to play off the blocs against each other for Vietnam’s benefit. It’s even taking steps to be completely food independent so they won’t get fucked over by sanctions and climate change. The only real mark against their sovereignty is the PRC (and ROC) presence in the SCS.
Taiwan, in contrast, has little to no sovereignty. Its military is completely dependent on the US. If it wasn’t for the 7th Fleet constantly bailing out Taiwan, Taiwan would’ve long since been reunited with the Mainland. It has no seat in the UN. A grand total of 12 UN states, many of them Pacific islands that Taiwan constantly bribes for their continued recognition, plus Vatican City recognizes Taiwan. Because Taiwan is not a UN state, it cannot belong to a lot of organizations. Just a few days ago, Taiwan got expelled from the Central American Parliament. The Central American Parliament isn’t some hugely important organization and that’s part of the point. Taiwan has already been shut out of important organizations like the UN and the WHO and now they’re even being shut out of even less important ones. Taiwan has to compete in the Olympics under the humiliating title “Chinese Taipei” and instead of boycotting the Olympics, they choose to compete with that humiliating title, further cementing their inability to move beyond what the PRC and the rest of the world has placed them in. Neither the KMT and nor the DPP are pursuing policies that would bolster Taiwan’s little sovereignty, with the KMT thinking if they can kiss the PRC ass enough times, the PRC won’t invade Taiwan and with the DPP thinking if they can lick Uncle Sam’s boots enough times, the US would save Taiwan and not abandon them like the US did with Afghanistan. Taiwan is also overly dependent on trade with the PRC and in general, Taiwan’s economy is intertwined with the PRC, meaning if the PRC does shit like temporary ban some Taiwanese imports, the entire economy feels the strain.
This is a country that’s economically dependent on one country and militarily dependent on another country. This is not a sovereign country. This is a pawn that’s being played by two countries that are belligerent with each other.
I commend you for recognizing to dispute the sovereignty of Taiwan it helps to start with a definition. Unfortunately for you the definition you provided is vague and at ends with more formal definitions. I’ll reference you to the indisputable democratic source of knowledge wikipedia (feel free to edit the page if you it can be improved):
The PRC and the USA do not pass and enforce laws in Taiwan. The Taiwan government, elected by the people of Taiwan does. They are self sovereign.
You’ve brought a lot of good points which I ought to go through in detail, but briefly: Vietnam great analysis but different country. Military - is Japan sovereign based on reliance on US? Are there only a handful of actually sovereign states (the superpowes) in your schema? Regarding not provoking PRC no shit they don’t want to get slaughtered. As has been pointed out they have organizations and relationships that are de facto diplomatic if they are not called that because of the gun to their head.
Curious, what’s your stance on Palestine’s sovereignty? I think they can be considered sovereign, I don’t see that spectre of other powers potential influence as taking that away. I don’t see why all you guys need to make the bar seem so high, if you individualize it this much the word changes its meaning. A nation doesn’t need to be uncontested among all other nations to be sovereign. If its not the Taiwan government who is sovereign there? Your position would require there be an “unsovereign” condition, unless you actually believe its the PRC sovereign there. Unless its contested within the borders I don’t see how you could make the argument a nation is unsoverneign.
“indisputable democratic source of knowledge wikipedia (feel free to edit the page if you it can be improved):”
spoiler
Taiwan is heavily economically dependent on the Mainland, but not completely.
In practice, Taiwan is not internationally recognized as a country. It doesn’t get to participate in many important international bodies like the UN or WHO, for instance. I get your implied point that this doesn’t mean much because it really only matters on the diplomatic level, and true enough a lot of that works out to semantics, such as their having “Economic, Trade, and Cultural Offices” instead of formal embassies despite them doing largely the same thing.
I appreciate this last comment in contrast to the former which glibly compares 24 million peoples national identity beliefs to religious views. Belief in a national identity manifests the identity whereas the other are supernatural sky fairies.
Not sure what the dispute is then. As things stand, a much more powerful nation uses its influence to deny another representation on a world stage. That doesn’t make them “not a country.” They rule within their borders and those that live there by and large consider themselves Taiwanese. The OP I replied to was denying this, I think you and I made good points that they are self sovereign.
The dispute at this point is over how we define a country, especially because Taiwan clearly falls in a grey area within that definition. I claim that they are fundamentally unable to exercise their sovereignty given they aren’t formally recognized as a country by even their greatest allies and benefactors, thus they fail. You claim that they can fulfill the roles of the state, have a national identity, and have various semantic work-arounds for that fundamental illegitimacy, thus they pass. There’s also the question of the legitimacy of their founding, with me saying that the ROC was originally an oppressive colonial military dictatorship, but then you would say that it’s been long enough and their government has changed enough that it doesn’t matter, then we bicker over what constitutes a democracy.
Ultimately the argument would continue indefinitely and I don’t think there’s much chance either of us would be convinced by the other.
As an aside, the point of the prior comment was that surveys of beliefs can very easily be detached from reality, and so aren’t good evidence for claims.
I am willing to agree with you (albeit with some rephrasing there) if you were at least consistent. So, do you consider Palestine to be sovereign or not. I consider them sovereign. I am consistent. For you to be consistent in your views would require you to view Palestine to lack sovereignty. Mind you China recognizes Palestine as sovereign. If you say yes they have sovereignty then it demonstrates you’re just trying to bring politics into semantics which in truth is what’s going on in this whole thread. A political faction is attempting to coop the language to suit their narrative whether it requires logical consistency or not.
Given that Israel is militarily occupying and actively colonizing Palestine, I would say that Palestine is unable to exercise its sovereignty. Should it be granted more sovereignty? Yes, but that seems as though it will require either the radical reformation or outright destruction of Israel.
It’s still a nation-state. It’s fully independent and autonomous from China in every sense of the meaning.
Whether other countries recognize your seat at the UN is functionally irrelevant.
Except no country or international institution would agree with your criteria for a nation-state since that definition also gives legitimacy and sovereignty to lovely people like ISIS when they administered a huge chunk of Iraq or any number of autonomous or semi-autonomous breakaway regions that the international community consistently refuses to acknowledge as sovereign states.
Yeah! Whether other countries let you have a seat in the UN or not is not relevant to sovereignty.
Yeah! As long as you don’t read the Montevideo Convention or ask any international legal scholars, your conception of international law is totally correct!
That has nothing to do with being a state, it’s about south American former colonies gaining recognition from European powers.
You sorta have to win the war to declare independence.
Change the question to: “would you die for Taiwanese independence?” And watch the numbers drop.
So mainland China is not independent then?
They have the mainland and everyone recognizes them as China.
Sounds independent to me. Forget your pedantic nonsense.
As does Taiwan to me, and right back at you comrade.
So the “nation” that doesn’t even consider itself independent sounds independent to you?
And I’m the one being pedantic?
Sorry to say but independence isn’t a vibe.
It’s not a vibe based analysis.
How does it not consider itself independent?
Article 4 of the constitution:
Which means they’re not independent of the rest of China. They also claim parts of Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Russia, and according to Vietnam parts of Vietnam. Their territorial claims aren’t ancient by the way, they were revised in 2002, when they accepted Mongolia’s sovereignty.
They cannot claim themselves independent or else China would attack. Don’t you think it’s kind of ludicrous that a country can force another “region” to not be independent by threatening them?
What are your opinions on the civil war in the US?
Should the confederacy have been allowed to leave without threat of force?
@diablexical@lemm.ee was not actually claiming that China is not independent. They are trying prove that Taiwan is independent through reductio ad absurdium. Basically, they try to derive something absurd (in this case China not being independent) from your claims.
Thus “pedantic nonsense”
You can’t prove independence through logical contradiction. It’s a state of foreign recognition. China clearly won the war enough to be recognized. Taiwan did not.
Independence isn’t a vibe.
Reductio ad absurdium is not “pedantic nonsense.”
When misapplied that badly, it really is.
Why would anyone want to die for a mere label of “independence”? Most Taiwanese people just want to enjoy the practically independent status quo.
Because it’s not a vibe. They’re not really independent. The island will live forever in Chinas shadow.
For context: the DPP is the pro-indpendence ultranationalist party founded by local landed elites who collaborated with the Japanese empire during wwii. To this day many Taiwanese ultranationalists around the DPP deny Japanese atrocities such as Nanjing and Unit 731. This may not be the most reliable source, three pinocchios!
Anyone who says they support the DPP is openly saying they support fascists.
I don’t support the DPP, but they are far from being fascists.
Not to defend the DPP, but I find the claim that some people deny the Rape of Nanking hard to believe.
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Did you just call Lee Teng-Hui a dipshit?
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Interesting that you choose to present a 10 year old poll conducted by the pro-independence party instead of easily accessible recent polls conducted by well regarded Taiwanese universities.
I guess those other cherries just didn’t look as ripe, eh?
From 2023
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4782886
Taiwan does not view itself as a soverign nation, but for most practical purposes it is one. Also, I don’t think “definitionally” is a word.
Edit: Apparently “definitionally” is a word. I stand corrected.
Being a sovereign nation is when you don’t have a seat in the UN and most sovereign nations refuse to recognize you as an independent nation.
I really don’t think this is the view people on the left should hold. Someone could say the same thing about many nations or groups that don’t have a seat in the UN and aren’t recognised but are still supported by communists and anarchists.
What is a “sovereign nation”?
De facto, a polity that has a distinct administration which dictates policy within and maintains its own borders.
pretty sure the red light district in my town fits that definition.
Unless you get like seriously scientific about it a sovereign nation is basically vibes based
Sovereignty as a concept in international relations stems from the Treaty of Westphalia, in that each nation has an absolute say within its own borders and that said borders are inviolable.
In which case Ukraine was not sovereign after it was overthrown by America’s Nazi coup.
Whether a nation or people is sovereign or not is a statement of reality, and part of sovereignty is whether other sovereign countries are able to vouch for your sovereignty. Just formally acknowledging your sovereignty like having an embassy is the bare minimum, but there’s more like defense treaties, economic deals, and joining organizations. At the end of the day, there will be other countries and entities that will seek to challenge and destroy a country’s sovereignty and unless you have a fleet of Gundams, you’ll need other countries to rush to your defense when it’s challenged. Nobody can do it alone.
If you’re talking about cases like the ROC being in the UN instead of the PRC even though the PRC is de facto far larger than the ROC, remember that the UN isn’t an immutable organization. There’s nothing stopping the ROC from denouncing the UN as a sham organization after getting kicked out and starting their own rival organization called the League of United Nations or something and getting other countries to cosign to this new organization. There’s nothing stopping the ROC from campaigning their allies (ie the West and various Western vassals) to leave the UN and join the LUN. But for obvious reasons, a LUN would never happen because the ROC doesn’t have many allies. Most countries, including its so-called allies, see Taiwan as a US unsinkable aircraft carrier that’ll inevitably be reunited with the Mainland, whether peacefully or by force, or be completely destroyed in the process of a US-China war.
Agreed.
Do you know what a sovereign nation is? Whether a state has a seat in the UN is not an indicator of sovereignty. By the way, do you know why the ROC does not have a seat in the UN? The old China, ROC, quitted preemptively so as to not get kicked out by the new China, PRC. By your logic, evidently, a nation can decide whether another nation is sovereign.
Wait, they took their ball and went home and you’re defending that as a show of legitimacy?
Yes, yes I am.
TBH I don’t think “legitimacy” matters. They function as an independent country. They issue passports, and flights between them and the mainland function as international flights despite both countries making up legal mumbo jumbo that calls it “cross-strait travel”. There are countries with more widespread “legitimate” recognition that are functionally less of a nationstate than Taiwan.
Taiwan is currently a Chinese settler colonial regime that functions as an American military base and microchip factory. If they want sovereignty, they should give the land back to the natives they stole it from and return the billions of dollars worth of gold and artifacts they looted from the Qing coffers after they (catastrophically) lost the easiest civil war in history.
The ideological makeup of Taiwan has nothing to do with whether or not they are entitled to sovereignty from a diplomatic perspective. International relations isn’t about right and wrong. In fact, the KMT and CPC are in agreement in maintaining the status quo - the KMT and the CPC work together to oppose any attempts at renouncing claims to mainland China by Taiwan and formally becoming the Republic of Taiwan.
Give the land back to the natives? And how exactly would that be done? Handing the government over to them? I would say that 99% of the natives would not want that. The government of Taiwan is already doing enough to make up for the horrible deeds done: the natives enjoy a ×1.35 boost on exams, their statuses and cultures are protected legally, and the government is also pushing natives to learn their native languages.
Is it really that wrong for a government to loot things from its land? In any case, they are also taking good care of the artifacts and opening them up to visitors who wish to see them. The civil war was not that easy either.
There’s no valid argument for Taiwan’s independence as a Chinese settler colony. As proof, the entire DPP argument depends on Chinese settlers pulling a Liz Warren and pretending to be native. It’s also totally incoherent to claim they’re a separate country but were also justified in looting billions of dollars worth of gold from “its” land, as if Beijing isn’t a thousand miles away from Taipei.
As for the civil war being easy, the KMT had the support of every US president, Stalin, and Hitler, which is just to say they had everyone’s support. The KMT flag would be over China right now if they had simply not tried to murder the communists in cold blood. I guess they did make things hard on themselves.
I disagree. Had Chang Hsueh-liang not kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek back in 1936 demanding that he stop fighting communists and form a united front against Japanese, things probably would have been very different. I do not understand why you think that KMT would still rule the entire China if they had not fought the communists.
excerpt from Wikipedia about the Xi'an incident in 1936
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/definitionally
I stand corrected.
You think one thing, the dictionary says another.
someone else just linked to “definitionally” on Wiktionary. I stand corrected.
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