Yes, the US' ambiguity has been slipping a little bit of late, but it still compatible with their long-term held position. The US has consistently (over decades) both not recognized PRC sovereignty over Taiwan, while also not recognizing Taiwanese independence.
However, US actions have also been clear. In 1996, the US sailed a carrier battle group right down the straits when things get testy. The US has been selling weapons to Taiwan for decades. The US has enacted export limitations against one country, but not another.
Functionally, this action did not declare war on China. Yes, China leadership could find a way to stretch this into "war", but they also could have stretched any of the other things the US has recently done (including Biden straight up saying that the US would intervene if China invaded).
Yeah diplomacy isn't a series of automatic actions based on flow-control or checklists. Just because you crossed some lines doesn't mean the other party will respond exactly how they will.
That being said, credibility is important when making threats. And letting your lines in the proverbial sand get crossed, moved, erased, redrawn, etc. endlessly can make for some ... interesting geopolitical situations.
The troops stationed there are not meant to hold off a mainland invasion by themselves.
The presence of US troops means that if China attacks, the USA is going to suffer military casualties, so there is almost certainly going to be war between the CCP and the US.
Without US troop presence, things are more ambiguous.
The two are not mutually exclusive. If China invades and kills US soldiers in the process, training team or no, that’s still gonna be casus belli for the US.
The Republic of China is in control of the island formally known as Formosa. Taipei is a city on Formosa also under Republic of China control. Internationally, representatives of Taipei and the surrounding area are sometimes said to be representing "Chinese Taipei", because Taipei is on Formosa and Formosa is Chinese. There is only one China, and China is the rightful owner of Formosa, and one of its cities, Taipei.
There are also plenty of Taiwanese that don’t think Taiwan belongs to either the PRC or ROC. The DPP, who are in power right now, is much closer to that opinion. Obviously the CPC dislikes the DPP (compared to the KMT, who at least believe Taiwan is a part of a china), but whenever the CPC speaks out against the DPP, the CPC only helps the DPP win elections.
If you ask people in Taiwan, they will say they’re independent. If you ask China, they’ll say Taiwan belongs to China.
The short history version is basically like this: after the overthrowing of the last emperor and WW2, the Chinese civil war continued between the KMT political party and the Communist party. KMT basically lost and moved to which is Taiwan today and even the KMT now is no longer the controlling majority now (they have elections whereas mainland China does not).
That's a better argument :) I'd also like to add that prisoners in the USA lose their voting rights. However, the argument was initially about Taiwan, not about the USA.
China has 18 border disputes and has been encroaching on India. Don’t try make the claim it hasn’t waged war when it is.
It also enslaves an entire ethnic group. Highest executions. Almost 100% conviction rate. Has undercover police operations all around the world pretending to be Chinese cultural or help centers for Chinese people.
> a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations
Based on the definition of war. China has engaged in war multiple times. And is actively in no less than 18 border disputes with conflicts with Philippines and India.
They also didn't refute anything the parent said. "Dubious claims from biased sources" isn't denying that Uighur exploitation happens, it's a strawman that diverts the criticism to the media. Same goes for the CIA/NSA comment and incarceration statistics - they seem to be under the impression that other countries taking nuanced action excuses nuclear-option behavior from a one-party state.
Suffice to say that if the United States is deserving of criticism, then China's actions are due double the scrutiny. As an American citizen, I take no issue holding both countries accountable.
> there's a good chance one of their employees or algorithms will stumble upon this thread at some point.
There's a good chance Chinese intelligence finds this thread, too. That's not a response to the parent's accusation of Chinese undercover police stations that terrorize cities the world over.
To the person who got flagged to death, apologies I wasn’t ultra precise in grammar, and yes, my experiences does bias me a bit.
Though, in my experience, asking that question to people in China (or from there) is generally met with:
* I don’t know, not interested in politics
* Chinese people live there so they’re a part of China (not separating gov from race/ethnicity as a naive answer)
* (no comment)
I agree that the situation doesn't make sense at first glance. The contradictions are glaring. The US has both supported the one-China policy and supported Taiwanese independence. Even with these simple statements, someone here will probably find fault and offer a correction.
This isn't something that can be understood outside of the "ends-justify-the-means", "but my pragmatism" and other sausage making slogans of the foreign policy establishment. We'd have to go through all of the historical machinations before we'd even begin to have a context.
You're not wrong for looking for some semblance of logical consistency. If you prefer analysis from first principles, that's fine, I'd even agree with that perspective in many ways, but you'll have difficulty evaluating the status quo of geopolitics.
Maybe a long way of saying that it doesn't make sense, it isn't supposed to make sense under scrutiny, it probably never will make sense and the expectation is for knights-errant.
Going by the contrapositive: Since China doesn't perceive this as a declaration of war, then I guess by your binary logic Taiwan's an independent country.
"Country" is an abstract concept and this is one of the cases where the abstraction breaks down. The map is not the territory etc..
Taiwan is a sovereign nation in most respects, at least to the extent that any non-superpower is. China insists stringently on the legal fiction that it is a part of China controlled by a different faction in a frozen-but-ongoing civil war, and other countries - not least Taiwan itself - go along with that legal fiction under the implicit or explicit threat of Chinese force; a threat that is less effective against the US than against many other countries.
Is this an act of war by the US against the PRC? Eh, maybe, if you accept the PRC's territorial claims. A lot of technically-acts-of-war happen, especially in situations like this. Again this is a case where the abstraction breaks down and the realpolitik becomes paramount.
All foreign relations are an expression of power. Taiwan is a country if enough powerful nations say so and are willing to defend the idea. Mainland China is part of the Republic of China if Taiwan has the military might. The one china policy holds as long as the KMT and PRC are in power. Etc etc etc.
Republic of China is an independent country, but for now its territory is limited to just the island of Taiwan instead of its legitimate territory of mainland China.
Other folks have highlighted the basics, so here's an analogous situation to think about: imagine that the US civil war saw the CSA taking over the territory of the USA, with the US federal government moving to a large hypothetical island off the East Coast. The CSA never completely eliminated all constituent US elements, so the USA still technically exists.
Fast forward to sixty years after the fighting just stopped one day. How would you view those two political entities? Are they equal? Does the existence of the CSA mean the USA doesn't exist as a country? What if the CSA implements trade policies which dissuade you from recognizing the USA as an independent nation? Does the USA still exist in your eyes? Is the USA or the CSA the "true" country?
The answer at this point in time is quite simple: the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) is clearly an independent country. However, the People's Republic of China (aka China) holds such economic power, they bully the rest of the world (though trade policies, etc.) into not recognizing Taiwan as an independent country. Also, the combination of geography and maritime law means that if Taiwan is an independent country, China has very little direct access to the open seas. They want freedom of navigation, so there's a geopolitical angle as well. Look into the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea to advance the Nine Dashed Line policy.
You also need to remember that Chinese civilization is extremely old. The PRC claims to hold something called the Mandate of Heaven, which is a fairly important concept in Chinese history, as it is divine authority to rule over the Chinese people. Frankly, based on how the PRC acts, the RC clearly holds the Mandate of Heaven these days.
China would have open access to the oceans even without controlling Taiwan. The same rules that deny China territorial rights to the South China Sea also grant it access to the oceans. The Nine Dash line is about territory. China wants the South China Sea to be considered its territorial waters where it can make stronger demands about who passes through and what they could do there. It's not the only country trying to do something like that, but international law generally only recognizes the sea up to 12 miles out to be territorial waters.
The Mandate of Heaven is rather more like a justification of de-facto rule and claiming to have lost it is an argument against a failing dynasty. The dynasty managing to unite China would declare it, and as it eventually collapses, rebels would declare it to be forfeit. There would be messy civil war, one of the warring groups would dominate all the others, and the cycle starts anew.
The Taiwan Strait is extremely efficient for shipping routes. The sea and wind to the East of Taiwan are treacherous. Going the long way round would be very difficult and greatly increase shipping costs for a substantial portion of the world's goods.
This is not an issue at all because the current rules permit peaceful passage through territorial waters. That broadly means no lingering, no spying, and going straight to the intended destination. Access can be denied for security reasons of course.
This is totally fine for commercial traffic. Since China has a huge export market, it is also not interested in raising shipping costs.
Taiwan is not clearly independent. The issue was treated in Treaty of San Francisco, yet the treaty never unambiguously declared whether Taiwan is independent. It's an extremely complex legal issue. You can state your case but understand that the opposing case has just as much legal ground.
Yep, that's how China will interpret it. It won't become hot, but it's such an aggressive move, and "trainers" rarely only do training, that it will ratchet up tensions.
They are there as a deadman’s switch, so if China invades Taiwan, America will have to get involved. They had the same play on the Korean border for a few decades. You are correct it isn’t just training, but to ensure the American people are committed because American troops would have been killed in the PLA’s initial missile volley.
Practically? Yes, it’s an independent country and has been for many decades. They have their own government, military, currency, etc.
Diplomatically? No, most countries officially recognize it as part of the PRC.
Why the inconsistency? If you recognize Taiwan’s independence, the PRC won’t talk to you. If Taiwan declares independence, the PRC will invade (or at least has threatened to).
Pretending that Taiwan is part of China while also making it very clear that we will defend Taiwan from China bit silly, but being silly is better than having a great power war.
Well said. Make it look not worth it to China but at the same time play by their rules. Both sides know this is one of the biggest games of bullshit going on. The two risk factors now are China's economy tanking and Xi being a lifetime dictator. If the population suffers, having an external crisis at hand where you can easily paint the other side as the bad guy is an excellent distraction, and for the other point, absolute power corrupts absolutely. A we've seen with Putin, as you near the end of your life the less you care about the fallout of your actions, but at the same time your desire to leave a mark grows...
The US has been supporting Taiwan's de facto independence since the 1950s. I'm not sure what's supposed to be unsustainable about that, or what "things" are supposed to "collapse".
How many fighter jets does Russia have left? Have many well trained Ukrainian pilots are there now - mind you per which aircraft - and how many planes?
Macron made one vague statement. How many French troops, where, doing what?
Russia says... a lot of things.
The US has been arming Taiwan for a long time. These are a few green berets on a training mission, not particularly new.
WWIII might be in the cards. <- Congrats, the media got its clicks.
That's doom mongering by definition. And you're only listing the current popular ones. What about electricity? Phones? Radio? GMO? Fluoride? etc. Yeah, there always were and always will be people saying the end is nigh.
We already have nuclear nations fighting by proxy in other countries. (Multiple times in the middle east, now in Ukraine) As far as global nuclear safety goes, we're not doing too bad.
Would be nice if we could just recognize Taiwan as an independent country.
I realize there are good reasons not to do so right now -- RoC itself still says on paper they own all of China, and the West is still too dependent on Chinese manufacturing -- but it would be good to move towards recognizing reality.
The RoC releasing its claim on the rest of China would be a de-facto declaration of independence as well since it wound cease to be the rump state of the country founded in 1912 and become something else.
Which is why they voted for the party that doesn’t want to merge with China. They saw what happened with Hong Kong. They don’t want that to happen to them.
The constitution says so. However, it was amended in the early 90ties to acknowledge that the scope of the ROC government is presently limited to Taiwan and the outlying islands.
I actually think this is a golden opportunity to recognise Taiwan. The PRC isn't ready to invade - Russia's performance has them doing some soul-searching, which will ultimately result in a stronger military, but right now they're on the back foot. The Chinese economy is struggling for various reasons and export restrictions are already in the air, making this a particularly bad time for them to start a trade war.
Ceasing the moment can avoid so much pain later. We had time before NK originally got nukes to negotiate a deal with Deng era China which would have involved a two prong invasion and giving north korea up to become a Chinese puppet state. A Chinese puppet would be infinitely better than what they have going on right now, and the folks in south Korea would sleep much more soundly.
I'm glad to see the US appearing to cease the moment similarly here.
Please, take a look at a map will you? Taiwan is tiny compared to the Ukraine, China could bomb the island into oblivion in a day. With all the problems China currently has, I have little faith they'd just sit there and do nothing if Taiwan declared independence. In fact this can easily be used to unite the population because you have an external problem, common enemy, and suddenly the economy tanking isn't that important anymore. It would be the end for Taiwan and suck hard for the rest of the world. And with the Russian invasion still going on at the same time, it could very well bring us another step closer to nukes being used. I just watched Dr. Strangelove again and it felt very different that time.
Taiwan is an island and added to that the terrain is a hell for an invasion (mountains, many rivers to cross...). Ukraine is mostly flat, has a very long border with Russia / Belarus. Taiwan is way more defensible than Ukraine.
I think as long as an invasion of Taiwan looks _difficult_, and the overwhelming likely hood that invading Taiwan will leave Taiwan a smoking crater, that is enough to keep China from invading it. China benefits tremendously economically from trading with Taiwan and they aren't going to throw that way over national pride, _as long as Taiwan doesn't declare independence_.
You start out in 1972 by saying, "One China, One China." By 2016 you can't say "One China"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like “the close economic, political and security ties between Taiwan and the US” and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now that you're talking about permanent training missions, and all these things you're talking about are totally regional stability things and a byproduct of them is the PRC gets hurt worse than the KMT. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the Taiwan problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "these are the commitments we made" is much more abstract than even the training mission thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "One China"
Turning Taiwan into another Ukraine? After a few years, the U.S. might lose interest in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese would pay with their lives. Most Taiwanese just want to go on with their lives and maintain the status quo.
Getting crushed betweem super powers is a nightmare. Once the elite starts to align with one super power or the other rather than their constituents you are in for a very bad time.
Permanently stationing US troops on Taiwan is a very different strategy from what the US did with Ukraine. It says we are willing to put our troops in harms way in the event of a Chinese attack on or invasion of Taiwan.
Seems the war-mongering attitude of American citizens is really high in today's world. Peace is spat upon and treated with contempt - planned coups/bombings/large number of non-american fatalities is far better! More bonuses for the C-suite executives (and main shareholders) of the American War Industry!
Kindly recognize Palestine as a separate state according to United Nations Resolution 181, before you recognize Taiwan and kick-start yet another war.
No, its not. The U.S. cannot abrogate responsibility. Taiwan is not recognized by the U.N. If the U.S. declares Taiwan as a free, independent nation when the Chinese have an explicitly declared, stated political claim since independence and the U.S. has left the matter as "strategically ambiguous" for decades, then such a deliberate change in position along with active militarization of Taiwan simply begs for Chinese intervention.
The U.S. has started bombing campaigns for less reasons when organizations whose existence it has objected to have become armed. So the sanctimonious hypocrisy of baiting someone then claiming foul when the other responds won't really work here. The U.S. media will of-course fully blame China with 24x7 "evil china" campaigns. The non-NATO world will just shake their heads.
Taiwan is the rump state of the ROC, which admittedly survived so far because of US influence. But Taiwan is also not recognized by most states as a country because of China flexing its diplomatic and economic muscles. Many countries also just don't like the West.
The current status quo is quite confusing, but has resulted in economic prosperity on both sides of the straits and mutual economic dependency of China and the West. There is little to gain and a whole lot to lose for all involved parties.
Precisely. But a significant section of the U.S. government and lots of high-income U.S. citizens WANT to change the status quo. See OP. And there are good, legitimate reasons that most non-NATO nations don't like the West. They have brone the brunt of NATO interventions. Or American support for terrorism and coups.
The rich strata of the U.S. who would never serve in a real, active war and have never faced human suffering in their lives - will actively cheer on and sponsor the losing side resulting in extreme number of human casualties.
I don't really agree; the training mission can contribute to stabilize the situation. It raises the incentives to not change the status quo, for both sides, since contrary to most past US interventions, escalating this issue will hurt US interests as well. Even if one side prevails without large-scale destruction, the economic impact would be severe for both sides.
Apart from that, the training mission could be recalled just as quickly again. Curious about what's gonna happen after the next election.
China doesn't want to invade. It thinks of Taiwan like a rebellious child who will one day return home. Chinese leaders well understand that invasion would be catastrophic, both on a realistic level of money and loss of life, and more importantly on a symbolic level. It may invade but it does not wish to do so.
We're talking about nations though. Calling it assault doesn't win you anything. It just means you got yourself assaulted when you could have not, and there's no authority that's going to make it right for you.
Since PRC represents "Chinese" territory at UN, one is illegal trespassing, other is self defense. US physically inserting itself in PRC territory during a legally ongoing civil war and eventually getting slapped is perfectly "legal", whether legality matters in international law when great powers interest clash is another matter.
I read that China would interpret such an action as a declaration of independence and threatens with invasion in case Taiwan does so.
Similarly to how China threatened Hongkong if there had been any democratic reforms by the British. That does not hinder China apologists now from bringing up the lack of democracy under british rule.
>Would be nice if we could just recognize Taiwan as an independent country.
Trump, as president-elect in late 2016, took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's president, something that had never happened before since normalization of US-China relations. I suspect that a second Trump administration will see him visit Taiwan, and restoration of formal diplomatic relations as opposed to the current "American Institute in Taiwan".
I hope Trump goes further and explicitly encourages Taiwan to build nuclear weapons. Had the US not twice squelched Taiwanese efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, East Asia would be a much, much calmer place today.
Nuclear non-proliferation has been a remarkably common policy across most of the world. MAD itself is already insane, but even more so is encouraging more countries to develop nuclear weapons themselves.
Taiwan was pressured to give up their nuclear program for the simple reason that none of the big boys want nukes that they can't control. And nothing would force China to take the risk of invading Taiwan faster than the latter starting a nuclear weapons program.
What you’re proposing is the same as the US recognizing the independence of Québec, when its people themselves haven’t declared independence.
The Taiwanese first and foremost decide their status, and they want to maintain the status quo. We can’t force another people to declare their own independence when they don’t want to.
The US could recognize Taiwan as "the real China", and de-recognize mainland China.
But recognizing Taiwan as a separate entity not including mainland China, would be kind of weird because Taiwan does apparently not aspire to that themselves.
At least it would be weird without coordinating that with Taiwan first.
There is no point recognizing Taiwan as an independent country without Taiwan declaring independence first. The US could technically recognize the ROC again as China, but that makes even less sense. Among other things, it would make the Security Council non-functional since at least Russia would never support a motion to give China's seat back to the ROC.
I get the impression that somehow China had started fearing US and NATO a bit less in the last few years. While the war is going on Ukraine, I think this might be the golden opportunity for China to step up and try to take Taiwan. I think the US and Taiwan understand this perception as well, so that's why the permanent "training mission".
At the same time, there is a danger Putin will try to call NATO's bluff and start something with one of the East European members: attack one of the Baltic states or Poland and see how willing US and West European countries will to be take a step closer to WWIII. If NATO hesitates just a moment, it would be its effective end, the alliance won't be worth the paper it was signed on.
I am not sure about that. They could start firing a few drones at some border villages. I bet NATO will pretend to look the other way or say it was just a mistake.
There is increased fatigue about the war, and the initial sympathy is turning to apathy in the West. I don’t see France and Germany being prepared to send their soldiers to fight Russians over a Lithuanian or Polish village. I’d like to believe they would, but I don’t see it realistically.
The moment NATO does not respond there is no NATO. And the moment there is no NATO world western peace is done. I am not saying something will immediately happen but an arming race in western world couple with distrusting your neighbors: we kinda saw that multiple times in the history.
I agree, and I think currently, even though emotionally NATO is "stronger" and more "united", after the war has been going on for a while, there is paradoxically a lot less appetite do anything. So the chance that it would respond is lower and so the chance for world western peace is lower as well. The scarier thing is I think Russia and China can smell that as well and may act on it.
Obviously if Russia launches a nuke, NATO would respond. But what if it sends one drone to blow up a rail yard or sends a sabotage team to blow a power substation? What if it hacks and manages to paralyze all banking all communication in some East European NATO member country. Notice it wouldn't even need to accomplish any military objective, it just needs to show that NATO is bluffing.
I think paradoxically if the slowdown doesn't stop, and they think internally people are increasingly unhappy, a war or military aggression is more likely. It's a great distraction something like "the economy is not as good, but look, we got Taiwan back from the weak Americans!"
Please remember that the US is responsible for the fragmentation of Korea, Vietnam and Yugoslavia. It's only fair to suspect americans also want the end of proletarian rule in the PRC through military interventions and the support of anti-democratic movements.
> The USA helped South Korea become a free liberal democracy. Much better living standards than North Korea.
Ahah yes the "free" korea where you are "allowed" to work up to 21 hours per day.
Also I wonder what (or who?) keeps the north poor. Probably nothing to do with US sanctions, right guys?
> Yugoslavia broke up because of ethnic fighting, not an US invasion.
> Yes the USA is in favour of democracy, liberalism and free-trade.
And who supported ethnonationalists in Yugoslavia? Totally not uncle Sam again, it's not like he was known for providing fundings to right wing para military groups by selling cracks in America cities. Really a shining beacon of Freedom those USA, a city upon a hill.
It's unbelievable that you could look at a country potentially invading another non-threatening country with 2% its population and then decide that other countries trying to avoid this are engaging in Balkanization. Your perspective is insane.
If the secessionists in Texas gained a majority as strong the Anti-CCP sentiment is in Taiwan, the feds brutally repressed it, and then Texans asked a foreign power for help, then you can start making that argument. It's a silly comparison.
China did repress Hong Kong, in contrast to their promise to keep its own system for 50 years. Taiwan does not want to end just like Hong Kong.
It was just so stupid own goal, China could have shown Taiwan how a peaceful reunification could look like without having much of an effect on Taiwan but Xi just couldn't hold his authoritarian urges.
Hey, now that we proved that permanent attrition wars are a "viable" option that won't kick in a full scale war, we can start more! Think of all the profits! In fact under the threat of a full blown nuclear war, we can bring back full scale conventional armed conflict on the table, like the good old times.
Methinks several parties can play this game and military interventions are about to become extremely difficult and bloody for the US worldwide. Think Vietnam but with far deadlier weapons, and this time not from one country, but from 3-4, about 1.7 billion people in total. They either aren’t thinking this through or don’t believe the US will last much longer.
There was a window of opportunity in the 90s and 00s when Russia was weak. All the other post-Soviet/Warsaw pact countries like Baltics were not invaded despite having Russian minorities. But Ukraine was not "ready" back then.
We can't know though, since there are no "ifs" in history to try out the hypothesis.
I do believe the USA has maintained a tense pseudostability in the post-WW2 world, at the same time it's the USA who destabilised a lot of Latin America through covert operations, who has spread its economical and social ideology around the world for its own benefits (and detrimental to a lot of countries being shackled to US's economic policies), and who has fostered an unstable Middle East after the French and Brits created the whole mess. America's thirst for oil has its own set of extreme damage to the world, including the climate.
Problems would be different, probably some of it could be much worse but there are a lot of countries in the world who got shackled by America's interests and haven't had true sovereignty for decades (e.g.: look at Latin America as a whole).
Nonetheless, the world would be very different, we can't know how much better or worse in some areas. So it is what it is, we won't ever know what we could be without USA's imperialism.
The USA hasn't been involved in South American politics since the 60s/70s. The political problems there now are all of their own making.
The Middle East is an unstable place. Not due to the USA.
Countries that have become liberal free market democracies have benefitted tremendously in living standards. I wouldn't describe Sweden, Singapore or Poland "shackled" to the USA.
We can absolutely see the positive impact on the USA around the world:
- North Korea (not US aligned) vs South Korea.
- Ukraine (invaded by Russia) vs Baltic countries.
- Venezuela (Socialist) Vs Chile (a liberal democracy).
Lots of idiots have this juvenile "blame everything on the USA" mentality. I suppose because it's easier than doing any critical thinking.
> The USA hasn't been involved in South American politics since the 60s/70s.
That really does come across as rose coloured blinders.
The Iran–Contra affair was the 1980s.
More recently:
In what The New York Times described as "Washington’s most overt attempts in decades to carry out regime change in Latin America", the administration of President Donald Trump made an attempt of regime change in an effort to remove President Nicolás Maduro from office during the Venezuelan presidential crisis ...
The Middle East is an unstable place. Not due to the USA.
Countries that have become liberal free market democracies have benefitted tremendously in living standards. I wouldn't describe Sweden, Singapore or Poland "shackled" to the USA.
We can absolutely see the positive impact on the USA around the world:
- North Korea (not US aligned) vs South Korea.
- Ukraine (invaded by Russia) vs Baltic countries.
- Venezuela (Socialist) Vs Chile (a liberal democracy).
The claim being addressed here by myself though was that "the US hasn't meddled with South America since the 60's|70's".
Not only is that false it's alsdo clear that "the positive impact on the USA around the world" hasn't manifested itself within the immediate umbrella of the Monroe Doctrine.
Nor would many argue that the US sets a great example of a liberal free market democracy, it doesn't rank well on things that matter to people against others.
US troops on Kinmen (alias Quemoy) ? That is interesting.
Maybe US frogmen can join Taiwanese frogmen in going ashore on the mainland and going to the movies. At least that's what Taiwanese frogmen were doing some decades ago.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadHowever, US actions have also been clear. In 1996, the US sailed a carrier battle group right down the straits when things get testy. The US has been selling weapons to Taiwan for decades. The US has enacted export limitations against one country, but not another.
Functionally, this action did not declare war on China. Yes, China leadership could find a way to stretch this into "war", but they also could have stretched any of the other things the US has recently done (including Biden straight up saying that the US would intervene if China invaded).
That being said, credibility is important when making threats. And letting your lines in the proverbial sand get crossed, moved, erased, redrawn, etc. endlessly can make for some ... interesting geopolitical situations.
The presence of US troops means that if China attacks, the USA is going to suffer military casualties, so there is almost certainly going to be war between the CCP and the US.
Without US troop presence, things are more ambiguous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripwire_force
The trainers turned themselves over to the Russians, and were interred (at the Ritz) as neutral soldiers.
A training team can be a tripwire, or not.
Again, ambiguity.
China just uses its weight to bully countries into submission on declaring their view on Taiwan.
The short history version is basically like this: after the overthrowing of the last emperor and WW2, the Chinese civil war continued between the KMT political party and the Communist party. KMT basically lost and moved to which is Taiwan today and even the KMT now is no longer the controlling majority now (they have elections whereas mainland China does not).
It also enslaves an entire ethnic group. Highest executions. Almost 100% conviction rate. Has undercover police operations all around the world pretending to be Chinese cultural or help centers for Chinese people.
Based on the definition of war. China has engaged in war multiple times. And is actively in no less than 18 border disputes with conflicts with Philippines and India.
Take your CPC boot licking elsewhere.
Suffice to say that if the United States is deserving of criticism, then China's actions are due double the scrutiny. As an American citizen, I take no issue holding both countries accountable.
What makes the Human Rights Watch a dubious source, in your opinion? Who should we trust instead?
https://www.hrw.org/tag/uyghurs
> there's a good chance one of their employees or algorithms will stumble upon this thread at some point.
There's a good chance Chinese intelligence finds this thread, too. That's not a response to the parent's accusation of Chinese undercover police stations that terrorize cities the world over.
Though, in my experience, asking that question to people in China (or from there) is generally met with:
This isn't something that can be understood outside of the "ends-justify-the-means", "but my pragmatism" and other sausage making slogans of the foreign policy establishment. We'd have to go through all of the historical machinations before we'd even begin to have a context.
You're not wrong for looking for some semblance of logical consistency. If you prefer analysis from first principles, that's fine, I'd even agree with that perspective in many ways, but you'll have difficulty evaluating the status quo of geopolitics.
Maybe a long way of saying that it doesn't make sense, it isn't supposed to make sense under scrutiny, it probably never will make sense and the expectation is for knights-errant.
Taiwan is a sovereign nation in most respects, at least to the extent that any non-superpower is. China insists stringently on the legal fiction that it is a part of China controlled by a different faction in a frozen-but-ongoing civil war, and other countries - not least Taiwan itself - go along with that legal fiction under the implicit or explicit threat of Chinese force; a threat that is less effective against the US than against many other countries.
Is this an act of war by the US against the PRC? Eh, maybe, if you accept the PRC's territorial claims. A lot of technically-acts-of-war happen, especially in situations like this. Again this is a case where the abstraction breaks down and the realpolitik becomes paramount.
In practice, it is an independent country. But the People's Republic of China (PRC) has a "one China" policy where they claim Taiwan as theirs.
PRC spends a large deal of their diplomatic efforts trying to enforce their policy.
But it is, obviously. Anyone who's not a moron can see that.
Fast forward to sixty years after the fighting just stopped one day. How would you view those two political entities? Are they equal? Does the existence of the CSA mean the USA doesn't exist as a country? What if the CSA implements trade policies which dissuade you from recognizing the USA as an independent nation? Does the USA still exist in your eyes? Is the USA or the CSA the "true" country?
The answer at this point in time is quite simple: the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) is clearly an independent country. However, the People's Republic of China (aka China) holds such economic power, they bully the rest of the world (though trade policies, etc.) into not recognizing Taiwan as an independent country. Also, the combination of geography and maritime law means that if Taiwan is an independent country, China has very little direct access to the open seas. They want freedom of navigation, so there's a geopolitical angle as well. Look into the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea to advance the Nine Dashed Line policy.
You also need to remember that Chinese civilization is extremely old. The PRC claims to hold something called the Mandate of Heaven, which is a fairly important concept in Chinese history, as it is divine authority to rule over the Chinese people. Frankly, based on how the PRC acts, the RC clearly holds the Mandate of Heaven these days.
The Mandate of Heaven is rather more like a justification of de-facto rule and claiming to have lost it is an argument against a failing dynasty. The dynasty managing to unite China would declare it, and as it eventually collapses, rebels would declare it to be forfeit. There would be messy civil war, one of the warring groups would dominate all the others, and the cycle starts anew.
This is totally fine for commercial traffic. Since China has a huge export market, it is also not interested in raising shipping costs.
The Taiwan situation has been escalating for awhile now that almost everyone expects an invasion before Xi’s lifetime term ends.
Diplomatically? No, most countries officially recognize it as part of the PRC.
Why the inconsistency? If you recognize Taiwan’s independence, the PRC won’t talk to you. If Taiwan declares independence, the PRC will invade (or at least has threatened to).
Pretending that Taiwan is part of China while also making it very clear that we will defend Taiwan from China bit silly, but being silly is better than having a great power war.
Macron made one vague statement. How many French troops, where, doing what?
Russia says... a lot of things.
The US has been arming Taiwan for a long time. These are a few green berets on a training mission, not particularly new.
WWIII might be in the cards. <- Congrats, the media got its clicks.
Regardless of the echo chamber, I can almost always find a doom-monger whispering the sweet sounds of imminent world ending disaster.
Climate change? Imminent tyranny? New pandemic? Economic or currency collapse? WWIII? Aliens? AI?
The list goes on until I'm totally desensitized and burnt out.
I realize there are good reasons not to do so right now -- RoC itself still says on paper they own all of China, and the West is still too dependent on Chinese manufacturing -- but it would be good to move towards recognizing reality.
I'm glad to see the US appearing to cease the moment similarly here.
Kindly recognize Palestine as a separate state according to United Nations Resolution 181, before you recognize Taiwan and kick-start yet another war.
The U.S. has started bombing campaigns for less reasons when organizations whose existence it has objected to have become armed. So the sanctimonious hypocrisy of baiting someone then claiming foul when the other responds won't really work here. The U.S. media will of-course fully blame China with 24x7 "evil china" campaigns. The non-NATO world will just shake their heads.
The current status quo is quite confusing, but has resulted in economic prosperity on both sides of the straits and mutual economic dependency of China and the West. There is little to gain and a whole lot to lose for all involved parties.
The rich strata of the U.S. who would never serve in a real, active war and have never faced human suffering in their lives - will actively cheer on and sponsor the losing side resulting in extreme number of human casualties.
Apart from that, the training mission could be recalled just as quickly again. Curious about what's gonna happen after the next election.
The only thing changing is that there are US soldiers in Taiwan, so if China invades it might kill them and trigger a response.
It shouldnt be that hard not to invade Taiwan in the first place, many countries are not doing it.
Similarly to how China threatened Hongkong if there had been any democratic reforms by the British. That does not hinder China apologists now from bringing up the lack of democracy under british rule.
Trump, as president-elect in late 2016, took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's president, something that had never happened before since normalization of US-China relations. I suspect that a second Trump administration will see him visit Taiwan, and restoration of formal diplomatic relations as opposed to the current "American Institute in Taiwan".
I hope Trump goes further and explicitly encourages Taiwan to build nuclear weapons. Had the US not twice squelched Taiwanese efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, East Asia would be a much, much calmer place today.
Taiwan was pressured to give up their nuclear program for the simple reason that none of the big boys want nukes that they can't control. And nothing would force China to take the risk of invading Taiwan faster than the latter starting a nuclear weapons program.
The Taiwanese first and foremost decide their status, and they want to maintain the status quo. We can’t force another people to declare their own independence when they don’t want to.
That sounds weird. Why should the US not be able to declare that they (the US) consider Taiwan an independent country?
The US isn't the UN, which seems like the more "correct" body to give such a declaration wide ranging meaning.
But recognizing Taiwan as a separate entity not including mainland China, would be kind of weird because Taiwan does apparently not aspire to that themselves.
At least it would be weird without coordinating that with Taiwan first.
At the same time, there is a danger Putin will try to call NATO's bluff and start something with one of the East European members: attack one of the Baltic states or Poland and see how willing US and West European countries will to be take a step closer to WWIII. If NATO hesitates just a moment, it would be its effective end, the alliance won't be worth the paper it was signed on.
There is increased fatigue about the war, and the initial sympathy is turning to apathy in the West. I don’t see France and Germany being prepared to send their soldiers to fight Russians over a Lithuanian or Polish village. I’d like to believe they would, but I don’t see it realistically.
Obviously if Russia launches a nuke, NATO would respond. But what if it sends one drone to blow up a rail yard or sends a sabotage team to blow a power substation? What if it hacks and manages to paralyze all banking all communication in some East European NATO member country. Notice it wouldn't even need to accomplish any military objective, it just needs to show that NATO is bluffing.
Yugoslavia broke up because of ethnic fighting, not an US invasion. Most former Yugoslavian countries are now heading towards, or members of the EU.
Yes the USA is in favour of democracy, liberalism and free-trade. That's something to be proud of not ashamed of.
Ahah yes the "free" korea where you are "allowed" to work up to 21 hours per day. Also I wonder what (or who?) keeps the north poor. Probably nothing to do with US sanctions, right guys?
> Yugoslavia broke up because of ethnic fighting, not an US invasion. > Yes the USA is in favour of democracy, liberalism and free-trade.
And who supported ethnonationalists in Yugoslavia? Totally not uncle Sam again, it's not like he was known for providing fundings to right wing para military groups by selling cracks in America cities. Really a shining beacon of Freedom those USA, a city upon a hill.
It was just so stupid own goal, China could have shown Taiwan how a peaceful reunification could look like without having much of an effect on Taiwan but Xi just couldn't hold his authoritarian urges.
I'm over this crap. Feels so dystopian to me.
War is peace.
They wouldn't go away if the USA did nothing.
They would get worse in most cases.
I do believe the USA has maintained a tense pseudostability in the post-WW2 world, at the same time it's the USA who destabilised a lot of Latin America through covert operations, who has spread its economical and social ideology around the world for its own benefits (and detrimental to a lot of countries being shackled to US's economic policies), and who has fostered an unstable Middle East after the French and Brits created the whole mess. America's thirst for oil has its own set of extreme damage to the world, including the climate.
Problems would be different, probably some of it could be much worse but there are a lot of countries in the world who got shackled by America's interests and haven't had true sovereignty for decades (e.g.: look at Latin America as a whole).
Nonetheless, the world would be very different, we can't know how much better or worse in some areas. So it is what it is, we won't ever know what we could be without USA's imperialism.
The Middle East is an unstable place. Not due to the USA.
Countries that have become liberal free market democracies have benefitted tremendously in living standards. I wouldn't describe Sweden, Singapore or Poland "shackled" to the USA.
We can absolutely see the positive impact on the USA around the world:
Lots of idiots have this juvenile "blame everything on the USA" mentality. I suppose because it's easier than doing any critical thinking.That really does come across as rose coloured blinders.
The Iran–Contra affair was the 1980s.
More recently:
There's more if you care to look.Countries that have become liberal free market democracies have benefitted tremendously in living standards. I wouldn't describe Sweden, Singapore or Poland "shackled" to the USA.
We can absolutely see the positive impact on the USA around the world:
Not only is that false it's alsdo clear that "the positive impact on the USA around the world" hasn't manifested itself within the immediate umbrella of the Monroe Doctrine.
Nor would many argue that the US sets a great example of a liberal free market democracy, it doesn't rank well on things that matter to people against others.
Maybe US frogmen can join Taiwanese frogmen in going ashore on the mainland and going to the movies. At least that's what Taiwanese frogmen were doing some decades ago.