this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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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.
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?
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?
I don't really care about the history of the US.
@[email protected] 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."
Why would anyone want to die for a mere label of "independence"? Most Taiwanese people just want to enjoy the practically independent status quo.
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.
Did you just call Lee Teng-Hui a dipshit?
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
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 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.
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.