[foodislove]

It's not.

It's the zero-sum thinking of a totalitarian dictatorship that's a problem. For example, simply letting the Taiwanese live their own free and happy lives is too much of "a problem" to let go without threatening invasion on a weekly basis :)

Also, there is geopolitics at play. The Thucydides Trap is real.

[wyattpeak]

While I agree that their attitudes towards Taiwan are inappropriate, it's a stretch to suggest that this is an issue of totalitarian government. There's not a major government on earth (and probably not a minor one), of any political persuasion, which hasn't faced and rejected an attempt at secession.

[factsaresacred]

> an attempt at secession.

Please. Taiwan is not a part of the PRC. What would they be seceding from? They're a sovereign State founded by the losers of China's civil war. (That the Nationalists lost is one of China's great tragedies given the horrors that Mao and the ruling party inflicted on the Chinese people and their traditions).

Anyway, take Japan and the Senkaku islands as another example of Chinese bellicose jingoism fueled by a policy of nationalism designed to detract from threats to its legitimacy.

[wyattpeak]

> Taiwan is not a part of the PRC

According to Taiwan. How does this theory play with the American civil war? The confederate states didn't consider themselves part of the union. Was the North therefore imposing sovereignty on a foreign nation?

They were both fighting for sovereignty of all of China. After the war they both continued to consider themselves to be sovereign to all China. Indeed, to this day they both make that claim.

For what it's worth, I agree that to all practical intents they are separate nations and should be such. I think both nations should drop their claims on each other. But only due to the fact that it's been the de facto situation for seventy years. I see no reason why the losing side of a civil war is instantly granted nationhood on cessation of fighting.

[mafribe]

The ROC is doing itself no favours by sticking to its interpretation of the One China Policy which entails that the ROC leadership is the solve legitimate ruler of the mainland, too! When the PRC was weak, there was probably an opening where the ROC could have dropped its pretensions towards ruling the mainland, in exchange for PRC acceptance of ROC nationhood. But I suspect its too late now, since the PRC is so powerful now.

I also think the real reason why the PRC leadership is bullying the ROC is that the ROC is a clear example that democracy, wealth and Chinese culture are perfectly compatible -- thus falsifying the communist's party's justification of its claim to power.

[wyattpeak]

I agree, I really don't see what they get out of it. It seems only to legitimise the PRC's claim on Taiwan by making it a mutual disagreement.

I don't know about the concerns re democracy, the Chinese people I hear speaking about it don't seem to have much interest in Western democracy whether or not they could live under it, but I don't have a strong enough understanding of the issue to really claim to understand.

And I suppose the fact that their people don't care wouldn't necessarily assuage a sufficiently paranoid government.

[YorkshireSeason]

   what they get out of it

My interpretation is that the ROC sees this as a bargaining chip, to be given up in exchange for something else, at an opportune moment. The ROC doesn't have much else to offer to the mainland at the moment

[mafribe]

Taiwan did not seceed (or has been trying to seceed) from the mainland in any meaningful sense. It is questionable if Taiwan was ever legitimately governed by the mainland.

Moreover, there are plenty of examples of a peaceful handling of secession, the most famous recent example being Page move-protected the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 [1]. Here are some other examples:

- Saar Statute referendum 1955 [2]

- Gibraltar sovereignty referenda in 1967 [3] and 2002 [4]

- Falkland Islands sovereignty referendum 2013 [5]

- Velvet Divorce of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia [6]

- Brexit vote [7]

- The Catalan independence referendum of 2017 [8] is an interesting edge case: it was conducted peacefully, albeit without active support from the Spanish government.

In the 21 century, China should be leading by example, and demonstrate the ability for peaceful conflict resolution, rather than fall back into 19th century power politics.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referend...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Statute_referendum,_1955

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_sovereignty_referend...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_sovereignty_referend...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_r...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_referendu...

[coupdetaco]

Do you think there is reason to believe that the thucydides trap would be either mitigated or amplified by global connectivity.

[foodislove]

Historically speaking, the only significant peaceful comparison would be the British -> US circa 1950s.

To be fair, people asked the same question in the 1900s. With the world getting so interconnected thanks to steamships and telegraphs, perhaps the age of major conflict had passed (this was right before ww1).

Also, global connectivity doesn't mean much when the great firewall creates 2 distinctly different internets. If you take Chinese state media as a barometer of public opinion, you clearly see there is very little affinity towards the rest of the world. The xenophobia and nationalism, if anything, is more likely to lead to conflict because nationalism is a double edged sword.

Best case scenario is the status quo. Even though China wants a bigger say in global affairs, they realize they have benefited from a peaceful international system over the last half-century and it's in their interest to preserve it largely intact. They have some long-term plays like "one belt" infrastructure, but that's something to supplement the existing system rather than to replace.

Personally I think the most likely risk is economic. No country can escape the laws of economics forever. At some point, the economy will have a downturn. Like with Putins Russia, when things are bad domestically, there is pressure to create conflict abroad (aka Ukraine) to distract their people which if managed badly, could turn out quite ugly

[adinobro]

Which is completely different to the US and Cuba...

[adventured]

Indeed it is entirely different.

The US isn't seeking to annex Cuba, and Cuba is entirely free to trade with the rest of the world.

China threatens and throws tantrums if Taiwan so much as gets any recognition from other nations. China doesn't even want Taiwan's leader to be able to directly speak to the US, or for their politicians to be able to visit the US.

If Raul Castro gets on a plane and goes to France or South Africa, the US doesn't threaten unspecified severe consequences for just talking to or meeting with Casto.

[dnomad]

Yeah, this is dumb. From China's perspective Taiwan is as much a part of China as Florida is part of the US. How would the US react if Florida declared itself independent and began negotiating treaties with foreign governments?

In fact we have good precedent for how the US deals with breakaway states. From that point of view China has shown remarkable constraint when dealing with what most people, including the Tawainese themselves, agree is a part of China.

[westiseast]

The Florida comparison isn’t really apt - indeed a lot of the comparisons/equivalents being drawn in this thread conveniently ignore key elements.

* PRC (the CCP) considers Taiwan to be part of the PRC (and part of ‘China’ the country). At best it’s referred to as a breakaway province.

* The ROC considers themselves to be ‘China’, and part of ‘China’, but not subject to CCP rule or a province of the PRC.

* The CCP has no actual direct rule over Taiwan in practice. Taiwanese people vote for their leaders, have their own laws, don’t follow PRC laws in any sense, hold separate Taiwanese currency and passports, require mainland visitors to acquire a visa, have independent trade deals and defense treaties with other sovereign nations etc etc.

Regardless of what you think should happen, anyone suggesting comparisons with Cuba/USA, Scotland/UK, Florida/USA etc is either ignorant, or deliberately muddying the waters to score an ideological point.

[mafribe]

Why is a comparison with Scotland/UK ignorant, or deliberately muddying the waters? I'd say it would demonstrate great political maturity, if the PRC were to allow Taiwan to conduct a binding vote about independence, and accept the outcome.

It would greatly increase the PRC's standing in the world, and its soft power. Right now, basically nobody trusts the PRC, and their increasing influence is simply a consequence of their spreading money around.

[westiseast]

It’s a bad comparison because the actual, legal and historical situations are vastly different.

eg.

> if the PRC were to allow Taiwan to conduct...

Taiwan is de facto an independent country. The only extent to which the PRC can ‘allow’ or not allow something to happen in Taiwan is with the threat of invasion, which is vastly different to how the UK parliament ‘allowed’ Scotland to conduct an independence referendum.

I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be desirable for the PRC to remove the threat of military action and recognize a fair and binding referendum, but comparisons with Scotland tend to imply that Taiwan/China situation is just like UK/Scotland. Which is isn’t even slightly.

[whatyoucantsay]

> what most people, including the Tawainese themselves, agree is a part of China.

I truly cannot distinguish if you're trolling or serious. You continue repeating the same points throughout this thread and they are not true. Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. Before the KMT invaded, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. Claiming the PRC gets all territory once owned by the Qing Dynasty is roughly equivalent to Germany claiming all territory once owned by Prussia. It doesn't lead anywhere pleasant.

Your comments are reprehensible and I wish for you never have the experience of your home being under constant threat from an increasingly wealthy and aggressive neighbor.

[mafribe]

If it was true that "most people, including the Tawainese themselves, agree is a part of China", then mainland China would/should have no problem whatsoever with a binding Taiwanese independence referendum.

It is precisely because mainland China knows very well that the majority of Taiwanese want independence, that the mainland objects to free and fair independence referendum. The mainland assumes they would loose.

   * * *

The secession of US states is clarified in the US constitution [1], and the US Supreme Court, in Texas v. White [2], ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional, while commenting that revolution or consent of the States could lead to a successful secession. Note that Texas v. White happened over a century ago.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White

[dis-sys]

independence referendum? such as the recent Catalan independence referendum in Spain? Why EU/US both rejected its outcome when the people of Catalan clearly made the case with a successful & peaceful independence referendum?

[mafribe]

That referendum is an interesting edge case, as I wrote in my post above. Spain could have handled the Catalan issue much better, that is certainly true. One crucial difference is that neither the EU nor the Spanish government threaten violence and military invasion. This contrasts very favourably with Xi Jinping and his cronys incessant bullying of Taiwan.