[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...