[elefanten]

From the perspective of any one given actor/organization, the coherent argument might be "we don't want to piss of China".

But to the spirit of your question, no there's no argument that's externally valid. The CCP has claims relating to it's legitimacy, security and territorial claims. They are not widely viewed as credible, but China has insisted on making Taiwan a red line issue so everybody else has to pretend like these claims might be legitimate.

At the end of the day it's a very large political entity trying to take complete control of a much smaller one against it's will. It's colonialism plain and simple.

[platinumrad]

>It's colonialism plain and simple.

It's really not that plain or simple. Any population that might have a claim to being "indigenous" to Taiwan has already been colonized by the Dutch and the Portuguese, then the Qing dynasty, then the Japanese, and finally the ROC, which is the sovereign entity that governs Taiwan today. If anything, the transition from Japanese to KMT rule was rather brutal and colonial, although Taiwan is a rather healthy democracy today and the current ruling faction, the Pan-Greens, have historically fought against that legacy.

[dis-sys]

although Taiwan is a rather healthy democracy today and the current ruling faction, the Pan-Greens, have historically fought against that legacy.

you must be kidding yourself. just looking at news happened in the last 72 hours

-A Dupty commissioner of ROC's Transitional Justice Commission openly instructed his men to launch political attacks against a key KMT party candidate, he also urged MPs from his own party to assist him. He further pointed out that his vision for the ROC's Transitional Justice Commission is the Eastern Depot [1] style secret police. His passionate speech was secretly recorded by a member from his own party and released to the public. Your favourite pan-green forces want Eastern Depot [1] style secret police to be re-installed, yet you choose to troll here that they are progressive and better than KMT. What a bloody joke!You have to wonder what happens if the tap was not released to the public.

[A2017U1]

> Eastern Depot [1] style secret police

There no link provided but you mean the Eastern Bureau? A historical 600 year old police force? Comes across as a strange reference to make regarding current affairs.

Doesn't every country have departments within their intelligence community that operate relatively away from the public eye. Seems quite uncontroversial to me without them breaking laws, perverting justice or other nastiness.

[dang]

HN is not a place for political or nationalistic flamewar and you've been posting a lot of such comments. If you keep doing that we're going to have to ban you, so please stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html