That's not accurate. My understanding is the KMT agrees, and DDP doesn't (specifically: 1992 consensus), and the fact that the population opinion has been shifting towards independence is the primary tension currently.
At any rate, summing it up as "the RoC agrees" would seem to simplify a cultural argument along the lines of "the US agrees completely that guns are good".
> In response to Xi’s speech, Taiwan’s presidential office said most Taiwanese reject that model and argued that developments in Hong Kong show how “one country, two systems” can turn on a dime.
> On Sunday, at an event marking the same revolution, Tsai called on the Taiwanese people to renew their commitment “that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other.
That’s only their official position and they can’t change it because that’s one of the PRC red lines. They consider Taiwan dropping their claim on the mainland as a change in the status quo and a casus belli. Everyone know the RoC doesn’t aspire to a reunited China anymore.
They say what the PRC forces them to say but de facto don’t believe in it. It’s a complete misrepresentation to argue that Taiwan agree with China regarding reunification but with reversed roles.
Taiwan is a democracy and a majority of Taiwanese want independence but argue for keeping the status quo in order to avoid a war (both the KMT and the DDP - their disagreement is more technical than that). Some wanted Taiwan to declare it in the 90s to force the hand of the USA and win a decisive war but this position seems more precarious nowadays.
No, its not. If I point a gun to your head, and tell you that I am going to shoot you, if you do not "agree" that the moon is made of cheese, you are not actually "agreeing".
We both know, that you do not agree that the moon is made of cheese, in this situation. I have just made words come out of your mouth, to something that you do not agree with.
To say that they "agree" is just a silly word game, that does not reflect the truth of the matter, and instead is playing into propaganda that denies the reality that Taiwan is already a country, and is already independent of china, and that Taiwan is not interesting in being taken over, or taking over china.
The PRC is not a monad like most hit piece journalism and armchair geopoliticians would like to make you believe to sell you their easy to implant ideas. The ROC does behave more like a monad if that's a thing, but on the PRC side the military and the banks don't even share the same plan for dealing with Taiwan.
I agree on the cultural and economical aspects both governments work together but I am not sure that on other aspects tensions are not as high as in the 1970s or worse. I wish they were not, I just don't know.
I thought I knew what a monad was and the only problem was all the tutorials and other people clearly struggling to understand it. But now I’m not so sure.
That made me chuckle. But I think the GP is using the term "monad" more in the sense of Leibniz's philosophy than that of functional programming or category theory – "monad" as meaning ultimately simple and indivisible, as "atoms" were in the original ancient Greek atomic theory (as opposed to modern atomic theory in which the so-called "atoms" turned out to not actually be atomic after all). Of course, even in that sense the GP is using the term figuratively – nobody literally believes that China is a single indivisible entity, a hive-mind or Borg, but the GP is claiming that Chinese society (and even the Chinese government) contains more divisions of opinion and interest and attitude than many outside observers assume. And I'm sure there is some truth in that – but, I think the GP is wrong in suggesting Taiwanese society is different – that is just as true of Taiwanese society, and Taiwan being a democracy puts these differences more out in the open (DPP vs KMT etc), China's more closed system means many of these differences exist behind closed doors; and even if sometimes people inside China get away with speaking of some of them openly, they have to be careful what they say and how they say it, to a much greater extent than people in Taiwan have to
That's a very unnuanced, MSM kind of take. As a Chinese, I am very disappointed at the absolutely one-dimensional analyses of western China watchers. Their takes are rarely accurate, often full of ideological bias, and they don't help me understand China better at all.
And your comment isn't "one dimensional" and "unnuanced"?
As a fellow Chinese person, it's pretty accurate. Deng Xiaoping deserves the credit for modern China's economy. China was slowly but surely opening up and slowing becoming decentralized for efficiency, and it was a moderate rule by committee with term limits vs a one man dictatorship for life that's veering into a centralized economic planning disaster reminiscent of Mao. He is destroying China, one industry at a time.
I can understand your "patriotism" if you're commenting from the mainland. Not so much if you're writing from elsewhere.
Xi was selected to fix Deng's unequal growth phase strategy. Hence all the regulations and crack down because Deng's model ran it's course. And Deng's policies only worked due to the base Mao built. Cultural revolution secularized and mobilized human capital, even great leap forward was massively successful in building industrial base - PRC in the 70s was less urbanized but considerably more industrialized than other low income peers. Which facilitated Deng's transition, which wouldn't have worked in India trapped in multiculturalism, historic power structures and rural economy. It only worked because Mao made sure everyone spoke mandarin, society had no strong attachments to history etc.
>He is destroying China, one industry at a time.
He's regulating previously underregulated industries. He's doing what the west talks about doing in policy papers for years but systemically can't. Sino-US ideological competition is battle of political systems, and so far PRC's has demonstrated to be more nimble and focsing on correct priorities. It's why US and others are trying to copy PRC's industrial policy, which PRC once copied from west. Also the fact that Xi managed to build SCS islands and modernize military sufficiently that US now discusses greater power competition in miiltary terms handly justifies his leadership. BoXiLai wasn't up to that task. The amount of comprehensive national power Xi built is insane. He's PRC's 3rd and maybe 4th term FDR in time of remarkable opportunity and crisis. He may sound and look dopey as hell, but his results have been remarkable.
> Xi was selected to fix Deng's unequal growth phase strategy.
Xi outmaneuvered his rivals. I highly doubt that the others wanted to forfeit their own power for his. Deng's policy was also already proven to work. Expanding it and not destroying it would have been more logical and responsible.
> And Deng's policies only worked due to the base Mao built. Cultural revolution secularized and mobilized human capital, even great leap forward was massively successful in building industrial base
That sounds delusional. Mao's policies were a complete disaster that killed millions of Chinese people. It didn't prepare China for the future. The only things it accomplished were massive suffering and international embarrassment. It was a complete mess. That isn't to say that Mao didn't achieve anything good, but the Great Leap forward and the Cultural Revolution are not good examples. If anything, that greatly hindered both Zhoe Enlai and Deng's reforms, and that's putting it lightly.
He is centralizing control and power. In his new order, there's no room anyone exceptional in private industry, or really anyone else. There's only room for his cult of personality. He is slowly regressing China into a Mao style of rule which completely throws out most of the lessons from the past: decentralization is more efficient and yields more production vs a centrally planned economy (relics of 20th century Communism)
> PRC's has demonstrated to be more nimble and focsing on correct priorities.
How can you be nimble when you're re-centralizing everything?
> It's why US and others are trying to copy PRC's industrial policy, which PRC once copied from west.
I don't know what you're trying to convey here.
> Also the fact that Xi managed to build SCS islands and modernize military sufficiently that US now discusses greater power competition in miiltary terms handly justifies his leadership
In a world with global ballistic nuclear missiles, it looks like Xi just copied a bad US habit, which is a source of massive corruption and waste.
> He may sound and look dopey as hell, but his results have been remarkable.
If it walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck; it's a duck.
> his results have been remarkable
This is still up in the air and highly debatable. For example, Xi is extremely impatient. One China Two Systems was working until he decided to completely trash it. We can assign the mess in HK and Taiwan's new calls for independence on him. If he didn't interfere in Deng's policy, China would have quietly completely swallowed both in a decade or two.
I am in fact not writing from the mainland. The insinuation that the only way I can have a different opinion, is because I am forced, is part of my critique: that western views of China are entirely unrealistic and overly warped by biases and preconceived notions that people are unwilling to let go.
If you want elaborate, nuanced comments from me, check my commenting history, such as this lengthy thread I wrote 2 weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28632820
I am sorry if I don't turn every one of my comment into an essay.
As for Deng Xiao Ping, I am in agreement with dirtyid's comment.
> The insinuation that the only way I can have a different opinion, is because I am forced, is part of my critique
China doesn't have freedom of speech. Chinese citizens can be punished for posting innocuous things such as a cartoon bear who loves honey, so it's not a stretch to assume that you will write differently when inside the mainland vs outside of the mainland.
Then you aren't reading the right "China-watchers". Some names from a quick review of my Twitter feed to check out if you're actually interested: Kevin Tellier, Peter Hessler, Xifan Yang, Michael Pettis, Manya Koetse, Sabina Knight, Amy Qin, Keith Bradsher, Yuen Yuen Ang, Chaoyang Trap (podcast), Matthew Casey, Jonathan Cheng, Yiling Liu, US-China Perception Monitor, Paper Republic, China Media Project.
There are tons more that I'm leaving out because I don't feel like searching for them. Enjoy. Or just continue to dismiss all Western journalism because you'd rather do that than look for quality.
I am in fact following a couple of the people you mentioned. The critique isn't that no good China watchers exist. It's that most of them are like Gordon Chang instead of Kevin Tellier.
I don't see the need for you to resort to confrontational hyperbolic strawmans. The fact that good China watchers are a small minority, is very bad for western understanding of China, and thus very bad for rational policy making that actually addresses issues rather than stirring up emotions or manufacturing consent for a war. This isn't just my own opinion; Kishore Mahbubani, ex-Singapore diplomat, ex-UN security council head, has spoken extensively about this problem.
Sure, the quality of mainstream news is always, and has always been, a problem. More education and improvement in understanding is always a good thing. But you're not making any interesting points there, and you have no way to quantify that "most of them are like Gordon Chang". And the problem I see is that people have a tendency to find poor sources of information and use them to dismiss entire categories of information and positions.
By the way, your statement was about "Western China watchers," not some or even most. You may not have meant it that way, but that's how you said it.
That isn't my experience. There are in fact quite a lot of Chinese people that jump over the firewall. Most of the time, their opinions are quite different from the mainstream western perspective. But when they voice such opinions on western platforms, they tend to be labelled as shills. Only negative, dissenting opinions about China are accepted.
I am in favor of relaxing the firewall. Yet I hold no illusions about that yielding a better outcome when it comes to inter-cultural understanding: it think all in all it's just going to lead to more flamewars.
Oh? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58854081