[curseofcasandra]

For those unfamiliar with the history, Taiwan’s (ROC) own constitution says it is part of China. Its dispute is with the CCP, not China itself.

Conflating the PRC vs ROC conflict with a China vs Japan conflict is just ignorant.

[alisonatwork]

That is, the constitution written by the KMT dictatorship that was awarded the island as spoils of war after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in WW2.

In the present day, neither the Taiwanese government nor Taiwanese people are in some kind of dispute with the CCP over who owns Gansu province or whatever, they just would like recognition of their already-existing sovereignty.

[mytailorisrich]

That's a little misrepresenting history... Taiwan was part of the Qing Empire and Japan took it in 1895 following China's defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War. China got it back after WWII.

[alisonatwork]

Sure, and before the Qing armies invaded it was declared an independent kingdom by a Ming loyalist who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother, and before that there were a couple of European outposts and scattered settlers from Fujian, and before that there were indigenous peoples who themselves are part of an ethnic group that can now be found everywhere from Madagascar to New Zealand.

The point I was responding to was the misleading comment that the people of Taiwan are actually just engaged in some kind of internal dispute with the CCP, which is entirely a CCP framing of the issue. Few if any people in modern-day Taiwan believe that they are the true inheritors of the Chinese mainland. The pretense has to be upheld in order to preserve the status quo, but in practice there is no serious movement staking a claim to any part of China.

[mytailorisrich]

> the people of Taiwan are actually just engaged in some kind of internal dispute with the CCP, which is entirely a CCP framing of the issue.

This is broadly true, not just "CCP framing". Obviously because of history and external influence there is also an "independentist" faction.

I don't see why this should be hard to accept unless the aim is indeed a "reframing" to push the independentist narrative, which does not really need it as the status quo mean de facto independence. So perhaps the aim is actually more along the lines of an anti-China narrative.

[alisonatwork]

This comment is so divorced from reality on the ground in Taiwan that it's hard to respond to. Certainly, someone can look at cherry-picked pieces of legislature or historical documents and imagine that they represent some kind of intrinsic truth, but in reality it is simply not the case that Taiwanese people understand themselves as locked in some kind of ongoing civil war with the CCP. The culture has long since moved on from 1940s era politics that even at the time were imported by a minority group from the mainland.

[MangoCoffee]

This is so stupid. It doesn't mean anything. History is history. What exists now is that Taiwan is an independent country with its own currency and military, and Taiwanese pay no taxes to China.

If you want to use history as some kind of justification, why don't we go all the way back to when the human race originated in Africa?

[loeg]

The ROC claims it is China, not a part of China.

But sibling comment is correct that today the PRC and ROC are functionally two separate nations, and neither wants unification by submitting completely to the other. So the only way it's happening is with force.

[BoxedEmpathy]

“We have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has lunged at us, without a moment’s hesitation. Are you ready?”

- Chinese Consul-General in Osaka, Xue Jian, addressing Japan