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Xi Jinping vows to reunify China and Taiwan in New Year’s Eve speech (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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Thoughts?

Is this imperialism by China, a country which is supposed to be left-wing? Leftists are normally anti-imperialism. Wouldn't it be better to let Taiwan democratically decide whether they want to be part of China or not?

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[+] -10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The long game of Beijing politics is to just be nice to Taiwan while Americans grow increasingly unhinged.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Not sure how threatening forceful unification every few months comes under "being nice".

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Liberals will be in the middle of a bombing run on Venezuela and stop to complain about Chinese aggression

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago*

    I don't at all like, nor agree with the current USA administration rhetoric or potential plans towards Venezuela - but that doesn't have any relevance whatsoever to Chinese aggression and antagonism towards Taiwan, nor the fact that the Taiwanese - from their perspective - have way more to fear from China than the USA.

    Two things can be bad.

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yup. The trends of rising standard of living in China plus the stagnation and self-destruction of the US are both pointing to closer ties between Taiwan and China over the long term - over the coming decades. Even today the majority in Taiwan prefers status quo and not independence. There's pro-idependence and pro-unification minorities. Besides, I don't think the Chinese want to deal with a separatist population and all the instability that causes, which would imevitaby follow if they annex by force.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The majority in Taiwan have always preferred status quo. That's what happens when you border a much larger neighbour that would see any overt move to officially declare independence (as in rebrand as Taiwan officially) as justification to invade.

    That's just the Taiwanese being self-aware to notice large power disparities and not wanting to rock the boat. Actual unification support with China polls about in the 10-15%. Lower than the "move to independence" bloc.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    No disagreement. I just think that there's a good chance for things to move in the unification direction because of these economic trends over the long haul. Might not happen that way. There's probably also a good chance to stay status quo for decades. Independece is very unlikely I think because the potential countries to recognize Taiwan are critically dependent on China in various ways, and declining in economic power.

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