LOL, "expansionism". Like what NATO does? Or do you mean the reintegration of formerly centrally administered provinces after imperialist interventionism that occupied, divided, and oppressed? Because lest you forget, all the people on Taiwan, except for the very small number of natives who survived the genocidal KMT, they're all part of China. They seceded and the Europeans protected them, not because they had a right to seceded, but because Europe wanted to maintain military and economic dominance over the region. Taiwan is a proxy in this case. Reintegrating the proxy is not expansionism.

Expansionism is 600 military bases around the world. Expansionism is establishing Ukraine as a new proxy and attempting to install net new nuclear capabilities on its border with Russia. Expansionism is literally what China has been fighting against for centuries. And now, because they want to continue pushing out European interests from their corner of the world, you're crying "expansionism"! It's ridiculous. Was it expansionism when Hong Kong was returned to China from the British? Was it expansionism when the British could no longer have complete immunity from Chinese law in Shanghai? Was it expansionism when the North Koreans tried to push out the Japanese from the peninsula?

Europe has been expanding for 600 years and you're going to cry foul when someone tries to push out European interests from where they never should have been in the first place?

[–] hangdognail@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The problem, of course, is that the people of Taiwan don’t want to be part of China, and have been their own sovereign nation for 74 years. Yes, they had a very problematic start, but they are now a firmly established democratic nation of their own.

[–] CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem, of course, is that you've come wading into an argument with absolutely no evidence. Here are the actual opinions of the citizens of the Republic of China:

As you can see, the most popular options are "Decide later" and "Decide never". "Independence now!" as a choice has never quite beaten "No response".

Nor is that really surprising - independence as a political project only appeared in the mainstream in any capacity with the founding of the DPP (Democratic Prograssive Party) in 1986. For the first 37 years, the island was controlled exclusively by the KMT (Kuomintang) as a one-party military dictatorship that not only considered itself part of China, but the rightful rulers of the whole of China! Here's the insignia of the RoC Marine Corps, showing the full extent of the territories claimed by the Republic of China:

As you can see, it not only includes the mainland but large areas of several neighbouring states including almost the whole of Mongolia. The KMT old guard, as much as remain in politics anyway, are actually furious about the idea of claiming independence, because it would mean renouncing the whole rest of China!

[–] hangdognail@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And yet, using your own chart, unification with the mainland seems to be quite unpopular. Why would a nation that had its own problems with dictatorships want to go back to having Winnie the Pooh as President for life?

[–] CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firstly, there is only a question of 'unify or declare independence' because of continuous pressure from the US Empire for the last half century. Continuing the status quo benefits all parties because the RoC's largest trading partner is the PRC (obviously, because it's a country of 1.8 billion people that is literally right offshore) and gradually increasing integration was the obvious natural course.

Until the US, which still maintains an official One-China policy, decided it needed another way to attack China. But maybe, China really might just smash its way in by force... any day now!

If events had unfolded based on normal political and economic trends, Taipei would probably have ended up as an autonomous province under the PRC, similar to Hong Kong or Macau, because the Chinese central government is comparatively hands-off and local governments are mostly allowed to do their own thing - a policy started under Mao called (I love Chinese policy names) Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let One Hundred Schools of Thought Contend.

Oh, but of course you thought the entire Chinese population was controlled directly by Xi Jinping like units in an RTS, didn't you? Because you're a know-nothing racist fuckwit - or not, after all, it's okay to say that asian people are yellow-skinned and beady-eyed if they're enemies of the US! Xi is going to finish his third term, see out the opening stages of the Belt and Road Initiative, then retire like every other Chinese President and foreigners with full bellies and too much time on their hands will cope and seethe that the next one is also a horrible dictator (until that one retires too).

[–] hangdognail@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I have nothing but love for the people of China. I have a problem with the dictator who disappears people who openly question him, and has put at least a million of his own people in concentration camps. Oh, and Mao was a fucking monster who killed more of his own people than any imperialist westerner did.

I really hope they’re paying you well to shill for Pooh Bear.

[–] CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firstly,

You're an ignorant westerner whose entire knowledge consists of fifteen seconds a day of headlines drip-fed by your state-controlled media, and the link you sling at me is from fucking Wikipedia.

In short: you are wrong. The Empire's media lies. The '1 million' number is based on eight (8) interviews conducted by virulent German christofascist shitstain Adrian Zenz.

Here's a vlog by a guy who actually went to Xinjiang and talked to people there. Plenty of other videos on his channel too.

The program in question, which took place in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was a deradicalization campaign against islamic extremists funded by the west, who had been committing multiple terror attacks every year. People taken in were given education and warned about the dangers of Islamic extremism, especially the (foreign to Xinjiang) Wahabbi form of Islam exported by Saudi Arabia with the help of the US. Who, by the way, deradicalizes Uyghurs by blowing them up. After conducting the most humane and effective deradicalization program ever, the western backed extremists are gone and even western media has to grudgingly admit the whole thing is over (in the most loaded language possible):

The Maoist uprising against the landlords was the most successful proletarian revolution ever, and resulted in near-totally equal distribution of land among the peasantry. Life expectancy under Mao increased at a rate of more than one year per year, to double from around thirty to over sixty. It is the most rapid sustained increase in life expectancy anywhere, ever. China's two thousand year food problem was solved.

Luckily your totally unbiased and free press can report such improvements in an impartial manner.

Dare you read anything I've linked? Can you get past your unearned smug arrogance? Or is the parasite attached to your forebrain just too strong?

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[–] brain_in_a_box@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

If you actually had any love for the people of China, you'd respect their political autonomy and drop this paternal white savior act.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml -5 points 1 year ago

74 years is a single lifetime. The US has lasted longer than that and it will eventually be completely removed from the world map through decolonial struggle. 74 years for a small separatist movement to be protected by European powers who dominated China for centuries does not suddenly grant new moral, ethical, political, nor legal standing. They are not a firmly established democratic nation of their own, they are a Western vassal and proxy, and as the world financial system dedollarizes Taiwan will slowly shift its stance back towards China. China has every intent in creating the incentive structures for integration to be the correct choice for the people of Taiwan. Given that when it started support for integration was met with death, the current state of integration polling is a good sign that things are slowly moving in the direction China wants them to. And the people of Taiwan are not blind to nor ignorant of what the US does to its proxies.

Integration will eventually happen.

[–] Dreyns@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most of taiwanese people consider themselves taiwanese and do not want to be part of china again. No matter what happened before people now DO NOT want it or if they so they are now a minority. In case you din't know ujraine was invaded, and without western help it would've been swalloded by russia. You are trying to justify killings and rubles by citing the pastand ignoring the present.

With this kind of mentally everything can be justified. The core of rhe probleme now is much much more simple :

People want to go in someone else home and take it.

This is it, that's all. And if you're for that you need to ask yourself what you're really behind.

I'm personnaly fully against america emperialism and all the shit they do in south america, africa, etc... Their egemony on ecomy that is hurting all the planet, their lazyness torward climate change etc egc I'm agaisnt CCP repression of those they do not consider worthy, and their policy on privacy and their effort to control south asia. Etc etc...

Once you start to look closely everybody is an asshole because they are BUT this does not EVER justify senseless killing over patriotism, sovereignty, or wtv the fuck.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What people consider themselves is unimportant. Taiwanese is not an identity, it's not a culture, it's not a nation. Just like the Confederacy isn't a separate nation and the people who identify with it aren't a separate nation. Identity is historically and communally constructed. The history of Taiwan under the KMT is literally the history of a Chinese military executing a terror campaign for 4 decades and collaborating with imperialist powers. That's it. That's the history. That doesn't make a separate culture, it makes a separate political group. There's a big difference.

Taiwanese IS a separate culture, but only in reference to indigenous Islanders. Calling the genocidal KMT "Taiwanese" is as bad as calling the occupying white French people in Haiti "Haitians" or occupying white English people in Jamaica "Jamaicans" or occupying white Americans in Hawaii "Hawaiian".

The REASONS people don't want to be part of mainland China are illegitimate reasons, just like the reason for the Confederacy to secede was illegitimate. The REASONS people in Taiwan don't want to be a part of the mainland include: the KMT killed everyone who wanted to be a part of the mainland, generations of people were traumatized by the mass murders and taught their children to believe things based on that terror, Western imperilaists propagandize the island relentlessly to move public opinion towards Western interests, Western imperialists have created financial incentives for the upper class in Taiwan to adopt a pro-Western stance to support Western interests, Western imperialists have meddled in the political and cultural affairs of Taiwan since the KMT fled there to create political conditions favorable to the West.

None of these are legitimate reasons for Chinese people in Taiwan to claim a new identity. Also, none of these are sustainable reasons, which is why China will only invade Taiwan if the West moves to create new military threats via their control of the island. Without that provocation, China will integrate Taiwan slowly, by creating incentives and decoupling Taiwan from Western interests. As the dollar collapses and US economic hegemony falters, the incentives will start to drop. As China continues its counter-intelligence against the US and continues influencing Taiwan and the region, Taiwan will move towards the mainland over time. The West must not interfere with this process.

And you're wrong that people want to go into Taiwan and take people's home. China is very clear - one country, two systems. The people on Taiwan stay there, but they would no longer have Western military bases there. The Chinese military would defend Taiwan as one country. The foreign policy stances would be decided by the party and include the interests of Taiwan against the West. Laws in Taiwan would remain the same at first and through democratic processes, the people of Taiwan would slowly integrate their system and the mainland to create the best system possible.

None of this is taking people's home. China operates the most complex multi-ethnic multi-system country in the world. Unlike how when the US comes in and colonizes, China has demonstrated for decades what coexistence and autonomy look like.

You imagine you have an enlightened political position that sees both China and the US as evil. You think you have any reasonable opinion on China despite being totally ignorant of the country, it's politics, and it's history. You think China represses those they consider less worthy while it is currently the world leader in multi-ethnic autonomy. You think China has a privacy problem despite all of the revelations about the West's truly complete domestic spying on literally every thing including doorbells and baby monitors.

You are ignorant, and you use that ignorance to develop an imagined political stance that literally only Westerners hold. There are no other people in the world who think your position is reasonable, let alone informed. It's a purely western construction, emerging from systemic Western propaganda and individual Western ignorance. The more you study China, the more your position will change.

I would know. I used to believe what you believed.

[–] Dreyns@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As much as my vision is clouded by western view yours is clouded by china's. You speak of flawless integration, look at hong kong struggle since it's been handed back to china. Listening to you everybody is evil but china the perfect country where everybody is happy. The situation is complicated and both sides have their pros and cons but you are delusional beyond repair it seems.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Nah, you missed the whole point. I am American. My family is all white European anti-black settler colonialists. I went to public school. Grew up on US media. Played red scare video games.

I don't live in China. I don't consume Chinese movies or TV. I don't watch Chinese social media.

The idea that my view is clouded by China in the same way that yours is clouded by the West is, quite frankly, ridiculous. We are both clouded by the West. I am working hard to remove the clouds.

I study philosophy, politics, economics, and history. I started with American, because I live here. I studied European, because so much philosophy came from there. Eventually I came to these new conclusions and framings.

I consume white, black, and indigenous media produced in the US. I am sometimes exposed to people from Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Indian, Thai, various African countries, various South American countries, and various Asian countries as they are interviewer by American white, black, and indigenous people. Sometimes I read works from international people who write in English, or I read historical works that have been translated.

What do you do to help you see more clearly? It sounds like you have a problem here. You imagine my position as a strawman, that China can do no wrong, and that I am delusional, in order to make sense of what I am saying.

I encourage you to read more, listen more, and challenge your indoctrination more thoroughly. I recognize both your ignorance and your indoctrination because I personally experienced the same indoctrination and the same ignorance. I held the same positions you did in my past. I critique you not because I don't know what you're going through but because I recognize my own experience in your words. You have not said anything I haven't heard and analyzed before. You are repeating poorly supported positions that have been significantly written about, analyzed, and found wanting by many many people who spend their lives in research and analysis of these things. My current position is based on my reading of dozens of analyses from people in different places, different affiliations, different histories, and different perspectives.

I encourage you to put in more work on this.

[–] Dreyns@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude you just wrote a "i lived by the sword " copy pasta here you are the one looking ridiculous.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml -1 points 1 year ago

Whatever makes you feel better, sweetie

[–] PoY@lemmygrad.ml -3 points 1 year ago

wait how do you consume a movie? or a TV show? do you ever get indigestion?