Miscellaneous News

[manqiangrexue]

@tamsen_ikard is right when he says that perception lags reality and @BoraTas is spot on to say that hostile media coverage be the controlling entities in the ROC are warping the perception further but we have to remember that it's never the plan to just have the people in the ROC love the PRC so much they volunteer to join. Plan A is for China to become so strong (reality, not necessarily perception) that Western intervention becomes unrealistic and laughable at which point the PRC will make the ROC an offer they can't refuse. The ROC will sign the merger and then over the next few decades, through positive media projection, the people in Taiwan will come to realize the honor and glory of being Chinese. This change will be brought about by 2 factors: the first is that the PRC will control the media to dispell malicious propaganda against China and the second is that it's too hard to live life hating your situation every day so people will naturally seek a way to reconile and be happy; in this case, it would be no stretch at all to simply realize who you are by blood and that makes you on the winning side, not the losing side. Taiwanese will for the first time traverse the world with the pride that they are ambassadors of a nation that is greater and more powerful than any land they visit rather than mousing around at the feet of giants hoping for some recognition. They're gonna love it once they try it and wonder who the hell has been putting this off for all this time! Plan B involves kinetic warfare to bring Taiwan in so that needn't be discussed here. But to sum up, while perception does lag behind reality and that effect is made worse by Western/DPP disinformation, the status of Taiwan depends not on these but on the reality of Chinese power.

 

[KYli]

I think you guys need to take into account that there are between 30,000 and 50,000 mainland immigrants to Hong Kong each year and that doesn't include those hundreds of thousands of mainland babies that got Hong Kong permanent residence during 00s. Most of them are more pro-China.

As for Hong Kong emigrants, those older generation early emigrants that have tied with mainland Chinese do tend to be more pro-China but newer and younger generation and their descendants are more likely anti-China. However, many of these emigrants have returned back to Hong Kong and have formed a major block of anti-China groups. I do believe 10% of Hong Kongers have foreign passports and many of them are aligned with the West especially those from Canada.

That's why I would say things are complicated. With so many new Chinese immigrants, pro-China faction should have done much better but over the last 2 decades the increase of pro-China faction has been slow and the anti-China faction has been moving to more extreme faction on the expense of moderate and pragmatic anti-China faction.

Given the most aggressive front line rioters during the protests are formed by lower class Hong Kong youngsters, Vietnamese youngsters and mainland youngsters that are either born or immigrant to Hong Kong at a young age. It is clear that the pro-West and anti-China groups have been able to infiltrate and dominate education and media that can manipulate and brainwash young Hong Kongers especially those marginalize or desperate for acceptance such as Vietnamese and mainland born ones. Of course, those more wealthy ones are also very active in providing financial supports or joining peaceful protests but they have been marginalized ever since the umbrella revolution because they are not radical enough and considered as cowards.

In the end of the day, I think mainland government's hand off approach was wrong. It has allowed anti-China faction to expand and radicalize and grow stronger after each protest especially after the Hong Kong government has gave in and appeased the protesters each time. If the mainland government after taking over acted like Britain did, none of these anti-China groups have grown so large and powerful and out of control.

 

[Serb]

@tamsen_ikard is right when he says that perception lags reality and @BoraTas is spot on to say that hostile media coverage be the controlling entities in the ROC are warping the perception further but we have to remember that it's never the plan to just have the people in the ROC love the PRC so much they volunteer to join. Plan A is for China to become so strong (reality, not necessarily perception) that Western intervention becomes unrealistic and laughable at which point the PRC will make the ROC an offer they can't refuse. The ROC will sign the merger and then over the next few decades, through positive media projection, the people in Taiwan will come to realize the honor and glory of being Chinese. This change will be brought about by 2 factors: the first is that the PRC will control the media to dispell malicious propaganda against China and the second is that it's too hard to live life hating your situation every day so people will naturally seek a way to reconile and be happy; in this case, it would be no stretch at all to simply realize who you are by blood and that makes you on the winning side, not the losing side. Plan B involves kinetic warfare to bring Taiwan in so that needn't be discussed here. But to sum up, while perception does lag behind reality and that effect is made worse by Western/DPP disinformation, the status of Taiwan depends not on these but on the reality of Chinese power.

I would say that with each passing poll, more and more of Taiwan's populace is considering themselves ethnically Taiwanese, and separate from Chinese, not just in nationality, ideology, politics, that was already done decades ago.

That means that DPP will stay in power forever, local elections are different than "national" elections. They are now laying low because elections are in 2024, but as soon as they win that, come US House Speaker visits, maybe even US VP visits, maybe even Taiwan president visiting US DC, more western politicians from all around the Collective West coming and treating it as a country, etc.

And if that start happening, and China doesn't act physically and instead wait for imaginary "peaceful reunification", which obviously, statisticaly won't happen ever, people around the world would start treating China like a joke.

China needs to decide, either be a punching bag or a global super-power. Global superpowers don't accept those kinds of provocations at their own territory.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

My opinion towards this has changed in the past months. Being unlikeable and/or lacking means of tacit influence (NGOs, lobbys, etc...) has consequences. A problem China faces is most of the young Taiwanese don't identify as Chinese at any level. That is unique. Ask people of Chinese ethnicity everywhere. Even liberal types would declare they are ethnically Chinese. The current Taiwanese youth don't consider themselves Chinese even ethnically. We even have types who claim they are Japanese or Dutch, which we make fun of here and would enrage many mainlanders if the Chinese media was showing it. This has two implications:

1- Peaceful reunification is impossible. Anyone who says it will be possible by 20XX doesn't know what's going on in Taiwan. Taiwan was more Chinese when China was poorer. Modern Taiwan is literally suffering from a net brain drain to the mainland yet we don't see any reflections of that reality in politics.

2- All of this was a project by the USA and the pro-independence elite. But nowadays it is self-sustaining. Just look at the aftermath of the Ma-Xi meeting in 2015. Taiwan is becoming harder to integrate not easier. This is why I think China needs to do this before 2035 and ideally before 2030. Otherwise, it will have its own Donbas. China can suppress separatism, but why do it when you can avoid the problem altogether?

All of this de-sinicization of Taiwan would be much slower if Chinese cultural exports were stronger.

Another two examples. Yes, Australia and Japan. These countries are almost vassals by pre-1950s definition. Yet they, like all other countries, have to justify government expenses to the public. If China's cultural exports were strong, a lot more people would be weirded out by the notion of the Chinese threat. So their governments wouldn't be able to increase military spending and activity this easily. That would be a net positive for China in WESTPAC. So yes, animated films or dancing girls can have a real impact on the military balance in a region.

As I said in other threads, China has achieved incredible success in growing its economy and military. But it refrains from a few activities and lacks a few skills that prevent it from organizing a strong systemic pushback against US influence. The lack of a strong cultural exports industry (in 2023 this is mostly entertainment media) is one of those lacking things. Genshin Impact probably recruited more Wumaos than all CGTN footage since its founding combined LOL. Denying the existence of the problem would only make it permanent.

Taiwan's and Japan's problem isn't entertainment. What entertainment can do is to make being blatantly anti China only for weirdo nationalists in ASEAN. Biggest success stories are Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Let me tell you the secret of Taiwanese entertainment. It is regional Chinese entertainment. Not politically, but literally. Here's a Taiwanese movie. Where is it set? Northern China, unless tropical Taiwan has snow.

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Already, their entertainment portrays them as a Chinese region. YouTube videos in Chinese with millions of views aren't from the mainland, YouTube is banned. Yet despite this, they're still anti China.

Japan is different, but result is same. Japanese youth are 40% pro China and use Chinese makeup yet the country is getting more and more fascist. Why? Because the old Nazis are the ones with power and they're 90% anti China.

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Australia is also unlikely to work. It might as well be in the middle of Hollywood.

 

[MarKoz81]

This is why I think China needs to do this before 2035 and ideally before 2030. Otherwise, it will have its own Donbas. China can suppress separatism, but why do it when you can avoid the problem altogether?

First of all Taiwan is already China's Donbas.

Secondly the problem of Taiwan is not and has never been about the identity of the population of Taiwan. It is purely the problem of state sovereignty and control of its own territory. It's a legal problem that is not affected by any other claim.

People's Republic of China and Republic of China are political entities competing for the control of China understood as a state entity. Think of them as political parties since they are effectively that - People's Republic of China is a formal name for the Chinese state when governed by Communist Party of China while Republic of China is the formal name for the Chinese state when governed by Kuomintang. People's Republic of China and Republic of China are not separate state entities like Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic. Legally they are the same state under a different political settlement. That has a profound legal consequences in that any claims to Chinese legitimacy made until 1949 by any of them by definition validates any similar claim made by the other. Only what comes after 1949 is a separate issue.

Between 1683 and 1895 Qing held Taiwan as its sovereign territory. Cession of Taiwan in 1895 was part of the settlement of the First Sino-Japanese war and therefore can be constituted as an act of aggression. This is precisely the position held by Republic of China since it never accepted cession of Taiwan as legitimate which is why it fled to Taiwan in 1949.

The continuity of Republic of China on Taiwan as part of the legitimate and sovereign territory of Republic of China validates People's Republic of China's claim to this territory.

It is literally as simple as that. Taiwan is part of the territory of People's Republic of China because of the claim made by Republic of China which is based on historical precedent of sovereign control of Taiwan until Japanese aggression.

Therefore it is entirely irrelevant what the people of Taiwan think of themselves. Legally the difference is between population of Taiwan becoming part of People's Republic of China as "Chinese" or as "Taiwanese". I don't think the government in Beijing cares what the people of Taiwan want to call themselves in terms of ethnic identity as long as they confirm their state allegiance. It's the same issue as with Xinjiang and Tibet. Those are separate ethnicities or "peoples" but their nationality i.e. citizenship is "Chinese".

Similarly in Donbas the Russian population was of Russian ethnicity but of Ukrainian nationality. Their act of secession was illegal and in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and Russia's support of that secession was an indirect - and later direct - act of aggression against Ukraine as a sovereign state with a defined territory that was recognized by Russia at the moment of aggression.

If Taiwan declares independence and Japan and US back it then they will perform an indirect act of aggression against China. Not People's Republic of China but China, because Taiwan's independence violates the sovereignty of Republic of China as well.

Now the idea of Taiwan's population being "Taiwanese" as opposed to "Chinese" is absurd on a practical level which is why the issue is brought up. It's similar to Russia's claims that Ukrainians don't exist as a nationality - counter-factual and anti-historical.

The population that makes such claim still uses mandarin and traditional script and continues majority of Chinese customs and traditions. They want to invent a separate national identity based on an invented cultural identity. This is exactly contrary to what happened in Donbas which had a settled population of another existing nationality. Russians in Donbas wanted a political separation based on physical control of territory and because they had no legal claims to legitimacy they used the overthrow of Yanukovych as justification to reject the necessary legal process.

That's not what's happening on Taiwan. Taiwan is a non-existent national identity being invented for the express purpose of separating sovereign territory of China from China. If the people of Taiwan want to be "Taiwanese" then they can do so as part of a Special Administrative Region.

The issue of Taiwan has always been about state sovereignty and that makes their national claims completely irrelevant also because they are post hoc and self-contradictory.

Self-contradictory because it's citizens of "Republic of China" deciding that they want to become citizens of "Republic of Taiwan" which contradicts the very legal structure under which they currently operate internationally:

"Republic of China" and "Taiwan passport". It's very explicit what political entity issued it. It's not a Taiwanese passport. It's a Chinese passport issued on Taiwan under Republic of China.

Post-hoc because it's citizens of Republic of China deciding that they want to become citizens of Republic of Taiwan to become independent of People's Republic of China and not citizens of Republic of Taiwan deciding to become citizens of Republic of China to legitimize their legal claim to Taiwan. To simplify they took the land as China because it was Chinese land and now that they hold it physically they want to be Taiwanese so as to claim that it isn't Chinese land to deny other Chinese people a claim on the land.

This is another thing that Beijing should raise internationally - Taiwan's independence violates the right of all the other Chinese people to Taiwan after a small group of Chinese people claimed the island for themselves - and to the detriment of its actual indigenous population which was repressed for majority of Kuomintang's rule.

What right does this group of Chinese people to part of China that allows them to exclude other Chinese people from said part of China???

Taiwan's independence is a clear case of territorial aggression by the United States and Beijing would be foolish to get dragged into the pointless "Taiwanese people are Chinese" argument which is aimed at influencing European and American mental maps and views of the world. China needs to stick to the argument that is legally valid.

Specifically armed reunification is legal because it is China defending its own territory. "People's Republic of China" is a recognized entity representing China. China's territory on Taiwan is currently being illegally occupied by a non-recognized political entity called "Republic of China" with the implicit support of the United States making it a de facto US-occupied territory of China.

In legal terms the US and Japan are trying to do something worse than either Donbas or Kosovo. They're not forcing a political split to prevent an imagined or real conflict based on identity. They're creating an identity to start a conflict. Probably to argue the case of "Taiwanese genocide". Funny that it wasn't a problem under KMT's repression of indigenous population of the island.

And for whatever it's worth - I'm not a supporter of CPC or Chinese nationalist cause or Taiwan's reintegration into China or any other thing in this whole mess. I'm a supporter of ... what's the expression?

A rules-based order.

Trans-Taiwanese are not Taiwanese. You can't "identify" to ignore rules under which you have operated when they stop suiting you.

 

[BoraTas]

Ladies and gentlemen, we got them

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I will be a huge party spoiler here. I fact checked the news in Chinese. There has been a huge translation error. Here in Chinese:

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It refers to 2000 tons of ore production per day. Not gold metal. We are talking about rock here. At 2000 tons per day the expected service life is 25 years. The amount of elemental gold in the ore reserve is 50 tons. So a yearly production of 2.5 tons is expected.

Then I fact-checked how much gold is found in a typical gold reserve in terms of pure gold per unit weight of ore. It seems it is in the order of grams per ton of ore. So at 2k tons daily, 2.5 tons of gold metal extraction per year is very typical. It translates to a grade of 4 grams of metal per ton of ore.

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So we have just 50 tons of gold in that reserve. And that's value in current market prices is 3.2 billion USD not trillion.

It seems CGTN interpreted it as 2000 tons of gold metal production per year for 20 years. That would mean a reserve of 40000 tons, whose value would be around USD 3 trillion indeed.

 

[KYli]

It is easier said than done though. Japanese culture exports are successful not only because they offer strong products, but also that such exports are tolerated by the U.S. How could China export any cultural products when something as innocuous Tiktok, which is devoid of any Chinese cultural content, is at risk of being banned? I think that’s an even bigger hurdle than creating competitive soft power products.

Chinese dramas and shows and manga have a great penetration in both Taiwan and Hong Kong even after Taiwanese government put in place many restrictions. However, most of Taiwanese and Hong Kongers that are active in mainland websites that offer such culture products seem to be very negative to China at least those like to comment.

So you can see the absurdity that Taiwanese and Hong Kongers are actively attracted to Chinese culture products but at the same time being very anti-China. As Aristotle said, "Give me a child until he is seven and I’ll show you the man." I think it is difficult to change one's perceptions after years of brainwashing. China's influence needs to grow much stronger and widespread and reaching these people at far younger age to make an impact.

 

[horse]

Who must go?

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US policy in the Middle East is in complete shambles now.

Iran nuclear deal is gone. What are they doing in Syria exactly? The US military right there in Saudi Arabia watching and midwife the growing links with China that will transform their economy. As awkward as that is, it is even more awkward in Egypt while they do the same but in their case the US gives them money directly.

To do what??

No one in the American media would care or dare to explain.

Then, and then, there is this war in Europe.

The Biden people completely in over their heads.

 

[baykalov]

"I have been reading various articles in western news saying there can be no negotiations with Putin as the top figure in Russia since he is charged by the ICC and sanctions cannot be lifted until he is the Hague. They are going for broke. Regime change is the goal without saying it straight out... Sanctions to be lifted on Russia when Putin is extradited to The Hague - The New York Times "Russia cannot achieve the lifting of international sanctions until President Vladimir Putin and children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova are extradited to the International Criminal Court," the former Ambassador-at-Large who headed the Department of Global Criminal Justice at the State Department, Stephen Rapp."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1637260156600741888

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1637159440347705344

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1637043119068782593

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1637483786148429825

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Chinese dramas and shows and manga have a great penetration in both Taiwan and Hong Kong even after Taiwanese government put in place many restrictions. However, most of Taiwanese and Hong Kongers that are active in mainland websites that offer such culture products seem to be very negative to China at least those like to comment.

So you can see the absurdity that Taiwanese and Hong Kongers are actively attracted to Chinese culture products but at the same time being very anti-China. As Aristotle said, "Give me a child until he is seven and I’ll show you the man." I think it is difficult to change one's percetions after years of brainwashing. China's influence needs to grow much stronger and widespread and reaching these people at far younger age to make an impact.

"This restaurant sucks. Anyhow can I get another order to go?"

The mouth says no but the body is honest.