Miscellaneous News

[siegecrossbow]

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.

No surprise there. A lot of Chinese millenials are huge fans of Anime and/or other Japanese cultural exports technically illegal in mainland China but that doesn't really stop them from being anti-Japanese. This is especially serious in the military fan circle. Almost all of them enjoy Gundam/Evangelion.

 

[solarz]

No surprise there. A lot of Chinese millenials are huge fans of Anime and/or other Japanese cultural exports technically illegal in mainland China but that doesn't really stop them from being anti-Japanese. This is especially serious in the military fan circle. Almost all of them enjoy Gundam/Evangelion.

People who decry Japanese anime are hypocrites. I bet they still watch Japanese porn.

 

[BoraTas]

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.

I know all of that. I think you got me wrong.

I meant Donbas from Ukraine's perspective. Ukraine has been dealing with violent Russian-backed separatism in Donbas. If China unifies Taiwan after it is thoroughly desinicized in identity it will have the same problem there. I mean terrorism and dissent here. And yes, as you said it will also be accused of Taiwanese genocide, which its anti-terrorism efforts will be provided as evidence on BBC and CNN.

The current cross-strait relations can not be interpreted as two opposing factions competing for control of China. Taiwan has been a 100% separatist entity for at least 15 years complete with a newly manufactured identity. They dropped their vision of unifying China under ROC decades before even that, both at the government and public levels. They only keep the name and claims of ROC because changing the constitution would be justifiably interpreted as a declaration of independence by the mainland.

 

[Overbom]

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.

Damn.. I got done by CGTN lol

 

[Feima]

hat 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.

This "countries from the collective west" notion used to be a thing. However in 2023 it is clear to RoW (the Rest of the World) that it really isn't. There is only the US and its vassals. All these other countries in the collective west have been compromised - some more than others - by the US, and their political "leaders" are clearly pushing US's interests, often times totally against their own national interests.

So it doesn't matter that these countries are pretending Taiwan is a country. Taiwan doesn't dare to declare independence. RoW doesn't treat Taiwan like a country. Everybody knows the score.

 

[FriedButter]

No surprise there. A lot of Chinese millenials are huge fans of Anime and/or other Japanese cultural exports technically illegal in mainland China but that doesn't really stop them from being anti-Japanese. This is especially serious in the military fan circle. Almost all of them enjoy Gundam/Evangelion.

Good story writing makes a difference. Most of the popular ones tend not to dwell into real life politics for the purpose of either creating their own universe or a more casual plot line. Unlike what the West who has been forcing wokeness and ideology at the expense of story writing which unsurprisingly no one finds enjoyable.

 

[manqiangrexue]

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.

I've already given the reasons and why that's irrelevent to deciding the fate of Taiwan. It's not going to be a vote; it is going to be coercion by power.

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.

These things are all done to anger China. China is changing the power balance in its favor and they can't reverse it so they do the only thing that can still do, which is give China the political middle finger. What will ultimately decide Taiwan's fate is not the polls and it is not these small actions but the power balance, which is continuously shifting in China's favor.

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,

There is some misconception about peaceful reunion which I thought I was quite clear on in my last post. It means to bring it about via threat of overwhelming force, NOT to have the Taiwanese self-vote to join without coercion. The former is realistic; the latter is imaginary.

people around the world would start treating China like a joke.

China is currently the least funny and scariest thing any Western politician talks about.

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.

Undisputed superpowers don't, but that is not China. China is a rising and secondary superpower and as such, tact and time-biding are useful tactics rather than blunt aggressive and machoism.

 

[Eventine]

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.

Identity politics (ie Taiwan teaching their kids via the education system and media that they aren’t Chinese) isn’t resolved through popular media. Dancing boys and girls didn’t cause Chinese to identify as Korean and anime didn’t cause Koreans to identify as Japanese. People in East Asia enjoy each other’s entertainment while hating each other all the same. Popular culture doesn't counter political brain washing.

The fact of the matter is, if you grow up being told by the education system and the media that you're not Chinese, that Chinese/Han identity is fake, that you're actually a colonized minority who was oppressed by the Chinese, then that's the identity you will take as an adult. To erase Taiwanese political brain washing, you have to go to the source - their control of the education system and the media.

Which, if you dig further, has deep ties with the US academic and media establishment. Much of the "Taiwanese are an independent people" ideology is being created or echoed in the halls of US universities, and then spread through "international" media by US media sources. Go read those articles from time to time - you'll realize the experts they're quoting, a majority of the time, aren't even Asian, but old white dudes with titles like "professor of Asian studies" or "political scientist with a focus on Asia-Pacific" or "expert of Chinese/Taiwanese history". In short, it's manufactured consent courtesy of the US establishment - the same tactic they use every where they want to encourage separatism/divide and conquer.

 

[Feima]

The fact of the matter is, if you grow up being told by the education system and the media that you're not Chinese, that Chinese/Han identity is fake, that you're actually a colonized minority who was oppressed by the Chinese,

Polls can't reveal this, but I've wondered, for those Taiwanese who are not total idiots, surely they must ask why their "country's" formal legal name is Republic of China if they have nothing to do with China. Ok I can imagine the answer is "those nasties from across the straits force us to call ourselves Chinese". Then, surely the response to that would be "why?"

 

[BoraTas]

Identity politics (ie Taiwan teaching their kids via the education system and media that they aren’t Chinese) isn’t resolved through popular media. Dancing boys and girls didn’t cause Chinese to identify as Korean and anime didn’t cause Koreans to identify as Japanese. People in East Asia enjoy each other’s entertainment while hating each other all the same. Popular culture doesn't counter political brain washing.

The fact of the matter is, if you grow up being told by the education system and the media that you're not Chinese, that Chinese/Han identity is fake, that you're actually a colonized minority who was oppressed by the Chinese, then that's the identity you will take as an adult. To erase Taiwanese political brain washing, you have to go to the source - their control of the education system and the media.

Which, if you dig further, has deep ties with the US academic and media establishment. Much of the "Taiwanese are an independent people" ideology is being created or echoed in the halls of US universities, and then spread through "international" media by US media sources. Go read those articles from time to time - you'll realize the experts they're quoting, a majority of the time, aren't even Asian, but old white dudes with titles like "professor of Asian studies" or "political scientist with a focus on Asia-Pacific" or "expert of Chinese/Taiwanese history". In short, it's manufactured consent courtesy of the US establishment - the same tactic they use every where they want to encourage separatism/divide and conquer.

More soft power would still have helped. It would at least delay what's going on currently. And that would earn China time. I fully agree with @manqiangrexue and you on the main point. The solution to the Taiwan problem is missiles, not entertainment media. But a robust entertainment media would definitely help China in many political affairs. The lack of such an industry is a problem that needs attention from the government.