well…like the old saying goes: “being a friend of USA is fatal” their vassals are being sanctioned as hard as their enemies in many ways or sometimes even harder if you compare argentina and colombia with venezuela with tariffs and decertifications
For the Taiwan question, we can be very happy that the US power projection is collapsing now at this time. The US knows it needed at least one or two more decades of NGO funding and education intervention on the island to curate separatism among the newer generations. The issue is that Taiwans economy is not doing too well and the jobmarket for younger people isn’t getting better. Reunification is looking nicer and nicer by the day.
DOGE also set back the funding cycle for USAID so downstream NGOs are strained or even closing shop. yay for US gov efficiency?
Another factor is the collapse in Ukraine. Everybody in Taiwan can see that this is the fate that would await them as well if they continue down the path they’re on now.
Yea I wonder how it would go down if it really came to it. Unlike Ukraine they obviously don’t have a land corridor to anywhere, the CPC just take over by controlling what is allowed to get to the island via a naval blockade or similar. It isn’t like the US could do anything.
Another factor is the collapse in Ukraine. Everybody in Taiwan can see that this is the fate that would await them as well if they continue down the path they’re on now.
That’s my expectation as well, the mainland doesn’t need to do any kind of a ground invasion. Taiwan imports 90% of its energy, so a blockade would collapse them in weeks.
Even fifteen years ago when the US played their internal war strategy game simulating a war with China and lost.
And in the most recent one run by CSIS, they didn’t just lose, they got absolutely annihilated. 95% of the collation air force was destroyed on the ground.
I can’t imagine how much libs would seethe if Trump causes the reunification of Taiwan with the PRC.
The KMT only lost the last election because the vote was split with the TPP, and because of that the DPP won with 40% of the vote.
The biggest change this coming election is the fact that the TPP doesn’t really have anyone to run because the leader is currently in jail for made-up charges. In other words, there is no real alternative to Cheng Li-wun in this coming 2028 election. All eyes in the international sphere are on Cheng Li-wun right now and the KMT is actively courting the disenfranchised TPP supporters over to her side. Lai Ching-te is seen as a joke and the Tsai Ing-wen days are over. The DPP simply has no real path forward right now. People want them gone and know their only realistic option is Cheng Li-wun.
I can’t find polling but I can see in PolyMarket they are hovering at a 90% chance of winning in the November local elections.
it’s gonna be delicious
Me the millisecond it happens. (Without the weird Ukraine flag cup)
That’d be Comrade Trumps finest achievement so far.
I love how the article starts with focusing on President Xi’s facial expressions and body language.
Chinese president Xi Jinping does not often look like he’s having a good time. His resting face at public events exudes a mixture of boredom and annoyance, as though he has more interesting business elsewhere.
Does he have to? What even is the point of this section?
His displays of good humor have qualified as news in Chinese state media.
Really screaming “President Xi laughs, but at what cost”, aren’t we? Meanwhile in the US, anything a celebrity does is considered news.
All that aside, it’s interesting to see that Taiwan separatists are understanding that the empire isn’t going to help them, probably because they know what might happen if the empire goes to war with China. We’re at a point where US proxies are coming to terms with the harsh reality that the empire isn’t gonna be there for them. At some point, they outlast their usefulness to the US.
It kind of reminds me of what that demon Kissinger was referring to when he said, “to be empire’s enemy is dangerous, but to be empire’s ally is fatal.”
Western news has always been hyper obsessed with trying to break down appearances and for them to a narrative. After all, the entirety of the US politics is all theatre and performative bullshit to distract the masses from being ravaged for every penny they have.
The man has an extreme amount of responsibility. He arguably answers to the will and concerns of more people than anyone else on the planet. Do they expect him to be publicly jovial or flippant?
One way or the other Tiawan will be China again. They only have to ask if they want the easy way, or the easier way. Cause a single Chinese ship is equipped enough to take out the entire Tiwanese Navy at this point, and they are only getting more advanced by the… I was gonna say year but it’s more like by the month at this point.
Yes, but let’s not forget war is not won by having the most advanced ships. This is why China play their game smartly, bidding their time, instead of the US blowing up the whole world until their military starts falling apart.
What’s bizarre to me is that people in Taiwan can look at how reunification went in HK already. There are literally no downsides.
“But muh democracy” is about all they can muster tbf
For some odd reason, the Chinese people not on the mainland* trust the Chinese government more than they do a warmonger mob boss thousands of miles away.
*I am blanking on the canonical Chinese name for Taiwan, but I’m pretty sure calling it Taiwan like it’s a separate entity at every opportunity is a western thing?
Actually this is something I know a bit about so I’d be happy to share it with you.
So what we in the western world call the Taiwanese government is called the Taiwan Authorities 台湾当局. This is for obvious reasons. Namely, they recognise themselves as part of China and they are quite obviously not the government of China and nobody today pretends that they are except for like 11 micronations.
Also, what we call the Republic of China is the official name for the country of China that was later renamed to the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It is not a separate entity to the People’s Republic of China, the same way The Republic of Türkiye is not a different entity to The Republic of Turkey.
Then you have the Taiwan Province 台湾省 which refers to the literal province itself. Note that that Taiwan Authorities aren’t the legitimate government of the 台湾省 and also occupy the Kinmen and Matsu Islands of the Fujian province so using this to refer to the area governed by the Taiwan Authorities doesn’t make much sense.
Then finally you have the Taiwan Area 台湾地区 which is informally used as the territories occupied by the Taiwan Authorities. It is used in media when needing to refer to that area in the specific context of that territory. It’s an informal name so you wouldn’t see it on official documentation or anything like that (if you’re applying for a visa and need to list out where you are visiting in China and you include your Taiwan Area itinerary (i.e. going from the mainland to Taiwan back to the mainland), you would explicitly use Jinmen County, Fujian Province 福建省金门县 or Taibei City, Taiwan Province 台湾省台北市.
Finally, Taiwan as a separate entity has never been the desire of the KMT. When the DPP first won in 2000, they won with only 39% of the vote. In 2004 they won with 50.11% of the vote. In 2016 and 2020 they won with 56% and 57% of the vote. And most recently, in 2024, they won with only 40% of the vote.
When the DPP were first elected in 2000, they were elected as the pro-democracy party against the fascist oppressive Kuomintang and had nothing to do with separatism. Prior to the 2016 election they advocated a path towards independence through genuine neutrality from both China and the United States and a way out of their limbo status. But as soon as they got into power they simply said “we don’t have to declare independence because we are already independent” and solidified Taiwan’s status as a vassal of the American and Japanese empires.
Now that the façade has finally been exposed come 2024 the party has no mandate to advocate for separatism and they know their time is coming. And because of that they’ve been emboldened out of desperation to promote this idea of Taiwan being not allowed to choose its own self-determination when the people of Taiwan have literally self-determined themselves towards reunification.
And if you know anything about the Chinese proposal for reunification you would know it’s an even better deal than what Hong Kong or even what Taiwan currently has. It literally allowed Taiwan to continue to have its own style of government (at the time of the proposal Taiwan was still under martial law rule and not a bourgeois democracy) and its own military and even pursue its own foreign relationships. The proposal quite literally has nothing to do with communism or supporting communism. Obviously at the time China was broke as shit so Taiwan laughed it off, but fast forward to today and people are starting to realise “wait, maybe this whole limbo status as being part of China could actually work to our benefit because we can now profit from the insane wealth of China”.
Very interesting, thank you for sharing so much context on it.
The island is called Taiwan, the government is the Republic of China.
I had a look on prolewiki, I think maybe what I’m thinking of is this:
Taiwan Province (also known as Taiwan, TW; Chinese: 台湾) is a province of the People’s Republic of China.
All countries in the world recognize Taiwan as a part of China. In addition, more than 99.5% of the world population lives in countries that recognize Beijing as the seat of governance of China.
According to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, “Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People’s Republic of China. It is the sacred duty of all the Chinese people, including our fellow Chinese in Taiwan, to achieve the great reunification of the motherland.”[2]
The province is currently controlled by the unrecognized government of the Republic of China, which ruled the mainland from 1912 until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, where Kuomintang forces fled to Formosa. Upon arriving, the Kuomintang violently persecuted leftists and the native people of Taiwan in the White Terror. The People’s Republic of China has a Taiwan Affairs Office to negotiate with Taiwan authorities, the Republic of China, on the other hand, has the Mainland Affairs Council.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Taiwan_Province
So I guess I was confusing naming with terminology. The distinction seems to be that most view it as a part of China, whereas western imperialists try to frame it like Taiwan is a distinct entity; which it sort of is insofar as western meddling prevents full alignment with the mainland, but it’s largely an externally manufactured conflict by this point?
