- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
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Huh, I thought the KMT recently fell out of favour with the US. I’m surprised to see this outcome. Well, not surprised to see the gridlock, that was pretty much inevitable.
Yeah, KMT is pro peaceful reunification, but I think the whole Ukraine debacle is starting to sober people up in Taiwan now. If not for the whole FPTP bullshit, DPP would’ve been out of power at this point.
The KMT is not pro peaceful reunification. There are no reunification party out of all 3 parties vying for power. KMT is at best pro “saying the right things to placate the Mainland so they can maintain the current situation for as long as possible, probably indefinitely if they can” , while making no real efforts to change the anti-Mainland propaganda and education that’s been going for the past few decades.
There are very little internal forces within Taiwan that actively wants reunification. Those who support it are majority an elderly generation who are increasingly dying out. The younger generation, especially the past 15 years, have been educated to believe Taiwan is not Chinese despite speaking/writing Chinese and having all the same traditions. It’s politically correct there to despise the Mainland despite watching Mainland TV shows and pop culture, and engaging in Mainland’s social media.
Of course the PRC leadership knows that there are no political faction in Taiwan that will move toward reunification. They also understand that Taiwan’s so called independence exist only due to US keeping it as a chesspiece to poke PRC whenever it likes. So they will exert some pressure but mostly leave Taiwan alone for now (unless they do something unbearably provocative) but will prepare to fight if necessary to push US power out of the South China Sea. Once that’s done, Taiwan will have no ability to maintain its separation and will fall into the orbit whether it wants to or not.
Didn’t KMT effectively come to an arrangement with the mainland regarding becoming an autonomous region in 2014 though. My understanding is that the whole sunflower movement thing was a direct response to that by US.
I completely agree that in the long run Taiwan will inevitably end up being reunified, hence why the mainland is going to avoid the military option unless US starts crossing the red lines like putting missiles that could strike the mainland in Taiwan.
KMT seem to be at least realistic about the situation, and I expect they’d agree to renouncing separatism in exchange for becoming an autonomous region that’s nominally part of China. If reunification happens now, Taiwan can get a lot of concessions, but as its position becomes less tenable then the position from the mainland will harden.
What Ma Yingjiu was able to do 10 years ago is no longer as feasible today. The wealth disparity and military disparity between the two regions has grown much greater so Taiwan is now in a even worse position and unlikely to get what it had been offered then. Taiwan itself also has been undergoing 10 additional years of anti-Mainland propaganda, the DPP has been actively cutting off engagement between the people, as compared to 2014 when relations had been quite friendly with open policies to visit, tourism, and business etc.
While the KMT is at least prepared to acknowledge that permanent separation is unlikely, and while it is the most pro-“Chinese culture” party (as in, willing to admit they are Chinese but not that PRC is the representative of China), the KMT is not ready to officially active engage in reunification. They have their own deeply entrenched interests and benefits in keeping Taiwan separate, which they know they will lose if Taiwan becomes a part of China.
Finally, the KMT has crap reputation with the younger generation, as their authoritarian rule for decades had tortured a lot of Taiwanese citizens with horrible policies, and to this day they haven’t found the words nor policies to attract a younger crowd.
In the election that’s just happened, NO candidate dared even to mention the fact that separation is probably impossible, that Taiwan should probably have some contingency plans to prevent a conflict with China, or for negotiation in face of what is factually inevitable. The KMT didn’t even dare to mention that Taiwan had Chinese origin, or that they are Chinese under ROC. Everyone is all acting like ostriches–though the non-DPP supporting citizen knows better and hence the DPP only had 40% win out of the 70% turnout. But the political rhetoric was all unbearably hypocritical and not based on anything realistic.
Ultimately once you cut past all the theatre and posturing, the hard facts are that Taiwan is entirely dependent on China economically, and that there is no scenario where it can win against China militarily even with the best possible support that separatists can hope for. In the long run, reunification is the only possible outcome here.
I expect that a lot of the oligarchs in Taiwan understand this perfectly well, and they can see also how things are playing out in Ukraine. I suspect that when push comes to shove, a lot ofthem will find whatever terms China offers to be preferable to being used as a proxy.
That said, it’s pretty clear that China would prefer to maintain the status quo to taking military action because it plays in China’s favor. As time goes on, Chinese military is becoming increasingly more capable, China is insulating itself from the west economically, and securing resources that will be needed in case there’s a break down in relations with the west. At the same time, US influence is waning globally, and its military is finding itself increasingly overstretched. Time is on China’s side here.
The only scenario I can see where China takes military action would be if US tried putting missiles that can attack the mainland in Taiwan or some other equivalent type of provocation that crosses the red lines of China’s security. Given how unhinged US regime is, this is of course an entirely plausible scenario.
This is the big risk Taiwan is taking by playing the game it’s currently playing. US knows that their window for military option is closing, and if that means they could choose to push Taiwan into war.
I don’t know how pro-peaceful reunification the government is, but I do know they are anti-being turned into a smoking crater thanks to their “ally” the US.
As I recall, back in 2014, KMT was on a verge of a deal with the mainland where they’d renounce independence, and in exchange Taiwan would have a representative on the mainland. Taiwan would’ve been an autonomous region and allowed its own army. Then US ran the sunflower movement in response to that which got DPP installed into power.
