Thank you for sharing @drolma
That makes sense. I guess my friend is more in favour of the pro China movement.
I love a lot of East Asian culture. I love reading and watching videos about ancient Japan, China, Singapore and Taiwan. I am fascinated by it all and it was through that I met my friend from Taiwan online.
This might sound weird, but I think I have had a spiritual connection to East Asia for quite a while. I am not sure exactly what it means, but I have had a number of personal vivd dreams over the years that have made that connection stronger. How much of that is real or just random I don't know...
@drolma Considering that China has used its economic might instead of warring with its neighbors it seems highly unlikely that they would ever need to use real force on Taiwan. Isn’t about 75% of all the trade/GDP of Taiwan directly tied to China? Apparently the Taiwan government claims that China is abusing them if China even suggests that they will stop trading since Taiwan is so “independent”and doesn’t need them. This very much reminds me of the Cubans in Florida who will never get over the $$$ and land they lost in the Castro revolution. It is now 3 generations away. Taiwan has much the same attitude because that is where refugees from Mao escaped to after that revolution. Never underestimate generational anger and hate.
@danielle Actually the people escaped China and their descendents like myself are more likely to be pro-China because of our upbringing and the facts we still have relatives on mainland. The "native" Taiwanese came after the Manchurians invaded China. They were quite a resistance force back then. When the Nationalists took over Taiwan from Japan after WWII, they jailed and executed many Taiwanese elites, who and whose descendents became the leaders of the pro-dependence camp. I don't know about hatred, but we surely do not trust China, after all they have threatened Taiwan with invasion since the Nationalists arrived. Taiwanese enjoy the freedom of criticizing their government and establishments. Remember the fist fights so common in the Taiwanese parlimentary meetings? That's the spirit I was referring to.
@drolma (of course you know all this) after looking up stuff in Wiki it seems even more complex…4 centuries of Han migration to Taiwan, almost total displacement of the indigenous population (who are the apparent progenitors of much of Malaysia). The Han who came after Mao are just a fraction of the totality. The basic difficulty is that Taiwan is so close to the mainland. If they could have had more distance (like Japan) this may not have become such an issue.
This is sort of relevant to the discussion abput China:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62482141
US invests $280bn in high tech to compete with China
I was wondering if this will cause damage to China's economy since many tech products like Apple are manufactured in China or perhaps the US is anticipating disruption to the semi-conductor supply and other hardware chains in Taiwan by China?
Which brings me to my next question, is China going to go through more sanctions and will more of the world turn away and shun China? The reason I ask is becauss it looks they are building relationships all around the world and doing deals with lots of different countries that the US used to do deals with like for example some of the countries in Africa. China appears to be lending them money and helping them build infrastructure, which is what the US had formerly agreed to do but for some reason or another lost out to China on.
If I am being honest, I think this business of China is going to continue for some time. I think there is a lot of deals going on all around the world behind the scenes with China. I think there might even be a few big surprises on that revealed later this year from countries that the US thought was one of their strongest allies or least likely to deal directly with China. It is also possible that China may have even infilitrated Washington in some way based on the vision of @laura-f - or it may mean the US (specifically those in Washington) are unable to keep as much control over Taiwan as they want to and may also lose global support on their position over Taiwan.
But on another subject, we should also keep an eye on India - it looks like there could be more border skirmishes with China there in the future and India looks set to grow economically really fast over the coming years.
China appears to be lending them money and helping them build infrastructure, which is what the US had formerly agreed to do but for some reason or another lost out to China on.
This is the New Silk Road policy that China has been using for decades. They loan money to 2nd & 3rd world countries to build modern infrastructure - a deep water port, for example - under the guise of helping these poor nations modernize themselves. Part of the terms of the loan is that while China will hire locals for unskilled and semi-skilled labor - which helps the local gov'ts brag about how many jobs they've "created" - all of the skilled labor, architects, engineers, and administration for the project is strictly limited to Chinese nationals. That way, the port is designed and built to Chinese specifications, not what the host country might actually need or want, but they can still brag about having a modern port. Oh, and the rest of the world praises China for its "international relations and goodwill".
Another part of the loan terms is that the collateral for the loans is the port itself. China knows that the countries they are doing these loans and projects for have governments that are known to be either 1) at least marginally if not completely corrupt, and that any money loaned to these countries will be quickly squandered and/or embezzled, or 2) too poor or unstable economically to ever repay the loans even under generous terms. When the time comes for payments to be made, lo and behold, the country suddenly doesn't have the money to pay, so under the terms of the loan, the port - as collateral - reverts to full Chinese ownership and control. It's all perfectly legal and well documented in the loan contract, so there's nothing the host country can do about it. China now has a deep water port in another country that they wouldn't have been able to negotiate for otherwise without raising international suspicion or objections, and they've done it with their own money (which they would have had to do anyway), and the cherry on top is that host nation is now beholden to them. This is exactly how China has built almost all of it's New Silk Road.
Thanks for the detailed explanation @tgraf66 - I forgot about the New Silk Road policy.
I am also concerned as a Westerner that we in the West are in decline. That may seem selfish, but I look at how fractured things are becoming in the UK and US and also in the European Union, and I see we are not as strong in unity as we once were.
Over the course of the next decade, which nation will be the leader of the Free World? I ask because our democracies seem less free and many times seem more corrupted and fractured, and as mentioned by @laura-f, it appears autocracies are having the upper hand in different places around the world.
China, China, China!
Keep watching. I had this feeling earlier this year.
Also, it seems many of the things people have spoken about in this thread are starting to unfold.
@tbs @enkasongwriter