I am proud of our democratic cousins in Hong Kong; this is just the beginning. Who knows what kind of country China will be in 2047, maybe there is hope for democratic China or 50 more years of democratic Hong Kong, who knows.
As for Taiwan, Taiwanese people already identify themselves with being Taiwanese. Nearly 80% of people polled identify themselves in fact, in recent polls. Now we just need the older generations to slowly fade away (ones that still watch China influenced news channels). The fact that president Tsai (who is close to our US allies) won her party election recently and has a 10% lead over her opposite party opponents (who are now distancing themselves from China) give us great hope. Our independence is going to continue.
As for the naysayers that say China can simply invade, I beg to differ. China was always going to have problems attacking a well fortified island. But an old, broke China with no allies in the region attacking Taiwan with US backing it is impossible. And as time goes on, Taiwan will eventually declare independence and have the world support for it. That’s the future I am looking forward to
I think the South East Asia region will be more stable if Taiwan, a democratic nation, rises in power and gets less influenced by CCP, whose legitimacy depends largely on fast GDP growth, which is increasingly impossible in this age of excess production and currently is done only with unsustainable credit expansion. Recently Xi is switching the legitimacy from fast GDP growth to revival nationalism--the so called Chinese dream [1]--but such aggression is also destablizing to the region.
Some coordinated efforts in the free world to raise Taiwan would help, but at least Taiwan is gaining a little bit from the recent trade tariffs [2].
I doubt Mainland government will allow a “eventually” Taiwan independence because it hurts the legitimacy of CCP(on the MAINLAND!), which will have a cascading effect.
CCP's legitimacy is the war machine. Unlikely it will be deployed, but it is there nevertheless, and the perceived threat from US will only make it accelerate such actions.
You know who isn’t naive? CCP. Any slight acts of aggression against a democratic Taiwan will mean economic sanctions against China from US and its allies (EU, Japan, etc). China’s economy will go back to the stone ages. Those US, British, French warships patrolling the Taiwan straits aren’t just for fun neither
Almost vice-versa, ask US and its allies if they’ll support any equally aggressive action from Taiwan(e.g. break current tie) when there’s no benefit for them
I'm quite sure Taiwan will last longer than the CCP in Beijing. The end game is PRC becomes democratic eventually and then Taiwan can "unify" - meaning, China becomes a federal republic with Taiwan as one of the states/provinces.
People thought the Soviet Union would last forever and then, almost overnight, it was gone.
Please don't use HN for partisan battle. It's not what this site is for. Yes, the topic and the thread are political, but this is a big step in the wrong direction.
Sorry, but China could invade Taiwan by breakfast and be done by lunch if it was so influens. The only reason it has not happened already has very little with Taiwan to do and more with geopolitical issues and Chinas dependency on oil.
> Both Westerners and Taiwanese should be more optimistic about the defense of Taiwan than is now normal.
> Yes, the Taiwanese Army projects that it can only hold off its enemy for two weeks after the landing—but the PLA also believes that if it cannot defeat the Taiwanese forces in under two weeks, it will lose the war!
As for Taiwan, Taiwanese people already identify themselves with being Taiwanese. Nearly 80% of people polled identify themselves in fact, in recent polls. Now we just need the older generations to slowly fade away (ones that still watch China influenced news channels). The fact that president Tsai (who is close to our US allies) won her party election recently and has a 10% lead over her opposite party opponents (who are now distancing themselves from China) give us great hope. Our independence is going to continue.
As for the naysayers that say China can simply invade, I beg to differ. China was always going to have problems attacking a well fortified island. But an old, broke China with no allies in the region attacking Taiwan with US backing it is impossible. And as time goes on, Taiwan will eventually declare independence and have the world support for it. That’s the future I am looking forward to