Much worse, as the vast majority of PR people want to be part of the USA, as either a state or territory. Polls have shown only a tiny % want total independence.
However, most residents of Taiwan do not want to be part of Communist China.
Pretty much- 'what the people want"- is the only legitimate 'claim".
So did we, during WW2. For about the same reasons.
What about before?
FDR’s sons, who survived infancy, went to Groton.
CKS’s one natural son went to the Communist University of the Toilers of the East.
This seems to me rather typical communism:
One reason today’s Taiwan isn’t allowed official independence is that it would show a country, alleged to be culturally Chinese, doing well without communism.
P.S. I’m not sure, but maybe the objection to seeing Chiang and Xi as both being real communists is that there is a true, idealistic, communism apart from them. If so, it is irrelevant to the thread.
I doubt that is a real factor. Singapore is mostly Chinese and un-communist, and China has never objected.
Have you not heard of sending your children as hostages? Time honored tradition in many countries including China. This was part of the so-called alliance with the CCP engineered by the Young Marshall of Manchuria (see Xi’an Incident).
Read nothing beyond expediency and real politik into CKS son Chiang Ching-Kuo being sent to Russia.
CKS was from a wealthy family, a fascist warlord, married into the very rarified upper crust of wealthy China, and looted the country for personal gain. Didn’t have a communist bone in his body. You’re missing something very basic by continuing to try make arguments that somehow CKS was a faux commie if not a real one. Generalissimo CKS was the complete antithesis of a communist, and never in his entire life exhibited anything that suggested otherwise. I’m not trying to bust balls but am completely perplexed how anyone could possibly think CKS was any gradient of communist.
The “alliance” with the CCP was pretty much on paper only, and KMT spent that decade avoiding outright battle with the Japanese to conserve resources for the coming civil war that CKS and Mao knew would break out as soon as the Japanese were defeated.
Japanese Defense Minister has the following to say this week:
Japan is now having its two Izumo-class helicopter destroyer carriers modified in order to be able to handle the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B. While each can only handle “12 or more” of these advanced fighters, having two more small platforms isn’t a bad thing. Japan has two smaller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyūga-class_helicopter_destroyers which have not be upgraded yet, but are also capable of being retrofitted to allow F-35s.
With Japan as a potential ally of Taiwan in a conflict, this adds complexity to the equation for China.
There is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, and informal discussion between Australia, Japan, the US, and India on that the heck to do with China and it’s aggressiveness in the region.
One commentator said that all of this is basically the question of how to secure oil shipments from the Middle East. Japan gets 89% of its oil from there while China depends on the region for 41%. China can shut off Japan’s oil if it takes Taiwan, but getting into a shooting war with India puts an enemy between right on the shipping lanes.
The US sees China as possibly wanting to have capacity to invade Taiwan within six years, according to a report from a few days ago.
I think that you would find a lot has changed. It resembles Japan in that in the early 80s, the older people couldn’t speak “standard Japanese.” I just simply couldn’t communicate with any older person outside of Tokyo. People in their 50s and younger in the 1980s would have gone through school after the war and would have used standard Japanese in school so I had no problem with them.
More than anything TV changed the picture, with people exposed to more and more standard Japanese, the younger generations have started getting more fluent with it.
I asked my daughter, who is just finishing elementary school. She thinks that of the class of 25 students, only about five use Taiwanese as their primary language at home. Then maybe five to 10 kids can’t speak any Taiwanese and the rest are in between the two extremes. We live outside of Taipei.
If Japan did intervene in a war, its most valuable contribution would be submarines, probably not carriers. Taiwan has only 2 modern submarines but Japan could have a dozen or more operating in Taiwanese and nearby waters.
Isn’t Taiwan within F-15 range of Japan? If so, I’d think their air force would be their
biggest contribution.
The nearest Japanese airbase to Taiwan would be Okinawa, and that is still 700+ kilometers. They’d either have to have a lot of refueling support, or the Eagles could only loiter briefly in the Taiwan area before having to quickly return to base due to low fuel. The rest of Japan proper is around 1,400 kilometers away from Taiwan.
That’s well within airstrike range.
And within Chinese missile range as well.
Oh, absolutely. If Japan gets involved, its home islands will come under attack; that’s a given. Only America gets to fight wars with impunity.
Despite having lived in Japan for more than 20 years, and having had this discussion a number of times with various Japanese, the question of what would Japan do if Taiwan is attacked is something that the average Japanese isn’t able to answer.
With the US bases on Okinawa, many US commentators assume that they would be attacked, but that would also draw Japan into the war. Of course, China isn’t going to want the US have have bases this close without attacking them, so the calculations are complex.
While I was living in Japan (I moved here 10 years ago) it was still thought that the US could adequately defend Taiwan without Japan having to actually commit itself.
That’s most likely still the case, and perhaps always will be. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be very different from every war America’s fought in almost a century; it would be a war in which the onus would be on China to successfully execute a complex amphibious invasion. An island is very difficult to invade; the only way to get there is by sea or air, and therefore if the island can successfully shoot down enough aircraft transports or sink enough ships, the invasion cannot succeed. In such a situation, the advantage would be heavily on America’s side; it could potentially turn the tide of the war by putting only a few thousand lives at risk (that is, the crews of submarines, for instance.) Even a relatively small number of American SSNs could have an outsized influence on the outcome of the war. This would be like the Falklands War, but on a bigger scale (British SSNs had enormous impact on the war’s outcome and were well-nigh impossible for the Argentines to sink.)
An article earlier this year that Taiwan is looking into increase their antiship capability.
Whether or not Beijing will actually invade Taiwan within the next decade is in limbo, but one thing is for sure, which is a big chunk of Taiwan’s national budget will go to buying weapons from the US…
Since they are counting on the US to come to the rescue, doesn’t that make sense?
Not sure if this is meant as a dig or something, but - yes, that’s what many allies do. South Korea does it. Japan does it. Israel does it. Poland does it. Australia does it. Saudi Arabia does it. The UAE does it. It’s usually much better to buy something like warplanes than make them yourself.