China | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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China

China was always playing the long game. Western societies tend to plan out only as far as the next election.
Again though. Not an either or. Reading about the Taiwan and South Korea (and to a degree, Japan a few decades before them) path to development, is very intriguing. They also played a very long game and didn’t need to resort to the level of totalitarianism and the same form of governance as the CCP regime.

Fair to say they went through periods that were far from democratic. But at the same time, they were strident anti-communists. You see the post war regimes in Taiwan and South Korea needed to deliver common prosperity, while undercutting the communists in the ideological battle for hearts and minds. Given that both of these countries owed their existence to struggle against communist movements. And there was always the threat of communist insurgency. They needed to find a system that removed the appeal of communism of the likes of China.

The Taiwanese high tech industry and Korean auto manufacturing, ship building, steel manufacturing and tech industry are legacies of this.

True, China has always played a long game - or at least aimed to. But I’m not 100% convinced it’s not running out of steam and fraying at the seams as much as the United States of America project is. It’s one explanation as to why Xi and his faction have gone on quiet purges in a massive power grab in recent years. The difference is that in a country with no free press. They are able to keep a lid on the domestic fraying of society.
 
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Taiwan and South Korea, even Japan, succeeded with the support and protection of the US.

The US is imploding. China will be watching the worlds reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and formulating their plans.

Trump changed the world order, and there are more Trumps on the horizon.

As soon as China believe they can replace Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing with their own, Taiwan is in trouble.

For China, unification of Taiwan has always been a matter of when, not if.
 
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Far from democratic?

Taiwan was a military dictatorship installed by the nationalists fleeing the mainland and South Korea was also a military dictatorship. Far from democratic is an understatement.

Doesn't make them worse than the current mob in China but don't rewrite history.

DS
 
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Far from democratic?

Taiwan was a military dictatorship installed by the nationalists fleeing the mainland and South Korea was also a military dictatorship. Far from democratic is an understatement.

Doesn't make them worse than the current mob in China but don't rewrite history.

DS
Didn’t rewrite history at all. They weren’t democratic no. But their society wasn’t socio-economically totalitarian is more what I was getting at.
 
Taiwan and South Korea, even Japan, succeeded with the support and protection of the US.

The US is imploding. China will be watching the worlds reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and formulating their plans.

Trump changed the world order, and there are more Trumps on the horizon.

As soon as China believe they can replace Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing with their own, Taiwan is in trouble.

For China, unification of Taiwan has always been a matter of when, not if.
Glad you used the term “unification.” Not the subversive “reunification” that the CCP propaganda machine has been pushing on the world. Utter a lie enough times and it becomes truth. Have even seen some western media outlets beaten into submission and uttering the term “reunification.”
 
Go onto youtube and you'll three videos a day predicting China's economy is 28 days (so precise) away from crashing.
 
Didn’t rewrite history at all. They weren’t democratic no. But their society wasn’t socio-economically totalitarian is more what I was getting at.

Ok, so a so-called communist regime is totalitarian but a military dictatorship isn't?

While we're at it, does not the constitution of the Republic of China also call for reunification?

DS
 
Ok, so a so-called communist regime is totalitarian but a military dictatorship isn't?

While we're at it, does not the constitution of the Republic of China also call for reunification?

DS
Of course a military dictatorship can be as totalitarian as a communist regime in every facet of civic life. But Taiwan and South Korea decided against that. So what I was delving into, it depends how a regime orders it’s society (or incentivises how a society will be ordered) at the levels below the top political power as to whether one could consider it totalitarian in every facet of life. That’s more what I was trying to articulate.

Like I said in an earlier post. Taiwan and South Korea were very susceptible to communist insurgency, given they had been fighting ideological and physical wars with communists. So they needed to find a way to undercut the communists, so that communist doctrine held no appeal for the hearts and minds of the populace.

So what the Taiwan and South Korean regimes did in the early stages (which Japan did somewhat too the 1890s onwards - well before the world wars) with their land and industrial reforms was more closely aligned to a form of ‘distributism’ as opposed to communism or socialism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
Some have colloquially described distributism as ‘community capitalism’. And by ordering a society this way, it means that local communities largely go about every day life without much input from an all encompassing state as a communist state tends to. Hence what I meant by not being totalitarian in the all encompassing way that communist revolutions tend to be. This explains why communist revolutions tend to be so adversarial to religion and become quasi-religions in themselves. They have an insatiable appetite to control every facet of civic and personal life - totalitarian at every level of one’s existence.

Despite being dictatorships at the top, Taiwan and South Korea didn’t do this. And wisely, they also didn’t do what other anti-communist dictatorships in South Vietnam or the Philippines did by essentially just leaving all the wealth and ownership among a tiny elite. You could say that by ordering their society in such a way, it set in motion an inevitability to evolve away from a dictatorial form of governance at the top. Because the populace and community units within it were empowered to form their own destiny.

Sure, for the large ticket items, there was a huge amount of state intervention. I am not arguing against such measures at all. But it was more in the form of large incentives (such as via the financial system). Quite a different way than the communist totalitarian version.

It was somewhat situational though. A lot of the means to production and property had been owned by recently expelled Japanese colonialists in both Taiwan and South Korea. Therefore such reforms were relatively easy.

As to your point about unification or re-unification. A lot of it depends on context. Of the thousands of years of the civilisation of China, guess how many years Taiwan has been ruled by a mainland Han Chinese regime? The answer is 4 years. So to infer it is a natural historical appendage of mainland China (as the CCP does) is rewriting history to the extreme. Sure, Mongol regimes that held mainland China ruled Taiwan for longer periods. But the Chinese themselves don’t consider these periods legitimate rulers of China. They are thought of as invaders and colonists. So once again, tying themselves in knots of contradictions.

The constitution of ROC using ‘reunification’ would refer to the regime being Han Chinese people in exile. And hence one day will go back to their homeland and be reunited with it. Having said that, it’s an anachronism among most Taiwanese now. Very few see that as a realistic proposition. Particularly Tsai’s party in power. Which of course puts them in the difficult predicament. Do they state the material reality of the situation by explicitly declaring that they are a separate, independent Chinese society on the island of Taiwan (which of course we know the ramifications of that)?
 
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You know, when Park Chung-Hee told the Chaebol leaders to modernise the economy or face being gaoled, it looks a hell of a lot like a state controlling society to me. Especially when you consider that the Chaebols control so much of the economy, they don't just make phones or cars, they own hospitals, banks, amusement parks etc. Military dictatorships control society, not dissimilar to what happens when socialists take power. The problem is the dictatorship, not the branding of the dictatorship.

The fact that South Korea and Taiwan have managed to remove their dictatorships is not an advertisement for the brand of dictatorships that they had, it is down to the people organising to remove them.

As for the China situation, The whole world sees China as including Taiwan, before the early 70s it effectively saw Taiwan as including all of China as the Republic of China was the recognised government. This is the reality whether we like it or not. The question is how we get around this. China has their preferred solution, the west's solution is to continue to kick the can down the road with no resolution, but that can't last as China has become too powerful. I don't know how you fix this but arguments about history will not shift anyone's opinions and China wants Taiwan back and they know the west is not willing to risk all out war to stop them.

DS
 
You know, when Park Chung-Hee told the Chaebol leaders to modernise the economy or face being gaoled, it looks a hell of a lot like a state controlling society to me. Especially when you consider that the Chaebols control so much of the economy, they don't just make phones or cars, they own hospitals, banks, amusement parks etc. Military dictatorships control society, not dissimilar to what happens when socialists take power. The problem is the dictatorship, not the branding of the dictatorship.

The fact that South Korea and Taiwan have managed to remove their dictatorships is not an advertisement for the brand of dictatorships that they had, it is down to the people organising to remove them.

As for the China situation, The whole world sees China as including Taiwan, before the early 70s it effectively saw Taiwan as including all of China as the Republic of China was the recognised government. This is the reality whether we like it or not. The question is how we get around this. China has their preferred solution, the west's solution is to continue to kick the can down the road with no resolution, but that can't last as China has become too powerful. I don't know how you fix this but arguments about history will not shift anyone's opinions and China wants Taiwan back and they know the west is not willing to risk all out war to stop them.

DS

Of course there are large elements of State dictatorship. Your Chaebol example is absolutely correct. But I maintain it wasn’t the same all encompassing dictatorship at every level of society, right down to the individuals’ soul that Communist dictatorships aim for.

Once again, it was the distributist society that Taiwan and South Korea set up at the community level (kicked off by land reforms as opposed to a scorched earth revolution in a communist system) that set in motion the inevitability that they would evolve into a more democratic form of governance. Sure, this certainly wouldn’t have been a deliberate eventuality by the dictators at the time. They were focussed on incentivising ways of making the country productive, right down to the community level. Everything else was second order. But It inadvertently did give power to local communities and individual family groups to have a large degree of autonomy over their own destiny. Something the all encompassing totalitarianism of Communist dictatorships absolutely will not tolerate. It created a society that is not dictatorial in every facet of life right down to peoples soul at the individual level, as a communist system seeks to.

Does the whole world really see China as including Taiwan? I’m not sure that is correct. Many countries have been bullied into NOT saying they think Taiwan is independent of China (which in every material respect it essentially is). That’s not the same as saying they think that Taiwan IS China.
 
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Very few countries recognise Taiwan as a separate country. Not the USA, not Australia, maybe a few minor countries. Ironically Taiwan officially recognises the Peoples' Republic and the Republic as one country. You may say they don't take notice of this, but it is the price they pay for claiming to be the government of all of China, including the mainland, for so long. Plus, Taiwan will not be changing their constitution any time soon, guaranteed invasion if they do so.

DS
 
Very few countries recognise Taiwan as a separate country. Not the USA, not Australia, maybe a few minor countries. Ironically Taiwan officially recognises the Peoples' Republic and the Republic as one country. You may say they don't take notice of this, but it is the price they pay for claiming to be the government of all of China, including the mainland, for so long. Plus, Taiwan will not be changing their constitution any time soon, guaranteed invasion if they do so.

DS
Australia the US etc don’t recognise Taiwan officially, but that’s not the same as saying they recognise it as part of the PRC either. Implicitly they recognise Taiwan as does every nation with unofficial Taiwan missions (Taiwan embassies in all but name). You inferred that yourself earlier with your reference to the kick the can down the road ambivalent policy of the west.

Am I misinterpreting or is it nearly like you implicitly (or even gleefully) want to see the end of Taiwan as it currently stands?
 
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I just don't agree with hammering China over their historical interpretations while whitewashing the past of the Republic of China.

DS
 
I just don't agree with hammering China over their historical interpretations while whitewashing the past of the Republic of China.

DS
And I refuse to fall for CCP rewritten history and propaganda.

What this is all about at it’s heart. The CCP has cultivated (or is attempting to) a world view that it is the absolute authority of ‘Chineseness’ for want of a better description. The CCP and it’s form of governance is synonymous with the Chinese world and ethnically and culturally Chinese people within it. They are inseparable. It has ownership and control over Chinese history, culture, people and society. There is no Chinese world without the CCP.

I have a few ‘Overseas Chinese’ friends who’s families left China before, or to get away from the Cultural revolution and they feel the political fractures going through overseas Chinese communities from insidious political influences pushing this agenda.

Taiwan is no less a Chinese society than mainland China. And is successful in its own right, with different form if governance. So it makes lies of the world view the CCP is pushing that it is synonymous with ‘Chineseness’ and hence they feel (in a neurotic way), it threatens their long term legitimacy.

What are they going to do? Bomb the *smile* out of the Taiwan, a successful democratic nation, kill millions of them, send the other 17million to reeducation prison camps and then argue they “liberated” them? It’s total *smile* nonsense. If Taiwan was still a military dictatorship, they might have some semblance of credibility arguing it is a mission of liberation.

I know progressives in the west are weirdly torn on the question of Taiwan, because they are still infatuated with the ideal of a communist or socialist state. However in China, it is an ideology corrupted by an insatiable desire for spiteful vengeance, that permeates a lot of what they do and they won’t stop until it has been achieved.
 
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Not sure who you are addressing this to, the CCP are doing what any authoritarian regime does, it writes its own history, but that is pretty familiar. If we are to be better than them then we need to be honest about all of the history. Taiwan was a military dictatorship run by the losers of the civil war in China and the West maintained the fiction of a unified Republic of China until the early 70s. Are we now surprised that a resurgent Peoples' Republic uses this to their advantage?

The CCP are about as communist as Milton Friedman. Just authoritarian with a different brand.

But they are also powerful and are asserting that power as you would expect. Who knows what the solution is, maybe kicking the can down the road is the best strategy for the moment, but lets not kid ourselves that this has anything to do with protecting democracy, no, this is all about rival great powers. If Taiwan was still authoritarian it would make no difference except for the messaging.

DS
 
Ok, so a so-called communist regime is totalitarian but a military dictatorship isn't?

While we're at it, does not the constitution of the Republic of China also call for reunification?

DS

Dictatorships are not usually totalitarian, although totalitarian leaders are definitely dictators. This is good description of the distinction.

Totalitarianism is often distinguished from dictatorship, despotism, or tyranny by its supplanting of all political institutions with new ones and its sweeping away of all legal, social, and political traditions. The totalitarian state pursues some special goal, such as industrialization or conquest, to the exclusion of all others. All resources are directed toward its attainment, regardless of the cost. Whatever might further the goal is supported; whatever might foil the goal is rejected. This obsession spawns an ideology that explains everything in terms of the goal, rationalizing all obstacles that may arise and all forces that may contend with the state. The resulting popular support permits the state the widest latitude of action of any form of government. Any dissent is branded evil, and internal political differences are not permitted. Because pursuit of the goal is the only ideological foundation for the totalitarian state, achievement of the goal can never be acknowledged.


Neither South Korea nor Taiwan ever had the features of a totalitarian state.
 
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Australia the US etc don’t recognise Taiwan officially, but that’s not the same as saying they recognise it as part of the PRC either. Implicitly they recognise Taiwan as does every nation with unofficial Taiwan missions (Taiwan embassies in all but name). You inferred that yourself earlier with your reference to the kick the can down the road ambivalent policy of the west.

Am I misinterpreting or is it nearly like you implicitly (or even gleefully) want to see the end of Taiwan as it currently stands?

DS's best work on this topic was when he suggested that we'd get upset if Tasmania unilaterally demanded independence making the parallel with Taiwan.

Our response was "they can go with our blessing" :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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DS's best work on this topic was when he suggested that we'd get upset if Tasmania unilaterally demanded independence making the parallel with Taiwan.

Our response was "they can go with our blessing" :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
would need to think about that. on one hand it would be mean (i assume) any promising young footballers could be signed as Cat B rookies, and surely any tasmanian would want to play for Richmond, on the other hand we would lose the decent cricketer they produce every 20 years or so, slightly weakening our national team.
 
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Not sure who you are addressing this to, the CCP are doing what any authoritarian regime does, it writes its own history, but that is pretty familiar. If we are to be better than them then we need to be honest about all of the history. Taiwan was a military dictatorship run by the losers of the civil war in China and the West maintained the fiction of a unified Republic of China until the early 70s. Are we now surprised that a resurgent Peoples' Republic uses this to their advantage?

The CCP are about as communist as Milton Friedman. Just authoritarian with a different brand.
You are absolutely correct. The CCP, since finding it’s etho-nationalist lustre is probably closer to fascism than it is to communism. Given communist economic doctrine was abandoned for an extreme form of state capitalism.

I don’t think anyone is ignoring what Taiwan used to be at all (as a side point we’ll agree to disagree on what was the lesser of evils) through the 1960s-70s . But they are certainly acknowledging what it has evolved into.

Is it about great power struggle? Of course, undeniably it is. But built into that is supporting countries we find more common ground with regarding compatible values. Otherwise, what even is our raison d’être?

And this goes back to my point on the weird, torn dynamics I observe and read among those on the progressive side of the political spectrum in the west. Your inference is actually quite right, China isn’t really communist anymore. So it’s not so much the pining for a communist power flexing its muscle.

I suspect it comes more from a fundamental disdain for western civilisation and society that some academics and commentators and wannabe revolutionaries on the left have. And by extension, probably viewing Taiwan as an Asian puppet state, representative of western dominance. Something some gleefully want to see dismantled along with our own society. People so blinded by their hatred of our own civilisation they are willing and foolish enough to believe their enemy’s enemy is their friend so to speak. Supporting anything that challenges the status quo.

I see lot of people complain about the ‘ruling class’ of our ‘white, patriarchal western society.’ Nothing wrong with that as such. But what I’ve come to realise, they aren’t so much concerned about a ruling class of people per se. They just want to ensure it’s ‘their’ people who are the ruling class wielding power over everyone. And this is where concepts such as ‘restorative justice’ (read my earlier comment on CCP ideology being corrupted by spiteful vengeance as one of it’s central tenets - which is intertwined in their motives for ending Taiwan) find quite a bit of common ground with an entity like the CCP. Given the pervasiveness of ‘cancel culture’ for wrong think in our tertiary education sector, I suspect some are even a bit envious of the authoritarian possibilities of such concepts as China’s social credit score. .
 
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The social credit phenomenon is largely a myth. For anyone actually interested in what happens in China rather than just repeating poorly conceived western media tropes, suggest this excellent podcast Chinese Whispers, from The Spectator UK, a conservative but culturally congnisant paper. The focus is to look at Chinese politics and society, with reference to long-term China watchers. It is critical of CCP policy and history without buying into hysteria and corrects common misunderstandings about China, the Chinese, culture etc.


These episodes are particularly of interest given recent conversations.


Debunking the "social credit" myth - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...d=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjwh8adytn5AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQFg

Xi and Putin https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...d=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi47OnJytn5AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Taiwan's view of Ukraine https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...d=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi4vcqey9n5AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Pelosi's visit https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...d=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi47OnJytn5AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ