Thoughts?
Is this imperialism by China, a country which is supposed to be left-wing? Leftists are normally anti-imperialism. Wouldn’t it be better to let Taiwan democratically decide whether they want to be part of China or not?
Invading Taiwan without damaging the things that make it valuable seems tough.
Famously what happened during German unification
Except that was a peaceful process, not an invasion/annexation. Because part of Taiwan’s strategic defense policy is “we will melt our chip fabs to slag if the PRC invades”. Thus, they hold a gun to the head of pretty much all of the most advanced chip fabrication in the world, which most of the rest of the world has a vested interest in keeping working.
Except that was a peaceful process, not an invasion/annexation
The only invasion I’m seeing is US Navy vessels encircling the island and threatening their economy.
they hold a gun to the head of pretty much all of the most advanced chip fabrication in the world
That’s been the American line for going on ten years. But the real gun has always been the Pacific Fleet, threatening to repeat the crimes of Vietnam on Chinese civilians, much like they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and now Venezuela and Nigeria.
The only invasion I’m seeing is US Navy vessels encircling the island and threatening their economy.
Saying this on the same day that Chinese warships encircled Taiwan.
Guy who has never seen a world map
Wtf are you talking about? Imperialist China just finished encircling Taiwan in a “defense exercise”
I hope the EU and nations in the Asian sphere decide to have a military alliance. Taiwan is pretty dang valuable, and also shouldn’t be bullied for the sake of some strongman’s wet dream.
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That is dumb. TSMC is comprised of the world’s foremost experts in chip technology. They are people, and probably would like to stay in their homeland. Furthermore, it takes at least a decade to build the infrastructure to create microchips, which requires extremely stable geology. A power outage or an earthquake can cause lithography machines to miss their target, ruining months of work.
TSMC is intrinsically tied to the land and people.
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And China only cares about Taiwan for the land and the image it projects of “reunifying China”. They don’t care about the people in Taiwan since a vast majority don’t want to be invaded by China.
Look at how well the Hong Kong “reunification” went.
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Xi Jinping is an evil scumbag whose goal is to destabilize the world. China needs and deserves Taiwan just as little as Russia needs Crimea.
Taiwan’s sovereign status should be ratified in UN asap.
Lol calling China Leftist isn’t quite the thing. They are technically “communist” but no more so than the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was socialist.
China isn’t technically communist. The Communist Party of China is technically communist in ideology. They have implemented a type of a mixed state that has both socialist and capitalist parts, decently described by the term - socialist market economy. Or socialism with Chinese characteristics as it’s been called in the past. Why socialism? Because the socialist part controls the capitalist part of the economy. Why socialist? Because it’s controlled by the CPC/CCP which has over 100M members and growing, which means the wider society is decently represented within the party that controls the state.
A horse can call itself a duck, but that doesn’t make it a duck; it’s still a horse.
Likewise, a country that calls itself communist while practicing capitalism under a hierarchical ruling party isn’t communist. Even if every member of the CCP had equal say in the country’s policies and direction, 8% of the total population is far from representing the working class, let alone being led by them.
They’re not communist, correct. They’re capitalist.
8% of the total population is far from representing the working class, let alone being led by them.
Yup, it can and it should be much larger. I saw a chart showing membership growth of 2-3% per year. That said even at the present numbers it means every third family or so has a party member.
Again, China isn’t calling itself communist. And I don’t think they’re. That said capital is subordinate to state control, which is subordinate to an org that most people can participate in, so personally I grant them the socialist (market economy) label that they tend to use. But I do understand why not everyone does.
To be clear, if you’re not communist, it doesn’t mean you’re capitalist. There’s a lot in between and it’s often a matter of degree of one thing or another. Feudalism didn’t turn into capitalism the moment the fist capitalist firm formed. It transitioned to capitalism as more and more production became capitalist, at some point becoming the dominant mode of production.
That said even at the present numbers it means every third family or so has a party member.
This is assuming an even distrubution. I have seen no reason to believe this. Certain segments of society are likely far more represented, which means the others are far less represented.
You mean like the parts that weren’t Mandarin Han Chinese decent?
Yeah it’s impossible to ignore what The CCP has done to vulnerable populations that they have decided need to be assimilated into their idea of a dominant culture.
That, and by class I’m sure there’s disparities too. It’s also likely higher in families that already have members.
socialism with Chinese characteristics
It’s literally the same functional mechanics as free market capitalization EXCEPT that the state owns a part of every company. The people don’t. The state does. And only uses it for authoritarian control, which is the Chinese characteristic. China is functionally a capitalist market with state owned companies.
If China controlled the 3rd party companies in the country then maybe it could be construed as socialist but they own nothing about Apple or NVidia yet billions of dollars flow through them. China is an open market that uses subsidies to offset poor management in those companies. Basically the same thing America did to failing companies in 2008 (looking at you GM).
