China says they are a democracy.
I studied in Tsinghua over a summer, and our professor was a CCP member. She was very insistent that China is a democracy.
Itās like when you start arguing and take a position and then defend it. Even though you then realize the position is untenable, but you keep at it anyway. 
On a Texas holdem poker analogy the way to win against that kind of player is to slowplay
Thatās pretty funny. I also worked with graduates from Tsinghua and one time ādemocracies and votingā came up in a conversation, their response was āI donāt want to vote, what would I want to vote for anyways, leave it to the leaders to decideā.
Then my American liberal friend butted in and said āyou know things would be so much better in the US if we had a one-party system like Chinaāā¦haha oh manā¦bless their hearts.
They have one more party right, wow 2 party system, rocket science.
If heās advocating for a single party stateā¦ he might need to be reminded that heās not a liberal
The hegemonic economic interests are probably approving in the ā2ā party state.
I think Biden is a massive improvement.
messed up the afghan withdrawal, monumentally.
But you cant win em all
(kind of a weak comment, but I cant win em all either)
I mean reenacting the fall of Saigon wasnāt a good option?
Thats the kind of story that motivates people like above to want to talk to people interested in.staying here for prolonged periods. Hard to fault the passion.
There are more than 2, people just be sheep.
When I got my second and third ARC, my police officer slowly and deliberately erased or whited out my word "Taiwan"and slowly and deliberately wrote Republic of China.
Then he sent me home for documents I swear I didnāt need.
Chinese kmt fools should really be called out!! its been a few years since the police handled visas in that area of taiwan. Immigration may still be chewing betel nut and having lucrative meetings still, but the office space is nice, on camera and very much open. They also still bow to taipei, which i found out after they sent a taipei team to my house with police when applying for aprc. should they get all ass hurt about being called out, just know your county immigration office still needs to obey the sky dragons 
They are still pretty useless there though, even recent years have had issues with them.
There are few places in the world where another countrys government and happenings are more our business than taiwan with china.
That, at least, is well established.
Similar in Ireland. We have idiots to the right of us. I think in Taiwan itās to the left. Actually Iān Ireland if you face south the idiots are also on the left.
We have so much in common but letās be honest Ireland couldnāt give the evapoatations off a rats ass about Taiwanļ¼
And Taiwan couldnāt give a cocroahes summmer holiday dream about Ireland.
Ironic isnāt it? So much for intelligence i supposeā¦
Though to be fair, i would rather have a modern day england problem than a chinese one.
I remember those days, dealing with the local police before the NIA was set up in the 2000s. Good riddance to that old system!
Guy
Donāt tell that to @PeiHua-Connie !
Guy
I:m not sure i understand this comment. evapoatate is not a recognised Scrabble word. Do you have a secret meaning?
Iām pretty sure Falungong became a threat to the CCP because their membership became larger than the CCP, and no one can be larger than the CCP.
It just makes little sense to anyone who spends a few minutes reading their Wikipedia page and realizes that, while they have a few ideas that push a little bit into ācultā territory, theyāre a pretty safe/mild religion/spiritual practice thatās mostly centered around what every healthy Asian over the age of 50 does in the park each morning. I mean, most of the old people in the park even have their own uniforms. Falungong might be distinct with their yellow shirts, but most Taichi/dancing/Qigong, etc. groups in the park all wear the same clothes as other group members too.
Iāve even had Taiwanese friends point out that Falun Gong just looks nicer than other ātraditional Chineseā practices ā theyāre always clean and relatively quiet. Meanwhile every other ātraditional Chineseā practice involves setting off firecrackers, parading through residential streets with drums + speakers blaring at all hours of the day and night, and burning stuff just cuz. Not to mention this is primarily done by beetle-nut chewing, chain-smoking men, some of whom are whipping themselves to show theyāre possessed by a god and all of whom look like they need a shower. Look, there are things in a culture that I have come to accept I just donāt care for, but if I were trying to convince people that I was running the best nation on earth, I would rather have Falun Gong as the dominant religion from a clean, not getting in the way of others trying to go about their lives standpoint. But the CCP canāt have more members than them, so theyāre a dangerous cult that must be banned!!
Maybe I wasnāt clear enough. I was living in China without other foreign friends. All my friends were Chinese. I studied Sinology at the university, so I speak some Chinese and I think I kind of understand their worldview.
To understand doesnāt mean to agree, of course. And thatās the point.
Someone who has been living in Taiwan for more than one year and still has zero interest in politicsā¦ I am not sure if they will figure it out by themselves.
Of course that would be optimal.
Give up and abandon them seems to me not a good opition. I think there is a way to let Chinese understand democracy, the different kinds, because democracy doesnāt work the same in the US as in the europeans countries. Many times Chinese are against democracy because democracy means US. We have many more parties in Europe. Itās not all Democrats vs Republicans.
Thank you again for sharing this. Thatās helpful. I would like to find the best way to break the mental barrier Chinese have towards democracy and Taiwan. So any recommendation is welcome. As mentioned before, I recommended the famous documentary about Tiananmen to one of my friends, it worked. Later I recomended another one about the AIDS problem in China and how the goverment cover it up and caused many more deaths. It was also useful. Maybe too much too soon for the normal Chinese. I will find those links and share it here.
Talking about Taiwan or other democracies to Chinese has to sides, I think, explaining our system but also explaining all the lies their goverment tells them. I think democracy shines better, so to speak, compared to the extremly negative sides of chinese dictatorship.
I know there are some websites made by chinese abroad, sharing these to them may be helpful too. When a foreigner tries to explain something to them, specially something about China or Taiwan, they often reply āyou are a foreigner, you canāt understand Chinaā.
Itās harder than it seems. Propaganda begins in kindergarten.
What I think is not what I tell them the first day. If you tell a chinese that Taiwan has own passport, they will tell you it is useless and that if taiwanese want to travel abroad they still need permission from Beijing. Thatās what some Chinese told me.
A friend of mine does bussines in China, he mentioned that he lived in Taiwan, the seller became angry, my friend asked, how is it they have own money, own bank system, ownā¦? He was not agressive, just trying to explaint to him. The Chinese became furious and almost hit my friend. He had to leave.
They are wrong. And they are brainwashed. Of course I donāt say āHi, you are wrong and brainwashed, do you want to know the truth?ā
I normally make very short comments. For example, if they tell me they bought a house, I say, āwell actually you canāt buy a house in China you just rent it for 70 years.ā We may talk about the difference between Europe and China for a while and thatās it. But I see they keep thingking about it. I think itās a slow but not very intrusive method. They may want to research by themselves later.
1984
I have no nice words for that kind of people. Not few youtubers saying things like that.
Not enough to talk about politics and philosophy in Chinese. I need to improve a lot.
So, I wonder. Has anyone here tried to explain democracy to a Chinese? Or that Taiwan is a country? Were you successful?
I canāt give up, I think itās important. And I think it has to be a way to do it smoothly. Here in Taiwan is the easiest place because Taiwanese can talk with them, they canāt hide behind āyou are a foreigner, you donāt understand Chinaā.