I saw 52 new posts in this thread, and thought: Oh the discussion of the searing article in the Economist is kicking off.
As it turns out, aside from @Mataiou you guys are arguing about competing claims to the Spratleys. 
Guy
Yeah, maybe the Spratlies discussion belongs to the Nine-dash-line thread.
Anyway, NYT article on this from Sep 10 1933!
It’s not just about the Spratlies though, but also about how Japan was also claiming the Paracels, which the Japanese named Hirata Guntō (平田群島) and the Pratas, including Scarborough Shoalm which the Japanese named Nishizawa Guntō (西澤群島).
The Pratas was claimed by the Japanese merchant Nishizawa Kichiji in 1907. Though unoccupied at the time of Nishizawa’s arrival, Pratas had Chinese built structures on it. Nishizawa built a bunch of infrastructure on the main island, including a dock, rails to move guano, 20 or so houses, a desalination plant, telephone lines, water pipelines, and a pond. Except for guano, a seaweed called Digenea simplex (海人草 in Japanese) was used for getting rid of roundworms, and was also harvested on these islands.
Japanese rails on the Pratas
Nishizawa’s paper credit. His company was based in Keelung.
Nishizawa even issued paper credits to be used as money on his island. The Qing paid Nishizawa 160K silver rounds in 1909 for him to leave, but afterwards actually continued to contract Japanese companies to continue mining. Japan occupied the island one more time in 1937 and held on to it until the end of the war.
Hirata Sueji (平田末治), president of the Hirata Trading Company of Takao, Taiwan was in charge of the guano mining operation on Hirata islands (Paracels), and he claimed he “discovered” the island in 1915, while he was working on the Pratas. Mining operation was continued by a company called Nanko Koshi, which built a hospital, landing quays and a water distilling plant on the islands. Some Chinese sources claim that China was able to force the Japanese to cease operations on the Paracels as well, but that contradicts the NYT article, which maintains the Japanese were still there on Paracels at least by 1933, and the Japanese navy sent a boat there in 1925.
In 1934, the French occupied the Paracels with gun boats. From then on, French Vietnam, China and Japan all maintained their claim over the Paracels. Sources differ a bit on dates of events. Japan seems to have taken the island in 1937, which prompted France to again sent troops onto the Paracels in 1938, and that ended with Japan taking the islands in 1939 and holding on to it until the end of the war.
As for the Spratlies, Japanese began survey of the islands since 1917, and Rasa Guano Mining Company (ラサ島燐砿株式会社), which is now Rasa Industries, Ltd., eventually set up operations on Itu Aba in 1921. When the great depression hit in 1929 mining operation ceased on the island, which led to the French sending gunboats to kick out the remaining Japanese in 1933, and Japan formally protested saying:
大正6年以来 我が国人は何国人にも先立って巨額の資本を投下し恒久的諸施設を設けて同島嶼の経済的開発に従事し来った
Since 1917, the Japanese people were first before anyone else to invest in building permanent structures on these islands to develop Spratly Islands’ economy.
Like the Paracels, the Spratly exchanged hands between the French and the Japanese several times. In June of 1939, Japan was able to take back Itu Aba and set up a stele, but French returned and stayed until June 1940, when the Japanese returned to control the Spratlies until the end of the war.
Other sources I referenced:
Japanese Operation and Occupation of Dongsha Island during the Japanese Occupation Period: Centered on the Records of “Taiwan Daily News”
I quite enjoyed the committee tirade by the Korean fish. Still, Korean fish is a knob, Kun fuchi is the biggest traitor knob
Have you seen the Economist piece on these guys?
I don’t think I’ve seen any center right journalism like that on the KMT since I arrived here.
Original article (paywalled) is here:
https://www.economist.com/international/2026/08/11/taking-taiwans-democracy-hostage
Archive.ph has an accessible version, which I will also include below.
Summary
International | The Telegram
Taking Taiwan’s democracy hostage
Self-interested Taiwanese politicians are making the country increasingly ungovernable. China is the only winner
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Illustration: Chloe Cushman
Aug 11th 2026|5 min read
HOW MANY kids would Xi Jinping shoot to take Taiwan? The island’s youngsters have a record of staging mass protests when they feel betrayed by their rulers. Imagine a coercive Chinese takeover, brokered by pro-appeasement Taiwanese elites. Whose troops would clear the streets, and with what lethal force?
Would Chinese conquerors use show trials to teach the Taiwanese public that self-rule has ended, and with it, their 30-year experiment with multiparty democracy? China has a legal instrument prepared: an anti-secession law passed in 2005, ready to use against “diehard Taiwan independence elements”. That is chilling talk for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has won the past three presidential elections. The DPP emphasises Taiwan’s separate identity and opposes China’s claims to the island. Chinese officials have called Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, a traitorous rat. The gravest charges in the anti-secession law, such as “splitting the state”, are punishable by death.
What of Taiwan’s public servants? How many would be jailed or sacked, to ensure that, in line with China’s stated goals, only those who “support the reunification of the country” hold office after Taiwan becomes a region of the People’s Republic of China? The precedent exists. After anti-government protests swept Hong Kong in 2019, that territory’s Chinese overlords demanded that local officials and politicians take loyalty oaths or be purged.
Chinese officials have talked of the need for re-education campaigns in post-conquest Taiwan. On an island of 23m people, where surveys consistently show that a large majority of the public favour some form of self-rule, millions might have to enroll. Then there is Taiwan’s world-leadingsemiconductor industry, which churns out more than 90% of the most advanced chips used around the globe. Skilled engineers make that high-tech wizardry happen. If they try to flee, would China lock them in their fabs?
When outsiders study possible Taiwan crises they typically weigh the risks of a Chinese invasion or blockade. That is natural. If America were to intervene to defend the island, two nuclear-armed superpowers would be at war. But another scenario merits study, too. If Taiwan is ever induced to surrender without a fight—China’s clear preference—Mr Xi and his underlings would face a series of horrible choices. Brutal repression might be needed to crush Taiwan’s freedoms, and would be seen around the world. The conclusion should be obvious to politicians in Taiwan. Their democracy is not just an improvement on the dictatorship that ruled the island after Chiang Kai-shek, the loser of China’s civil war, fled to exile there in 1949. Their political system is a deterrent.
Taiwan is sorely in need of more things that would make Mr Xi pause. China has no fear of Taiwan’s armed forces, though the DPP is trying to push through their long-overdue modernisation. Taiwan’s traditional protector, America, is an unreliable friend. President Donald Trump has agreed record-breaking arms sales to Taiwan, yet he also mocks it as puny and outgunned by mighty China. After talks with Mr Xi in Beijing in May, Mr Trump echoed Chinese talking-points that call Mr Lai a hothead who may start a war.
Alas, far from prizing Taiwan’s democracy, self-interested politicians are breaking it. Partisan feuding has hobbled the work of government since a close election in 2024 left the DPP in control of the presidency and the executive branch, but the opposition, led by theKMT (Chiang Kai-shek’s heirs), controlling the parliament.
Lots of countries have toxic politicians. Taiwan’s stand out for their irresponsibility. The blame is not evenly distributed. President Lai is stubborn and does not consult KMT moderates as his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, did. But the opposition has triggered a rolling constitutional crisis. KMT legislators and their allies held up government budgets for months, including funds for American arms. They have blocked judicial appointments to the constitutional court, leaving it so shrunken that its remaining judges cannot agree if they are quorate to address gridlock in government.
In a dramatic act of self-harm, the opposition has held up plans to kick-start a domestic drone industry with orders for 210,000 air and sea drones. Taiwan needs drones, is good at electronics and could also export to Western countries desperate for non-Chinese kit. Yet KMT-led budget squabbles are blocking new drone orders until next year, at the earliest. Visiting Taiwan, your columnist invited KMT high-ups to explain. Oh, we support dronemaking, they said, this is political. Let me be blunt, confided a bigwig: KMT legislators fear the government will channel drone funds to firms that donate to DPP coffers. Asked whether KMT-friendly firms could make drones, then, the bigwig sighed. Pro-KMTfirms often have investments in China so would not dare, the insider explained: the party prefers not to face up to this dilemma.
Divide and be conquered
DPPpoliticians condemn the KMT’s chairwoman, Cheng Li-wun, for declaring that Taiwan cannot rely on America and so needs to strengthen ties with China. They were angry when she held friendly meetings with Mr Xi in Beijing in April. Ms Cheng insists that her goal is to avoid a war, not to sell Taiwan out. DPP insiders allege that some in her party in effect act as “surrogates” for China. There is no doubt that Taiwan is the target of Chinese influence operations. It is unclear whether these work. That said, the youngest Taiwanese are growing disillusioned with politics and less willing to vote. The same group is bombarded with mainland-backed social media mocking Taiwan’s democracy as chaotic.
Dysfunction is hurting Taiwan. Its journey from dictatorship to open society has transformed its global standing. But outsiders cannot love its democracy more than its own politicians do. Taiwan’s freedoms should be a strength, raising the costs to China of a takeover. Shamefully, they are being betrayed from within. ■
Guy
Based on population decline and the fact that KMT voters are overrepresented among the dying population, their potential (accelerating) decline is looming unless they manage to win over many new younger voters.
Some of these assumptions may hold for the presidential level popular vote (in which the candidate that gets the most votes wins). But it does not help to explain how the KMT’s structural advantage rests of the distribution of LY seats in outlying islands (where they are, at least in Kinmen and Matsu, really the only game in town) or in Indigenous allocated seats (where they have developed clientist relations, although these may finally be breaking apart).
Guy
I thought about some of the pros of population decline. We all know the cons but in theory there are some pros as well.
One of them is what this graph is showing. It seems to me, young people across the world always get screwed over because they don’t go out and vote in the same numbers as older demographics. So politicians make policies for those demographics that vote and sometimes even at the expense of the younger generation.
It seems to me all political parties will need to find ways to get new voters as the population shifts.