The Republic of China made no claim on Taiwan before 1941? Gee, you’d better inform all those waishengren
During World War II, ROC leader Chiang Kai-shek meets with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Cairo. After the conclusion of the conference, the Cairo Declaration is released, stating that “…Formosa [Taiwan], and the Pescadores [the Penghu Islands], shall be restored to the Republic of China…”
Mao did say he wanted to help Taiwan become independent.
Kelly Craft makes a video call with Tsai.
Bueno!
That’s right. China’s claim on Taiwan - and the Taiwan complex of the Chinese population - is a rather recent phenomenon. China’s raised the issue at Cairo.
Do you know the Chinese government even had a Chinese Consulate in Taihoku, Formosa before WW2 broke out?
Jiang wanted Taiwan as a place to flee, not because he thought it was part of China.
Yes before CKS fled to Taiwan 99% of the Chinese did not know about Formosa. Those who were lucky to go to school, Formosa wasn’t shown as part of China in their own textbook.
Back to IR. remember 1950 when 100k + Chinese men died in Korea fighting American men over Korea? This proves my claim that the China problem is fundamentally a Marxist problem, not caused by Taiwan.
The Republic of China claimed Taiwan from its founding. It just had bigger priorities in those years- first beating warlords, then dealing with the Japanese invasion and, most importantly from CKS’s view (as the post about Zhang Xueliang notes) wiping out the Commies.
OTOH, as Oyster Omelet points out, Mao was never too concerned with Taiwan.
Strategic interest for China? Yeah, some, especially now that the Navy’s stronger and China is aiming for more world influence- but mostly “China should be reunited!” revanchism.
Can you expand?
No. What made you think so?
The conventional wisdom that Taiwan is China’s upmost core interest is false. A big lie. It is regurgitation of what China would WANT YOU TO believe, but they themselves don’t actually act like they believe it. They want you to believe so because it’s low-hanging fruit from them, and also because US is easily duped.
When push comes to shove, China considers Korea core interest.
Consider this thought exercise: Had Taiwan really been their core interest, China would not have become the enemy of US in 1950. If Taiwan were more important than Korea, the Chinese would have just agreed to US terms in Korea in exchange for acquiring Taiwan.
The truth is, they rather fought the American over Korea than having Taiwan handed over to them. When push comes to shove, making a perpetual enemy out of US (to prove their correctness of their cultural, racial Marxist struggle) is more important than Taiwan.
A question for you MikeN1. What did China fight Japan for in 1895? Why did China declare war on Japan?
China did not intervene in Korea when the U.S. went to war. It only entered the war when US forces approached the Yalu River, the border with China, after warning America not to approach the border. The U.S. was, for its part, not willing to exchange Taiwan for Korea.
They fought over influence in Korea, as they had done before- I assume you believe it was because of their “cultural, racist, Marxist struggle”. in spite of them not being racially Chinese, or Marxist.
This is what I don’t understand- you hate China, but sometimes it’s because they’re socialists, communists. and Marxists, and sometimes you claim it’s because they’re racially, evilly driven to conquest- hardly a Marxist belief.
I saw a claim that had Godmother Pelosi had the ‘nuke codes’ taken away from Trump, China would have carried out an invasion.
Of course you did.
Both the motives and outcomes of China’s 1895 war and the 1950 war prove the fallacy of the claim that Taiwan is China’s core interest.
Marxism could not have been not the reason of China’s 1895 war with Japan, and that’s not what I’m implying. Marxism was not introduced into China until the Chinese Communist established a separatist armed rebel regime in 1931 and not formally established until 1949.
However, Marxism was the reason China’s 1950 war with the United States. This is precisely my point.
In both cases, as in numerous other cases in China’s history, Korea was China’s core interest. China suffered great casualty to oppose to Korea’s independence from China. If there’s anybody opposing Korea’s independence, it’s China.
(And you’re wrong about “influence” too. It wasn’t about competition for influence. It was about sovereignty. The Korean did not have sovereignty. Their sovereign legally and practically was the Emperor of Manchu since 1636. )
And you were WRONG about the founding of Republic of China. The Republic of China was founded with the full support of the Japanese Empire. Taiwan was not ROC’s founding principle.
This like saying that in 1941 the Japanese occupying Canada would have been a core interest of America, therefore they didn’t care about Hawaii.
Plus, Taiwan has never been a core interest of China, which is why I didn’t say that.
China’s core interest is dependent on ;
2 Secondarily on which intra-Chinese tribal identity is in power. If and when the Northerners are in power, they steer the entire China toward a posture that is Northern-centric, which means in this condition, Korea is considered THE primary interest. If and when a Southerner tribal identity is the prevailing power, then in this situation Korea is not important.
In short, the claim that Taiwan as a core interest of China is NOT a given, not a constant.
( for those who are wondering what “Southerners”mean, over the course of the past 1000 years they have shrunk to mainly the South Eastern coastal region, or no more than the area of 4 coastal provinces)
The best thing Taiwan could do to defend their country against China invasion is to make the country welcoming to westerners.
Western countries will be reluctant to slow their citizens to suffer under any military action.
perhaps the recent recruits aren’t looking very tough
Talk to some Taiwanese about this. They basically said while China has aircraft carriers, they’re about as good as Russia’s POS (you know that one which is understaffed, belching black smoke, doesn’t really work). I bet those hypersonic missiles would eat them for breakfast. Plus aircraft carrier is a lot of asset in one place, which is why America’s are so well defended.
But if China attacks Taiwan it’s going to become a global conflict, no question. Too many countries will lose everything if China controls the first island chain.