It would be ridiculous to say that the current “Republic of China” is not part of China. Any Taiwanese who refuses to identify himself as a Chinese is simply delusional. Taiwan has been a part of China for centuries and share the same culture as their mainland relatives.
However, the “Republic of China” is no longer a legitimate authority. The only legitimate government of China is the government of the People’s Republic of China, a fact recognized by the US, UN, and all but 27 nations.
It is true that China has not always been politically united and technically, China is still in a state of Civil War. It is true that the ROC government (under the Consitution of 1947) was the first legitimate government elected by the people of China in a democratic election. It is also true that the communists were the orginal rebels, but by the virtue of their current position, they are no longer so. Since People’s Republic of China effectively rules most of the nation, it holds the general mandate from the majority of the Chinese people. The current Civil War is like the Warring States Period (403 -221 BC), but instead of the seven rival states (before Qin Shihuangdi overcame the other six states to forge a unifiied nation under “tianxia” - Under One Heaven - ) the civil war of modern China is between two forces.
The ROC lost the Mandate from Heaven becaue its misrule and corruption alienated the Chinese people. The legitimacy of the ROC government has long since become defunct. All the elected officials have long since died and have not been replaced by free election by the people of their original constituencies. Furthermore, the ROC simply no longer has jurisdiction over the vast majority of the Chinese territory or the Chinese people. It is unrealistic to say that the ROC government still has the legitimacy to govern China. And therefore, the PRC has ascended to become the sole legitimate authority of all China. Consequently, the ROC having lost the mandate of heaven should cease to exist in accordance to dynastic tradition.
Until the Civil War is formally ended with a treaty, the PRC serves as the de facto authority, and by virtue of past historical precedence, the de jure government.
Wrong forum, Jiang. You’re looking for iTaiwan I believe. Nobody here really gives too much of a shit about trolls, especially on this subject. Jason Lin, now he’ll give you a run for your money, I’m sure.
i didn’t know people still believed in that mandate of heaven BS. the warring states analogy is ludicrous.
but seeing as how china is the “next big thing of the century” blah blah, maybe taiwan should reunite so that the taiwanese businessmen can make even more $$. hell, they already live in shanghai.
you sound like one of those people from georgia crying for the Confederacy(not to say that it’s analogous). i wonder what you think about all the regions north of the amur river that russia took? or those spratly islands?
What I find most profoundly disturbing is that the poster actually spellchecked this before hitting the “submit” button. My money’s on a regular poster trying his very first troll.
It would be more accurate to say that ROC is the de facto government while by your argument (and by the China’s UN member status situation and other international orgs), PRC is de jure.
Until I see kids here learning about the economic theory of Mao in college (like my niece who majors in accounting, but has a compulsory Mao’s Legal Theory Class) and hanyu pinyin and simplified chinese, PRC is not de facto here.
I know this is a troll (although I did rather enjoy the bit about losing the ‘Mandate from Heaven’ - very careless), but does anyone know about this:
I thought the ROC was a democratic republic without all that messy voting until ~15 years ago. Were there really any ROC elections in the pre-PRC days? Never heard about them before …
As for me, I would never called myself a Chinese when I was in the US, because then ppl would think that I am from China, so I would proudly said to them that " I am Taiwanese! "
