Perhaps less patronizing wouldn’t have lost the LibDems the election and spared us all another 4 years of chaos in office?
And, please, spare me “social movements”. We got those all over the West and all they can do is complain, accuse and demand - w/o ever solving anything.
Never understood why they couldn’t just let HongKon be. I think much of the ill will of the Taiwanese towards the CCP stems from their treatment of HongKong.
Xi Jing Ping pulled Maoism back out of the closet. Are people like him even capable of learning from their mistakes? A collective leadership style a’la Singapore was supposed to be Asia’s way forward.
Well, guess the days of wishful thinking are over.
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People here told me that’s only because the expensively produced alternative energy is heavily subsidized.
Listen, Im talking out of practical experience: Germany went down exactly the same path and now industry is leaving that place in droves. Tens of thousands of jobs are being lost each and every week.
The future of IT lies in AI, and AI farms need electric power like a sport’s athlete craves oxygen and blood sugar.
Add to that the Trump tariffs and Taiwan will be out of its core business before the decade is over.
America isn’t going to defend Taiwan for free - not anymore. If Taiwan runs out of money to pay for arms and protection (yeah, its a protection racket now) then the only ones still laughing about this will be the CCP.
Gen IV atomic reactors are explosion proof because the laws of physics say so. And waste disposal isn’t an unsolvable problem either. The radioactive material used in those reactors originated from this planet, so its not impossible to find a place where to deposit them in again.
And no reasonable person would assume that fission reactors be the end game here. But controlled fusion reactors are still decades away from becoming commercially viable and we need a bridge technology until then to carry the base load for wind and solar farms.
In Germany some are calling again fro LNG from Russia for this purpose. Which is insane as half the continent is still engaged in war with that country.
You can’t have independence w/o energy independence - not even an unofficial one.
The answer is batteries.
Nuclear energy isn’t the solution for that, you can’t switch nuclear power plants on and off at will like you can with LNG power plants.
That merely deepened an already considerable reservoir of Taiwanese ill will toward the CCP. There are are also a substantial number of people in Taiwan who have not and do not want to have anything to do China politically regardless of whether the CCP is in power or not. That has been true since 1947 at least. Hong Kong’s fate is just one more piece of evidence. In general, Taiwanese are not particularly concerned with Hong Kong or its treatment by the PRC. ‘Hard luck’ is the typical Taiwanese atttitude although there were of course some Taiwanese who understood that the squelching of a democracy movement is bad for liberal democracy in general. These were the folks that posted on Lennon walls etc. There were also some important activist networks that were very concerned.
Why does Taiwan need AI farms? We can’t access most of the AI services we need from the cloud? I’m sure we need some for national security etc but Taiwan has never been a leader in software. My bet is that Taiwan will make money off AI mainly by making the chips and servers for AI farms in other countries.
Amazingly such things exist, and do exert pressure in Taiwan, even if and even as you appear to be confidently unaware of them. It’s strange how that happens.
In any case, if you truly despise social movements, then I’d venture to say Taiwan may not be the place for you. I wish you good luck finding your social movement free utopia!
Guy
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Luckily enough narrow minded liberals don’t get to dictate where I am allowed to apply for residency.
Its truly funky how you people always go on about tolerance and freedom of choice, right up until the second that someone dares to chose differently than what you approve.
I value the people of East Asia for their hard work ethic and their desire for harmony and cooperation in society. Not because I plan to join a pro-Palestine movement in Taiwan or shut down the streets of Taipei to save the polar bears.
How about you do us both a favor and stay out of my threads from here on out?
The age of free access in a global market place is over. Trump killed it. Maybe it was destined to die anyway, but he for sure accelerated that process a lot.
In the future if you want it from somebody else, then that somebody is going to make you pay for it, dearly. And Trump also announced that he wants those AI chips to be made back home in America. China likewise can not trust a supplier it might have to threaten with invasion frequently - given the strong drive for independence in many circles of Taipei.
If Taiwan wants to be able to pay for US protection from here on out, its needs to widen its economic footprint to the service sector. Because the chip manufacturing base is likely not going to stay in such a hot zone.
So training AI language models would be a logical expansion of that industry.
PS: Never trust a cloud you do not own.
I know that’s the story being told by the pro-independence movement. But I have also heard from many Chinese (both mainlanders and islanders) of the once strong family ties between the two versions of China.
Of course such things don’t last forever - what does? But its a long way from there to pure hatred between the two. At least I hope it is, because the PRC will never let go of their claim to Taiwan.
I wish there was a way to at least preserve the status quo. But then again, not many of the other “Status Quo” compromises have survived thus far. Oh gosh, I recon violence as a problem solving tool never gets out of fashion. 
Kind of wrong. Sure, expensive energy is subsidized like nuclear and solar. But so is cheap energy like fossil fuels. All energy is subsidized heavily here, for obvious reasons. We are a manufacturing country based solely on export. That’s why it’s all cheap.
Here’s the problem one needs to keep in kind. Most of the current energy we have are imported. Nu lear, coal, gas, oil etc all imported. That’s why it’s pretty important to have sustainable energy here, within country. Sustainable meaning we create it ourselves. Solar, wind geothermal and natural gas are all good ones we have access to domestically. We need to be ramping these up as fast as possible, but without the usual full retard land management our government tends to give us.
It’s cool to listen to other people, but also have experience here before assuming too much. This isn’t Germany. There is NO way Taiwan is getting rid of energy production, not until the last person dies of lung cancer would this ever happen. We don’t even have a liberal party here, all our main political parties are conservative. The main differences are more about whether we want to allow the enemy to overcome us or not. All sides are sharks when it comes to economy and environment. Much different than Germany, USA etc.
Ps. The USA doesn’t protect Taiwan. They over price weapons to us. There is no written protection, you can read the treaties. Even the arms that are said to be available to Taiwan have been cancelled by the USA because we didn’t want their jormkne laced pork, of all things. You might be surprised how stupid things get in regards to Taiwan and China. Either way, if rhe USA offered to protect Taiwan for money, I say we should take that offer. So far it has not been made. Maybe trump will do it?
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I wasn’t aware that Forumosa has proprietary threads.
For some reason I thought this was an internet forum where people are free chime in more or less as they please although preferably in a civil way.
Social movements are an important part of civil society in Taiwan. The anti-nuclear power movement is pretty much the grandaddy of all social movements in Taiwan and has to be considered in any discussion of the nuclear power in Taiwan including the feasibility of restarting any old plants.
Perhaps the moderators can clarify.
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Of course chip manufacturing will not be Taiwan’s star industry forever. At one time, petrochemicals, plastics, and textiles played a key role in Taiwan’s export-oriented manufacturing. They are still important but have been surpassed by chips. One day chips will decline in importance too. That’s why the NDC and the other architects of Taiwanese industrial planning are constantly coming up with new policies to guide the growth of what they think the industries of the future are.
People have been telling Taiwan to upgrade its service industries for decades. So far, Taiwan has not been very succesful in doing so, especially in software. As a result, Taiwan’s investors are generally not inclined to invest in the service sector, which they see as too risky. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are some bright spots. Tin Tai Feng, TrendMicro etc. But for now Taiwan is a manufacturing economy. I’d love to see Taiwan do more services but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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You may have heard stories but the historical reality is that most people in Taiwan are the descendants of settlers who arrived in the 18th century. They are 85% of the population. Some small fraction of these had family ties before World War II or married marriage migrants from the PRC since 1995 or so. But not many at all.
Many Mainlanders do have family ties but Mainlanders were only 13% of the population in 1992 and have declined since.
The Pew figures explain what you are hearing well.
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67% of Taiwanese identify as Taiwanese only (83% of those aged 15-34).
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40% feel an emotional connection to China but that’s mainly older folks. Only 26% under 35 do.
China is alienating more and more Taiwanese. The slow unwinding of KMT party-state ideology in the educational system is also contributing to declining emotional connection to China.
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My in laws ancestors arrived in the late 19th century sometime. Nobody has any clue about their ancestral home in China although there are some temple visits, they don’t know anybody there at all. There are no familial links whatsoever. And they are recent immigrants .
They do watch Chinese soap operas and Chinese tiktoks , especially the ones with some kind of rural setting.
The only people who have real connections to china now are those business people who have lived and worked there for years and maybe have a Chinese wife etc.
In fact Taiwan has an incredibly small number of mainland born Chinese men living here, and very few educated Chinese immigrants come here. Almost zero. You’ll find way more in almost any random country around the world!
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Sadly, the president that sold us out to China in recent years is actually from there (china). Boo hahaha. Sometimes we do get true red blooded ccp here, and has been proven even at the highest level of our government, our ex president. Or as he preferred to be called “Mr.”, not president 
It’s a fun thing this crazy relationship between china and Taiwan.
Like Brian, many of my in-laws came here in the earlier waves. They tend to be of the kind that they are taiwanese. The family members and friends I have that came during the Chinese kmt
Imports, then had children…those children (In thier 60s +/- 20 years) grew up here under harsh propaganda, oppression and human rights issues. Most taiwanese people I hear talk about them being Chinese are from this era. Many actually don’t think they are Chinese [citizens), their education was just so shitty and their mandarin isn’t great so they confuse race with nationality. When pressed, they mostly realize or agree they are taiwanese citizens, but genetically Han. Which is the correct way to put it. An important distinction that both the Chinese KMT of today and the CCP benefit from people not understanding and/or discussing the definitions of words.
Exactly. I believe that most of the people who say ‘I am Taiwanese and I am also Chinese’ really mean that they are Taiwanese but culturally part of the larger Sinitic world of 華人 (Huaren). Much as some people my say I am Italian but I am also European. Zhongguo sounds the same to them because they were educated/brainwashed during the old party-state era when the textbooks harped on “I am Chinese” all the time. These are the folks who are also most likely not to see any problem with calling indigenous Taiwanese ‘mountain compatriots’ (山胞).
Yup, therein lies the problem. The younger generations not brainwashed under CKS and martial law have a much more educated view point than their parents. Only issue is we tend to be an obedience based society, so we still need to deal with this past indoctrination simply because these brainwashed folks demand “respect” from anyone “lower” than them…be it age, gender, occupation, education or income bracket. We see more change now simply because such people are starting to expire and die. Less so because the younger generation is especially amazing at standing up to their elders and forcing change, at least based on ethics and logic. Monetary influence is different.
You do realize that if the Taiwanese are naive enough to declare independence, trusting that America will be there to protect them, that they’ll end up like Ukraine or even worse, Iraq or Afghanistan?
The status quo sucks for many I’m sure. But its still better than having to fight a full blown invasion attempt from the mainland.
If Americans are unwilling to put boots on the ground for land bound Ukraine, then they surely won’t sacrifice tens (hundreds?) of thousand of their own for an island (non-)nation almost 1 1/2 that far away.
And if war with Iran should break out (while Ukraine is still burning), China could use any provocation from the Island as an excuse to invade - w/o the US even theoretically being able to intervene.
I truly hope level heads prevail. I wouldn’t want to emigrate from one war zone to another.