Regardless of whether you are looking through a pro-KMT facebook group or a pro-DPP facebook group, everyday there will be a dozen pro-Trump and anti-Democrats propaganda pieces making the rounds.
Most of them are not even trying to be discrete, they will come full on ridiculous with blaming Benghazi on Hilary, or saying that Hilary tried to sell Taiwan out to China, or claiming that Antifa is sponsored by China.
I’ll just share a couple of examples that I’ve seen in the past 2 days:
Who is translating all these propaganda into Traditional Chinese and then spoon feeding them to the Taiwanese public?
I think it’s because that Trump has been the most pro-Taiwan and Anti-CCP President since Reagan. Obama, in my view wanted to try to get China to co-operate and thus kept his mouth shut about Taiwan or other thorny Chinese issues to try to work with China.
Ok, I don’t mind if Taiwanese people say this as their reason for preferring Trump. However, that does not justify spreading false information, such as claiming that Hillary attempted to sell out Taiwan to China.
There is a common narrative among expats in Taiwan and in DC think tanks etc that the Republicans are tougher on China and better for Taiwan. Do you believe that to be the case?
I believe the true deterrent to China is a strong and internally stable US. So far the Republicans has done a piss poor job at it, and China is more aggressive than ever.
The Democrat model has long been, let’s do business with China, not call them out on their bad behavior, and hope they become a responsible global actor. We all know how that turned out.
I don’t know enough about the matter, but I seem to remember that the old KMT “China Lobby” was well connected to US right-wing decision makers and made good use of these connections. I don’t know how much of these old connections and lobbying efforts are still alive, judging from the stream of right wing republican politicians, from the former McCain down to the Rubios, etc having frequent contact with the Taiwan government, it seems to be.
" U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration’s resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and mainland China after years of diplomatic isolation"
Nixon and Kissinger of course have a lot to answer for, but that was a long time ago. More recently, the Obama administration stood by and did nothing while China continued their unfair trade practices, stole U.S. technology and built their military bases in the Spratly Islands.
I actually am ok with them making that choice. I think the real mess up was continuing with that strategy after Tiananmen Square. China passed up the best opportunity for democratizing and chose to brutally murder oppositions instead. For that they received absolutely no punishment, and the rest of the world continued to fund their regime with an endless stream of capital.