"Chinese Taipei"?
Last Friday I was watching the Olympic opening ceremony, and I noticed that Taiwan wasn't introduced as Taiwan, but rather "Chinese Taipei." They also weren't allowed to use their country flag. I really thought it was weird, so I looked it up and found on Wikipedia an article explaining this. Apparently, it's not just the Olympics that won't call Taiwan by her name. Due to pressure from the PRC, many organizations and also countries either don't officially recognize Taiwan or won't call it Taiwan, but instead use some other name that China deems acceptable. Even the United States doesn't officially recognize Taiwan.
I think this is terrible. Taiwan is a free, democratic country with 23 million people and deserves to be recognized as sovereign. I'm appalled that even the United States would bow to China's wishes on this.
Also, what is China's motivation for not allowing Taiwan to be recognized? The only motivation I can think of is that they want to take Taiwan back and want to make it seem to the world that Taiwan really is part of China so that they'll have justification for taking it over.
Wikipedia - Chinese Taipei
posted by Anonymous @ 11:27 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I don't know exactly what China is threatening to do if we recognize Taiwan. I know that in the 70s when Nixon first went and established diplomatic relations with China, that was one of the stipulations for us dealing with them, and Nixon agreed to it. At the time, we considered a strategic partnership with China to be important to deter the Soviet threat. Since that time, subsequent U.S. administrations have continued to meet China's demands on this, though I haven't noticed what, if anything, we have received in return.
By allowing China to push us around on this we are essentially appeasing a very powerful dictatorship. Appeasement may be able to buy us "peace in our time," but it almost always encourages more aggression on the part of the dictator, until we finally feel compelled to push back. The problem with that is that by the time we finally push back, it could be much more disastrous and difficult than if we'd been firm from the beginning. For now, we're still the more powerful country, both militarily and economically. So why should we allow the CCP to force us to kowtow to their demands?
We’re getting a bit off topic here, but I have to speak up in response to Phoenix's post. Nuclear weapons are no longer the no questions asked ace up the sleeve they once were. China would NEVER employ the use of nuclear missiles against Taiwan because they are aware, as every nation who holds nuclear weapons in their possession, of the risks assumed with the utilization of a nuclear warhead.
What we are now obviously more worried about is the idea that some outside, non-governmental organization would get their hands on a nuclear weapon, but this is a different matter.
China can't let Taiwan go because of an age old argument of legitimacy; there may be ramifications with other provinces such as Tibet and Hong Kong, both of which have their own identity to a degree comparable of Taiwan's. Besides, Taiwan is the home of the KMT i.e. the sworn enemy of Mao, the Remus to Mao's Romulus (or is it the other way around?) Anyway, that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the more geriatric members are concerned with keeping the whatever Maoist mentality alive.
I have to agree with mrcourageous, that China is not only driven by pride and authoritative reasons, but also that Economics plays a huge role in their being stubborn with Taiwan.
Isn't Taiwan already de facto independent? I could be wrong on this, but it was my understanding that they're basically sovereign except for a lack of recognition by the UN and other countries. I don't think it's like the situation in Hong Kong or Tibet, where the CCP really is controlling things. So I don't think it's a matter of keeping Taiwan under its control but rather getting Taiwan under its control. But I do agree that China is most likely driven by economic reasons in this case.
The other thing to remember, if the US backs Taiwan's push for whatever it is that they are then striving for (independence, recognition..?), they (the US) will be confronted about occupation areas such as Okinawa, Guam, etc. Obviously there are still an enormous amount of issues that I'm unaware of that surround this issue, but at least as far as the US is concerned, looking like a hippocrite isn't somewhere we want to be. (not to say we aren't already there regarding other areas of policy)
I don't think you can really compare Guam and Okinawa to Taiwan. The former two are basically just US military bases. Taiwan has been independent for more than fifty years, and even before that you could argue that Japan had more of a claim to Taiwan than China did.
They are just military bases, what i'm pointing at is the principle behind it. In my personal opinion, Taiwan should be granted its independence if it wishes, I just wanted to point out one of the additional potential road bumps for the US were it to ever back a Taiwanese push for independence.
oh, and Japan's legitimacy in it shouldn't be mentioned around Taiwanese ;)
*tears hair out*
firepigeon, would you please consider/reread my points? I'm not saying that the US would get involved with Taiwan.
In an attempt to bring new arguments and insights to the table I suggested that the U.S.'s occupations would be just one more thing that would avert them from considering backing Taiwanese independence.
Finally, I don't have any logical evidence to back this up, but I'm pretty much convinced the utilization of Nuclear warheads by nations against other nations is passe.
jskwad - Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but it sounds like your idea is to do whatever China wants in order to not upset them. Is that really the way we should live? Appeasing anyone who shows aggressive behavior in order to not offend them? Last I checked the United States was still a lot more powerful than China. I don't see why we should be afraid of them. The only power they have over us is what we allow them to have by capitulating to their demands. Like mrcourageous said, Taiwan is a model for democracy and capitalism in the region, and we should defend them.
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