Reply To: 1914/1939 2.0

ujm:

1. Actually the Chinese claim to Taiwan is weak. The indigenous population are ethnically similar to the people in the Philippines (and much of southeast Asia and the Pacific,), not China. The Chinese colonists who invaded several centuries ago are different in terms of language and culture than those who rule China. Only the small number of “losers” from the Chinese civil war who came in 1949 tend to perceive Taiwan as a part of China. And note that China has not owned Taiwan for over 120 years (so if Turkey has a claim to Eretz Yisrael, then China has a claim to Taiwan).
2. Ever since the United States made self-determination a cornerstone of foreign policy in the early days of World War II (it was a condition for American entry), much to the chagrin of the Brits who had really wanted to keep their Empire, what the people of a country want has been a deciding point in foreign affairs for the United States, and none of the three ethnic groups (indigenous, pre-1949 Chinese, or post-1949 Chinese) in Taiwan favor being ruled by the Peoples’ Republic of China.
3. The analogy to the US Civil War is in error. Most residents of the Confederate States favored remaining in the United States, and more southerners joined the Union army than the Confederate. If the South had free elections (one man, one vote, no racial restrictions), there would have been no civil war.
4. China has already grabbed a large junk of Philippine and Vietnamese territory (maritime areas which under international law are owned by the Philippines and Vietnam), and their puppet state in North Korea not only kidnaps South Koreans and Japanese, but keep shooting things at its neighbors and constantly threatens to invade. The danger of greenlighting a Chinese conquest of Taiwan is that it will be similar to the British and French decision to greenlight the German conquests of Austria and Czechoslovokia (both with dubious legal basis); submitting to aggressors only encourages them.