Everybody knows about the backstory, there was a civil war, KMT fled to Taiwan creating two Chinas sort of, maybe, neither recognises the other, whole thing. ROC (Taiwan) ended up transitioning from military rule to a multi-party democracy, while the PRC (mainland China) didn’t do that (they did reform economically, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and all that, but still a one-party state, not a multi-party democracy). The status quo right now is that Taiwan is in the grey area of statehood where they function pretty much independently but aren’t properly recognised, and both sides of the strait are feeling pretty tense right now.
Taiwan’s stance on the issue is that they would like to remain politically and economically independent of mainland China, retaining their multi-party democracy, political connections to its allies, economic trade connections, etc. Also, a majority of the people in Taiwan do not support reunification with China.
China’s stance on the issue is that Taiwan should be reunified with the mainland at all costs, ideally peacefully, but war is not ruled out. They argue that Taiwan was unfairly separated from the mainland by imperial powers in their “century of humiliation”. Strategically, taking Taiwan would be beneficial to China as they would have better control of the sea.
Is it even possible for both sides to agree to a peaceful solution? Personally, I can only see two ways this could go about that has the consent of both parties. One, a reformist leader takes power in the mainland and gives up on Taiwan, and the two exist as separate independent nations. Or two, the mainland gets a super-reformist leader that transitions the mainland to a multi-party democracy, and maybe then reunification could be on the table, with Taiwan keeping an autonomous status given the large cultural difference (similar to Hong Kong or Macau’s current status). Both options are, unfortunately, very unlikely to occur in the near future.
A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan remains as a separate country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.
What are your thoughts on a peaceful solution to the crisis that both sides could agree on?
That was after you started this irrelevant line of questioning.
You arbitrarily excluded their responses. Again, “if this” “if that” it doesn’t matter. Taiwanese people are answering the polls based on what they think is best for them in the situation as it actually exists, and we should be looking at the situation the same way. Not basing opinions based on imagined hypotheticals with nothing to do with anything.
The US formally recognizing Taiwan would be a huge deviation from the status quo.
Sure, and given that China very much implies, if not threatens a war if they try to go independent officially - that’s likely to temper many responses.
Him doing that wasn’t the USA doing that though.
Cool, that sounds like a great reason why maintaining the status quo is a good idea.
Sure, whatever, I don’t care if he was or not. This line of questioning is completely irrelevant anyway, so I don’t give a shit either way.
Did I say otherwise?
My point was that realities were having an impact.
Yes, you said otherwise when you excluded their responses.
No, I didn’t. Me giving an opinion on the results of a poll (or many polls, to be clear) is not saying that Taiwan should just declare independence.
When you’re “opinion” on a poll involves throwing out 96% of respondents because they didn’t say that Taiwan should just declare independence, yeah it kinda is.
I have no idea where on earth you picked up this idea that you can just exclude whatever data you don’t like and call it an “opinion” or an “interpretation.” I guess those are just your “alternate facts”, huh?
No, it’s not. I am me, you are not. I decide what I think. You do not. I give you my opinion on the realities that likely frame how Taiwanese people are answering these polls. That’s not me saying that Taiwan should officially declare independence as soon as possible.
I am not “excluding data” in the first place. I am just giving you my observations on it.