Today the riots in Hong Kong seem to be grinding down to their bitter end. This week the fascist street thugs killed a 70 year old street cleaner with a brick and set a man alight for arguing with them, and now they are trapped in university campuses and running out of food and options[1]. Hopefully the people who killed that old man will be brought to justice, and this remaining hard core of violent thugs who have spent the last few weeks running around Hong Kong beating up mainland Chinese people will be taken off the streets.
A disappointing part of this whole saga of racist street violence for me has been the way many in the international left have supported the racist thugs. This started with a complete misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the extradition law that started the whole movement, and some on the international left even supported the movement as it spiraled into street violence and calls for independence – or even a return to colonial rule. Now obviously, in some times and places, it is necessary (from a left wing perspective) to support radical action on the streets for some political goal, but obviously if you’re going to support such actions you need to be thinking: what is that goal, and what left wing vision will it achieve? In the case of this violent movement – after the racist street thugs splintered off the original antiElab movement and started the five demands – the question has to be: What is the ultimate left wing vision for an independent Hong Kong? These guys are throwing molotovs on the street in pursuit of separating from China, so if they were to do that, what would an independent Hong Kong look like? What leftist vision do we have for that?
Hong Kong has very little industry, no agricultural land, no natural resources, even its water is piped in from Mainland China. If it separated from China it would basically have two industries: land speculation and banking. Now those are completely viable industries, I’m sure, and there is certainly a place for an independent financial hub in Asia, but how could this city-state be a left wing vision? We already have a kind of model for that, Singapore, and although it is a nice place and has some very strong socialist principles going on (such as the huge public investment in housing and the central planning of much of the economic activity) it is also a libertarian dream. It is not a great vision for an independent Hong Kong, and it’s also not possible for Hong Kong to achieve: a large part of Singapore’s success is built on social harmony and a lot of that is built on some repressive free speech laws and the strong public investment in housing. Given that housing speculation is one of Hong Kong’s main industries, it’s unlikely that an independent Hong Kong will suddenly nationalise 80% of the housing stock. Furthermore, Hong Kong is basically run by four families, and any left wing version of an independent Hong Kong would very quickly have to run into conflict with those tycoons[2].
I can’t see a left wing vision for an independent Hong Kong, so I wonder – what do left wing people hope to achieve by supporting these rioters as they run around Hong Kong beating up Chinese girls with iron bars? What is the future of Hong Kong that the left would support, if it split off from mainland China under the pressure of these thugs and their firebombs? And if you cannot see a path to economic security and an egalitarian society, why would you support independence, even if independence were in and of itself right?
Which brings me to the second part of my disappointment with western leftists’ support for the independence rioters. The return of Hong Kong to mainland China is an essential part of the decolonization process. There can be no effective, genuine left wing ideology that does not support decolonization, and although there are legitimate reasons to argue against violent decolonization, a peaceful decolonization – as happened when Hong Kong was returned to China – is something that all leftists should support. The National Liberation struggle may have a bit of a ’70s whiff to it, and it may be a bit beardy and uncool, but it is still a fundamental plank of any real left wing vision for a fairer and more egalitarian world. That means that Hong Kong needs to be part of mainland China and ultimately so too does Taiwan. Supporting an independence movement in Hong Kong means reversing that decolonization process, and if you are going to support recolonization, or oppose decolonization, you need a very good reason. “A strong, independent, left wing state” isn’t enough, especially given that’s exactly what China is anyway; but given Hong Kong has no possible pathway to becoming a strong, independent left wing state (or any kind of left wing state), you’re simply betraying left wing principles by supporting it.
Now you might argue that freedom is more important than decolonization. This might be true under some circumstances, depending on the nature of the state you’re supporting separation from, but I don’t think it’s possible to argue that under the one country two systems ideal; and it certainly isn’t possible given the vanguard of this movement are fascist street thugs who want to return to colonial rule. There is no freedom under British colonial rule, and any movement that advocates for that – and waves the British colonial flag – while beating up people on the basis of the language they speak, is never going to be a movement for freedom and democracy.
This movement of racist thugs is a dead-end for the left. It’s not a movement for freedom, it’s opposed to the decolonization project that is essential to modern left wing ideals, and its only end point is a right wing tax hell hole squatting on the edge of China causing trouble. Left wing people should not support this movement, and as its last dead enders stumble bleary-eyed out of the universities they’re holed up in, we shouldn’t give them our support!
fn1: Their decision to occupy the university seems to me to be a sign of how little connection they have to the international left. University sit-ins only work if the government is at least slightly willing to play along with the game, if there is the possibility that they are going to make concessions, and the government is only likely to do that if they think the activists are honest and aren’t going to engage in an orgy of property violence. Anyone who has done a university sit-in (as I have, once) will know that they are extremely hard to do well, and when the police decide to finish them up the process is ugly. Looking at photos of these kids’ activities in the university cafeterias and common spaces, I don’t get the impression they are very well organized or familiar with how sit-ins work. I don’t think they have much connection to the international left if they haven’t been able to learn these things.
fn2: These tycoons are the real reason Hong Kong’s young people feel so hopeless, and they have done a very very good job of distracting Hong Kongers into thinking mainland China is the cause of their problems.
Compromise and Conceit 
November 19, 2019 at 8:29 am
1. It’s not so hard to guess at least two of the reasons why the demonstrators might be attracting support from the left internationally (actually I don’t know to what extent they are attracting such support, but I accept there’s at least some). One is that advancing leftist goals frequently requires willingness to put pressure on governments, so leftists are often predisposed to support those who are putting pressure on governments. Another is that the Chinese government in particular is vicious and tyrannical, and the left opposes vicious tyrannies. Without anything further, even taking both together, that’s not sufficient good reason for leftist support for the demonstrators, but when you pose the question of why, in fact, they are attracting whatever international leftist support they are attracting, those are the explanations which spring to my mind, so I offer them as answers to your question for whatever they’re worth.
2. Describing China as a left-wing state is like describing it as a low-voltage state or an ultraviolet state: it’s not even wrong. The categories don’t apply.
3. There is no good reason for Taiwan to accept rule by the Chinese Communist Party. Obviously there’s no prospect of their doing so, but further than that they are right not to do so.
November 19, 2019 at 11:28 am
J-D, in order …
1. As an example of the international support these rioters are getting, the Democrats have pushed congress to pass some stupid bill supporting them, so this support is no longer just a matter of irrelevant people bloviating on twitter (or indeed here). As we saw in Ukraine, western support for fascists burning down the public square doesn’t always end well for the country that receives the “help”, and can have geopolitical consequences, so it’s a good idea to think about what “support” means in the context of the great game, and whether asking a right wing oligarchy like the US to put pressure on other countries ever serves left wing goals. As for “the Chinese government in particular is vicious and tyrannical”, I don’t think what’s going on in China now compares to the sheer cruelty and vindictiveness of Australia’s prison camps for asylum seekers (where murder, rape and torture have been documented), though the numbers interned in China might be slightly larger once you adjust for population. And compared to the USA, I don’t think China is in particular especially vicious or tyrannical. This article, for example, suggests that there are more migrants in Trump’s concentration camps than in Xinjiang’s “re-education” camps, and you can be certain they’re being treated worse. In fact, we have no knowledge about how many people are caught up in US concentration camps and it is notable that no one even is bothering to find out. Certainly the US has a much larger prison population than China, and its prisons are vicious and evil. Poor and minority groups in the USA are being forced into poverty and no longer even have guaranteed access to clean water or sewage systems, and the US is built on stolen land that it hasn’t yet accounted for – and the indigenous populations driven off that stolen land have much worse health outcomes than any population in China, as well as much worse cultural preservation. While the US has driven its poor and minority populations into poverty and prison, China has elevated 800 million people from poverty. I think you can criticize China but I don’t think you can say it “in particular” is vicious and tyrannical. The USA leaves it in the dust. It’s important that we appreciate the realities of nation’s records on freedom and basic human rights (remembering that people have a right to security, clean water and air, and freedom from hunger and homelessness, as well as speech), before we begin to single out one country for particular opprobrium. Particularly since here we’re talking about HK, which until these fascists started looting it was in every way superior in rights to the USA.
2. China is a communist country with Marxist principles explicitly built into its political system, many nationalized companies, a partially planned economy and an explicitly Marxist basis for its foreign policy. I don’t think you can fairly claim that’s not left wing unless you want to say that communism isn’t left wing, or that left wing states can’t be authoritarian. The fact that it’s got a bit of market principles in its economy (thanks to Deng’s reforms) or that its health system has only recently moved to UHC (a common order of development in developing countries) doesn’t mean it’s not basically built on socialist lines. Socialism=left wing, and so China is left wing.
3. Obviously the people of Taiwan don’t want to accept rule by China, but that doesn’t mean that the decolonization of China is wrong, or that Taiwan shouldn’t be part of China. National Self Determination is an important part of left wing principles, and decolonization is an essential program to restore justice to the countries that were invaded and humiliated by western powers. That means that in principle reunification with Taiwan is right. Whether there is a realistic pathway to achieving that, or whether achieving it might not be worth the cost, is a different issue. Nobody said East and West Germany shouldn’t be reunited, even though the East German government didn’t want to be ruled by the West German government. It’s funny how these kinds of ideas make perfect sense when communists have to give up something, but not when they stand to gain something…
November 19, 2019 at 12:37 pm
1. If the demonstrators are receiving international left-wing support (and I’m not disputing that, so I’m not challenging you to demonstrate it to me), then there must be reasons why that support is being given, although they may not be good reasons.When I suggest what two of those reasons might be, do you assert that they are not the reasons for people’s actions? I can tell that you don’t think they’re good reasons, but I said myself, first, that they aren’t good reasons. The worst people who ever lived still had reasons for the worst things they ever did, although obviously they were extremely bad reasons. If you were to ask me why an atrocity had been perpetrated, and if I were to make a guess at the reasons why the perpetrators acted as they did, it wouldn’t mean I was defending their reasoning. In this instance I stipulated in advance that I was defending the reasoning. What I was doing was describing that reasoning, or at least what I think part of it must be. Do you think my description of this reasoning, by other people, is an inaccurate description of how they’re reasoning?
The way you have interpreted my use of the phrase ‘in particular’ is a natural one; often it does mean that. It’s not what I meant by it in this case, though. I used that phrase to distinguish between the two lines of reasoning I was sketching. The first depends on general characteristics of government, not the specific characteristics of any particular government, The second, in contrast, depends on characteristics which are found in the Chinese government and also in many other governments but are not intrinsic to the general concept of government. I did not intend to suggest anything, one way or the other, about the merits (or rather, the reverse) of the Chinese government as compared to other governments, although I can grasp how it was natural to read that in what I wrote; I didn’t mean that it is the worst government in the world, or one of the worst, but only that it is one of the bad ones, a category which includes many governments, past and present, and probably most of them, but which doesn’t include all of them, because the badness consists in characteristics which are not universal to government but particular only to some governments, although that ‘some’ is a very large number.
2. ‘Left-wing’ isn’t a category that applies to states. There aren’t left-wing states, right-wing states, or centrist states. It could be meaningful, despite the anachronism, to discuss which politicians were left-wing and which right-wing during the reign of William III (and so meaningful to disagree about such questions); there is no possible meaning in discussing whether the Kingdom of England was left-wing or right-wing. It is meaningful to discuss, and to disagree about, who was left-wing and who was right-wing in the French First Republic (when ‘left’ and ‘right’ were first used as political labels); it’s meaningless to discuss, or to disagree about, whether the French First Republic was left-wing or right-wing.
3. In the actual context in which we are actually living, the government of the People’s Republic asserts that Taiwan should come under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. That’s an actual political program now, even it isn’t being pursued with much effort and may not be achievable. It’s not just a possible meaning of reunification (of Taiwan with China), it’s the only meaning it has in current politics. What’s the sense in leaving that fact out of a discussion of hypothetically possible scenarios? If you mention reunification (of Taiwan with China), you must know that people are going to think of this.
November 19, 2019 at 1:11 pm
1, fair enough! I was just pointing out why I think those reasons are wrong, and yes I misread your use of particular.
2, I think it’s reasonable to say a state is left wing or right wing. A state’s politics is determined by its government. You can have authoritarian states, fascist states, etc. I think you’re wrong to say categories like this don’t apply. But let’s drop it because it’s a boring question!
3, I was omitting that but not for any particular cunning reason (I thought it was obvious that my assumption was it would be CCP rulership from the example I provided). Yes, China would need to be reunified under one of the two governments, and I think a reasonable case can be made for it being the CCP. Defense of Taiwan’s independence usually either implicitly or explicitly requires ignoring or actively denying the extensive crimes of the Taiwanese government since it ran away from China, and also some ahistorical guff about Taiwan not historically having been part of the Chinese nation that was always ruled from the mainland. (To be fair though, I think one can make a very strong case that even if it’s right to reunify, the human cost of doing so means that no such effort should be made; but that is implicit in the Chinese government’s continual insistence on peaceful reunification).
November 19, 2019 at 8:19 pm
I’m not sure what HK would look like as a (more) independent polity. Not much like Singapore (and the libertarians who wave Singapore about have no idea at all of how Singapore actually runs – as a Confucian state where the self-appointed wise and incorruptible tell the masses what to do.
I’m not sure left and right really apply here. China is authoritarianism corrected by riot. Riots signal where the edges of political space are, usefully to China’s rulers (since they have little independent information otherwise). The HK mob are pushing back against a centralising and standardising agenda. Not pretty, but riots generally aren’t.
On Taiwan, it’s perfectly possible for the Taiwanese to have evolved a sense of identity that justifies independence – as happened with American colonists, Dutch rebels, Finns, Slovaks…
J-D – thanks for the naval reference at Crooked Timber. Interesting but a full read doe not, I think justify your point. Faustus has my email if you would like a fuller response (happy for him to give it you).
November 20, 2019 at 5:51 am
If Taiwan came under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party:
A. would it result in making better the lives of people in Taiwan?
B. would it result in making worse the lives of people in Taiwan?
I think it would make their lives worse. Do you disagree?
November 20, 2019 at 7:44 pm
Peter T, I think left/right do apply here because we need to ask ourselves as leftists, why do we support an independent Hong Kong and what would it gain the people of Hong Kong? And if we think that being a left wing social system is better than a right wing one, we need to think about whether Hong Kong is viable as an independent nation without becoming a right-wing cesspool – which is what it would become. And let’s make no mistake, these riots are not about the extradition law anymore, they’re about independence. There is a pretty robust set of left wing principles about when and how to support independence, and HK doesn’t fit them.
American colonists “evolved a sense of identity” over the deaths of entire countries, and through slavery. An “identity” is not sufficient to justify independence.
J-D, I think A is much more likely than B, and the only way you can think it would make the lives of Taiwan residents worse is if you accept all the propaganda about what a bad country China is. As I noted above, China is less tyrannical and evil than the USA. I think you should reassess your view of China.
November 21, 2019 at 6:08 am
If you think that living under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party would make the lives of the people of Taiwan better, then that would be a good reason to endorse the idea of Taiwan coming under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. But what reason is there to suppose that living under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party would make the lives of the people of Taiwan better? I don’t know of any. It might possibly be relevant for this purpose to compare current conditions for people living in Taiwan with current conditions for people living in China, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, but comparisons with the lives of people in the USA are irrelevant. Also, the evidence I am aware of suggests clearly that the people of Taiwan don’t want to live under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, and I’m confident that they’re better informed about the issue than I am.
November 21, 2019 at 10:49 am
“Would make the lives of the people of XXX better” is no reason to remove their independence and make them part of another country – this is a basic principle of national self determination. If that were the only concern then Taiwan would have a full right to independence. The reason that Taiwan should be part of China is that it is part of China, and after 100 years of humiliation it is time to decolonize the pacific and return the parts of China that were stolen from it to China, so that it can have full sovereign control of its own affairs. The only reason not to do this is if the people of Taiwan would be significantly worse off, or it would involve a war. But since you ask, here are some reasons I think the people of Taiwan would see their lives improved under Chinese rule:
– they would no longer be dependent on a fickle and untrustworthy foreign ally for their existence
– they would have a full, independent foreign policy
– they would not have to spend a chunk of their budget bribing small Pacific nations for political recognition
– they would gain a seat in the UN Security Council
– they would gain access to a brace of truly global cities and freedom of movement within what will be the world’s largest economy, including access to some of Asia’s top universities
– the indigenous minority would see a significant improvement in their rights
– Taiwan would see significant economic development
– Taiwanese people would gain the labour protections and economic benefits of membership of a communist nation
– they could get to use simplified Kanji with significant reduction in long-term repetitive strain injury
Some of these benefits are already available to Taiwanese people, but primarily because China is trying to demonstrate the benefits of peaceful reunification, not because they were always available in this relationship. It’s possible that over time the relations between the two countries will become so good that they are effectively unified (kind of like an EU arrangement, or the Australia/NZ relationship), in which case momentum to full legal reunification might end (similar to how the Good Friday Agreement has at least temporarily ended demands for a united Ireland) but that is a matter of technical and practical detail, not any sign that the fundamental principle of One China is wrong.
Decolonization is an essential part of the left wing project, and a lot of the world’s ongoing political problems arise from the failure to decolonize after the war (see e.g. much of the middle east). This is why a leftist analysis of the situation in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan requires a post-colonial perspective.
November 22, 2019 at 1:24 pm
1. The people of Taiwan are not dependent on the US for their _existence_. No change in US policy could eliminate them from existence. To some extent their lives are affected by US policy, and therefore by changes in US policy, but this is true of everybody in the world, including people in China.
2. It’s not entirely clear how to distinguish between countries (or other territories, if some territories, of which Taiwan might be an example, are not counted as countries) which have a full independent foreign policy and those which don’t, but no matter how that line is drawn, it’s not obvious that people who live in countries which have a full independent foreign policy are better for it. It’s not clear, for example, how China’s having a full independent foreign policy results in its people being better off than the people of Taiwan.
3. As far as I can tell, it’s common for governments to spend money on prestige/vanity projects/activities without benefit to the population. Therefore, it doesn’t surprise me that the government in Taipei does so, but it would surprise me if the government in Beijing didn’t. It’s not clear to me how any sensible comparison on this score could be made.
4. In my lifetime, Australia has three times had a term as a member of the Security Council. People’s lives in Australia didn’t get better when we became a member of the Security Council and didn’t get worse when it ceased to be one. I can’t remember its even being remarked on. I had to look it up to find when those three terms were, and I’ve already started to forget again. I don’t believe membership of the Security Council makes any difference to the lives of the people who live in those countries.
5. It’s not entirely clear how to distinguish between truly global cities and other cities, but no matter how that line is drawn, it’s not clear how to compare the lives of those people who have access to truly global cities with those who do not. However a global city is defined, it must be the case that there is much deprivation and suffering experienced by people living in them as well as by people living outside them.
It’s also not clear how important a factor in people’s lives is the size of the economy within which they have freedom of movement.
People in Taiwan already have access to universities in Taiwan. It’s not clear how to compare the benefits of access to Chinese universities with the benefits of access to Taiwanese universities. It might be interesting to compare the fraction of the Taiwanese population that have university degrees with the fraction of the Chinese population, but I’m not sure it would demonstrate anything relevant.
6. I’m not sure on what you’re basing your conclusions about the rights of indigenous people. I don’t know how in general to compare the experience of indigenous people in different countries and I don’t know how in particular to compare their experiences in Taiwan and in China.
7. I’m not sure on what you’re basing your conclusions about the economic development that would result in Taiwan. There are lots of things which get given the name ‘economic development’, and some of them turn out to be more harmful than beneficial.
8. I don’t know how in general to compare the labour protections or economic benefits available in different countries and I don’t know how in particular to make that comparison between Taiwan and China. Since you relate those protections and benefits to living in a communist country, it occurs to me that it might be interesting to compare how things are for people in what was once the German Democratic Republic, before and after reunification, but even if I knew how to conduct that comparison, I’m not sure it would demonstrate anything relevant.
9. I’m no expert on _kanji_, but I do know enough to grasp that there could be benefits from using simplified forms, although I’m not sure what the evidence is that those benefits would translate into a significant reduction in RSI. However that may be, there must surely be easier and simpler ways for those (undoubted) benefits to be made available to the people of Taiwan than transfer to CCP rule.
November 22, 2019 at 5:12 pm
It’s interesting to describe the Hong Kong rioters as fascist, given that the Chinese government would fulfil ~10 of Umberto Eco’s 14 criteria [1]. You can call it left wing, communist, modern or anything else you like. But it’s at least as facist as the US and probably more so [2]. You say that “China is a communist country with Marxist principles explicitly built into its political system, many nationalized companies, a partially planned economy” but frankly Nazi German meets these Marxist criteria better than the US, so clearly it doesn’t mean much. [3]
Regarding decolonization, I can apprectiate why you support it but I don’t see why it follows that “That means that Hong Kong needs to be part of mainland China and ultimately so too does Taiwan.” Do you feel that decolonization means that Scotland can never be separated from the United Kingdom? Have you informed the left wing voters in Scotland that they’re doing it wrong?
You can oppose colonization and British rule while still thinking that China is a dodgy (to be generous) politic entity. If your only choices are the UK or China, then deciding to support the a**hole who is presently not in power is perfectly normal – it’s basically the political cycle in democracies…
“National Self Determination is an important part of left wing principles, and decolonization is an essential program to restore justice to the countries that were invaded and humiliated by western powers.”
Taiwan wasn’t established as an independent nation by the West. It was estabished by Chinese forces. Your support to merge the two is as colonialist as any work to keep them separate, especially given how long they’ve now been separate for.
“Nobody said East and West Germany shouldn’t be reunited, even though the East German government didn’t want to be ruled by the West German government.”
There’s a bit of a difference between “Didn’t want to be unified but accepted it because they had no choice” (Germany) and “Doesn’t want it, actively oppose it and will fight to prevent it” (Taiwan).
” These tycoons are the real reason Hong Kong’s young people feel so hopeless, and they have done a very very good job of distracting Hong Kongers into thinking mainland China is the cause of their problems.”
Wow, those tycoons and their brainwashing powers. Are they also the people poisoning Uighur and Tibetan citizens against the government? Possibly by hacking Wechat and blocking images of Winnie the Pooh? Is there no end to their evil?
“I don’t think what’s going on in China now compares to the sheer cruelty and vindictiveness of Australia’s prison camps for asylum seekers (where murder, rape and torture have been documented)”
WTF?! You’re seriously saying that Australian off shore detention’s documented problems is worse than the situation the Uighur’s face because the Australia government has (fighting it at every step) allowed it to be documented? So secret concentration camps are better!? “china forced organ harvesting” gets 1.9 million hits [4]
“While the US has driven its poor and minority populations into poverty and prison, China has elevated 800 million people from poverty.”
Nope. You can either measure a) the target (poor) population against the average for the nation; or b) the target (poor) population against the best for the nation (say the top 10%); or c) an absolute measure of how much better people are off. Then you can damn the nation for the results. But you can’t say “China gets credit for lifting people out of poverty, while still having vast wealth disparity while America gets damned for vast wealth disparity while ignoring the lifting the poor people out of absolute poverty” because that last argument isn’t one. It’s deciding to damn America then putting together “facts” you want. It’s basically writing a Trump speach in reverse.
“The USA leaves it in the dust.”
OK. Let’s try this. Please establish the metrics then we can look them up. But define them first and we’ll argue metrics before we measure them. None of this “America sucks because I have decided they suck now I must find the stats”.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
[2] Give Trump time.
[3] Let’s agree that America sucks and Nazi German sucks more. It’s just seeking to illustrate that simple yardsticks don’t make a country more or less marxist/fascist.
[4] For contrast “australia forced organ harvetsting” gets 4.7 million. The first page (at least) of which seem to be calling to Australia to oppose Chinese organ harvesting. Why that doesn’t pop on the first search is a mystery.
November 22, 2019 at 6:20 pm
Identities are neither static or singular. In the American examples, they went from being British subjects resident in the Americas to British subjects and also citizen of whichever colony and also (vs Britain) ‘colonials’ plus, of course, “white/black, rich/poor, Presbyterian/Episcopalian/…”. The Revolution severed one of these and brought another to the fore. In the same way, Australians were British too at least to 1950, with Australian-ness being formed over the century from 1850 to 1950.
If a Taiwanese identity (in addition to an overall cultural Chinese identity) has become strong enough, I see no reason why it should not justify political independence. It is, after all, the way most existing states have formed.
November 22, 2019 at 9:44 pm
“China would need to be reunified under one of the two governments, and I think a reasonable case can be made for it being the CCP.”
I don’t think this follows at all. China would need to be reunified under one system (e.g. constitution) that would be led by one government (e.g. political party or group) at the time. But it doesn’t follow that the government gets to set the rules unless we’re playing in a flawed winner take all system (e.g. American political gerimandering or totalitarian regime).
It’s perfectly reasonable to subscribe to the idea that China and Taiwan can only be reunified in the event of a political compromise being reached that results in representative democracy being introduced in a non-reversible fashion across both areas. This would lead to a Communist Government initially, but allow a later change in decision from all citizens.
“The only reason not to do this is if the people of Taiwan would be significantly worse off”
OK:
Taiwan life expectancy (2019): 80.4 years
China life expectancy (2016): 76.25 years
Taiwan per capita GDP (2018): 25,026USD
China per capita GDP (2017): 8,826.99USD
Taiwan per capita health spending (2015): 2,595USD
China per capita health spending (2014): 6,716USD [2]
Taiwan aggregate freedom score: 93 [3]
China aggregate freedom score: 11 [4]
What other metric would you like to compare? Based on these figures, the historical wrong of colonisation would best be erased by China unilaterally merging with Taiwan under Taiwanese citizenship.
Then you have a number of crtieria on how Taiwan would be better off with China. Let’s check those:
1. they would no longer be dependent on a fickle and untrustworthy foreign ally for their existence
— This would also be true if China just allowed Taiwan to be recognised as an independent state. Though in the scenario of unilateral Chinese surrender to Taiwan, the result would be even better for Taiwan and China.
2. they would have a full, independent foreign policy
— As 1.
3. they would not have to spend a chunk of their budget bribing small Pacific nations for political recognition
— As 1.
4. they would gain a seat in the UN Security Council
— No they wouldn’t. China would retain their seat. The only scenario where Taiwan gets a seat is unilateral Chinese surrender.
5. they would gain access to a brace of truly global cities and freedom of movement within what will be the world’s largest economy, including access to some of Asia’s top universities
— As 1.
6. the indigenous minority would see a significant improvement in their rights
— Based on what?! Do they want the Tibetean experience or Uighur experience. I recommend Tibetan – setting yourself on fire seems more empowering. Or are we allowing each country to exclude a couple of racial groups from consideration [5]
7. Taiwan would see significant economic development
— Based on what? So they can hit the heady heights of <10k USD/per capita incomes? They've already suffered through non-democratic bullshit to have growth, who takes that choice twice?
8. Taiwanese people would gain the labour protections and economic benefits of membership of a communist nation
— I'm too lazy to search it, so I'll actually concede it for now. Sure.
9. they could get to use simplified Kanji with significant reduction in long-term repetitive strain injury
— Is this an subtle argument to join America and just use 26 alpha characters? Though I need to acknowledge J-D's lovely turn of phrase “However that may be, there must surely be easier and simpler ways for those (undoubted) benefits to be made available to the people of Taiwan than transfer to CCP rule.”
On balance, most of reasons for joining China appear to be so that China will stop bullying Taiwan. I recall converations on this sort of thing and I thought that we agreed the strategy for dealing with bullies making your life difficult was to to fight the bully until they realise the costs aren’t worth it? Why is China different?
“they are effectively unified (kind of like … the Australia/NZ relationship”
WTF? This is clearly bullshit. I can demonstrate that Australia and NZ is not unifed for a host of reasons. But the key one is clearly that we didn’t win the rugby world cup, so stop citing clearly erronous BS.
[1] e.g. what we hope happens to Trump supporters in Alabama in 2020
[2] So 75% of their per capita spend is health? I call bullshit (or bad searching/reading), but I searched for it so I’ll include it here.
[3] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/taiwan
[4] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/china
[5] In which case I call “Indigenous” and “Torres Strait Islander” for Australia. Elimination of the stain on our record associated with our actions towards those groups would leave us a decente record – it’s almost just the White Australia policy, One Nation and general low level racism left.
November 24, 2019 at 9:56 am
I think it’s entertaining that on the weekend we learn that Trump tried to sack a diplomat because she didn’t hang a picture of him in her embassy fast enough, Paul comments that China is fascist. The rest of your comments are mostly guff and misinformation, and there’s no point in responding to most of it, but I will make a point about Australia’s offshore detention camps.
Between 2001 and 2007 the Australian government imprisoned at least 5000 people in offshore detention, and from 2012 – 2019 at least another 4000. That’s 9000, probably 10000 or more people in arbitrary detention in camps with no access to the outside world at all. Given Australia has 1/60th the population of China, that would be the same as imprisoning 600,000 people arbitrarily in China. These people in arbitrary detention in Australia have no way to leave, no legal rights, and are completely beyond the ability of Australian media or activists to help. There have been well-known accounts of hunger strikes, of children stitching their lips shut in protest, of very high levels of self harm and suicide, of violence against and torture of detainees, and of very poor health. The children receive no education and are often separated from their parents. Of the most recent 3000 or so detainees, approximately 1000 needed medical care on the mainland. These figures do not include the people in detention on Australian soil. And speaking of fascism – you are perfectly okay with all of this, and think it’s not in any way worse than the detention of Uyghurs, who at least get and education and leave after a year. And you ask the rhetorical question “secret concentration camps are better”? How many bbc crews have been allowed into Manus island? Then you try to pretend that the Xinjiang detention camps are doing organ harvesting, which your own google search doesn’t back up. Are you completely incapable of doing anything except reciting right wing news reports?
I don’t think Australians should be criticizing arbitrary detention in China when they are running a much worse, much crueler permanent system of arbitrary detention in their own country, on a similar scale, against people from even poorer countries, who are also mostly Muslim. Especially if they can’t even be bothered recognizing the true scale of cruelty and violence being done in their name.
J-D, I appreciate your pedantry but sometimes it strays over into disingenuous misunderstanding. In your response 1, you clearly know that I’m referring to the country’s existence, not to the existence of people on the island. Also about point 4, you know I’m referring to permanent membership of the security council, which is of huge benefit – at the very least it stops UN-supported wars against yourself or your allies, and enables you to prevent UN-supported sanctions against yourself and your allies. But even non-permanent membership has benefits – I have a memory of the coalition opposing Australia’s most recent membership, then using it to investigate the MH-17 disaster.
Also the kanji thing was a joke (and I hope that was clear).
November 24, 2019 at 6:40 pm
“Then you try to pretend that the Xinjiang detention camps are doing organ harvesting, which your own google search doesn’t back up.”
My observation was that “Chinese organ harvesting” gets 1.4 million hits but “Australian organ harvesting” gets 4.7 which appear to be complaining about Chinese organ harvesting. Based on the Australian search I’d expect “Chinese organ harvesting” to get between 4.7 and 6.6 million hits.
As for “Are you completely incapable of doing anything except reciting right wing news reports?”
I’ll cite the noted right wing rag The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting-organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes
November 25, 2019 at 11:24 am
What you’re doing here is rhetoric – it doesn’t add any information and it isn’t relevant to the discussion at hand. You’re just throwing accusations and hoping they stick. You responded to a specific comparison of internment camps in Xinjiang and Australia’s offshore detention regime with information about organ harvesting in China’s main prison system, in order to insinuate one is happening in the other and to try and distract from the very real problem of Australian internment camps. This isn’t discussion or debate, it’s rhetoric.
I suggest you read the work of the report in your linked article. You might find the age and flimsiness of the evidence contained there enlightening as to your own biases.
November 25, 2019 at 12:05 pm
‘Also the kanji thing was a joke (and I hope that was clear).’
Was it not clear from my response that I did not realise it was a joke?
For the avoidance of doubt, it was not clear to me that it was a joke.
‘J-D, I appreciate your pedantry …’
Flattery will get you nowhere.
For the avoidance of doubt, that was a joke.
‘… but sometimes it strays over into disingenuous misunderstanding.’
If you consider my misunderstandings to be disingenuous, I doubt whether any assurances by me to the contrary would be effective. I can repeat that the meaning of most of the points in your earlier comment was insufficiently clear to me, but if you believe I’m lying I don’t know what else I can do.
‘In your response 1, you clearly know that I’m referring to the country’s existence, not to the existence of people on the island.’
It wasn’t sufficiently clear to me what point you were making that was relevant to the topic under discussion, and it still isn’t. It’s not clear in general how the existence of a country is an advantage or a disadvantage for its people. When the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist as a separate country, the evidence strongly suggested that most of the people living there wanted that to happen, so presumably they thought that would be to their advantage. Examples like that are rare, though, as far as I can tell. If the existence of Taiwan as a separate country is a benefit to its people, then it would be a problem for them if that separate existence depended on the support of an ally which was unreliable; but then, if you’re supposing that the existence of Taiwan as a separate country is a benefit to its people, then it seems to me you’re effectively conceding the point at issue. On the other hand, if you’re denying that the existence of Taiwan as a separate country is a benefit to its people, then you’re simply repeating the assertion whose basis I’m questioning. You can’t validly assume that it’s true in order to demonstrate that it’s true.
I can imagine a different argument which may not be your argument at all. I can imagine somebody arguing that the people of Taiwan would suffer terribly from the devastation of a Chinese invasion and that therefore it’s in their best interests to avoid the risk of that by accepting CCP rule. It’s true that a voluntary acceptance by Taiwan of CCP rule would avoid any risk of a Chinese invasion, but in order to assess the importance of this argument it would be necessary to have some idea of how much prospect there is of such an invasion. As I mentioned, however, I have no idea whether this is anything like your argument.
‘Also about point 4, you know I’m referring to permanent membership of the security council, which is of huge benefit – at the very least it stops UN-supported wars against yourself or your allies, and enables you to prevent UN-supported sanctions against yourself and your allies.’
It’s not clear how much benefit there is in being able to avoid attack by UN-supported forces if you can be attacked just the same without UN support. That’s what happened to Iraq, for example. The UN Security Council wouldn’t give Bush the authorisation he wanted, so he went ahead and attacked without it. However, supposing that there are benefits for the people of a country which is a permanent member of the Security Council, are they great enough to justify making the change? If they are, why wouldn’t that be true for everybody? The people of a country such as Japan could have all the benefits of living in a country that was a permanent member of the Security Council at the price of allowing Japan to be absorbed into America, China, or Russia; is that a strong enough argument for doing so? If these benefits are so great, why weren’t they mentioned as an issue by ‘No’ campaigners in the Scottish independence referendum?
November 25, 2019 at 12:12 pm
‘I don’t think Australians should be criticizing arbitrary detention in China when they are running a much worse, much crueler permanent system of arbitrary detention in their own country, on a similar scale, against people from even poorer countries, who are also mostly Muslim. Especially if they can’t even be bothered recognizing the true scale of cruelty and violence being done in their name.’
I don’t accept that the people of a country whose government is perpetrating sickening and horrific misdeeds which they can’t prevent should therefore refrain from criticising the perpetration of sickening and horrific misdeeds elsewhere. I can’t figure on what basis I should be supposed to accept that.
November 26, 2019 at 3:15 pm
J-D, sorry I should perhaps have said “appears to stray into disingenuous misunderstanding.”
I’m not sure why you refer to Australia as “a country whose government is perpetrating sickening and horrific misdeeds which [its citizens] can’t prevent.” You live in a democracy, don’t you? With free speech? So don’t say “can’t”, be honest and say “won’t” or “don’t want to” or “don’t think they should”. Because “can’t” isn’t where it’s at, and the difference is important. If you think that it is necessary to lock people up in arbitrary detention where 1/3 of them end up requiring urgent medical care, murder and rape are common, children sew their lips together in protest, and people are permanently traumatized by their experiences, simply because they came to Australia by boat you aren’t really in a position to be saying that China shouldn’t lock people in vocational training camps because they might be terrorists. I mean, pretty clearly in Australian politics the end justifies the means, and Australians are willing to exact a pretty heavy toll of pain and suffering on innocent people to achieve very vague ends, provided those people are poor Muslims.
(Also just for the record, and for any CT commenters reading this, I’m not engaging in whataboutery here – I was originally responding to the claim that the Chinese government is “particularly tyrannical and cruel”, by providing context, and this was disputed by Paul, and now J-D. My original post wasn’t about Uighur, and I note that any discussion of a model for a left-wing independent Hong Kong wasn’t even attempted!)
November 26, 2019 at 5:54 pm
If you could tell me how it’s possible for me to prevent actions of the Australian government, I would greatly appreciate the advice.
Of course if every single one of the people of Australia wanted to prevent an action of the Australian government–well, they wouldn’t have to do anything to prevent it, obviously, since if it were true of every one of the people of Australia it would be true of every member of Parliament, from the Prime Minister on down, and then the question of preventing it wouldn’t even arise.
I am aware that many people in Australia–possibly even a majority of the people of Australia–approve of and would defend the cruelties under discussion. However, this is not true of every single person in Australia. There are, of course, many people in Australia who object to cruelties being perpetrated by the governments of other countries but have no objection to similar or identical cruelties being perpetrated by the Australian government, and those people do indeed add dishonesty to cruelty. Again, however, this is not true of every person in Australia. I didn’t intend any exculpation of those who accept the perpetration of cruelty by their government, but how are those who reject and resist it inculpated?
November 26, 2019 at 6:46 pm
J-D, this comment would have less bathos (is that the word?) if it were not well known that offshore detention was stopped for a couple of years back in 2010(ish). By a labour government. I think it’s obvious what needs to be done to prevent these cruelties – a power that the Chinese people don’t have – and if not enough people in Australia want to make that decision, well then I don’t think we should be saying that China is an especially vicious and cruel and tyrannical nation. Australians recently had a chance to put paid to this problem, and instead chose to vote for the government that introduced it and has ratcheted up the pressure at every turn. And if (as was briefly the case) both parties in power are doing it then yes, I think it’s fair to say that most Australians either support it, or don’t really think it’s a big deal.
November 27, 2019 at 9:21 am
I didn’t assert that China is an _especially_ vicious and cruel and tyrannical nation. Vicious abuses perpetrated by governments are common around the world and throughout history (as far back, I would guess, as there have been governments). I don’t have enough information to compare the severity or the frequency of abuses by the Chinese government with the severity or the frequency of abuses by the Australian government, and I’m not sure there’d be much point in making such a comparison even if it were possible.
I repeat what I wrote before, that it would be dishonest for anybody to condemn abuses by the Chinese government while at the same time defending similar abuses by the Australian government. I’m not attempting to justify anybody who does that. However, there are people in Australia who do condemn abuses by the Australian government and, what’s more, take action against them as far as they can, and it’s not dishonest of those people to condemn, also, abuses by the governments of other countries.
I’m not clear on whether you’re suggesting that the people of Australia could stop the particular abuses we’re discussing by voting the Coalition government out of office, but if that is what you’re suggesting then it’s relevant to point out that many Australian voters did vote for the removal of the Coalition government (although obviously not enough to achieve that result). I’m also not clear on whether you’re suggesting that the people of Australia could stop the particular abuses we’re discussing by voting for some government that was neither Coalition nor Labor (Green, perhaps?), but if that is what you’re suggesting then it’s relevant to point out that some Australian voters did vote for that (although, again, obviously not nearly enough to achieve that result).
(I don’t know whether ‘bathos’ is the word you intended, because I’m not clear on what meaning you intended by it.)
December 1, 2019 at 4:50 pm
J-D, sorry for the lateness of my reply. I’m pretty confident that Paul supports the Australian concentration camp system, and I don’t think he’s really in a position to complain about anyone else’s camps while he supports any means to whatever the dubious end of the Australian camps is.
Since we have a free press and free elections with compulsory voting in Australia, if not enough people voted to end a cruel system, I think it’s fair to say that the people who did vote to end that system bear some responsibility too, since they were in a position to convince the others, and failed. Obviously not as much responsibility as people who voted directly for that system, but some – and certainly more than the average Chinese citizen bears for whatever is happening in Xinjiang.
December 3, 2019 at 2:30 pm
‘I’m pretty confident that Paul supports the Australian concentration camp system, and I don’t think he’s really in a position to complain about anyone else’s camps while he supports any means to whatever the dubious end of the Australian camps is.’
I can’t figure the basis for your conclusion about Paul; it doesn’t seem right to me, although unlike you I’m not confident either way. But obviously there are people who do condone the abuses in the Australian camps, and if some of them at the same time condemn abuses in Chinese camps, it’s not honest. I’ve agreed with that before, and I’ve also pointed out before that the same charge of dishonesty does not lie against Australians who condemn and don’t condone abuses in Australian camps. I’m not sure there’s any reason I should care which of these categories specifically includes Paul.
‘Since we have a free press and free elections with compulsory voting in Australia, if not enough people voted to end a cruel system, I think it’s fair to say that the people who did vote to end that system bear some responsibility too, since they were in a position to convince the others, and failed.’
There is a reasonable argument in favour of saying that if the Greens (for example) had campaigned harder, they would (or at least might) have received more votes. But there are lots of parties campaigning for votes, and obviously if each one had made its maximum campaigning effort it still wouldn’t have been possible for every one of them to win a majority. Possibly Richard di Natale (for example) could have worked harder, but if you’re looking for reasons why he’s not currently Prime Minister I don’t think that would be the place to start. (I mention the Greens for illustrative purposes. If you don’t have faith that the Greens would end the abuses even if they had the power, then substitute Socialist Alliance or the party of your choice, and the argument works the same way.)
Or, looking at it from a personal perspective, I consider my own efforts to improve the condition of the world’s people, or at any rate some of them. Could I do more? Almost certainly. Could I do everything? Certainly not. I forget which country you live in yourself, but how much do you think you could achieve to change the actions of its government if you put forth your maximum effort? The same honesty which requires judging other countries by the same standards as one’s own also requires judging other people by the same standards as oneself.