Somewhat reddit-brained lib friend of mine sent this article which triggered a whole discussion of geopolitics: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmcs-euv-machines-are-equipped-with-a-remote-self-destruct-in-case-of-an-invasion

He said that would reduce the chance of an invasion and I was like (paraphrasing): "really? does it? the generations-long and unfinished business of the chinese civil war and all the history there is outweighed by the thought of losing one chip fab that they've already proven they don't really need after all the sanctions? They aren't going to invade unless their hand is forced, there's literally already US troops on taiwan-held islands, if they were on the brink of invading they would have done it already, but they aren't."

He basically argued that the majority of people there wanted to be independent therefore its simple self determination and the US should help them, etc.

I said the no capitalist state gives a flying fuck about self determination and asked if texas has the right to secede, or perhaps more relevantly, if texas settlers had the right to secede from mexico and join the US in the first place? because its not like the nationalists that took over the island were its native inhabitants, who are now mostly dead, flooding a low-population place with "settlers" doesn't mean you own it...

we went back and forth a bunch and he stopped arguing when I pointed out the inconsistency of supporting palestine but also taiwan, when they (while not the same, taiwan wasn't settler colonialism) have kind of a similar arc, what with israel's "majority", both having invaded and largely displacing the prior inhabitants.

I don't feel I had all the best arguments at my disposal, though overall I feel good about my responses.

  • itappearsthat
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    edit-2
    7 months ago

    For Taiwan a lot of people in the west just have no idea about the history. Things like the White Terror, Chiang Kai-Shek, even the Chinese Civil War - they've never even heard of these things let alone are able to place them along a timeline and articulate how they relate to Taiwan. So I usually just take the non-argumentative angle of being like "yeah it's a pretty interesting problem, yada yada yada... (briefly talk about the past 75 years of history)" - even name-dropping some of these events will get people to realize they know shit about fuck, which might open cracks for discussions in the future. If people know this entire history and still believe Taiwan should secede and form its own independent country then that opens interesting avenues for discussion about secession generally and state formation. But yeah basically my approach is to not really argue but just discuss these concepts both in the abstract and with reference to analogous situations closer to home.