Recent rising tensions between China & Taiwan have people around the world asking if war between China and Taiwan inevitable?
0:00 - The Future of China & Taiwan
PART 1: IS WAR INEVITABLE?
0:33 - 1. China is 'ideologically trapped'
2:05 - 2. Taiwan's Love of Democracy
3:36 - 3. China's Escalating Military Threats
4:45 - 4. Can the Status Quo Last Forever?
PART 2: IS WAR AVOIDABLE?
5:15 - 1. The Cost of War With Taiwan
5:56 - 2. Taiwan's Pragmatism
6:23 - 3. The US' Neutrality
6:45 - 4. China's Hopes for Peaceful Unification
FINAL THOUGHTS
7:32 - Is War Between China & Taiwan Inevitable?
There are a number of reasons why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan may at the very least, seem like an inevitability. The first reason is the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders, have made it very difficult for themselves to change direction.
For decades China’s leaders have repeatedly told the public that effectively, China can only achieve greatness and its people can only achieve true happiness if China reclaims Taiwan, despite the fact that the PRC has never actually controlled Taiwan. In addition, giving up on Taiwan would damage one of the CCPs big narratives that ‘of course the people of Taiwan want to unify with China’ because its system of government is the only way the people of China can achieve greatness.
The flip side of the CCPs unwillingness to change course is the unwillingness of the Taiwanese people to accept unification. Chinese officials have claimed that the people of Taiwan see themselves as Chinese and want to unify.
But according to decades of polling that’s simply not true and is becoming even less true as time passes.
For the people of Taiwan, identity isn’t just about ethnicity, it’s about a way of life and more specifically freedom and democracy.
The thriving democracy Taiwan has today is something that the people of Taiwan have spent decades fighting for. Taiwan is regularly ranked as one of the most free and democratic places in the world, while China regularly ranks as one of the least. Another problem experts point to is China’s constant use of things like military drills as a way to threaten and pressure Taiwan.
Experts say this is partly why the Chinese government feels the need to constantly escalate the threats it’s making.
Finally, there’s the argument that the stalemate that we see today, also known as the ‘status quo’, can’t last forever. Right now, as long as Taiwan doesn’t try to officially become independent, it still gets to mostly act as if it is even though most of the world doesn’t recognise it. The problem is China has only ever seen this ‘status quo’ as temporary and has repeatedly said that unification is inevitable and that it will use 'all necessary means' to make it happen.
So, if China says unification is inevitable and Taiwan isn’t willing to budge, why have 70 years passed without an invasion? The same reason why a number of experts maintain that invasion still isn’t inevitable. War is horrific, messy and costly, and is almost always seen as a last resort, particularly when everyone involved has more to lose than they have to gain.
Experts say that this mentality is reflected in the official approaches China, Taiwan and the US are currently taking. For example, the Taiwanese have made it clear they’re not interested in unification but instead of risking a push for official independence, polling shows the majority are happy to settle for the unofficial independence and peace of the status quo.
Then there’s the US. It's a common misconception that the US officially supports Taiwanese independence. Its actual position is that any resolution between the two sides simply has to be mutual and peaceful. The US has only signalled it would step in to defend Taiwan if China decided to force unification by invading. And finally, the Chinese government maintains that its intention is to unify with Taiwan peacefully which might sound strange amongst all of the military drills and threats, but does make ideological sense.
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