this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Clearly everyone should just let China do whatever they want to avoid war, if we appease them by expanding their territorial claims and avoiding conflict then surely everything will be fine. The politics of appeasement has historically been very successful.
Edit: Stop replying please, I don’t want to waste any more time arguing with y’all.
this line has been and will continue to be trotted out every time Americans or their allies are braying for war anywhere and with anyone ever since the one example everyone can point to in Nazi Germany. how many times has the US justifiably escalated confrontation since WWII, and how many times has it led to a good outcome (and how many times has it led to arguably genocidal warfare on the part of the US)? Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, too many other examples in Latin America, Iraq, Afhganistan, as well as every smaller operation listed in another comment in this thread? America is the biggest threat to peace in the world today and has been since the Second World War.
even if you take it as a given that Americans have good intentions and China is literally Hitler, the calculus of appeasement versus confrontation has to be a hell of lot different from a hundred years ago and compared to a world without any nuclear weapons. The costs of pushing confrontation with Germany in the 30s would have been minuscule and provincial compared to those resulting from escalation between nuclear powers today.
Your second paragraph is a great point. Even taking whatever the U.S. State Department says about China at face value, comparing a nuclear standoff to 1930s Europe is ridiculous.
The United States is clearly evil and doesn’t have good intentions. I’m not an idiot. But we also need to be critical of the wrongdoings of the Chinese state.
OK, but what exactly is the goal of your critique then? In talking about appeasement you're clearly drawing parallels to a specific historical period in the 1930s, which people look back on and argue that other European powers should have been more ready to go to war with the Germans over territorial claims. if China were to launch an invasion of Taiwan would it justify an intervention by the United States? would the results of that intervention ultimately be good for anyone but the American military industrial complex (assuming that it didn't lead to nuclear war)? the US being a country which you call the most evil and imperialist on the planet, intervening in a conflict on the opposite end of the world and which you call a civil war elsewhere in thread.
And do you think that China, in trying to integrate a (very large) majority Han Chinese island province which is widely recognized as belonging to the legitimate Chinese government (the PRC) internationally, and resolve what you elsewhere in this thread call a civil war, is on a similar level of needing to stopped as Germany when it was trying to conquer all of Eastern Europe and then Russia in order to establish a genocidal colonial regime?
What is your prescription in order to avoid "appeasement" and would you support a US military intervention in a conflict over Taiwan?
There is a spectrum of options between “do nothing” and “go to war”. I would not support a US military intervention in a war between Taiwan and the CCP.
Clearly, the CCP is nowhere near on the scale of Nazi Germany, though when we talk of appeasement, it wasn’t quite at the levels of conquering all of Eastern Europe at the time, but I’m not going to split hairs over that - your point that I shouldn’t compare them is completely valid and fair.
I think continuing to keep things at a stalemate where neither country gets invaded is the best state of affairs for the time being, until something changes geopolitically. For that reason, I am not going to decry the supply of weapons to Taiwan, because that provides disincentive for an invasion of Taiwan, and makes military conflict less likely.
You're correct that if Taiwanese independence is taken as a goal there is a spectrum between doing nothing and immediately declaring war, and thank you for clarifying. I think peaceful engagement is absolutely preferable in this situation but I'm deeply suspicious of the consequences of alignment toward the US and I don't believe the country has a goal of minimizing tensions in the region. I'll leave it at that.
I agree with your comment completely, stability and peace in the region is definitely not what the United States wants, long term. But that doesn’t mean that every single thing they do is wrong, and it doesn’t mean that every thing the US’s opponents do is right. We should take the actions and outcomes of these actors at face value, continue to advocate for peace and reconciliation and encourage more nuanced, balanced takes rather than hugely polarising positions. Thank you for engaging and considering what I wrote, we can build a better world if we keep building consensus, treating those with whom we disagree respectfully (assuming that they’re not being intolerant assholes!) and talking things through! <3
I appreciate your openness here. I think the PRC would also prefer peaceful engagement with the longer term goal of peaceful reincorporation, the trade ties they've cultivated in spite of US hostility I think lend credence to their sincerity there. In the big picture I just don't think the region can sustain two governments that each claim sovereignty over the same areas, and given their historical cultural and economic ties I think reunification would be the outcome of a process of dialogue between them.
I agree, it seems that the political instability can’t last for too much longer, and I’m hoping for a peaceful resolution in whatever way that is. I have to admit that I would prefer a peaceful bipartisan result where each state relinquishes their claims on the other, but I have to admit that seems very unlikely and that your conclusion that they would most likely reunify is the most likely result.
yes
Taiwan
US military intervention has historically been really good for the countries involved
I don’t see why, China is constrained by the same consequences of nuclear war, and has the same responsibility to avoid it, e.g. by relaxing claims that it owns and controls the entire South China Sea. Especially because I don’t think you’d say the same would be justified if the US claimed the entire Gulf of Mexico, or bearing sea, for example