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How to avoid war with China? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by KKSankara@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

For those of us, unfortunately, in the imperial core, what steps should we take to stop a US war with China over Taiwan? I've honestly been pretty scared since the war in Ukraine started knowing that China is next. We must avoid this at all costs to save the thousands of Chinese lives that will be sacrificed by the west in their bid to reestablish a unipolar world.

While I'm not discounting the achievements of the anti-war movement in support of Vietnam, the war still waged on for years. The same with Iraq. What should be done differently?

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[–] odium@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Vietnam: the majority of the people of Vietnam didn't want the US there, the US was interfering in a civil war it shouldn't be meddling in.

Iraq: same thing, the US wasn't wanted and didn't have a reason to meddle.

Taiwan: the people of Taiwan don't want China there and China shouldn't invade. The US should also not invade.

People have a right to self determination. If China doesn't control Taiwan and the people of Taiwan want to keep the same government they have, then they should be allowed to. China invading Taiwan would be an unjustified imperialist act. Taiwan has a right to call upon its allies and friends for help if invaded and the alliances and friendships should be honored by those allies.

[–] simply_surprise@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Taiwan: the people of Taiwan don't want China there and China shouldn't invade.

Not to link dump below, but I think the history of the civil war and specifically the White Terror give necessary context. China (as the ROC) already invaded Taiwan.

"The KMT lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taiwan in 1949. However, Chiang Kai-shek intended to eventually return to mainland China and retake control of it. In order to do this, the KMT attempted to "sinicize" the Taiwanese people.[19][20][21][22] KMT's Taiwan Garrison Commander Chen Yi stated that after 50 years of Japanese rule, "Taiwanese customs, thought, and language would have to gradually return to that of the Chinese people".[23] The KMT believed that a centrally controlled curriculum would forge a unified national sentiment in Taiwan. They also believed education would help build a martial spirit and stimulate enough military, economic, political, and cultural strength not only to survive, but also to recover the mainland.[24]".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people

40 years of martial law and something like 20,000 executions were enacted in order to build the public opinion they have now.

Please note that I agree with your main point (China should not militarily invade Taiwan), but I do support China's stated goal of peaceful reunification

[–] odium@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I believe that regardless of what happened in the past, the only thing that matters is what current Taiwanese people want.

[–] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Events are not isolated in time; past events make future events possible, while future events are determined by the past. If you condemn the events leading to the status quo, then it's necessarily the case that you should not take the status quo as any sort of ethical baseline. That is, the current inhabitants of the island must not be exposed to war, and they will obviously decide their fate with their actions, but I don't find a reason to believe that their government deserves any special status regarding the island.

[–] severien@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you condemn the events leading to the status quo, then it’s necessarily the case that you should not take the status quo as any sort of ethical baseline.

That's quite impractical since all nations and their borders were established as a result of unethical conquest. This can be used as a justification for an unending cycle of violence.

[–] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly. Every change to the world order has people in favor and against, and can have a multitude of effects deep into the future. If one carefully considers them, one can subjectively label some change as good, some as bad, a few violence justified, most condemnable. But setting some arbitrary point in history as the stop point is unsound from a justice standpoint.

[–] severien@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My POV is that old events whose participants are dead stop being relevant for future moral actions. We should prefer justice for the living as opposed to justice for the already dead.

[–] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But those events have consequences for the living right now. If you're in poverty while someone else is rich because their ancestors stole from yours, then the current situation is unfair. You could of course simply equate all past actions to a sort of "ambient" condition, presumably outside the realm of ethics, but that would not necessarily have the effect of negating them:

  • Thinking in terms of rights, if you have the right to inherit (literally or effectively) wealth from the past, then that should be conditional to also inheriting any ethical considerations associated to that wealth.
  • At any rate, there's no reason to believe ethics doesn't apply to ambient conditions. E.g., if I become seriously ill for reasons outside my control, society should compensate and take care of me. This comes naturally in the form of welfare, or partially as insurance.
[–] severien@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem is that it's all a huge "what if" amenable for any narrative you want. In the end it provides justification for the never ending cycle of violence on people having no personal guilt.

[–] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Forcing people to be responsible for more than their immediate actions (e.g., also for guaranteeing other people's rights, justice for everybody, etc.) is only concerned with what people should be expected to do. A cycle of violence is not any more justified than it would be in any other situation. For example, I can use violence to defend myself from immediate aggression; if I include an unjust status quo in my reasoning, then I might also use violence to free myself from the consequences of past violence, but that would not create a "cycle" wherein a stable, nonviolent state cannot be reached, since every "allowed" instance of violence would still only be associated one-to-one with an equivalent instance of "disallowed" violence.

I'll give a more concrete example. If someone is trying to rob me, let's suppose it is lawful to use threats to protect my personal property. Now, if my family's wealth was robbed long ago, I would have a right to recover it, and whoever has it now would have an obligation to return it. If they refuse, then they are essentially under the same ethical case as if they were directly robbing it from me, so it would be lawful for me to threaten them too. If they escalate, that would be unethical, so it is simply impossible to justify any cycle of violence.

[–] severien@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Forcing people to be responsible for more than their immediate actions

What you're saying is that children should carry the responsibility for the acts of their ancestors.

if I include an unjust status quo in my reasoning, then I might also use violence to free myself from the consequences of past violence, but that would not create a “cycle” wherein a stable, nonviolent state cannot be reached, since every “allowed” instance of violence would still only be associated one-to-one with an equivalent instance of “disallowed” violence.

Who's the judge of whether it's "allowed" violence? If we say that the status quo of Franco-German relationship is built on the past injustice, and that this should be fixed, who will count all the past centuries of wars and massacres and calculate the outstanding balance?

Because if you let it both sides do it for themselves, then they both will naturally come to the conclusion that they've been unjustly treated and that the other side has to pay for that. In the end it will be the stronger one, not the morally correct one, who wins. For a time, then the sides will switch => cycle of violence is IMHO unavoidable if you hold the opinion that past sins are never forgotten.

Now, if my family’s wealth was robbed long ago, I would have a right to recover it

History is basically never so nicely clear-cut. I mean, have you studied your family tree and made sure that all of that family wealth was gathered via perfectly moral means? What if it turns out that your grand grandfather was a soldier who brought home some gold of dubious origins?

[–] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What you’re saying is that children should carry the responsibility for the acts of their ancestors.

No. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that people carry the responsibility to choose against unfairness if they have a choice. Whether the unfairness was created by your ancestors or someone else's is irrelevant. If you are in an unfair position thanks to past unfair acts, and you can choose to let go of that position (or do some other action) to remove that unfairness from the world, then you should. Or, put otherwise, you don't "deserve" that position, because it was attained unfairly.

Who’s the judge calculate the outstanding balance they both will naturally come to the conclusion that they’ve been unjustly treated

Well, I'm just stating that forgetting the past is not a good ethical standpoint. It is reasonable to believe it's at least a practical one, and maybe it's interesting to reason about the role it should have in lawmaking, resolving conflicts on a case-by-case basis, etc., but that is far from applicable in this case, or in general. I find no reason to use that simplification (which gives different outcomes) unless we're in a situation where it's become really difficult to reach consensus.

What if it turns out that your grand grandfather was a soldier who brought home some gold of dubious origins?

Then I would have the obligation to act according to it (return it, etc.). I would still have the right to get that wealth back, but then I would be forced to do something with it.

Anyway, I think I might be overexplaining and making it way more complicated than necessary. Everything I said can be summarized as follows: people have the right to not be affected by anything outside their control. Managing to provide that right is equivalent to effectively deleting the effects of every past and present unfair action. For example, if you properly redistribute wealth, then all of this family wealth robbery stuff simply fades away over time, as redistribution favors differences of recent origin and smooths out older variations.

[–] simply_surprise@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

The White Terror ended in 1987, and involved the genocide of the native peoples of Formosa.

It doesn't seem honest to refer to "public opinion" while ignoring the events that shaped that opinion.

[–] kingludd@lemmy.basedcount.com 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If we stay in debt to them, then it's unlikely we'll go to war. Who attacks their own investment?

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

War makes capitalism go round, and therefore we will always have war.

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

You must organize with like-minded people, which is to say, anti-imperialists, to undermine the war machine. You will not find these people among the major political parties, both of which are imperialist.

Once you are with a group of people, you can strategize around what to do more specifically. Holding rallies, building your organization, creating or joining a like-minded coalition, direct actions, etc.

You can't do anything meaningful alone.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

While the lives lost are nothing to quibble about. Let's be real. China has the population demographics. They just simply have more people. It takes the combined populations of all of Europe plus the United States to come close to the population of China.

If it ever comes to armed conflict, they will likely win due to sheer numbers. You should be more concerned about pointless Western deaths, of which there would be countless.

I'm pretty sure the US is aware of this and not trying to start a war with them due to this. They're also still a massive trade partner to the US. US doesn't want to lose access to cheap microchip fabrication.

[–] IzzyData@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The US has been desperately trying to bring some chip fabs back to the US. I'd very much prefer to see Taiwan remain independent, but as soon as the US feels it is in a good position with chip fabrication they may suddenly change their stance on protecting Taiwan. Perhaps Xi will not live that long and mainland China can give up on Taiwan after that. He is only 70 years old so he likely won't die of natural causes before then.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The US has been desperately trying to bring some chip fabs back to the US.

For sure, but the thing is, they can't fabricate them in the US for the price they can in China. They just literally can't because US citizens with the credentials to work in such an environment expect way higher pay than the workers in China do.

Phones have already become obscenely priced, but that price could double if we had to rely exclusively on US fabricated chips. While the US is trying I think you'd see an outright consumer revolt over the price increase.

[–] IzzyData@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Good points, but perhaps we will have to rip that bandaid off at some point. Modern phones have become a consumerist frenzy rather than any real neccesity. There are of course way more products than just phones that are more crucial. Still, maybe in 10 or so years the economy of scale will make it all viable and people's expectations will match the reality of the situation.

Or we could go to war with China. 😑

[–] KKSankara@lemmygrad.ml -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's the point of their recent visits then? Just a fuck you to China? The US is stupid, but I also believe they believe China is a real threat, especially militarily, so why do this if it's no provocation?

[–] simply_surprise@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 year ago

If the U$ does nothing, they're guaranteed to lose their hegemonic position as China gets better.

If they goad China into a shooting war, they're just about guaranteed to lose.

If they goad China into a shooting war where it looks like China's the bad guy, they'll probably lose.

If they can convince Taiwan to buy over priced military trash, they'll put off the decline of the U$ for a little longer.