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| South China Morning Post front page |
Consider:
Taiwan history is fraught with invasions from the mainland, going back to the Song Dynasty, when they attacked and decimated the aboriginal Taiwanese. Today we’d call that colonialism and, for good measure, genocide. It’s objectively not the case that “Taiwan has always been a part of the motherland”.
The Taiwanese are massively not in favour of reunification with the mainland. By polls, around 80%. Do their views count? They should.
Just because a place is right next to you doesn’t mean you have the right to take it over. For what? Lebensraum?
The fact that mainland Chinese, especially those on WeiBo, are hugely in favour of “reunification” means nothing. Or about as much as a Twitter poll. Mainland netizens are increasingly and notoriously ultra nationalist. And they’ve been encouraged by Beijing. Any individual on WeiBo you can net will know nothing of Taiwan’s history. It’s emotional. It’s the emotion, stupid. And how does one deal with emotion, if facts and logic hold no sway?
Note the “commie speak” of our favourite oleaginous spokesBot, Zhao Lijian, underlined above.
ADDED: I do wonder, though, why Pelosi thinks it necessary to visit Taiwan. I’m not sure it’s particularly helpful. Let’s see if she goes ahead.
