You Are Being Lied To About Taiwan

so we have to talk about Taiwan. And I think like people who have listened to me on this show for a while know that, like so like, okay, a lot of my family is some Taiwan. I don't like

talking about Taiwan very much. Um I I think I've talked about Taiwan the politics and detail exactly once on this show when I was forced to for Iguana wood shooting, and like I would really prefer not to like not something I particularly enjoy talking about, which is you know, a big part about what we haven't But unfortunately I can't continue not to talk about it because the American left and and this is true of not just the

American Institute the British Lift. This is true of the left kind of writ large is being systematically lied to about Taiwan by a group of incredibly malicious nationalists who are attempting to rally support for their like incredibly violent

and bizarre imperial delusions, and unfortunately it's working. So I'm and instead of that, I'm going to give what I'm gonna call Taiwan one oh one, and I'm calling it tai Wan one on one, even though this is going to be like an hour long, because this is as far as I could cut this whole thing down, Like Taiwanese politics is genuinely complicated, as part of the reason I like talking about it, and at people who are giving you simple answers to what's happening in Taiwan are

lying to you. This is the best I can do, and it this is this is like the length of a Bachelor's episode. So nice, I'm excited. Yeah, So well, welcome with ti Want one on one. Um. The beginning of Tie one one on one is that Taiwan is a series of islands off the coast of China. And yes, there are a bunch of islands. Nobody talks about this like because again, people who talk about Taiwan like couldn't find their own ass on a map. So you know,

there there, there, there's a bunch of islands. There's one big one that there's several like a lot of smaller ones. Um. Now, one of the sort of fundamental principles of not just being on the left, but like being a decent person

is self determination. And you know, self determination on on a very basic level is that people have the right to choose how they want to live, and in a more immediate political context, they have the right to choose how they want to organize their governments and who they do and don't want to be ruled by. So okay, well,

what are the actual numbers in Taiwan? Say, well, okay, we we we have recent pulling from the National Chung Chi University's elect Election Studies Center, which says that a grand total of six point six percent of Taiwan's population wants unification with China. The overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan eight want to just maintain the status quo, which yeah, I guess I said. So the status quo right now is that like China claims that it is the sole

legitimate Government of Taiwan. UM. Taiwan like technically legally claims that they are the sole legitimate government China. Nobody actually believes that anymore. Like if if you scoured the entirety of Taiwan, you might find six dudes in a bunker who still believe that, like they're the real government of Tchina. Like, but the actual status quo is that Taiwan is basically de fact is like this, Taiwan is de factoway self governing polity that has elections and stuff, and yeah, everyone

gets incredibly mad about this. Most people want to preserve the status quo. Um inside of the people who want to maintain the status quo, you have, you know, it's like like basically for for three different options basically, so there's very similar numbers of people who either want to like decide the formal status of Taiwan, like is an independent country as a part of China that if you

want to kick it down the road. Some of them want to keep the status quo indefinitely, and some of them want to move towards full independence like later on. But overwhelmingly what people want in Taiwan is for nothing to happen now if this were a saying in rational world, that would be the end of the episode. Right, Taiwan doesn't want to be ruled by China, Like okay, well that's okay, that's the right, they have the right self determination.

That's it. Case closed and a story. It literally doesn't matter what the Chinese government thinks about whether it should control Taiwan, because again, Taiwan doesn't want to be ruled by China. And because a British person, I maybe I

maybe you ought to like not contribute further to that discussion. Yeah, you know, I mean, and I mean, you know, there's there's there's this whole thing that exists right where when when you when you force your role on another population, it is called imperialism considered to be bad and anyway and everything is it's still bad even if everyone inside

the imperial power thinks that it's good. Like if every person in the US suddenly decided tomorrow but they wanted to invade Cuba, like, it wouldn't make it morally right because people in Cuba don't want to people in the US, which we've done before. But it's true. Yeah, this is partially why I picked Cuba as example, because we really we did this. We we really did like kill an enormous number of people trying did Yeah, based on bullshit that people made up and portrayed his news. There was

the best speculation. Yeah. But you know, as we can tell by the fact that the U. S Has invaded Cuba, we do not live in a saying irrational world. We live in hell. And this means that I have a talk about a bunch of which is absolutely bullshit, arguments that a bunch of nationalist dip ships made up justify imperialism. So all right, this is where we start going into townan these history. Um So, the starting point of any actual history of Taiwan that's worth a single ship is

Taiwan's indigenous population. And it is incredibly important to understand from the outset. The indigenous population of Taiwan is not Chinese. They are not ethnically Chinese, they are not linguistically Chinese, they are not culturally Chinese, they are not any of these things. By literally any definition of the word Chinese, you can imagine they are not Chinese. Um this, this population,

this indigenous population is Austronnesian. It's it's an Austronesian people are population stretches basically from like it's it's an enormous screw of people across specific stretches from like Madagascar all the way to like Hawaii, and that that that those are the people who who who who live on Taiwan

and have lived on Taiwan for six thousand years. And you know, if if you read like CCP accounts of Taiwanese history, right, you'll see them they they won't talk about the fact that there again there's been an indigenous

population that has lived in Taiwan for six thousand years. Um, what you'll see references to you are like in like the Suiti and like Sung dynasties, people like sent troops to Taiwan and the season people will be like, oh yeah, no, they they they they they governed Taiwan and they ruled it. It was a part of China, and like ancient times,

like this is all bullshit. Like basically what would happen is periodically, every like a few hundred years, some Chinese leader would be like we should send some people to that island and they went there and we're like this sucks, and they all left. But you know, yeah, and and and and you know, like okay, so like these guys,

they're like, okay, this think this thing sucks. They leave, and the indigenous population continues going like you know, goes back to dude, like their normal thing, right, Like this is the the the actual history of who has controlled Taiwan for almost this entire history is that it was controlled by the stigenous population. But in four colonial powers start getting more involved and the Dutch sees control of Taiwan. Well, okay,

so the Dutch taking most of Taiwan. There's a part of Taiwan in the north that's ruled by the Spanish, and they do like bunch of just like horrible, like unspeakable crimes to the indigenous population before they ran out by like basically like a fragment of the dying like

Chinese Ming dynasty. And so yeah, six two this guy whose name okay, so she has like a name that he's known by in the West that I genuinely have no idea how to pronounce, because this the name that he's known by in the West, I think is a Dutch translation of his title and not like his name his baffling I okay, Like I think the Mandarin version of his title is something like Cushing. Uh. The Dutch somehow turned that into what I'm going to interpret as

coaching GA. Like it's baffling, It doesn't make any sense. Their transliteration is is nonsense. But yeah, so there's this guy. You'll you'll see you'll see his name written as like coaching um, and he's described alternately as sort of like you know. You'll see some inscriptions of him which will be like he is a all your list ming general um, and that's kind of true, like sort of. You will also see descriptions of him that call him a pirate warlord,

which is like also true. And you will also see nationalists, like Chinese nationalists celebrate him as like an anti colonial hero and call him like running out the Dutchess like the liberation of Taiwan and like that's not true, like which this is not true, Like I've I've seen people like from Taiwan like could do stuff with the indigenous population, like I've I've seen them call I've seen them call him by Taiwan's Christopher Columbus. So this is how this

is going. Um. Wait, so we're saying that changing from one colonial power to another, it is not liberation, no, it turns out and fascinating. Yeah, you can tell it's not that not liberation because you know, like a lot of people like actually like you know, do believe that, like, hey, it's gonna be less bad for us under this guy than it is going to be on for the Dutch.

It is kind of less bad. Like there are a bunch of redigenous people who go who fight with show coaching gun like you know, and he he helps they helped him defeat the Dutch. But what what he does instead of like you know, freeing the people there is he maintains the Dutch colonial system while basically just seizing Taiwan to run his court from. And you know, like Dutch colonial rule. Okay, so like Dutch colonial rule is over, but what if we're placed by is the rule of

an independent pirate warlord state. It sounds fun, I mean, it kind of is, like I mean, there's this whole so okay, So the kind of background of this is that, like the US, the Ming dynasty is falling apart. The Mean dynasty had ruled China since they ever threw the Mongols basically, and but like they're they're imploding. There's a

bunch of revolutions going on there. They are in the process of getting eventually getting knocked off by um the Qing dynasty, who a group of people from Manchuria who we will be getting to in a second. Yeah, this guy's like technically in mean general, but he's sort of not and he's he's doing this sort of pilot warlord stuff. But then he like he sets up like his own

dynasty like very short lived see there. And this is the first time that there's been like actual political control of Taiwan by any kind of Chinese entity, right like the like the weird dipshit armies that like China was sending in like the Song dynasty, Like they don't they don't actually like set up a government, right, Like they're just kind of there forbidden they leave. This is the first time like they actually conquered the island and rule

it as like a political enter. And even then it's kind of a half as conquest, like there's a lot of places they kind of just like they're just like, yeah, okay,

we're just not gonna bother with this. But yeah, and you know, again, like this is the first time this has happened, and it's not like the Chinese state, right, it's a pirate war Mark and his descendants get like knocked off by the Chain dynasty in sixteen eighty three, and this is the first time like a real Chinese government has controlled Taiwan um because bye bye bye bye bye. Six eighty three, the Chanine dynasty has finished taking overall of China or all all of what used to be

like the main dynasty in China. And this is the period that these nationals a point to and say like no, no, no, really really hold on, hold on. Taiwan actually is part of China because we conquered it in like six eighty three, which you know, okay, yeah, yeah, this is this is a part of Taiwan's China's ancient times. Yeah that this place we conquered in sixteen eight three, which ignores also again the previous five thousand, four hundred years where Taiwan

was rule by its indigenous people. It's it's baffling nationalists, brame words stuff yep. That has worked historically for other countries, notably this one and the one I'm from. But make it right, yeah, well, and then you'll you'll get people arguing this is like well, how like like how how is this different from the U s. It's like, well, here's the thing. I am a leftist, and I am capable of understanding that multiple things can be bad at

the same time, especially when they're bad in the same way. Like, wow, hey, maybe these are all settler qualities. We should destroy them, Okay, But we should actually talk about the Chin dynasty a bit, because a lot of what Chinese nationalism draws from is the sort of imperial expansion of the Chan chyneste. Even though the Ching are the Ching are not like a Han Chinese dynasty. Um, they're like ethnically they're from a

different ethnic group. But yeah, I mean it's said, it's it's the like the the Ching dynasty is a Manchion dynasty ruled by the people like the Manchies out of Mancharia. But I I think like insofar as people think about the Chin Dynasty, they tend to think about like the Late Chain dynasty Like this is like, you know, like the eight hundred Chang dynasty is a disaster, right, Like they lose the Opium Wars, they can beat by Japan. This is the whole sort of century humiliation thing has

a lot to do with like Ching imperial decline. But you know that that's like the eighteen hundreds change, the seventeen hundreds change, especially in the sixty seventeen hundreds change. Is it incredibly dynamic and you know, incredibly militant and expansionist empire. Um here, here's I'm gonna I'm gonna read

a passage from the book Taiwan's Imagine Geographies. Having annexed taime On in sixteen eighty four, the Ching turned its attention to Central Asia, pacifying quote quote unquote pacifying the Mongols, and bringing eastern Turkistan and lass of the capital of Tibet under Ching rule. The Ching further expanded its control in south and southwest China, subjugating various non Chinese peoples.

Of this reason to Ching domination at its height in the eighteenth century, Ching influences set it into Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burman, Nepal, all of which came under the suicerenity of the Empire. By eighteen sixty, the Ching had achieved the incredible feat of doubling the size of the empire's territory, bringing various

non Chinese frontier people under its rule. The impact of changing expansionism was thus was thus tremendous, as the chain not only redefined the territorial boundaries of China, but also re fashioned China as a multi ethnic realm, as a multi ethnic realm, shifting the traditional border between Chinese Hua and Barbarian Ye. In doing so, the Ching created an image of China that has vastly from that of the Ming.

And I think I think it's really important to understand what kinds of empire this is, which is to say that the Change dynasty is an incredibly brutal colonial power even like by the standards of like that's like, you know, okay, like all of all, like the all the the okay, Chinese dynastic history is not pretty right, Like this is you know, it's an empire, right, it's an empire. It's ruled by an emperor. It kind of sucks, like it's

not it's not good per se. But like, even by the standards of like China, the Qing are incredibly militants, an incredibly expansionist um. For example, like shing Chong, which which is a province that the Ching conquered, so it used to be inhabited by a Mongol speaking people until the Ching just exterminated them all and settled the entire land with with Han and weaker like a thin groups.

And you know, this history points to something that's important to understand when we talk about China Taiwan in the U S. Which is that what we're talking about is three settler qualities. And I think people, you know, might be like, wait, what do you mean China's settler colony? And I'm just gonna read this passage from the book, uh, Sovereignty Frontiers The Possibility, which is by Julia Evans, Anna Genevis,

Alexander Riley, and Patrick Wolf. And and yes, that is that Patrick Wolf, who was like was basically the godfather of settler colonial studies and one of the most important like academics a turn of like in terms of like advancity annalysis of setterer colonialism, like the Palestinian conflict. But here's here, here, here's what he has to say about China.

And this is kind of a long passage, but like, I want to include an explanation of what settler colonialism is because I've kind of just been tossing it around analytically. The case of Palestine reveals that the relationship between the external and internal dimensions of sovereignty is not a priori but contingent. Settler colonization converts external into internal, rendering indigenous sovereignties either non existent or domesticated. Annexation does the same thing,

only is illegal. The difference again is sovereignty to annex is to practice settler colonialism in sovereign territory. Thus, the frontier is aligned in time as well as in space. Spatially, the frontier to limits unconquered native territory. Temporally, it marks the conversion of outside into inside. It renders externality a thing of the past in the global conquest of settler colonialism. Therefore, the internal and external dimensions represent the state of play,

quote unquote. The ultimate prize is state formation with internationally recognized territorial sovereignty. Once the settler takeover as complete, the native realm becomes a thing of the past, superseded and detoxified, reduced to persisting in the settler's terms. Since in the case of Palestine, this process remains incomplete, the situation can

still go either or potentially any way. At the international level, this uncertainty is reflected in the ambivalent status of Palestinian sovereignty, which remains simultaneously both acknowledged and questioned locally, The stags involved in the resolution of such international uncertainties could not be higher. Tibet represents a case in point. Despite significant informal deference to Tibet's national separateness, It's incorporation into the

People's Republic of China is not seriously questioned. At the diplomatic level, Tibetan representation at the United Nations remains unimaginable. Yet even Tibetans might count their blessings when they compare their situation to that of Weakers, who, like them, are being officially colonized by Hans settlers in the so called autonomous region called shing Jong, a Chinese appellation that could have been scripted in sixteenth century Europe. It means new land,

being so much more firmly domesticated within the Chinese state. However, weaker sovereignty remains from vote from global concern now. Now obviously, okay, this is written before like shing Jong became like a

global news story. And also I I I question wolves translation of the word a little bit, like I think, I think new Frontier is probably a slightly better translation, but yeah, like you can see what's it are here, right, Like wolves argument is that like yeah, like like China is running to settler qualities, like the internal status of which is like even more internationally fucked than like most other settler colonies, which is incredibly grim. Like yeah, I

think we don't. I don't know why we were so we've been so slow to see selling colonialism and these contiguous empires like here. Yeah, I mean I think part of what's happening here, like you know, okay, Like I think there's sort of a different dynamic with looking at this with Russia, but I think with China it's like people are just like it's really really hard to get people to understand that colonialism and imperialism are things that like not that like non white people can do, yes,

and especially especially like this, you know. And I think this goes back to the sort of like Chan dynasy discussion, right, which is that like, yeah, you know, the like the way that people on the left understand the Ching dynasty is through the sort of nationalist lens looking at like the AG hundreds, and so they missed the whole part where they're doing all the settler colony stuff. But like what happens to them basically is that like you know,

it's like they're there. It's kind of like the Ottomans, right, We're like their empire suddenly runs into like newer, better, more violence and more efficient empires. But like it doesn't

mean that like they worked also empires. Like it's yeah, and then when people do work that out sometimes, like people and when we talk about like settler clonism in the US, sometimes like when folks have forced to retreat from the first position and that like that the US is not a settler quality, they'll then fall back on, well, they're indigenous empires beforehand, as if that somehow justifies Yeah, it's like it does not right, and like you know, like and I think it's the thing that tobet to

where it's like, yeah, the pre existing Tibetan government was not good, like defends like that government. It sucks. I would also point out that the whole we're going to stop the slave trade thing is one of the things explicitly in in the in the Tree that was side

of the Conference of Berlin. That was the thing that they claimed that that like that that was the thing that the European powers claimed they were doing when they invaded Africa, so like when they split Africa, but between the Clune of Powers, so like you know, okay, I mean also it's you know this this is getting slightly off topic, but it's also worth noting that like there wasn't there was actually a communist movement like in Tibet that wasn't the CCP, and the CCP killed them all.

So that's great and fun. That's never happened before with titanitarian communist pass Yeah, it's it's going to happen again. The sort of I think the stakes of what's happening here, I think become more clear when you understand that, like you like the US and trying to to like two different extents, right, like I don't know, like China has parts there, like there are parts of China where it's

like very hard, like it's not a settler state. It's just like their states, but there are part of definitely are a settlers date. And there's the U S which

is like entirely a settler state. And then Taiwan is also to a settler state, although it's like post independence Taiwan is at least violence of them, which is like not like a, I don't know, you're not winning much of a price by being less violent than China in the US, but like true god between those two yeah, but you know, but but but I think that this brings us back to like the Chin the Ching coccupation of Taiwan, which is that the Ching occupation of Taiwan

is China's first like first new settler colony. The Ching administrators they divide indigenous population into quote cooked and raw savages. Um that those are their words. That literally that's what

they call them. Like it is why because they're really racist, Like I mean this, this is like this, this is like a very old thing and sort of like sort of Chinese imperial course, right, It's like you have the difference between like barbarians and like Chinese people and like savages and non savages like this this is like this is how these people think, right, and it's not good.

Like I don' don't know like how many more ways I can like try to explain to people who are like who have been like like people have been like telling them Chinese nationalists stuff for so long that it's like this this also was not good, Like guys and again it's something the US has done the UK. There's classic imperialism, right. We took absolute tribes in the US, the racist in the British Empire. Yeah, I'm going to

read a passage from Taiwan's imagine geography. Indeed, as ching writers began to construct the Taiwan indigenous as two distinct groups. Negative traits that have been formally associated with quote the Taiwan savages as a whole began to be mapped on the wild or raw savages. We're Earlier text claimed, for example, that the savages quote by nature like to kill or quote we're were quote stubborn and stupid. Now writers attributed

these characteristics to the raw savages alone. Head Hunting, a notorious practice that the earlier the earliest sources had associated with the natives of Taiwan and other Pacific islands, also became also came to be seen as a raw savage practice. By the early eighteenth century travel writing, travel writers increasingly emphasized the violent and murderous behavior of the raw savages.

The expansion of the Han Chinese population at this time caused an exhalation of conflict between Chinese settlers and the indigenous over land and other resources. Hostile indigitees were thus becoming a real threat to the safety of Han Chinese settlers. Although some writers blamed inter ethnic conflict on troublemaking Han Chinese settlers, many Ching literati attributed the belligerents of the raw savages to the inherent bloodthirsty nature. So, yeah, it's

it's real. It's real. It's real, classic empire ship like text bookshit. Yeah, and you know, and you can see that there's this whole nationalist myth that like you'll read if you read modern people like talking about this, or they'll be like, oh, the indigenous population of Chinese government

got along so great. It is completely bullshit. This is an incredibly racist settler state, and it stays an incredibly racist setaler state when when the Japanese take over Taiwan and the Japanese occupation is even worse than the Chin occupation of indigenous people in a lot of ways to real ship show there's a huge massacre that they do

in the thirties. Um, yeah, and and okay, we just also mentioned at this point, so I've been focusing a lot on the the indigenous population because almost everyone who tells the story from all sides, doesn't talk about them ever, because it's it's incredibly inconvenient to like everyone's narrative that there were people here for literally six thousand years, um.

But you know, whow Basically since the Dutch showed up in the in the mid sixteen hundreds, UM, there have been like increasing numbers of Chinese settlers, and as as the Chin occupation sort of wears on, the number Chinese settlers increases and increases increases, and it gets to the point where, you know, kind of close to like what we have today, where like the the indigenous population of Taiwan is like two percent of the population, and it's

which is which is pretty close to what the indigenous population presenting the population of the US is for example. Yeah, and sorry, I'm not going to it's okay, Yeah, I'm

going to talk about Elizabeth Warren. But god, god, you know, actually fucking I will talk about Elizabeth Warren in the middle of this, because yeah, because her her whole thing of like like pretending to be indigenous was also fun because like she has a cookbook, and the cookbook yeah, yeah, that claims both her and her husband or indigenous and then in that he's like maybe the most incomprehensible lee awful like example of Chinese cooking every scene in my life,

which apparently stole from like another cookbook. Really like just cascading levels of racism all the way down. It's God, it's fine, it's all fine. All the settler colonies are bad. Their politics are all also always bad because again, like being a settler colony inherently makes your politics awful because yeah, and representing yourself an indigenous person to gain personal advantage in a settler colony when you are not one is

ongoing active colonialism. Yeah, genuinely terrific stuff Like, yeah, I don't do it. So having said that, so okay, we have to talk about the Han population. There's like different like subgroups of the Han population who are have different ethnicities, to speak different rates, like speak different languages because Han is like a very large sort of category, and like inside of Han Chinese there's like people who are Hawka.

There's there's a whole bunch of different groups. Um, And I guess the one thing that's worth mentioning is that a lot of the like you'll hear people talk about Taiwanese as like its own language, and like that's like there there are a bunch of people who were on but who don't speak Mandarin, and so like a lot of people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese, which is sort of like Hakka h ish leg. Well, okay, what's what what's

what's the most technically accurate with Vegas. It is a language that has developed on Taiwan, like in Taiwan by people who speak Kaka, and it's basically pretty close to that. Yeah, um, And we're not gonna get into super gradular detail about these ways of immigration, um, but basically, like one of the things that happens is that among these sort of hansellos there becomes this sort of like Taiwanese identity of

like them being Taiwanese, like specifically as a thing. And when when the Japanese lose World War Two, the Nationalist Party or the CAMT just like occupies Taiwan. But this is a real problem because again, most of the people don't want to be ruled by the CAMT because the CAMT like absolutely suck. Um. If you want me to hear me, like go deeper into them, go listen to

My Bastard's episode the World Anti Communist League. Uh. The short version is that the KMT is a genocidal like anti communists squad party run by an organized crime outfit that's led by Shankai Check and you know like they

suck like really like absolutely horrible people. Um. And as the camp starts to lose, a civil word of maw like born more CAMT supporters not some people just like running from the war start fleeing in Taiwan, and this develops a mass like you get these massive tension between the people who had already been there and the KMT and they're sort of new supporters and that their new sort of like settler immigrant population, and this boils over

into what's called the February incident or the two eight incident. Um. Basically what happens so a CAMT cop like attacks a woman who was like selling cigarettes on the street illegally because the KMT, like I really also kept like they're so unbelievably corrupt and so like that they have all these like monopolies where it's like okay, like that there's a guy who has like the opium monopoly or like a guy who has like the cigarette monopoly, and unless

you're running through that monopoly you can't sell like cigarettes. Yeah, and so in something that I think will be familiar to people who like like have followed the number of people in the US who have been killed for uh. Yeah, so the cops start like beating this woman over the head with it with his pistol, and everyone around them gets incredibly piste off. And there's these giant protests, um, and the camp to your response to the protests by

shooting into the crowd. And yeah, I mean, so there's another side of this I should mention like briefly, which is that, like part of what's happening here is like there's a there's a kind of ugly like basically race riot that starts happening at the beginning of this where like people like the sort of like Contowonese population like starts just like attacking like any random like any random people from like the campt generation, just like they found

on the street, that start attacking and killing and like

that sucks. Um. It is also unbelievably less violent than what happens next, which is at the KMT Like, well, okay, so so there there there's sort of this race right thing, and then there's there's like there's a full scale revolution and the Taiwanese population like seizes control of base of like almost the entire island, like the entirety of the main island, and they start demanding like democratic rights and stuff like you know, a free press and free assembly

and the protection of the digitus population. Although I should also mention that like like nobody really inti one like treating digits population. Well, like it was bad enough, Like my seven year old mom was like, oh my god, why is everyone treating these people so badly? Like it's but you know, okay, So they do this thing, they have this revolution and then the KMT like just sends the army to the island and they kill something like

twenty people in a week. Um like they are like they're they're cutting people's face like later, like cutting parts of people's faces off with like knives, Like it is

unbelievably brutal. And this begins thirty eight years of martial law. Um. The subsequent CAMPTI police state tortures like tens of thousands of people in rules Taiwan with like an with an iron fist until like the late eighties, and this is where things get really messy, right because up until nineteen two, like nobody in China like and and and this included both the KMT and the CCP until actually forty two, neither of them actually claimed that Taiwan was part of China.

But then in nWo both of them start claiming that that one is part of China. Yeah, and so when when when the KMT flees to Taiwan, both the CCP and the CAMT both claimed to be a legitimate government of China and be to be the legitimate government of Taiwan. And it's a disaster, Like the cam T is nuts, Like my they again, like they made my like seven year old moms sing songs about how they they were one day they were going to reclaim them other land.

Like these people suck some of them still in myanma or maybe perhaps not now, but like I've heard from them from friends who are older who were there, that there are a bunch of CAMT like living in parts of me and Mari and tourists would go pay to visit them. Yeah, like that's it's the thing. Like yeah, they're like they most of the people flee that flee to Taiwan. But like they break in a number of different directions, and there's like a bunch of weird rump

states they set up, they get knocked off. Eventually, it's a it's a whole mess. But in Taiwan, like they have this problem, which is that, like, okay, so there's like water in between China and Taiwan, and if you want to get troops over it, you have to have those troops across the water. And this is a real

problem for like an invasion. So what ends up happening is a series so like okay, so you have the cam T in the CCP like staring each other down across these islands, and the product of this is what's

called the Three Taiwan Straits crises. So basically in the CCP starts sell shelling, Taiwan starts shelling like time one, and then they do it again at fifty eight in like the CAMT shelves them back, and you know, and there's a couple of points where it looks like they're going to invade, but then the US like move supplies to the KMT to like keep the CCP from invading, and you know the result of this is just like I think incredibly psychologically revealing move after the crisis, which

crisis ends with the KMT and the CCP agreeing to shell each other on opposite days because and I cannot emphasize this enough, this entire conflict is profoundly bullshit and was foisted upon Taiwan by a bunch of pedley, squabbling Chinese nationalists. How big is that distance we're talking about, Like they're sending shells over there in the fifties, so

it's probably not vast. Well, part of what's happening is so it's it's a hundred miles, hundred ten miles, but what's happening here is like there there they basically like have set up on outposts in different islands in between, like the Big Island and uh the shore, so that they they're like they're on these islands shelling each other, like they drafted my grandpa and sent him to one of these places and that's and then he came back and was like, funk this, we're out, and so like

that that's where my family is in the US because he was like, We're not doing this ship again. This sucks. Yeah, It's like I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be cannon fodder for these like weird nationalists psychos. So okay, so what the sort of result of this, though, is that the KMT gets the backing of the US, and the KMT becomes in Taiwan is the like the legitimately internationally recognized government, um, like of all of China from the end of the Civil War until like the seventies.

Yeah right, yeah, yeah, how's the u n ceat I actually we get We'll get into that and you know what, we we do it here. So one of the things happens here is that okay, so, like the US really really does not want the CCP to have the u n C. And one of the things they try to do is that they offer neighbors India like the seat on like what's it called, am I blanking on the name of the thing? National security? Yeah? Yeah, you Security Council.

They offer India Sea the Security Council, and neighbor is like, no, I'm not gonna take this. I'm not gonna take this. This this is China seat on the Council, Like, I'm not gonna take this. And then Mao repays him by invading India three in ways. Um, this is not in my script, I am I am off Yeah, I am off script? Oh not two? Sorry yeah yeah, So like this a this, this goes great for neighbor mao, just like invades and the Indians lose the war very badly.

Don't understand why eventually China gets recognized. You have to talk about it about like what was going on inside of the PRC, inside of the people is probably in China. So the CCP fights a war with the Soviets in nineteen sixty nine, which in this war gets called the Sino Soviet Border Conflicts. But like this is like pretty much a real war, Like there are like Chinese and Soviet division shelling each other, like a lot of people die. Um like I I don't know if I've told the

story on this podcast before. My my, my favorite part of this whole thing is that the Soviets start like wargaming, can can they defeat China and nuclear war? And they figure out that they can't because the Chinese population is so just is so dispersed that even even if they knew all of China, they can't kill everyone. They'll and

they'll lose the war in human wave attacks. So the Soviets started developing developing the strategy of like having like a line of nuclear land mines across the Soviet Chinese borders so that the human wave attacks can't get through, because they like this is this called the is nuts, Like both China and the USS are are trying to get the US to ally with him to like do do do a preemptive nuclear strike on on the other side, Like it's crazy and and this like completes the Sino

Soviet split, and the US like really really wants to make sure that the Sino Soviets but sticks, and so the US starts negotiating with China basically to bring China to the well, Okay, there's two ways of looking at it. One is that they just want to separate, like, you know, the Chinese from the Soviets. The other way of looking at it is that they want to like bring China fully over to the American side of the Cold War. And I think the latter approach actually works, right um

so uh. In nine, the US recognizes the CCP as the legitimate government of China. Uh. Several months later, China invades Vietnam in defense of the Khmer Rouge, which the US was also backing. So yeah, and and this is where we get into some more diplomatic bullshit. Uh okay. So China maintain something called the one China a principle. The one China principle holds that the CCP is the

only government of China and then it rules Taiwan. The US has something called the One China Policy, and the One China Policy is it does not take a stance either way on who the government of Taiwan is. What it does is it acknowledges that China claims that it rules Taiwan. And you will see nationalists lie about this constantly. They will say things like the US recognizes Taiwan as part of China under the One Child Policy. Uh blah blah blah. Action is a violation of the One China Policy.

And that's not true, right. What actually happened is the US, the US technical term for this is called strategic ambiguity. And you know, so they have this thing like, they don't they don't formally recognize either side as legitimate government of Taiwan. They recognize that this is what China says about Taiwan. They don't actually recognize, but they have no formal position on whether this is the actually rules Taiwan. What they have is a recognition that that China leaves this.

And again this is all diplomatic bullshit. It's partial. Why I hate like talking about this because like, again the lives of literally tens of billions of people are being governed by like diplomats saying doing like that kind of ship because it's sucks. Yeah. So that's that's that's that's the one Child policy thing, which is not Jesus the one China policy, which is not the same thing as

the One China principle. Um. Yeah, and and so like all the while while this is going on, the CCP and the KMT yere in this massive racisty you can kill the most communists like that. The CCP kills about a million commination the Cultural Revolution and then invades Vietnam to kill even more communists. Uh. The KMT like not not to be outdone by by by by by their former comrades across the border. The KMT is training desk squalls in Honduras and like helping the Guatemalan government do

the Guatemalan genocide. It's it's really grim stuff. And you

know the product of this idea Loge. The product of this whole thing is the audio complete audiological collapse of the Chinese Communist Party as like a party that does communism, and then the political military collapse with the KMT so the but by I mean it's kind of it sort of has already stopped at the eighties, but by the nineties nineties, the CCP substantively has stopped being a communist party by the sense of the word, like they're just capitalists,

and they're not they're you know, they're out there making money. And by by by the late two thousands, even like you know, there had been a faction of what's culture of the Chinese New Left, but had thought that like they could you know, they could, they could you know, this is still a communist party and we can still change China from the inside. And those guys are like liquidated completely, like they're just gone, um and you know, and so, but you know, by by like now right,

like it's just it's just it's just capitalists. And meanwhile in Taiwan in the eighties and nineties, there's there's increasing resistance the camts like one party like dest squad, like one party state, and their whole dest squad like reclaimed

them motherland politics. Everyone like starts to hate them. And this is where things get really weird because on the one hand, the camp T is incredibly anti communist, but on the other hands, uh, they're the political faction that wants the tie type want to China, and this means that like, you know, as they're sort of like ruthlessly suppressing communists and leftists, they're also like vehemently independence and so like they kill a bunch of anti independence organizers, um,

which is like not not not not how anyone like talks about this conflict because it's too weird. So there's all the sort of weird political things going on in n The KMT ends the martial law that they had been in force since the February incidents, and the KMT

like disarms, right, they disarm. They're not as in like, Okay, the KMT used to be a party that would like assassinate people for writing an author right, like assassinate Americans on American solo for writing on authorized biography biographies of like Schenkai check. And they kind of stopped being that, Like they disarm. They're not really in the drug trade anymore. Caveats.

Don't quote me on that, but like there they're not the party they were in the eighties, right, That's that's what the important thing, like that they lose to one party dictatorship, and you get the sort of transition to democracy that ends in the first free presidential elections in

Taiwani's history. In and this, like the right right before this, you get the third Taiwan Straits Crisis, where the President of Taiwan like goes to the US and China react to this by having an enormous temper tantrum and like starts doing military exercises, like they start like simulating an invasion of Taipe one. They start like shooting rockets like at the coast, like jet the the leve these rockets on the land like just off the coast, and it's edgy. Yeah.

And event this ends when the US moves like two carrier groups into into the Pacific and the crisis ends. But like, okay, there's a feelings I would say here.

One is that like, okay, so on the one hand, this is the CCP having a temper tensium, right on the other hand, like it really and this is the thing that I think most Americans have never experienced, right, because the US is not a country that like gets attacked, right, having another country firing missiles at you fucking sucks psychologically,

it is awful. Like we saw how insane the U S went, like the like the first time it had actually been attacked since like World War Two, when at eleven happened, Like you know, you saw just absolutely batshitt the u S goes, right, Like, Okay, if you are a person in Taiwan, right, which like a lot of my family is, and you are constantly having another country shooting rockets at you, like, it sucks like and and I want people to like like sort of like think

about that for a second, because like I think a lot of what how, how this crisis and how this whole thing has talked about on the left is as a sort of like abstract thing that's like you know, it's it's it's instead of ab principles, right, and not stuff that's happening to real people who are like watching missiles fucking fall into the ocean and you know, like and what we're watching another country like preparing to kill

them and this sucks. Um. One of the other things that were not noting here is that like, part of what's going on in terms of the hardening of China Taiwan relations is gentlemen square happened, um. And the reason that this matters is that so one of the things that like stabilizes I guess relations between Taiwan and China in part is the fact that they're both incredibly economic

closely economically connected to the US UM. And this is because all of the all China, Taiwan and UH and China are all capitalist countries and so they're ruling classes are all completely independence like people. People talk a lot about Pelosi like investing in a bunch of like chip manufacturing companies in Taiwan, and that's true, but she also has a bunch of investments in China, because again, capitalists, single ruling class, they all they're they all all of

your logistics lines run through each other. Blah blah blah blah blah. I will insert and note here that is not in the script that anytime you someone talk about like the U s decoupling with their economy from China, they're they're full of ship. Do not like everything they're saying. Everything they're about to say is a lie, it does not happen. It has not happened, it will not happen, like they're lying. Um yeah, this is important. Um even

the height of Trump's bullshit. Yeah yeah, Like like there was kind of an attempt when it didn't work because like you know, you can, okay, like there there are some things you can offer to Mexico, right, but like most like China, China has a unique combination of a like a really good energy grid for the most part of those I mean, okay, there have been times where has gotten over tax but Liken compared to most other

development countries that has a really good energy grid. It has a population in which actually doing union organizing is illegal, and it has a population that you know, like gets forced to work incredibly long hours, right, And the combination of those three things makes it makes it, you know, a place where if you're an American capitalist, if you're

a Taiwanese capitalist. And that's actually part of this too, is that like part part of the reason there's so much like hatred for Taiwan instid of Tchina among people who you wouldn't expect it to be is that, like there's a there's a lot of people in China whose only experience of Taiwan is working for like fucking Fox Cohn and like working just in hell conditions for a like for a Taiwanese capitalist, and you know, and that that's very easy to transformant a national sentiment and it sucks.

But yeah, you know, but you know, like okay, so like there're the U s has an incentive just to stabilize US Chinese relations in part because it's economically like

tied to both of these countries. But when something goes really wrong in US China relations, like for example, after Tianna Man where you know, and I think it's also worth noting like from from the period like basically from when China invades Vietnam and even before that from but from when China invades Vietnam in up until Tienamen, the

US China relations are really good. Like the the US the scene as like an ally against the evil at Soviet evil Empire like all this, and you know, but gentlemen makes things go really badly because like the the only thing in American ally can possibly do that will sour the American press on them is to shoot a bunch of students in front of the American press corps like that. That's literally the only thing you could possibly do, Like you can, you can do actual genocides and the

US press corps won't care. But if you shoot a bunch of students right in front of you, they will get very mad. And you know, okay, times we've we've avoided doing that in minima. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's it's grim, lots lots of lots of yeah.

But you know the consequence of this is like, yeah, when something goes really wrong in US trying to relations you get China starts doing sabler rattling at Taiwan, and the effects of this on Taiwan ease politics and also just sort of what's been happening inside of Taiwan is really weird. So the CAMT, who have been again like the militantly anti comunist party for half essentially for half a century, are suddenly the fashion that once closer ties

the CCP. And the product of this is that the KMT and the smaller like hardcore pro Utification Party has become known as the Pan Blues. And the Pan Blues are the people who like want closer relationship with China and don't want closer relations with like the West. It's like the U S et, etcetera. UM. And their opposition group is this reposition progressive opposition groups, which are just composed of the groups that opposed the Camptis military dictatorship.

And these groups form well, okay, they form a couple of parties. The big party the first party they form, which is the biggest one by far, is called the Democratic Progressive Party or the d p P, and the dppnis allies which include some leftist parties I think, like the green parties in this coalition. Uh, there's also these like smaller like radical pro independence parties. UM. They become known as the Pan Greens. And this is like to this day, this is like the main dividing line in

Taiwanese politics. You have the conservative Pan Blues you favor closer relations with China, and the Pan Green progressives you

favor like closer relations with democracies. And also I think importantly, the the Pan Greens had this kind of like are the people who are in favor of like there being a distinct Taiwanese national identity, and the Pan Blues are kind of more suspect of that because again like you know, their basis the KMT right, they want closer ties with China, and closer ties with China means not having like a

distinct Twani's identity that's separate from China. And Okay, I'm enormously oversimplifying this, and people who are experts in this will like this part of it will be like it's more complicated in that, and it is this is this is the simplest explanation I could give you that people

will understand. Like I was, like, I was debating whether I even wanted to talk about like the pan blue like closer ties with China versus paying green like closer ties of the West thing at all, because it's confusing and people probably won't remember it. But yeah, I mean, you know, if you want to understand Tiwani politics at all,

like this is the line you have to take. No, I think it's important to at least throw out the people are gonna hear if they're going to engage in any discussion beyond like what has his tweeting And I'm I'm I'm gonna also like I'm gonna like lay my cards on the table so people don't understand my political position on this um, and my political position is one that pisces off literally everyone, which is that like, I'm not like a DPP supporter, Like I'm not one of

the sort of like progressive like groups. I'm not in this sort of like I'm not really kind of like in this sort of like I wanted dependance camp. I'm not really like a DVP person. I don't know, like, but I'm also not a KMT person, like because the KMT are capitalist reactionaries. Um, but I also like, okay, like I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna do my critique of the DPP and then I'm gonna sort of walk it

back a little bit. I think that Taiwanese progressives in general are waged you close to the American security state for me to want anything to do with them. And the ones who aren't, like, okay, the Taiwanese left, like Jesus Christ, get your ship together. Taiwan's most famous anarchist is literally a government minister. Like this, This is how funned the Taiwan's left is, like, uh, like like like these people, God, I'm enormously frustrated by like people couldn't

develop like a left. The puple couldn't develop a natural class analysis. You beat them over the head with a copy of capital Um. And okay, like I think, like Taiwanese progressives will point out, and I think this is fair. That is very easy to criticize, like allying with the U S when it's not your ass in the firing line of Chinese rockets, which is true. It is much easier to criticize the US when the when the rifles being pointed in your face are American rifles, then when

it's you know, Chinese soldiers pointing Chinese rifles. And this is a big part of what Chiwanese politics are so fucked um. Things get reduced at this sort of like democracy versus authoritarian US versus China, like Taiwanese identity versus Chinese identity to less extent like binary. But it's like, okay, like my family is Taiwanese. But like I was born here, I grew up here, and you know, I know, I know what American democracy looks like. It's the army hiring

Eric Prince to slaughter rocket civilians and bagdad. And you know, I also know what you know. I have a bunch of family in China too. I know what Chinese authoritarianism looks like. It's the CCP hiring Eric princibility trading basis for mass and tournament camp guards John like you know, okay, And the only actual like political solution that will ever get anywhere is to fight both of them, a position

that is extremely unpopular literally everywhere. And like, you know, I I think they're like the progressives have a good argument that that you know, this isn't this isn't a line. They have the luxury of taking right because they they they have they have an immediate enemy, and they're going to do whatever they have to not get invaded. And that means allying with people who like I want to overthrow and see liquidated as a class. And like I I understand why they think that I also am not them.

So yeah, this is this is this is me laying my cards on the table. And I think also like this goes back to the whole sort of like settler state question, right, which is the sort of unresolved political question in the U s, Taiwan and China, Like no actual major political force has like committed itself to destroying the settler state and returning indigenous sovereignty. Uh like two indigenous people and you can't have like any kind of

liberatory politics in a settler state without that. But on the other hands, like okay, the actual politics of Taimani's digenous people is really complicated, like it it doesn't work in the same way that like indigenous politics in the US does for example, like different true, I mean, and this is also true in the US, like different tribes

and different relations to sort of indigenous nationalism. Like and another thing that that's true about um, the that that that that that's true about Timany's dedigenous people is that a lot of them vote for the KMT. And they do this for a couple of reasons, one of which is because the KMT has this like really really powerful and eccentric patronage network that they've been running for literally

like basically since they got into the island. They've been running this patriots network and this allowed them to do like real incredibly intense and powerful based building in indigenous communities. Right Like they're like the d DP are the people who like distribute, Like okay, they have like a center and right and you go there and they get they give you like food, right like they this this this is the place where you get your like sesame oil. Right.

And then also there's the that's the second layer of the picture network, right, is like if you want to get a job, you join the KMT, And so they have these they have these really deep sort of political

roots in that sense. And then also, um, the CAMT does this thing where they're like, hey, look the DPP is doing settler nationalism, like hey, these are the people who colonized you, like fuck them, like you should alley with us instead, which is true, Like like it it is true, and like I think, I don't know, like Taiwanese progressives kind of like tap dance around this, but like yeah, like it is true that the sort of like Han Taiwanese identity is a sort of settler nationalism.

But like also this is true with the KMT as well, Like the CAMT are also was settler nationalism, like you know, like they conquered the island and ruled as you know, okay, And and you'll you'll you'll try you'll also see people who will take this argument and try to argue that indigenous people voting for the KMTE means that indigenous people support China invading Taiwan. And this is just comically wrong,

like they're just they are lying to you. Indigenous people in Taiwan, like literally everyone else in Taiwan do not support being ruled by China, and the argument that a Chinese occupation of Taiwan is somehow less of a settler state than the current system is just like comically propaganda bullshit.

And yeah, China, Yeah that's not being kind. Yeah, I'm gonna get into like this a little bit too, right, which is okay, So, like I've been trying to be fair and balanced here, right, like I have been giving you my critique of Taiwe's Chinanese progressivism. This is gonna piss off a lot of people. But like, having said all of this, China invading Taiwan would be really really really bad, Like I cannot emphasize enough how bad this

would be. Like, okay, so Taiwan is like a regular regular settler bugwad democracy with like all of the sort of good and bad things about Bushwa democracies which we're all familiar with, right, Like we understand what is that lared democracy is um to be fair, the modern taime.

His government is like infinitely less violent than the modern American government, like like the I I looked at, like the prison population in like relative population in Taiwan is like I think it's like an eighth of the of what the American prison population is, right, Like, it's it's not like, you know, okay, it's it's like Taiwan is not like a sort of like it's like Taiwan is not a socialist state, right, but it's also like, you know, better in the U s which is an incredibly low

bar that like you could trip and fall over it, but like, you know, okay, it's it's better in the US UM. Yeah, you know, it's closer to like Sweden or something in terms of violence. But I think is also a good comparison because Sweden also has an indigenous population called the Sami, and I all Swedish leftists will studiously never admit that they exist or talk about them at all. So okay, again, this is not a stateless

class society. But it's also like like sence sence, since the CAMPT has been disarmed, like this is not one of the world's great purveyors of violence, right, Like it's not the us UM. China, on the other hand, is a ferociously reactionary, capitalist, settler dictatorship. And this is something

that Americans have very little experience with. Um for a long time, people argue that, okay, like if if if China, like if Taiwan became a part of China, Taiwan would get some kind of relationship similar to what Hong Kong has. Were like they were free elections and union organizing and free speech is legal. But you know, twenty nightteen happens.

Yeah right, you know, I mean even in Taiwan, like the I'm sorry, not even even even in Hong Kong, right, the extent to which like you know, like union organizing and free association and free press existed. We're like and again like Hong Kong also, and I want to point this out, like the CCP has been strengthening this the

entire time they were there. Hong Kong is the only place on earth wor corporations have the right to vote and they vote for the c C peach Like it's so okay, this is this is great, but you know twenty Nen happens, right, And guess what now, Hong Kong has National Security Law, which allows the government to rescue literally for posting on Twitter that you don't think that

China should control Hong Kong. UM Secretary Secretary Way for Security in Hong Kong, Chris Tang said earlier this week that criticizing the government with the intention to provoke quote potention to provoke hatred quote between the classes was a violation of the National Security Law. A position that if actually like that, that, if actually like like this, if you take this position, this would outlaw in its entirety all socialist organizing in Hong Kong. Because again, anything that

attempts to provoke hatred between the classes ISAs illegal. Yeah, and yes, some of era of liberal Democrats existence within Yeah, and this is this is the moneth and like you know, I mean again like people people talk about this lot, like Hong Kong is one of the world's most neo liberal cities and this ISP has taken it over. And oh, hey, guess what they're They're they're living out the neoliberal dream of making it illegal to try to do any like

trying to do like class war stuff. Um. One of the things that happens immediately after National Security laws that it's used to destroy China's China's Independent Trade Unions Federation, and this brings us to like the sort of class perspective on this. Um independent union organizing and China is illegal. And when I say it's illegal, I don't mean illegal in the sense of like jaywalking. We're like, okay, if someone if if like a cops sees you jaywalking, they

might arrest you. Like if you try to do independent union organizing in China, men will show up to your house in the middle of the night and you will disappear for three months until a video of you with two very large men standing just out of camera range appears in which you recan't you're organizing and apologize for your crimes, like to to to get a sense of the level of oppression we're dealing with here to Chinese leftists named Louis You You and Leading You recorded and

published a series of protests like they basically they had they on the Chinese social media, like they posted this like record basically of strikes and protests that were happening in the country every day. So like literally all they're doing is they are documenting the strikes and protests that are happening and collecting data about them and posting it. Um In the police showed up to lose house, put a bag over his head and dragged him away to a dragging away to a jail cell. Uh Lou spent

four years in prison. Lee got two years, and the two of them never saw each other again. So again, this this is what happens if you literally just report on the wildcat strikes that are happening, someone will put a bag over your head and you will go to prison for four years. Like it is. It is like the situation for organized labor of any kind of anyone trying to do union organizing in China is unbelievably dire. Um. Now, China, and this is when I'm talking about, here's the independent

union organizing. China has an official trade union federation, um, the Trading Unifederation China has such a fucking joke that is literally a matter of academic debates, Like there are academic papers arguing about whether or not it even actually

counts as a union. And this has been true since the late neteen fifties when the CCP decided that, oh hey, this trade union is there to represent the party and not workers, and its roles to mediate between the you know, to mediate between the party and workers, not actually to you know, like represent them when they like when they had a dispute with their bosses. So yeah, like they

don't like they they don't. They don't go on strike like ever like they they they they they They exist as like another part of the party state, the goal of which is to make sure that bosses keep making money. If you try to work outside, if it, they will arrest you. Now, Taiwan is not like a shining workers paradise, right that the sort of vaunted semiconductor industry that everyone talks about is run by a bunch of workers getting the ship burned out of them by vats of acid.

But conditions for the Chinese working class are even worse. Counties wages are highered. Taiwana is better workplace protections. Again, you can legally organize unions. Uh. Meanwhile, in China there are famously suicide nets around Chinese factories because working for these places is so fucking awful that people would literally

rather kill themselves and live in it. And you know, you can ask why is this happening, And the reason it's happening is that a lot of the stuff that is literally the worst fucking nightmare of the American left things like your boss owning your apartment is just standard practice in China. This is this is just this is just what it's like to be a worker in China.

Your boss owner apartments. You have literally hundreds of millions of people who live in these tiny like they're called workers dormitories, which again often literally owned by like the owner of the factory they're in. You get like when when I say like the workers dormitories, right, it's not even like it's not even like an American dorm building right where like you you know, you have like your

own room. It's like it is yeah, like it's it's a bunch of people sleeping in cots, like like sleeping in bunk beds with like a fucking bucket next to them to go to the bathroom. Like it is. It is horrible. Um, you have like like the the I talked about this lot in this show. But again like literally there are paid a loans integrated into delivery apps like this. This is the level of capitalism that that China is. And like I'm not gonna like, I'm not

going to argue that it's worse than the US. I think they're bad in different ways, like they're there, there are there are there, like the the U s IS incarceration system is like you know, like one of the great human evils the entirety of human history right there. There are things that like the US is worse at like the Chinese police are a lot less likely just fucking murder you like you know, but like yes, but like China, it sucks to be a worker in China,

Like it really sucks. And I can't emphasize this enough because I don't because people don't really understand this, like they they like people do not understand that. Again, like the normal Chinese schedule is called you work nine am to nine pm, six days a week. This is the normal schedule. Mostly a lot of workers like that. That that again that that that's like an average schedule. Most people work more than this seventy hours a week, right like it is it is it is a ship show.

And yeah, if if Taiwan, if China invades Taiwan, that you conditions to the Taiwanese working class are going to get worse. That is just a fact. Try like imposing Chinese law on Taiwan, which strengthened the power of the capitalist class. A week in the proletariat um from from an indigenous perspective, which we We've talked about this at length about you know, we talked about at length how the Taiwan system is not that good. But you know,

it's not like it's a settler colony. There's some representation, but you know, it's not great. It is much better than the CCP system. The CCPs line on ethnic minorities is that if you're an ethnic minority in China, you're going to work in a han factory. You're going to pick crops from han owed fields. You're going to dance

and smile for hon tourists. If you step out of line, you will be dragged out of your bed in the middle of the night and sent to a fucking camp there are you know, like this is the thing that Americans sort of have similar experiences with. It's like, you know, you have immigration raids, you have raids on homeless encampments, but it's not that's and that that's like, you know that that's a kind of experience that is somewhat similar to what it's like to live in change on but

like it's not exactly the same. Like, I I know people whose families are just fucking gone, Like the police showed up in the middle of the night, and their families just gone. They've never seen them again, Like they're they're just gone. No no one knows where they are, no one knows who's even alife. They're just finished. And if and if you think that this isn't going to happen to Taiwan's indigenous population, the moment they start talking

about self determination, you are incredibly bafflingly hopelessly naive. And you know, like like that, there there's a lot of other ship that you can point to, right like for example, Taiwan has game marriage and China dozen't like the degree of press censorship just like social media censorship in China that doesn't need some Taiwan is like absolutely absurd, Like you know, I I think like most like some people talking about press censorship in the US are like almost

always right wing ship heads who were complaining about like they yelled a bunch of slurs. Like in China, a very common thing that happens, Like someone will be posting about a corrupt local official and then every single post

about it will get to lead. And if you try to post the guy's name of your post won't go up, and then any emoji that people were using in association with the corrupt local official like get blocked and you can't use the emotis anymore, and like you know and like and I it's it's almost like the level of censorship is almost comical to the extent where like people don't believe like in the US, like don't like you know when people talk about like like oh, the the

Chinese government isn't really banning get guys who look too feminine and gay guys from appearing in medias, Like no, they are like they're there there there. I think I think it was a Beyonce concert. There there there there was a very famous, like very funny thing that happens like a few months ago where there was this concert. I think it was a Beyonce concert. It must be.

I can't remember who it was, but like so there was a stream of it in China, and there was a guy there was a censor who was like putting like one of those gray out censored bars like over over the singers closed because they were they were considered too explicit, and she's just like moving this like dot of like censorship thing across the stage trying to fall, Like this is the level of bullshit that happens here, Like it's it's not a thing that like the US

really has much reference for because like we don't experience like this is not a thing that you don't experience you experience in the US. Like, yeah, sometimes I like to think about these things in terms of like like like all people talk about a Well and Huxley as these dystopian novels, right and imparts. People don't read those novels,

but they love to quote them. And like in all else, we have like a system which like keep you quiet by pushing you down right, and in Huxi's we have a system which keeps you quiet by keeping you happy with with drugs and such, and like it. Then it's important to recognize it, like it both things can be bad, but the material conditions in the day to the life of people, especially marginalized people in one society, can be

markedly better. Yeah, well, and I think also like yeah, like I think it's as we're not like the ways in which the American like there there are similarities, but like, yeah, like there are lots of ways in which the sort of Chinese system and the American system are differently bad, and that breaks people's brains because you get a lot of like you get you get a lot of Americans who were convinced to become convinced that like China as

a socialist paradise. There's a Chinese version of this, where like you get international students who come to the US for the first time and see an election, and they like lose their minds and are like absolutely convinced that like American democracy is like the only thabo political system and they read Hyak and they like lose They just like they become the Chinese version of tank You's, which are like weird near liberal people, and it's like no,

like I no, actually, in fact, none of these things are good. Both of these societies are just like not

good to live in any way. And like you know, and I think that there's no other thing I should mention here, like why all of this sort of like bullshit posturing is happening between the US and China right now, Which is that like on on the American side, like Biden is trying to distract from the fact that the country is falling apart, and there's a bunch of fascists trying to take over and like, you know, like all

of this bullshit is happening. China is trying to distract from the fact that they have nineteen percent youth unemployment right now and that like there are there are like cops dispersing people doing runs on banks because the it finally looks like the Chinese housing bubbles about to crack, Like it's you know, this sort of nationalist stuff is like for for for China in the US, it is this sort of game that they play that has a lot to do basically with pacifying their own internal populations.

But you know, for everyone in Taiwan, like it's not a game. And that's that's the thing I think I want to close on, which is like the single most important thing here, is that there is no way for China to take control of Taiwan except by warcent of the population does not want to be ruled by China.

Of the population of Taiwan wants the status quo. If you try to force Chinese rule of Taiwan, the only way to do it is by war and seasoning and controlling season control of and occupying a place with twenty three and a half million people is going to be a blood bath. There's no other way to do it,

even if you are. I does want to leave this as sort of a message to people who like who don't agree with me on this, which is that if you've gotten to the end of this and you genuinely believe that Taiwan is part of China, are you willing to watch your family get bird alife for that principle? Because that that that is what you are asking us to do. You are asking us to watch our families

die for your belief about lines in a map. And if if you are not willing to accept the concert pquences of your belief personally, if you are not willing to see your family get obliterated by a fucking rocket, then don't push for it to happen to us. And yeah, that is that. That is type one one on one. Um, Please, for the love of God, stop doing this bullshit. I don't want my family to fuck die. I yeah, yeah,

I think that's very well said, mate. I think a lot of people are so detached from the underground consequences so they're like theoretical on Twitter dot compositions that it can be very easy to be incredibly callous to people who have loved one skin in the game. Yeah, and I think I think this is the part of it. Like, no, like people on Twitter posting about this, there have no stake in this whatsoever. It doesn't matter for them. If everyone on top, if everyone who lives and I one

died tomorrow, it would have no material effect in them whatsoever. Right, Like the worst thing that would maybe happen to them, it was it would be harder for them to get graphics cards. Yeah, you entire family, like this is this is this is twenty three million people, an enormous number of whom are going to die if this thing happens.

So yeah, like like, unless you are committed enough to this to kill your own family, then fucking stop posting about it because that that that like, if if you were not willing to materially accept the consequences of your own position on yourself, then you shouldn't have it. Yeah, especially when you're pretending to be left is. Yeah, yeah, that's this is this is gonna make it happen Here's Yeah, don't don't have a Chinese invasion of Taiwan happened here. Yeah,

overthrow your local settler quality. Yeah, settle like learnings is bad. That's the official stunt of Yeah. Actually I don't. I'm not sure if we can legally. I think I think we can deal say this the official stance of cools of cool side Media. I'm pretty sure we can't legally say it's the official stance. Yeah. If you cut that down, I need Yeah, let's say, yeah, here are cool Zone Media. We don't endorse set like colonialism. Yeah, don't do it.

War is bad, don't rocket cities. It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.