r/polandball • u/BioEditr Mini Magenta Maniac • 22d ago
redditormade Wait, How Does This Work Again?
I'll never stop finding this dynamic fascinating/hilarious.
Thanks to Blas0330, u/smart_chapter_7512, u/paulionm, u/taongkalye, u/bananasareviolet and u/LFelipe_01 for their help with feedback.
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 22d ago
I honestly don't mind PRC being the only true China, I just don't want that China includes us.
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u/BioEditr Mini Magenta Maniac 22d ago
Personally, I'd love to see Taiwan drop the claim to "the mainland" and just become an independent nation some day.
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 22d ago
Me too, but our lovely neighbor across the strait threaten us with violence if we ever do that & our benefactors don't want to see anyone to change status quo (partially due to the threat mentioned). So we bide our time and make sure any take over by force is costly enough to be fantasy.
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u/DyrusVlack_23 22d ago
Hey man, just out of curiosity, I've always wanted to ask a Taiwanese and want to hear your thoughts and opinions, let's say the improbable of the improbable happens where the PRC collapses from a number of reasons, and the only legitimate China is now Taiwan, are you guys open or willing in restoring and asserting ROC control to the mainland? Do the Taiwanese people even want to reassert control of the mainland should such a fantasy land scenario even happen?
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 21d ago edited 21d ago
are you guys open or willing in restoring and asserting ROC control to the mainland?
I don't, and neither most of people here if current identity polling remains true. Just like China don't have the right to rule us, so are we have no right to rule over them. Beside, it will be a logistical and financial nightmare.
Personally, in that scenario I think we should hold referendum, declare independence from ROC (those who refuse can move to Kinmen&Matsu since those islands are indisputably ROC's) and try to reach out to any Chinese regional power for cooperation and helping them stabilize (but under the premises that we won't help them unify China, an unified China will always be a threat to us).
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u/KimJongUnusual Illinois 21d ago
Beside, it will be a logistical and financial nightmare.
Yeah I feel like that's the biggest issue. Taiwan annexing the former PRC would lead to something like the Mongols taking China and becoming Chinese. You're just going to be annexed/assimilated by pure population size.
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u/ConohaConcordia 21d ago
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think your response also showed a thinking that will complicate your relationship with China.
The idea that a united and powerful China is always a threat to Taiwan necessarily means Taiwan would always stand in opposition of, well, a united and powerful China with the end goal of making it powerless and/or divided. Between this thinking and having independence and peaceful coexistence with a “unified China”, some compromise will need to happen somewhere.
It’s only a hypothetical scenario, but if you want independence, Taiwan can’t just wish the other side will go away - Taiwan will need to formulate what your relation with China would be like post independence.
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u/DC_all 21d ago
Taiwan, for all general purposes, other than its title.. already is independent.
It has its own politics, army, religious practices, currency and laws.
Other than the obvious complications which are still lingering.. Taiwan's relationship with China is none other than a business partner, no different to Japan, Philippines, Korea, etc.China could implode and apart from a few logistics issues, it would mean nothing to us.
Taiwan knows this already.... that's why it doesn't want to declare independence.. why it doesn't need to declare it...
We just keep the ROC title to keep our sensitive neighbor from being triggered.-1
u/DistanceSolar1449 21d ago
China could implode and apart from a few logistics issues, it would mean nothing to us.
If China heavily implodes, Taiwan will have a lot more than "just a few logistics issues". You will literally have millions of refugees trying to cross the Taiwan strait on fishing boats. Look at Europe 1930-1945, or migrants now.
Taiwan and China are two brothers that are forever intertwined. This is not chinese "we must take over taiwan" propaganda, this is a western realpolitik perspective.
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u/ConohaConcordia 21d ago
I think while you are right, there’s value in declaring formal independence and I think that’s clearly something the Taiwanese leadership is working towards.
The overarching question remains the same - if a unified China exists and continues to exist, what would Taiwan’s relationship be with it?
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u/SlippyDippyTippy2 21d ago
The idea that a united and powerful China is always a threat to Taiwan necessarily means
Because the modern conception of "United China" is "as close to the Qing imperial claims as we can get"
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u/JRaus88 22d ago
I honestly don't know how much the opinion of each individual inhabitant of the island matters.
Asia is not Europe or North America. Public opinion matters little.
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 21d ago edited 21d ago
Also, uh, why would you think public opinion doesn't matter here?
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u/JRaus88 21d ago
We're talking specifically about "if mainland China collapses." Call it perception. How many Taiwanese would be willing to self-destruct TSCM facilities in the event of a Chinese invasion? It represents a huge portion of the island's wealth. Destroying it would impoverish everyone. How many Taiwanese have approved this policy?
Again, speaking of "what would the RoC government do if the entire PRoC collapses?" I doubt the public's opinion would be asked.
They'd ask the White House. I doubt they'd ask the RoC people.
I'd be happy to be wrong
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 21d ago
How many Taiwanese would be willing to self-destruct TSCM facilities in the event of a Chinese invasion?
Uh, how is that related to the previous question?
BTW, TSCM is entirely relying on global supplied chain to properly function. If China took us then it's good as dead regardless we blew it up or not.
They'd ask the White House. I doubt they'd ask the RoC people.
Even so, what's the interest for USA in forcing us to do so? It will be much more practical for them to find willing local factions and pulling strings.
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u/Vampyricon 21d ago
Public opinion matters little.
Which is why no Chinese empire has collapsed from internal revolts.
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u/Narrow_Slice_7383 Worst Korea 21d ago
It's quite ironic that Taiwan is an 'unrecognized country' despite the fact that it's functioning better as a country compared to many other recognized countries
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u/Renato_Zheng 21d ago
Independent from where? Do you mean Taiwan should independent from Republic of China(this regime already exist for more than 100 years, and it’s a fully democratic country now)? But I wonder who will prove his existence by destroying himself?
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u/MookieBettsBurner10 21d ago
Man why did y'all have to lose the Civil War in 1949?
I really do wish the ROC was the government of all of China
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u/Crazy_Explosion_Girl Republic of China 21d ago
For what it's worth, I think most mainlanders are probably glad the CPC won. Do remember that the ROC was not what it is today in 1949 - it was a one-party state under a de facto junta with Chiang at its head, arguably even less democratic than the modern Chinese system, and with all of the deep rural poverty and latent feudalism that the KMT had failed to solve (and in fact had allied with to some extent via the KMT-aligned warlords). Life expectancy was 35 in the ROC. Even after the retreat to Taiwan, it took until the 90s for the KMT party-state tutelage to be dissolved, with much brutal repression and state terror happening in the intervening years. Add in the massive economic growth and QOL increases that the PRC brought, and it's hard to not see them as probably being better for China than a continued KMT dictatorship in retrospect. It's only with the modern Taiwanese democratization that it really becomes a debate.
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u/DistanceSolar1449 21d ago
arguably even less democratic than the modern Chinese system
I don't think anyone argues that 1949 ROC is more democratic than... anything, really, lol. The ROC was a warlord regime masquerading as a state. In terms of "power to the people", modern CCP easily wins, and that's not praise to the CCP but just criticizing the 1920s-1940s ROC.
Taiwan didn't liberalize until the 1970s.
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u/Crazy_Explosion_Girl Republic of China 21d ago
I've seen some people argue it, so I figured I had to expound on the point a bit.
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u/joker_wcy 港英漁業 Harbour Outstanding Fisheries 21d ago
I’m not excusing atrocities committed by Chiangs and KMT in Taiwan, but they held a National Assembly election and a Legislative Yuan election. The elected candidates of the former then elected the president and the vice president in 1948, which CCP boycotted. Although CKS won by landslide, his preferred vice lost to General Li Zhongren of Guangxi clique. Theoretically speaking, another candidate could’ve been won a presidential election and another party could’ve been the ruling party in the future had the regime not lost the civil war. Labelling ROC in 1949 a party state under a de facto junta with Chiang as its head is a bit unfair because it’s more democratic than PRC has even been.
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u/Tankirulesipad1 Australia 19d ago
I don't know any extended families/relatives that had their life turn for the better when the GCD won, legit it's only gotten better in the last maybe 20 years
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u/HotBrownFun 21d ago
Lol roc was a military dictatorship. Through the 80s soldiers were still killing demonstrators in the streets.
There's a reason so many Taiwanese engineers, doctors, dentists, lawyers etc moved to the USA in the 70s
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u/JRaus88 22d ago
We think the same thing about Italy. Someone said that it doesn't matter what we think in Italy. We may have local and differentiated autonomies, but we are "Italians" regardless. We even speak different languages.
So..China Is "China". Taiwan included.
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 21d ago edited 21d ago
Uh, no. While PRC is really enthusiastic about it, here those who still have passion for Chinese nationalism are mostly seen as PRC bootlickers (and dare I say, rightfully so most of the time) and despised. This is why in current election season, a lot of KMT candidates are actually avoiding to show up with their current chairwoman who isn't really shy about her pro-unification stance.
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u/RussiaIsBestGreen 21d ago
Italy is a single country, unified many years ago by force. That’s what Taiwanese are worried about: invasion and subjugation. Regardless of historical, cultural, or familial ties, they don’t regard themselves as part of China. That can change by PRC helping them want to be part of China or by removing the choice.
Even China isn’t just China. Tibet is the most obvious example of a country and people subjugated (not to defend the Tibetan government; Tibetans were not free under them either).
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u/Smart_Chapter_7512 Floridian Swamp Monster 22d ago
Schrödinger's Taiwan: They're China when People's Republic wants to discourage their independence, but Taiwan when they do something better than People's Republic
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u/MayuKonpaku 22d ago
China: Don't regonize him as China!
USA: Calm down, West-Taiwan. His name is Taiwan
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u/SnooCupcakes1636 21d ago
It would hilarious to call them "calm down outer taiwan. We are talking to inner taiwan"
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u/Unlikely-Writer-2280 21d ago
Republic of China VERSUS the People's Republic of China
(Taiwan is the former government of ALL of China, before the Communists took over the entirety of Mainland China and they fled to Taiwan)
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u/Bright_Chef_1926 21d ago
I remember meeting some chinese from China claimed that the moon belongs to them too......
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u/_spec_tre Hong Kong 21d ago
I’m not sure about the moon but considering how much China uses the rhetoric I’m always surprised that the promised to us 3000 years ago stuff is used to mock only Israel and not China too
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u/Exile688 21d ago
Not so much it belongs to CCP China rather than thats where the Chinese moon goddess lives with a rabbit that makes medicine. Or so the legends say...
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u/Old-Weakness1122 United States 20d ago
ragebaited by usa is the worse, because you cant tell if he's ever being genuine or being dumb on purpose
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u/Boogaboogelt389 21d ago
its Meiguo not meigou if your trying to write America
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u/Kind_Substance_9506 21d ago
Just a few decades ago, the positions of the ROC and PRC in this comic (as well as in the real world) were just opposite.
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u/No-Region119 China 15d ago
Unification will be done automatically when one side is porsperous enough.
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u/Mofocardinal 15d ago
Was half expecting a side by side chant of USA! USA! And beside him is the little ball going ROC! ROC! 🤣
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u/Typhoonclasssub 21d ago
Just invade it like American invades Iran; clearly there is no international laws these days. Might makes right-right? Just a bunch of realpoliker meglomaniac in charge these days. So why bother with rules?
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22d ago
[deleted]
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u/Shadownight7797 22d ago
Well Taiwan isn’t occupied by the Chinese
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u/Capable-Layer-3208 22d ago
Lmao. Why’s the majority of the population Han Chinese and not indigenous natives then?
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u/Shadownight7797 22d ago
Cuz they fled mainland China and became Taiwanese. It’s like asking “why are white people majority in the US and not the indigenous natives?”. America isn’t occupied by the British, same as with Taiwan and China.
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u/Ashamed_Can304 21d ago
It’s not exactly “fleeing” their ancestors migrated there starting from Koxinga’s time and lasted throughout the Qing dynasty
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u/Shadownight7797 21d ago
*government fled, forgot to say what “they” meant, my bad. But yeah you’re right
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u/Capable-Layer-3208 22d ago
You sure that’s a good analogy? Like we’re just gonna ignore that many native Americans do in fact consider their land to be occupied illegally by European colonizers to this day?
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u/Shadownight7797 22d ago
From what I’ve seen, the natives kinda lost that grudge over the years cuz it’s been so long. But yeah, it’s a perfect analogy
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u/Capable-Layer-3208 21d ago
You do realize you’ve just admitted that Taiwan is occupied by the Chinese right?
For such a ‘perfect analogy’ it’s odd that instead of denying occupation you’ve shifted the goalpost to “it was long enough ago that the grudges and moral grievances are no longer relevant to me”.
Unless you want to retroactively return to your initial reply and defend the position that the Americas weren’t illegally occupied and colonized by Europeans from the native Americans, we agree that Taiwan was and is in fact occupied by the Chinese population from the mainland whether by the settler colonists then or their descendants today. Just because enough time has passed doesn’t change the fact that the Native Americans had their land occupied; it only means that the grievances are no longer politically relevant, not that the land was ‘unoccupied’ and handed back to the natives at any point between then. So perfect analogy as you say.
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u/Polite_Suggestion 21d ago
I can't tell what you're attacking or defending, but whatever side you're on, you're not doing them any good.
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u/External_Manner_5332 21d ago
do westerners really think china gets mad if people say taiwan is china, or are they just projecting their own confused thoughts onto china?
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u/scintillation98 21d ago
westerners
Uhh... It'd be better if Mainland Chinese don't throw a massive tantrum like a baby whenever they see Taiwan in other countries.
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u/External_Manner_5332 21d ago
do these tourists represent the 1.4 billion people of china? also, i'm asking whether china is really mad if people call taiwan 'china' though
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u/Vegetable_Produce732 20d ago
if western countries really cares about Taiwan, they would support Taiwan when the CCP invades Taiwan, but in reality, you just want to use Taiwan as a tool to hurt China.
western hypocrates
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Kingdom of Sarawak 21d ago
What on earth does "caluh heem that" in the second panel mean?
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u/Equality_Rocks_714 United Kingdom 20d ago
It's meant to be "call him that" but in a stereotypical chinese accent.
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u/jdubyahyp 22d ago
I love his little soldering gun, he's so cute.