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laughtergas:

I remember throwing my phone on the carpet and running to curl up on a couch when I got the last message.

I really appreciate your answer! Indeed it is not China who decides whether TW is a country or not but the mere existence of TW is enough. I do want to defend my use of ROC vs TW not as nit-picky semantics but as a reflection of the delicate political navigation that TW has to do on the world stage, even our name must change depending on who we're dealing with diplomatically. In agreements between ROC and China, for example, both nations use geographic names (TW for us) instead of official ones.

ahhh ok, i see what you're saying here now. i took issue with what you were saying about how politically-speaking taiwan refers to the island, not that nation, because i didn't understand that you were talking political vs geographical names. thanks for taking the time to clarify that!

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A note on your recent submission. Taiwan is NOT universally recognized as a country.Taiwan isn't in the UN, the ROC was.. until 1971. The UN sometimes even refers to Taiwan as Taiwan (Province of China) because of political pressure by the PRC. Taiwan is on GDP indexes for practical reasons. Politically speaking, Taiwan refers to the island - a term used because it is more neutral than using the political charged name of ROC. We compete in the Olympics as Chinese Taipei again because of --

— political pressure from PRC. So in fact, because of PRC’s One China policy, and VERY IMPORTANTLY, because ROC believes that it is the real gov’t of China (see Chinese Civil War) - Taiwan is not a country. Now, the issue of Taiwan Independence is the idea that we forget about that whole real gov’t of China business and legally establish Taiwan as a country, not ROC (look at your passport, what does it say right now?) But that opens up a whole can of political worms. TW Independence may cause whatever weird balance we have with China to collapse and may have negative consequences for the Taiwan. My dad is a retired officer in the Taiwanese military and a part of the reason we immigrated to Canada is that Ah-Bian became president, his party pushed for TW Independence. My dad was concerned by the potential fallout from the PRC and possible military action. I’m not for or against independence but this is the political climate that TW exists in.

thank you for the clarification about taiwan’s status in the un and the reasons for which taiwan’s gdp is indexed. i don’t know enough about economics to contend whether or not its gdp is indexed only for practical reasons, so i will refrain from commenting on that.

my issue with this is that simply because taiwan is not universally recognized other sovereign states as a country does not mean it isn’t a country. while the political relations china has with other nations makes their recognizing taiwan as its own country a trickier and murkier issue, that does not mean taiwan is a province subject to china’s rule. yes, there are very complicated political and economic reasons for which taiwan pushing for outright independence from china is not practical and of course opinions within taiwan are likely very divided on this point, but the fact remains that for a very long time now taiwan has been operating as a sovereign state.

i think your point about taiwan simply being a less politically-charged means of referring to the ROC is nitpicking over semantics and doesn’t really serve to invalidate taiwan’s long-standing status as an independently operating state. and i don’t think that politically speaking taiwan is only ever purely used to refer to the island and is not ever used to refer to taiwan the nation. choices made due to political pressures and a lack of power to be able to withstand these pressures, such as the example you gave of the passports, don’t necessarily serve to negate it either, imo.

as far as “legally establishing taiwan as a country.” the only circumstances under which taiwan is not “legally established” as a country is in china’s perspective. sovereignty of state is largely self-determined, while the issue of whether or not other heads of state acknowledge your sovereignty is up to your political relations with them, but not up to any so-called “legality.” granted, international law exists, but the problem with this is the fact that there is no major power regulating this, it’s entirely based on the self-consent of the states who choose to participate and there’s no regulatory means of enforcing this on anyone (i.e. sanctions/blockades and their varying success and the success in preventing/discouraging crimes against humanity).

however, taiwan does have yet to directly push for true independence from china, and a lot of that has to do with the contentious internal political climate you described (where i’m sure there are many who feel the same way your dad does/did) and the resulting can of worms with china. i think the overarching issue with taiwan pushing for absolute independence beyond the status quo has mainly to do with the fallout with china, and the same goes for the trouble taiwan’s had with getting universal recognition. i do not think that this does not make taiwan an independent state and thereby an independent nation, but the issue is fraught with complications.

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