The Hillary Thread II

[Forty Two]

China Tells Japan It’s Unhappy With Name Change of Taipei Office
China has criticized Japan’s decision to add the word Taiwan to the name of its de facto embassy in Taipei, risking fresh tensions over the self-governing island after a recent spat between China and the U.S.

The Interchange Association, Japan said on its website on Wednesday that starting next year it will become the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association. It said the office "will continue to act as a bridge between Japan and Taiwan and is determined to further advance relations."

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/arti ... pei-office

It seems Japan is eager to jump aboard the Trump train on this issue. Not hardly surprising.

Other than noting the People's Republic of China doesn't like it, you've not made an argument why it's wrong.

The People's Republic of China didn't gain power legitimately. They gained it through violence in a Communist revolution, and have oppressed its people ever since. The government in Taiwan is the government that was in power before the violent revolution. The PRC never ruled Taiwan, and the people in Taiwan don't want to be ruled by the PRC.

[Jason]

Mmm.. so violent revolutions produce illegitimate governments then? Thin ice you're treading on my American friend.

I'll note that the people in Taiwan likely DID want to be ruled by the PRC. That's what the 38 years of brutal martial law and regulations on free speech and free association were about - oppressing the will of the people. They may have a supportive public consensus now, but that's a product of 70 years of domination by the ROC.

[Forty Two]

Taiwan is China, either way, so China does have a legitimate claim on the South China sea.

Chihuahua is Texas, either way, so Texas does have a legitimate claim on Chihuahua.

My, admittedly somewhat flippant, point was that the ROC claims to be the legitimate government of all China, not just Taiwan.

That has a little something to do with the fact that the ROC was the legitimate government of all China before Mao's Communist revolution drove Chiang Kai Shek out of Peking and left Taiwan and a few islands the only remaining places where the ROC stayed in power. It's unclear to me how the PRC has a more legitimate claim to Taiwan than the ROC has to China.

The recognition of the PRC was not about "legitimacy." It was about power. The PRC wasn't going anywhere, and they were, like it or not, the controlling government in Beijing and they were not going to be overthrown. They won the war. That's where their legitimacy comes from. However, by the same token, the ROC didn't lose Taiwan, so they remain in power there.

[Forty Two]

Mmm.. so violent revolutions produce illegitimate governments then? Thin ice you're treading on my American friend.

That isn't what I said. What I said was that the PRC doesn't have a claim to Taiwan. The PRC is the government of mainland China, and it claims Taiwan. But, of what great right does the PRC have than the ROC? I'm talking about relative legitimacy, not absolutely legitimacy.

In the case of the American revolution, it was not viewed as legitimate by the crown. Independence was won, and the US government was recognized because it compelled recognition, not because it was in some way in accordance with a legitimate process or procedure. Now, in the 18th century, the laws of war and of nations were quite different than they are now, so it's not an apt comparison.

However, the "legitimacy" of the PRC comes, at bottom, from it's exercise of power, and it's ability to stay in power. The same goes for the ROC.

My response regarding legitimacy was to your post wherein you noted that the ROC had martial law, and even after martial law it oppressed free speech and whatnot and is a fairly authoritarian regime. My post was intended to show that BY THAT STANDARD, the PRC would be far less legitimate than the ROC.

[Brian Peacock]

Taiwan is China, either way, so China does have a legitimate claim on the South China sea.

Chihuahua is Texas, either way, so Texas does have a legitimate claim on Chihuahua.

My, admittedly somewhat flippant, point was that the ROC claims to be the legitimate government of all China, not just Taiwan.

I can claim to be the Emperor of Tasmania, but unless I can realistically exercise that claim it is without substance...

I'd vote for you.


Oh, hang on...

[Forty Two]

As Emperor of Tasmania, what will you do to make amends for the treatment of indigenous Tasmanians, like the forced removal of indigenous peoples to Flinders island and subsequent genocide?

[Brian Peacock]

Emperor Jim heralds a bright new day. Why should his highness concern himself with history?

[Jason]

However, the "legitimacy" of the PRC comes, at bottom, from it's exercise of power, and it's ability to stay in power. The same goes for the ROC.

My response regarding legitimacy was to your post wherein you noted that the ROC had martial law, and even after martial law it oppressed free speech and whatnot and is a fairly authoritarian regime. My post was intended to show that BY THAT STANDARD, the PRC would be far less legitimate than the ROC.

Perhaps. The difference, worth noting in my opinion, is that the PRC came to power by a popular revolution whereas the ROC took control over the populace of Taiwan and maintained it through martial force for 38 years and strict prohibitions on free speech, the press, and freedom of association - which, as you said, continue to this day (although they are apparently "less strictly enforced"). It's power from the bottom-up in the case of the establishment of the PRC and power from the top-down with the ROC. They're both authoritarian, but the PRC had its origin with the will of the people at least.

[Forty Two]

However, the "legitimacy" of the PRC comes, at bottom, from it's exercise of power, and it's ability to stay in power. The same goes for the ROC.

My response regarding legitimacy was to your post wherein you noted that the ROC had martial law, and even after martial law it oppressed free speech and whatnot and is a fairly authoritarian regime. My post was intended to show that BY THAT STANDARD, the PRC would be far less legitimate than the ROC.

Perhaps. The difference, worth noting in my opinion, is that the PRC came to power by a popular revolution whereas the ROC took control over the populace of Taiwan and maintained it through martial force for 38 years and strict prohibitions on free speech, the press, and freedom of association - which, as you said, continue to this day (although they are apparently "less strictly enforced"). It's power from the bottom-up in the case of the establishment of the PRC and power from the top-down with the ROC. They're both authoritarian, but the PRC had its origin with the will of the people at least.

The ROC took control of China, including Taiwan, in 1912.

There is nobody who thinks the PRC is bottom up power. It was a communist dictatorship under Mao until he died, and it is in no way bottom up. They've had capitalist reforms, but that's it. It's an oppressive regime, far more oppressive than the ROC. The ROC was a break from thousands of years of imperial rule, by an "emperor." So, while the ROC wasn't liberal, it was a republic, breaking away from empire.

[Jason]

I think it was a bottom-up arrangement in the revolutionary days. It obviously changed after it took power. It followed the will of the people. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and proceeded to suppress it.

[Forty Two]

I think it was a bottom-up arrangement in the revolutionary days. It obviously changed after it took power. It followed the will of the people. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and proceeded to suppress it.

You might like to think that, because it was communist and the idealized version of communism is that "the people" somehow call the shots, but it was never that. In the "revolutionary days" the red guard and the army cleansed the population of the intelligentsia, and murdered 10s of millions of people in the cultural revolution and the "great leap forward." In the "great leap forward" Mao's dictatorship slaughtered about 45 million people, almost (in the old Roman sense) decimating the population.

Mao's PRC ranks up with the Stalinist purges of communist Soviet Union, where 10s of millions were sent to camps strewn throughout the Russian frozen countryside in the Gulag archipelago. In the late 1950s, a third of all homes in China were destroyed to produce fertilizer and when the nation descended into famine and starvation.

State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 81630.html

If you can show me any source or example of the Maoist Chinese communists following "the will of the people," I'll eat my hat. How was that will expressed? Did someone vote?

The PRC is probably the most oppressive, the most murderous, regime in the history of the world. If they aren't the winner of that contest, they are certainly in the top three. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, followed by Pol Pot. I can't think of a Roman emperor, or European king who can count as more murderous. Maybe that Belgian king who slaughtered millions in the Congo, but I think even he was well under 10 million in body count. Maybe Genghis Khan, but I'm not sure if the body count of the Mongols even comes close.

[Brian Peacock]

Perhaps as a proportion of the total population rather than in absolute terms.

[JimC]

As Emperor of Tasmania, what will you do to make amends for the treatment of indigenous Tasmanians, like the forced removal of indigenous peoples to Flinders island and subsequent genocide?

I'll appoint a committee to look into it...

Emperor Jim heralds a bright new day.

So true. The abolition of all taxes and duties on gin, and a zero rate of taxation for gin distilleries, their owners and their employees will be my first move in the brightening process...

[pErvinalia]

As Emperor of Tasmania, what will you do to make amends for the treatment of indigenous Tasmanians, like the forced removal of indigenous peoples to Flinders island and subsequent genocide?

As far as I'm aware there aren't any descendants of the Tasmanian Aborigines. It was a complete genocide.

[Jason]

Did they say how they identified the hackers in the "Grizzly Steppe" report? It seems to me they've done a fine job outlining how the hacks were achieved, but not so much on how the hackers were identified. They just seem to assert their identities.