Everybody knows about the backstory, there was a civil war, KMT fled to Taiwan creating two Chinas sort of, maybe, neither recognises the other, whole thing. ROC (Taiwan) ended up transitioning from military rule to a multi-party democracy, while the PRC (mainland China) didn't do that (they did reform economically, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and all that, but still a one-party state, not a multi-party democracy). The status quo right now is that Taiwan is in the grey area of statehood where they function pretty much independently but aren't properly recognised, and both sides of the strait are feeling pretty tense right now.

Taiwan's stance on the issue is that they would like to remain politically and economically independent of mainland China, retaining their multi-party democracy, political connections to its allies, economic trade connections, etc. Also, a majority of the people in Taiwan do not support reunification with China.

China's stance on the issue is that Taiwan should be reunified with the mainland at all costs, ideally peacefully, but war is not ruled out. They argue that Taiwan was unfairly separated from the mainland by imperial powers in their "century of humiliation". Strategically, taking Taiwan would be beneficial to China as they would have better control of the sea.

Is it even possible for both sides to agree to a peaceful solution? Personally, I can only see two ways this could go about that has the consent of both parties. One, a reformist leader takes power in the mainland and gives up on Taiwan, and the two exist as separate independent nations. Or two, the mainland gets a super-reformist leader that transitions the mainland to a multi-party democracy, and maybe then reunification could be on the table, with Taiwan keeping an autonomous status given the large cultural difference (similar to Hong Kong or Macau's current status). Both options are, unfortunately, very unlikely to occur in the near future.

A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan becomes a recognised country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.

What are your thoughts on a peaceful solution to the crisis that both sides could agree on?

edit: Damn there are crazies in both ends of the arguments. I really don't think giving Taiwan nukes would help solve the problem.

I think the current best solution, looking at the more reasonable and realistic comments, seems to be to maintain the status quo, at least until both sides of the strait are able to come into some sort of agreement (which seems to be worlds away right now given their current very opposing stances on the issue)

China should accept Taiwans sovereignty as a separate Chinese country, and stop being such a little bitch. The end.

I mean wasn't it largely peaceful in the past? From China's perspective they only need to act if Taiwan or other countries make public statements challenging their legal claim to the island, it is better for China to wait as the power dynamics are shifting in their favor. It is only the west that wants to force this issue to come to head now, while they still have a comparative advantage - but even now if China wants Taiwan there is little we can do keep that from happening (though the humanitarian cost would be staggering and likely hurt their standing internationally).

Edit: I also don't see why mainland would suddenly pivot on the issue, there's seems very little reason to expect them to change course.

Taiwan's economy is like 98% reliant on China. China could drain Taiwan dry without ever setting foot on that island. Taiwan will negotiate a deal with Xi. They may like it or not.

A peaceful and realistic solution? Taiwan develops a strategic nuclear deterrent. They're already a near-nuclear country and an industrial and technological powerhouse. A nuclear bomb is fully within their capability, and they already have abundant supplies of all the precursor materials in their possession. The most realistic solution to the Taiwan crisis is that Taiwan obtains nuclear weapons, and China is never able to threaten them with invasion again.

China is maybe a third of their trade...not 98%

A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan remains as a separate country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.

Theres already free movement from Taiwan to Mainland China IIRC.

The PRC's current take is "Taiwan is an autonomous part of China", the only sticking issue would probably be Taiwan having its own foreign policy as they aren't going to accept having a US military base right off their coast.

Genuinely the best "solution" is reunification at an indeterminate point in the future (maybe next century, maybe the one after that, etc), avoiding anything that could disrupt the status quo.

Someone who threatens war to acquire land is not the good guy. Fuck them.

Yes I realize this also references you know who as well.

Lets be realistic. If the confederates ran away to Key West after the civil war, would the US accept a hostile state, backed by a hostile super-power, claiming to be the government of all of USA right off their coast?

All polling indicates that pro-unification sentiment isn't growing though. If China is waiting until they have consent of the Taiwanese, then why would security guarantees from the USA be relevant in the first place?

They did even worse, they let them stay!

No? But then Taiwan doesn't actually seriously maintain this anymore. It's all a front. They have to say this because repudiating the 'one China' system could be interpreted as a declaration of independence, which would be interpreted as a green light for China to invade.

Username checks out

I'm garbage in history.

Can't we just treat it as relationships. I mean the reunification should only be done if both sides mutually agree. Forcing by any means is not good

Let me guess, you don't think they have a legal claim to the island under UN law?

Given human history, I think it references everyone. That’s not a dig, more acknowledgment that this isn’t actually new.

Give the Taiwanese people Alabama and move them there. Then give China an empty island

And yet, plenty of other countries have managed to do it...

反攻大陆 (Counterattack the mainland) 😏

/just kidding

I think the only peaceful unification would be if CCP falls and mainland China becomes an actual democracy with free and fair elections, then mainland, HK, Taiwan can form a union, where Taiwan and HK remains autonomous regions for domestic politics (and this automony would be backed by a constitution) and have a common front for defence.

I mean another option would be complete sovereignty but a European Union type of thing where they do cooperate and sort of is like a country, but maintain the option to leave.

But regardless, I think it all comes down to what HKers and Taiwanese want, you need a referrendum for these types of things. I'd say to have legitimacy: Two consecutive referrendums in two separate regularly scheduled election with majority approval before any plan is enacted, to attempt to prevent a Brexit shenanigan.

I'm Chinese American so while I do support democracy, I am kinda leaning towards reunification assuming that there is actually democracy, but again it all comes down to what the people think, the will of the people is more important than my opinions.

Forty-Six

When the Tao is present in the universe,
The horses haul manure.
When the Tao is absent from the universe,
War horses are bred outside the city.\

There is no greater sin than desire,
No greater curse than discontent,
No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself.
Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

Sixty-One
[...]
Therefore if a great country gives way to a smaller country,
It will conquer the smaller country.
And if a small country submits to a great country,
It can conquer the great country.
Therefore those who would conquer must yield,
And those who conquer do so because they yield.

A great nation needs more people,
A small country needs to serve.
Each gets what it wants.
It is fitting for a great nation to yield.

Thirty
[...]
Force is followed by loss of strength.
This is not the way of Tao.
That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.

from the Tao The Ching (by Lao Tsu), as translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English

Book 14 #3

The Master said: 'When the way prevails in the state, be enterprising in speech and enterprising in action; but when the Way does not prevail in the state, be enterprising in action but prudent in speech.'

from The Analects (of Confucius), as translated by Raymond Dawson

That sounds like some sort of crime against humanity

Unless Taiwan can spend the trillions upon trillions of dollars and fully complete enough MIRV ICBMs to be able to absolutely saturate the entire country of China leaving no inch of land unscathed from nuclear fire, essentially ensuring MAD doctrine to deter an invasion, all without China discovering this, China won't tolerate a nuclear program and simply invade Taiwan so trivially with their unending human meat waves to destroy all hope of defense surrounding the island.

Are you implying UN law is even remotely relevant here? Or anywhere?

I don't think it matters what I think. Like everyone else chiming in on this thread, I have zero expertise on the subject - so whatever I say is just my personal preferred outcome, not a realistic one.

unending human meat waves

You know China has been building their military for this singular conflict since like 1949 right? They have an entire branch of their military dedicated to missiles.

The idea of WWI-style human meat waves getting applied to communist countries was literally nazi propaganda. China didn't cause the longest retreat in US history during the Korean war because suddenly WWI tactics started working against a military 50 years more advanced than the one that demonstrated human meat waves don't work.

Have you looked into the context of how they were able to do it and how difficult stopping them would have been?

Taiwan doesn't need thousands of nuclear weapons to be a credible threat to China. A dozen bombs with delivery systems would be more than enough to make a credible deterrent. The goal isn't to be able to wipe out the entire population of mainland China. The goal would simply be to make any invasion so costly that the cost would vastly outweigh any potential gains. I don't know what all Xi hopes to gain by conquering Taiwan, but whatever it is, it's not worth losing the dozen largest Chinese cities in a series of mushroom clouds. To the Chinese leadership, the conquest of Taiwan is not worth getting Beijing nuked. Maybe Mao would have made that trade, back when China was a rural peasant nation. But now? China is the workshop of the world. The entire economy and China's place in the world are utterly dependent on its megacities.

North Korea did it, and it had the United States, the nation with the most powerful surveillance capabilities in the world looking right over its shoulder. And keep in mind, we're still technically at war with North Korea. And North Korea might as well be an island. But really, the island part is irrelevant here, as Taiwan already possesses all the nuclear material it would need. It has a well developed nuclear power sector. The island gets half its electricity from nuclear power. And they have several research reactors. It already has all the fissile material it needs to build a bomb.

If North Korea could do it, so can Taiwan.

North Korea has a million artillery pieces and like 20 million people ready to call back to service, and China would probably get involved if the alternative is a hostile puppet state on their border. The calculus of invading NK is quite different than Taiwan.

Not Nazi propaganda. Literally what Russia does to this day...

Not too serious a suggestion, but if migration worked once to escape the PRC why not do it again. Move all your industries offshore to an enclave or possibly several in friendly neighboring countries and then your population. I mean the population isnt so large that it's not technically impossible to relocate. it's not much more than some of the largest world cities. Then when invaded withdraw entirely. Anyone happy to live under Chinese rule can stay. Given climate change humanity is probably going to have to get used to massive migrations anyway. Horrible as that could be culturally being a semi independent part of another democracy would fix their declining population, plus being a massive economic stimulus all round. I suspect something like this may be happening informally anyway. Their main strength is economic and organizational so why not build on that.

While I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, the only peaceful outcome I can see is actually just a continuation of the status quo, where mainland China uses "reunification" messaging as little more than a show of strength and patriotic political rhetoric, and where the Western world continues to treat Taiwan's independence with "strategic ambiguity" while hinting to China that any attempt to take Taiwan will be met with a large scale Western response from the US and allies.

I do think that the West wants Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine to be a sign of what China should expect if they were to attempt to annex Taiwan. It won't be easy, it'll throw trade and supply chains into absolute chaos, and it'll be met with harsh economic sanctions and large weapons deals at the very least. The West wants China to feel that there is very little upside to attacking Taiwan, and that it's much more reasonable to maintain the status quo (though arguably, tariffs and trade wars needlessly remove some of the US's economic leverage over China).

Rhetoric aside, how much chaos and bloodshed is China really willing to tolerate just for the pyrric victory of finishing what Mao started almost a century ago?

I think the main hope for peace is that Xi and the ruling members of the CCP feel that it's in their personal best interest to talk a big game while doing the bare minimum to disrupt the systems that they currently benefit from.

Taiwan need to stop claiming they are the legitimate government of China.

China need to recognise that Taiwan isn't part of China anymore.

Neither will happen.

mostly a distraction from internal problems, realistic they will never capture taiwan intact, if they want those chip factories, plus its not like hong kong where the govt is chosen by CHINA.

its kinda wierd how they claim it, when initially they were just as brutal as the ccp early days.

Let me guess, you think the UN matters more than the people living there?

China should be balkanised and people given freedom to live independently without fear of imperialist invasion.

After what China did to Hong Kong that’s never happening.

Honestly there seems to be a trend of countries getting too big for themselves

Lets say America Maduros Xi and all 3000 members of congress for good measure, then holds free elections. Who do you think the chinese people vote for? Someone who will give up China's labor and resources for pennies, the primary reason that China and the west have an antagonistic relationship, or you know, more communists?

just as brutal

Theres a difference between brutality in response to millenia of oppression and brutality against anyone who might not want to continue that oppression.

Thats not to say the CPC was some perfectly just machine, but the two are qualitatively different. Would you say the French og revolutionaries were just as brutal as the bourbons?

A dozen bombs with delivery systems would be more than enough to make a credible deterrent.

ALL of those can be trivially intercepted with military tech from the mid-90's that China has in abundance (I love you internet armchair generals and the guile to be so wrong constantly), hence the modern necessity to create MIRVs which are impossible to track if enough are deployed.

What China did to Hong Kong?

You mean freed them from a council imposed by the British, elected by the crown and large businesses?

Freedom for Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Most likely the thought is that without US security support, Taiwanese sentiment will shift towards China by default.