You Are Being Lied To About Taiwan

Welcome to Taiwan 101, a corrective to the piles of lies fed to leftists about Taiwan by malicious nationalists to conscript them into their imperialist project.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's it's it's it could happen here the podcast. The
thing that's happening here is that once again, like a
bunch of random American politicians are going in Taiwan, and
this time they didn't announced they were going, apparently because
announcing they were going last time went great. So yeah,
this is this is, this is what we're talking about today,

(00:27):
and with with me is James. Hello James, how how
you doing? All right? I'm wonderful and I'm splendid. Oh okay,
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

(00:47):
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

(01:09):
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

(01:30):
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,

(01:51):
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

(02:13):
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

(02:36):
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

(02:58):
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

(03:22):
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,

(03:43):
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

(04:04):
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.

(04:25):
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

(04:46):
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

(05:08):
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

(05:29):
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

(05:50):
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.

(06:12):
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

(06:36):
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

(06:56):
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

(07:20):
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

(07:43):
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

(08:05):
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

(08:27):
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.

(08:50):
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,

(09:13):
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

(09:37):
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

(10:00):
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,

(10:24):
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

(10:47):
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

(11:09):
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

(11:31):
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

(11:53):
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

(12:15):
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

(12:37):
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,

(12:58):
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.

(13:22):
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

(13:44):
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,

(14:07):
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.

(14:29):
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

(14:53):
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

(15:13):
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,

(15:34):
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

(15:54):
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

(16:17):
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

(16:39):
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

(17:01):
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,

(17:22):
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

(17:42):
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

(18:03):
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

(18:25):
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

(18:45):
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

(19:05):
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

(19:26):
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,

(19:47):
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,

(20:09):
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

(20:32):
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

(20:57):
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

(21:17):
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.

(21:43):
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

(22:04):
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,

(22:26):
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,

(22:52):
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

(23:13):
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

(23:35):
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,

(23:55):
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.

(24:17):
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.

(24:39):
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

(25:01):
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

(25:23):
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

(25:43):
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

(26:04):
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

(26:25):
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

(26:47):
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

(27:09):
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

(27:32):
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

(27:55):
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

(28:18):
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

(28:39):
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

(29:02):
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

(29:24):
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

(29:44):
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,

(30:05):
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,

(30:25):
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

(30:45):
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,

(31:08):
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

(31:29):
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

(31:49):
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

(32:11):
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

(32:32):
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

(32:54):
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

(33:15):
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

(33:37):
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

(33:57):
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

(34:19):
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

(34:39):
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,

(35:00):
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,

(35:21):
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

(35:41):
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

(36:04):
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,

(36:24):
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

(36:45):
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

(37:05):
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.

(37:28):
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

(37:51):
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

(38:12):
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.

(38:32):
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

(38:53):
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

(39:14):
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,

(39:36):
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.

(39:57):
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

(40:17):
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

(40:38):
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

(41:00):
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,

(41:21):
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

(41:43):
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

(42:04):
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

(42:27):
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,

(42:48):
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

(43:12):
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

(43:33):
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,

(43:57):
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,

(44:17):
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

(44:40):
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

(45:01):
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

(45:25):
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

(45:47):
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

(46:07):
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

(46:29):
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,

(46:54):
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

(47:16):
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

(47:38):
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

(48:00):
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

(48:21):
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,

(48:41):
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

(49:05):
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.

(49:27):
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

(49:50):
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

(50:12):
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

(50:36):
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

(50:58):
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

(51:18):
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,

(51:39):
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

(52:02):
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

(52:24):
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

(52:45):
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

(53:05):
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,

(53:25):
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.

(53:49):
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

(54:12):
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

(54:32):
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

(54:53):
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

(55:16):
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

(55:36):
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

(55:58):
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.

(56:22):
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

(56:43):
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

(57:07):
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

(57:27):
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

(57:48):
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,

(58:10):
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

(58:30):
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

(58:51):
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

(59:12):
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,

(59:33):
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

(59:55):
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

(01:00:18):
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

(01:00:40):
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

(01:01:00):
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

(01:01:20):
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,

(01:01:42):
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

(01:02:03):
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,

(01:02:25):
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

(01:02:46):
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

(01:03:10):
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

(01:03:32):
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

(01:03:53):
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

(01:04:15):
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

(01:04:37):
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,

(01:04:59):
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

(01:05:21):
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

(01:05:41):
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

(01:06:02):
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

(01:06:22):
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

(01:06:42):
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

(01:07:05):
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

(01:07:26):
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

(01:07:46):
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

(01:08:09):
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

(01:08:30):
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

(01:08:50):
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

(01:09:12):
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

(01:09:34):
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

(01:09:56):
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.

(01:10:16):
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

(01:10:36):
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

(01:10:57):
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,

(01:11:20):
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

(01:11:42):
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.

(01:12:04):
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,

(01:12:25):
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.

(01:12:46):
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.

(01:13:09):
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
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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated

(01:13:30):
monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.