China preparing for an invasion of Taiwan?

thats what i have been doing

 

It's already been argued many times that one very strong reason for maintaining a strong military posture aside from invading is to deter Taiwan from declaring independence. That reason alone sufficiently explains the need for a strong military posture. Whether you agree with it or not, it also apparently is working. If China were unable to "punish" Taiwan for declaring independence, it probably would have happened already under the pro-independent regime that is in power in Taiwan today.

What does any of this, assuming it is even true, have to do with China intending to harm the US???

With the possible exception of (3) these facts have nothing to do with China being a threat to the US. As for (3), spying is expected, I hardly expect otherwise. Even friendly nations spy on the US. As for (4), on what basis is it "illegal"? The US doesn't seem to think so as it recognizes Tibet as being part of China. But regardless, none of these "facts" have anything to do with your argument that China therefore means the US harm.

 

Slave labor? You mean they get no pay like they were talking about in the articles you posted?

LOL...i do like the last line in the 2nd link...

i love the flair for the dramatic. the vast majority of people who are unemployed don't turn to crime. i love how they paint anyone who loses their job as someone who WILL become a criminal and not just get unemployment from the govt. i also like how the article complains about how the "spendable" wages are so small as if the prisoners have a ton of living expenses. also, its funny how they talk about how this will make prisons more affordable and imply that more affordable imprisonment will let us lock up even more people as if it is some sort of plot to lock up as much of the population as possible.

honestly, after reading that article it doesn't look as bad as i thought. at the same time it is not as if it is a major industry either. the article didn't talk about thousands of prisoners being used in massive slave labor for evil corporations either. rather than looking like disgusting corporate abuses of prisoners it more looks like the government trying to find other ways to fund prisons and take care of the expense of prisoners. at the same time it looks like it benefits the prisoners as well who might want to start back on the way to making an honest living. i'd be curious to see if they just picked prisoners at random or if it was some sort of volunteer thing or what and what its effect has been on recitivism(sp?) rates.

 

Yes, it sounds crazy and hilarious. But it is what´s happening, and it´s not funny.
Helping prisoners on their way back to an honest living is very nice, but not like this. They should get help with getting a job and so on, when they get out. Maybe it´s already that way I don´t know, but the american way seems to be very long jail sentences. I think that in itself (a long jail sentence) cements a person in a life of crime.

 

well the american justice system i think is going to have a major shake up within the next 10 to 15 years. too many people are going to jail for too long for drug charges for mar1juana. states are starting to legalize weed as well. i think america is slowly leaning towards decriminalization of mar1juana.

anyhow...the funny part i was referring to was how melodramatic the article was. i don't think the programs are that bad in the first place. thats why i was saying i was curious if the prisoners did better when they were released if they were in these work programs compared to prisoners who did not work in them. to me it would seem like it would help them get back to working for a living. i dunno...i could be completely wrong as well. also there are tons of programs out there that help prisoners find jobs and readjust after they are released just so you know. also, the prisoners are often given long sentences but also often get out much earlier on probation and parole because of overcrowding.

 

Sure, the ones they quoted were making 1.80 to 2.80 per hour with the prison making up to $3 on top of that. Not "forced labor" like was common early in the century, but not exactly legitimate, either.

I don't want to turn this into a prohibition thread, but if you listen to the drug warriors, they seem to want to lock up all drug users and if they loced up only half of the regular drug users in this country, you are talking about 10-15 million people.

Anyone who makes a profit off of the incarceration of another human being is trading off of human suffering and deserves all of the bad karma they are building up. For-profit prisons are evil, corrupt enterprises that should be shut down immediately. Incarceration is not a place for profiteering.

 

O.K., since this thread is about Taiwan, maybe a little more background information could be useful for this thread.

First of all, I don’t speak for all Taiwanese, let alone all Taiwanese Americans (who as a group are much more ardent supporter of Taiwanese Independence). However, I do hope I can write it as neutral as possible.

First, the players: ex-President Lee is an ex-communist turn pro-Unification turn pro-Independence, ex-vice President Lian is regarded as a rich and incapable playboy, ex-Taiwan Province governor Soong is pro-Unification, current President Chen is pro-Independence. KMT is the party that was kicked out of mainland and dominated Taiwan for much of last century. DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) is the pro-Independence indigenous party who is fighting for a new country called Republic of Taiwan.

The current episode started in 1991, under ex-President Lee’s term, there was a high level negotiation between the mainland China and Taiwan in Singapore, facilitated by the famous then Singapore premier. I don’t think there was any document as the result of the negotiation. But average Taiwanese was told that there was a verbal agreement that there will be a single China (comprised of mainland and Taiwan) in the future. But the meaning of that single future China (its political system, etc.) can not be agreed by the two sides.

A few years later, ex-President Lee wants to push the final step of democracy for Taiwan and has the first direct election for the presidency of Taiwan. However, his most powerful opponents are the pro-Unification mainland China born politicians.

A few months before the election, in an interview with a German magazine, he proposed the “2 China” theory as well as plans to introduce it into the constitution. To the Taiwanese voters, since Lee has always said he is a pro-unification proponent, the “2 China” theory is just a reflection of the current situation, that is there is a People Republic of China on the mainland and Republic of China on Taiwan. But it says absolutely nothing about the future.

China was enraged and felt that she was betrayed and that Taiwan is going to proclaim Taiwan Independence. She starts to conduct military exercise just outside of Taiwan. President Clinton sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region.

Through the whole election, Lee was successful in convincing the voter that his fellow pro-Unification candidates are cowards who won’t stand up to the mainland communist bandit and the pro-Independence DPP candidate as reckless politician who will bring Taiwan to a war with the mainland. As a result, he got over 50% of the vote. But he is not the first popular elected politician for Taiwan, that honor belongs to Soong.

Afterward, all sides claim victory. Mainland China claim victory since the “2-China theory” never gets to written into Taiwan’s constitution and therefore, they successfully stopped Taiwan from declaring independence. We claim victory by stopping China from invading Taiwan. Ex-President Lee claimed victory because, well, he became the first democratically elected president for the Republic of China.

Lee, the President, and Soong, then the Taiwan governor, used to be called to have a father-son relationship (at least in public). Soong is the first politician to be directly elected (and won by a landslide over the DPP candidate) by island wide voters. But the structure of Taiwan’s government is extremely inefficient. You have the president (most powerful), the premier (the yes man), Taiwan’s governor (in charge of day to day governing of Taiwan).

It is like if we has a president, a premier, then has two states (state of mainland and a state of Hawaii). Under the state of mainland, you have the county of Texas, California, etc..

Lee wants to make Taiwan more efficient and get rid of the post of Taiwanese governor. But, by doing that, it eliminated Soong from his power. Soong conducted a vigorous campaign to resist the move. Lee, as chairman of KMT, has more power and got rid of Soong. These two politicians are no longer on speaking terms after that.

Republic of China (Taiwan)’s constitution mandated that president only has maximal of two terms. President Lee served those two terms (the last term being the first democratically elected). His ally in the upper congress wants to change the constitution to delay the next election so he can still be the president. The bill was sent in the last days of the session, buried under all other bills. But his political opponents found out and all newspaper became aware of it. His congressional political allies were under a lot of public condemnation and that bill never got to the final read.

No longer able to become the president, he hand-picked a successor, the much maligned vice-president Liang became the KMT candidate. But Lee still will keep his job as chairman of KMT, a post maybe more powerful than the presidency itself if KMT won the next election. Soong, now without any post, threw himself in an independent candidate. The DPP party’s nominee is Chen.

Chen used to be a wildly popular mayor of Taipei. He was elected to be the Taipei mayor because two pro-unification candidates split the majority of vote. Even though he was elected with only 30 or 40 percent of vote, his term as Taipei mayor was extremely successful. Consistently getting public approval rating of over 70%. Probably because of the strong tribal instinct of Taiwan electorates, even a candidate of over 70% job approval rating is not enough to get a second term against a united KMT candidate. Out of job, he is nominated to be candidate for president for DPP.

The campaign (this is the last election) starts out as a two man race for number 2. In polls after polls, Liang and Chen has low 20% of vote while Soong has close to 40% of vote (the rest been undecided).

A few months before the election, ex-President Lee decided to go for the kill. His political ally claimed they have the evidence that Soong was corrupt while he was the secretary of KMT. Taiwan’s prosecutor and judiciary conducted an investigation (with the kind of efficiency that is unheard of before) and charged Soong with corruption. Soong’s defense is awkward. His main defense is that he, when he was the secretary of KMT, is only following orders from the chairman of KMT (Lee). The money is secret because those money are to be used to bribe foreign government. Therefore, he can’t reveal where these money goes. But still, that money was in his personal checking account.

Of course, Lee said he never gives these orders.

The aftermath is now the campaign has turned from a 1 person race to a three person race with a lot of undecided. But Chen got two important endorsements in the last hours of campaign. One from a major industrialist and another a Nobel prize winner. Both of them are pro-unification. Again, tribal instinct is pretty strong in Taiwan. After those two endorsements, Chen’s campaign starts to get stronger. Panicked, mainland China’s premier made a plea as well as a warning to the dire consequence if Chen is elected. It badly misfired.

The result of the election is Chen got 39% of vote, Soong got 37%, and Liang got the rest.

After the election, many KMTer got furious at Lee for losing the reign of KMT. They surrounded the presidential palace (Lee is still the president, this happens before the inauguration), the next day Lee resigned from the post of Chairman of KMT. Now, Liang is the chairman of KMT.

Soong start a new party called People First Party which is now the third largest party in Taiwan. He is also found not guilty by the court of the corruption charge levied against him. Of course, the verdict did him no good since the verdict is after the election.

PFP and KMT, since they are similar in size, are fighting each other to be the true representative of the pro-Unification voters.

Lee started a new party and take up the position of extreme pro-Independence. Lee’s party is more pro-Independence than that of DPP. But since it is just a very minor party, it can’t compete with DPP.

Chen became Taiwan’s President and his policy is more neutral than expected. But in the last year or so (we are less than one year away from the next election), he starts to have a new theory called “one country one side”. In addition, he also proposed to have referendum on domestic issues. However, his referendum idea is being opposed by both China and the Bush administration.

I can talk a lot more on the referendum idea. But it is a long post and I am tired of writing. That is it for now.

 

I don't think there is a state in the United States that doesn't want to be a part of the United States.

I don't think the people of Taiwan want to be a State in the People's Republic. So why should they be? We call that self-determination and we feel that it is an inalienable right of free people.

China sorta sounds like the divorcee who thinks he can harass his ex back in to loving him.

You could counter by asking why the official policy of the US is to maintain a federal Iraq . The citizens might prefer to be split into a Kurdistan, a Shiitistan and a Sunnistan. I guess it is because all three would become Theocracies and if forced to stay together they would have to deal with their religious differences through a secular government.

 

I'm a little dizzy from the read, tie22fighter, but thanks for all the info and a different and less passionate perspective.

 

My point about the indians if you look past the shock value of my statements is the irrelevance of it to an argument about present-day issues. It happened and what we did was reprehensible. But nothing can change that. Nothing can change we once had a whole people in bondage. But for all our failures, we are still a whole heckuva of lot better than the rest of the world in that regard.

I don't like when people try to put us in a moral equivalism debate with other societies. It is non-productive for sure. Just because we don't have some "moral authority" doesn't mean we are handicapped and unable to comment on any issue of that sort.

And as for the Indians being in the way, they were. Plain and simple. If not for the removal of the Indians, what would our country be today? 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast? Eventually, if we didn't claim the western territories, one of the great colonial powers would have. And the genocide would've happened regardless of whether or not we won the West. Even though (believe it or not, I'm not a heartless, ammoral b*stard) I believe our methods were wrong, we benefit from the ends of those means.

And lastly, for those who think that China is not going to eventually do something to forcibly reunify with Taiwan....why would they go to all this trouble to convince us and them of it? Is that not counterproductive? Taiwan should become an independent state, unmolested by China, period.

And last, but not least, my apologies to Legendary......I hadn't had my Starbucks this morning and when I read you mentioning the words Israel and occupation together, I hit the proverbial roof.

And to Tie22fighter, that was some excellent background material on Taiwanese politics. I learned a lot from it.

 

Wow, this is too much! Need to find some time to read through all these carefully.

But, I noticed one thing:

Come on, read my post carefully. I DID NOT say that the Chinese are not preparing for war. I said exactly the opposite:

I thought I had stated it very clearly. It's like when you install an alarm in your car, do you intend for it to be 'used'? Just in case okay? Just in case. That's all it's about. You bring an umbrella out just in case it rains, but you don't wish for it to rain right?

There's no country in this world that does not prepare for war. You must always be prepared for the worst scenario.

As for the other facts, you don't have to take my word for it. Ask some of the chinese in USA. The students. Old ones, young ones. Ask those who have lived in China long enough to have some PERSONAL experience. Seriously, bama. Most likely they will say that Chinese government did do something wrong, but not to the extent that you are implying.

Btw, it's the 21st century, brainwashed chinese student can't make it to PhD in the USA or post something like on clutchcity forum okay? And I don't worship Mao. I worship money.

 

Then you are truly a American.

 

I don't think we're disagreeing. My basic point is that it is silly to say 'oh sure, we needed an enemy' as if there is not a threat. The PRCs expenditures are very large in $ terms, and much of it is off the books, making it harder to track. Considering that the nature of the buildup is to enable the PRC to engage US forces if necessary, it is obvious that we should consider that possibility as a threat. You point out that a nation the PRCs size can be expected to buildup the military, and I agree. However, you would also expect that if a country the PRCs size is building up, and is NOT pacifist, and is NOT democratic, and is building up so they can engage you in a military confrontation, then they can be considered a threat.

Are Chinese evil? No. That is stupid. Are they more interested in capitalism than communism? Yes. That is why I argue that we need to continue to bring them into the world economy BEFORE they get to the point where military confrontation with the US is possible (successful confrontation anyway). Historically, Americans (the public) have always felt close to, and very interested in, the Chinese and their goings-on. Chinese don't seem to think to badly about the American people either.

The main problem I see is that many generations of Chinese have now grown up wholly on Taiwan. They are the driving force for independence. Why should they join China when they are already better off? More available cash, more democratic governance. And why should they be held captive by PRC threats of forceful reunification? I don't think there is any easy answer to this because of the history (both sides claiming status as 'China' etc).

 

overall since sept. 11 sino-us relations have become much stronger and got past the early rhetoric by the bush admin since the bush admin has turned down the rhetoric. the fuel to the fire may have been applicable 2 years ago, but it is a different environment today.

 

I think that it is a common misunderstanding for Americans to think that Taiwan wants to declare independence from China. In a poll asking Taiwanese about their opinions on China, though I admit is from 3 years ago, "22 percent of respondents are in favor of speedy unification with the mainland or moving toward that direction in the future, and 10 percent are in favor of independence soon or sometime in the future, while 39 percent favor the status quo or deciding the island's direction later. Some 17 percent said that Taiwan should retain its status quo permanently."

http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/20000221/20000221p5.html

 

Oops, this can't be right.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0806/p08s03-comv.html

Just a different perspective. Right?