(Washington Post gift article)
Selected quotations:
Many Western democracies lining up to recognize a Palestinian state are in the process of conferring legitimacy on something that, legally speaking, doesn’t yet exist. Meanwhile, an economically crucial and politically functional democratic state that Western leaders have vowed to aid in case of outside aggression — Taiwan — remains unrecognized. This kind of hypocrisy invites trouble.
Note: The context of the writer’s opinion that Palestine is “unqualified” for recognition stems from the fact that their government is only partially-functional, divided, with borders nobody seems to respect, and ultimately just gets bullied around by Israelis and doesn’t seem to be able to exercise sovereignty in any way other than what the Israelis allow them to. The article’s author seems to understand that recognitions of Palestinian sovereignty are more to do with being lip service expressing sympathy for the Palestinian suffering perpetrated by Israel rather than real, tangible attempts to establish relationships with a functioning state that exercises sovereignty.
This year, Taiwan’s gross domestic product is set to surpass $800 billion. Freedom House scores its democracy at 94/100 — more free than Britain and nearly on par with Germany. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks it 12th in the world for democratic governance, the highest in Asia. Taiwanese passports grant visa-free travel to almost 140 countries.
This stark contrast reflects a failure of political courage. Western democracies’ refusal to recognize Taiwan stems not from doubts over qualifications, but rather from fear of economic retaliation from China. Yet this diplomatic self-censorship undermines the very rules-based international order the West purports to defend. If and when China launches an invasion and calls it an “internal matter,” any legal and political legitimacy the West would hope to muster in opposing such a move would be hobbled.
De-legitimizing Palestine to save Taiwan is incoherent. Shows no love for the latter, just contempt for the former. Countries can do two things.
Besides, the deciding factor here is not the territories themselves, but the political muscle of the nations who would annex them.
I think that’s not what the author was trying to say here. He’s saying that recognition should be granted on an objective basis based on whether an organisation claiming to be a state is able to exercise the powers of sovereignty, without respect for the political implications, and that if Palestine meets the requirements, then Taiwan definitely does as well, so it’s unfair to not also recognise Taiwan.
that’s fair enough, palestine is a terrorist failed state, taiwan is a very functional and productive country
Reminder the Washington Post is Jeff Bezos’ propaganda house.
Both should be recognised, sure, pretty uncontroversial to me, but I’m not reading a word from this shite rag.
Isn’t the reason that just about nobody officially recognizes Taiwan as an independent county is that Taiwan themselves don’t recognize themselves as independent? Last I heard both mainland China and Taiwan officially consider there to be just one country, with there simply being a dispute over which government is the rightful one.
Yupp, that’s it. Way back when communist revolutions were cool, they drove out the ruling class who took shelter in Taiwan.
‘Took shelter’ being shorthand to military occupation and martial law that lasted until the 80s and 90s.
And let’s not pretend the KMT were in any way morally superior to the CCP. They were just reactionary bandits driven out by brainwashed Maoist personality cult members.
The White Terror period isn’t exactly a morally superior anything.
While that’s how it started, most Taiwanese people don’t think of themselves as Chinese any more.
The people who consider themselves as solely Taiwanese people outnumber those who consider themselves Chinese by 2 to 1. The Taiwanese government can’t do something like change its name to the “Republic of Taiwan” without starting shit with the People’s Republic of China. So they figure sticking with the old name of the “Republic of China” is less llikely to cause problems.
A lot of geopolitics in general revolves around people trying not to start a conflict over something dumb rather than accepting obvious truths.
Are you talking about the Taiwanese, or the Chinese colonialists that took over the island from the indigenous population to flee their loss of a war?
Oh I totally get it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is currently the official stance of the Taiwanese government that they are not a distinct nation from the rest of China. Who knows though, that might change in five to ten years.
Kurdistan is the skeleton under the water
it’s not hypocrisy… from what i understand, taiwanese citizens kinda don’t want to be recognised as independent. they’re fine with the status quo
that might be different if the PRC weren’t a threat, but the reality is palestinians want to be an independent state right now, and taiwanese don’t
¿Por qué no los dos?
“We can’t do anything good unless we do everything good!”
What a miserably lazy line of reasoning.
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The US officially has what’s called a One China Policy. The embassy located in Taipei isn’t even called an embassy. It’s the American Institute Taipei. And yes, it’s because they don’t want to get on China’s bad side.
Granted, that was all before Trump decided to flip the trade table, so who knows what the stance going forward will be.
The U.S. was sending military equipment to Taiwan so they could build up a defense to make it harder to capture, I can’t see how that would be less of a piss of China act than calling them by a different name
Imagine if the U.S. approved $2b in weapons to Palestine last year. Israel may have even stopped
Honestly, that’s politics for you. Regardless of what a country is actually doing, they will maintain an official stance for the record. Calling that country a liar is considered impolite.
Edit: in diplomatic terms that is.
Are you sure? Taiwan isn’t recognized by most countries because they want to have good relations with China.
Nah it appears a lot of countries that did recognize it revoked such as well. Seems like a pretty strange way to deal with the situation if you send weapons to Taiwan and not china
What about Tibet? Pepermit Farms remembers
The thing that nobody wants to admit with Tibet is that China won. They moved a bunch of Han people into the region and it’s now so interconnected with the rest of China that even if a completely free and fair referendum were held on independence, it’d probably be defeated 2 to 1. Call me a bot or a doomer, but if you ever go to Tibet, you’ll realise the old Tibet is pretty much gone. All that’s left is just another Chinese province with Tibet-themed attractions. They did it with Tibet and Inner Mongolia, they are doing it to Hong Kong, and if given the chance, they’d do it to Taiwan too.
You’re 100% right. Yay colonialism for soft genocide
Why doesn’t Taiwan call a ceasefire to their war? Or declare I dependence. Unless something has changed they haven’t.
They are trying not to remind China of their continued existence
