It isn't that easy. It's not just China's government that believes Taiwan is part of China — China's people also believe that. There is a saying that if China is democratic, they would have invaded Taiwan yesterday. Or another saying: if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow.
Another factor that complicates things is the fact that Taiwan is a strategic location for the US's military containment of China. The whole "first island chain" depends on it. The US knows it, China's life depends on it.
There's a reason why this issue has persisted since 1949 and why it's China's "reddest of the red lines".
I don't buy this. If the government would stop making "reunification" so prominent in official rhetoric, eventually there would be room to back down from the hardline view on Taiwan. Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly in 30 or 50 years. The government is feeding the flames of nationalism by making Taiwan such a prominent issue. The reason the CCP won't back down on Taiwan is not because they can't, but exactly because it's an issue which encourages nationalism and internal unity.
Saying that Taiwan is merely a nationalism and internal unity issue, and that people's views are merely a result of propaganda, ignores the very history of how Taiwan came to be and how the Chinese civil war developed. Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years.
But more importantly, you dodged the military strategic significance of Taiwan. Telling China to give up Taiwan is like asking China to give cut off its lifeline.
At the end of the day, your point boils down to that China ought not to think that way, for reasons that you believe are the only legitimate reasons. But that is useless: Chinese do view things that way, and if foreign forces pressure China to let Taiwan go, then they will fight to the end.
> Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value
It seems to me that you are saying that a contemporary political position (that Taiwan should be ruled by the same government as mainland China) is in fact a "core value". Unity can be a value, but the political position that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of China, and China can't be unified without it, is not. That's the position which is encouraged by propaganda and government rhetoric, and mirrors similar positions with regards to, for example, Tibet.
That is correct. But as I said: Taiwan is being used by the US as a strategic military location to contain China. As long as this situation persists, China can't accept any other situation than Taiwan being part of the same state.
Were this danger to disappear then I foresee much greater chances of Taiwan emerging as a independent state, probably as one that is aligned with PRC in the same manner Canada is to the US.
The US _removed_ troops from Taiwan when they recognized the PRC. China has had every opportunity to bring Taiwan into its orbit by simply having enough sense to not threaten Taiwan so much as to to force it to seek out allies against it. Taiwan has shown that it clearly considered business interests to trump any differences in political philosophy. If China would simply declare that it wouldn’t attack Taiwan, then the US wouldn’t have an in any longer. The fact that Taiwan can be used strategically against China is due to China’s shortsighted thinking and nothing else. It’s complete inability to treat neighboring countries like Taiwan as anything but vassals is mind blowing. The PRC government is playing a dangerous game.
The US removed troops as part of the One Child Policy. That policy is now being undermined by the DPP, US and Lituania, where "undermining" includes selling weapons to Taiwan, sailing more warships near China, and AUKUS. It's not exactly a peaceful situation right now where China's worries are completely made up.
He means the One China Policy. But CogitoCogito is right. China is only be "contained" by Taiwan in the hypothetical circumstance of a war; during peace time they obviously have no trouble sending ships around the world and are not contained in any sense. And the only reason they haven't been able to bring Taiwan into the fold is because they keep making psychotic violent threats. All China needs to do to completely resolve any problems with Taiwan is stop being nuts.
China obviously doesn't want the matter resolved peacefully, if at all, because they use this conflict for internal control.
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>unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years.
I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).
> I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).
This is not true, Mongol rule only lasted for about 100 years.
Han dynasty lasted 400 years. Tang about 300 years, Ming and Qing together lasted about 550 years. All of that adds to about 1250 years of unified times. That did not count Qin or Sui or Northern Song, which are unified that just happened to be short lived.
It was foreign, but they sinicized and they claimed to be representatives of Chinese civilization, so in the course of history it was eventually accepted that they were legitimate successors. This is in contrast to imperial Japan, which explicitly did not claim to be a successor of Chinese civilization, which was one of the reasons why they continued to be viewed as foreign.
Also the landmass referred to as “China” has constantly changed throughout history. For example today China _is_ unified, but Taiwan is not a part of it.
There is no need for Mr. Xi to formally give up on Taiwan. He could just kick the can down the road for another few decades, like all his much smarter predecessors did.
> China's people also believe that.
Only because that is what they learn and hear (literally) daily, starting with kindergarten. Just reduce this crab step by step, and it will fade away. The same is true for this even more stupid 7-dash line. They draw this stuff only really, really every map you see in China.
Saying that viewing Taiwan that way as purely a consequence of propaganda is like saying that American patriotism, and the fact that Americans believe that the South's cecession is illegitimate or unrighteous, is purely a consequence of having taught people so since childhood.
Yes education is a contributing factor. But it is my no means the only factor. Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years.
Ridiculous. People always bring up the secession of the south but a far more accurate corollary would be if the citizens of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, decided to formally declared independence and vote to become an autonomous nation from the United States.
I think if you asked the average American living in the continental United States, that they would not care one iota if Puerto Rico suddenly became independent. And frankly it's the same for people living in mainland China - their day-to-day lives would change zero percentage if Taiwan was formally recognized. It's purely a matter of conditioned education delivered as part of the party system.
Is warring with all neighbors a core value too? Chinese government, through censorship, controls the minds of the Chinese people. The government needs to update the core values.
This is naive. The government simply doesn't have that power. If they tried to downplay Taiwan people would be absolutely furious.
The extent of "mind control" is really not that great. The internet exists, and despite imperfect controls people have access to information. It would probably take Xi down to try to abandon Taiwan.
Serious question: Why do the Chinese people care so much about Taiwan though? What do they want with it? What's the endgame plan?
If the vision is that everyone will be living happily ever after under the PRC umbrella, I could see some flaws in that reasoning. Like a whole population that will probably take up arms guerilla-style. I've visited Taiwan and even wearing pro-CCP colours is frowned upon. If they just want the territory and not the people and it'll end up another XinJiang style "re-education" camp, well that's obviously something unsupportable.
Also, of course Taiwan is so crucial to global supply chains that this has all the ingredients to become a world war in short order, which is pretty worrying.
How about unification, under the government of Taiwan? Is everybody down with that? No? Oh, then maybe the mainland could see why Taiwan isn't down with unification on the mainland's terms.
But that's the problem. Neither side is willing to be unified "under" the other. That's not unification; that's subordination. Neither is willing to be subordinated. So no non-violent unification is currently possible.
My point is that whether the west thinks the Chinese ought to think that way, is not very important. People can debate that all day long, but at the end of the day the Chinese do think that way, and they are willing to fight for it.
This has strategical implications. Do we want to grandstand or do we want to actually solve a problem? If we want to grandstand at all cost, then we have to wage war with China and force them into submission. If we want an actual peaceful resolution then something has to give.
Taiwan is already an independent nation by all measures that anyone really cares about; the status quo is to their advantage. If China wants to change this, they are going to have to wage war by sending ships across the strait.
Maybe the Taiwanese can defend their nation mostly by themselves; amphibious assault is not easy, even for major world powers. Even more difficult with satellites watching your (extensive) preparations. Even more difficult with hostile submarines prowling the seas. The PLA can't march to Taiwan.
China does not have that much of a problem with the status quo. The status quo with the One China Policy has worked very well for decades. In fact, 2015, right before the DPP got to power, could be regarded as the height of cross-straight relations. Things only started going sour after the DPP started making moves towards true independence, and after the US sent increasing numbers of warships to China's back yard.
It is not China that is deviating from the status quo.
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Then you clearly either haven't read enough of my tweets, or you don't know official CCP positions as well as you think you do in order to differentiate my views with official CCP positions. Do I need to copy a few links where I disagreed with CCP official position?
If you think my views are too much like CCP's, you should talk to more mainlanders. There's a way deeper rabbit hole out there.
Yes I have a different opinion than the mainstream western one. So what? I can have my own legitimate, independently researched opinion, of which some parts may or may not align with other actors because that's what I happen to believe in based on research results.
Who is "we" and "they"? The west vs China of course. This was, after all, the context to which I was replying to. Not sure how you missed that context.
What's absolutely disgusting is you misrepresenting my views like that in order to smear me just because you don't like the fact that I have a different opinion about China. If you read that thread it is perfectly clear that I merely pointed out that different opinions about the situation exists without giving my own view, but that's not acceptable to you because you seek to doxx. To be perfectly clear, if that wasn't already so, I am against any kind of sexual assault and I support an investigation into corrupt officials. Thank you very much.
You presented yourself as an authority (native speaker) and provided a translation + opinion of her statement. You omitted the part about her crying, etc. Why? And why do you refuse to you update us on your opinion now that the omission has been pointed out?
Again, the question: does your opinion of her statement change when considering the panicked crying (that you casually omitted) which was pointed out by another user?
>To be perfectly clear, if that wasn't already so, I am against any kind of sexual assault and I support an investigation into corrupt officials.
Another dodge. The question isn't about generalities. It isn't about "different opinions about China". The question is about this very specific instance.
(I didn't doxx you, your information is in your profile.)
I never said I'm an authority, I simply posted a link to a translation and I said I checked it. People can choose to listen to me, or not. You made up the strawman that I'm positioning myself as an authority.
My post was never supposed to be a full summary, and I never claimed that it is, so it's very strange that you attack me for not fully summarizing. Passages such as crying, feeling like a zombie, etc are already covered by western media and people have likely already read that -- me pointing out all that again does not add anything useful. The intention from the beginning is to let people read the full thing, including translation nuances, and to let them read parts that they probably haven't read yet (or not in its original form), so that people can make up their own minds. That includes reading up about crying, and more importantly, how the passage about crying was written as well as the context in which that passage appears.
I added some commentary after people asked me to comment on another translation and compare that with the first. But that commentary was secondary to the main goal, which is to let people read the original, full text and make up their own minds. Thus it is neither necessary nor a goal of that commentary to be a full analysis, and I never claimed that it was.
Why are you so obsessed with this? Why is my opinion so much more important to you than what Peng Shuai herself wrote in full? What are you afraid of? Why do you not like the fact that I let others read the original source?
I think there is only one possible answer: you have a specific opinion that you want to force on others, so you are alarmed by others being exposed to more and original information. That's some chilling 1984 thought police behavior right there.
This is our 6th (or so) exchange on this matter and the first time you've even acknowledged that the crying wording exists(!). I've asked you what you think of the crying over and over and you repeatedly answer in vague terms like "people are free to listen to me if they want...", but never, not once, answering the very direct, very specific, and very simple question.
What do you make of the crying?
Do you not see how your attempt to skirt the question makes you look like an apologist and not a neutral commentator? Do you think people reading our exchanges won't notice?
>I think there is only one possible answer: you have a specific opinion that you want to force on others, so you are alarmed by others being exposed to more and original information.
I haven't disputed any "information" you've provided. Not once. The truth is exactly the opposite: I've been questioning your omission of key information.
>That's some chilling 1984 thought police behavior right there.
In a thread precisely about abuse of state power, with real lives at stake, this comment is tasteless. It's you who support the CCP in almost all your commentary here and on Twitter.
I hope you see the irony. Rest assured, people reading this will.
>Why are you so obsessed with this? ... What are you afraid of?
As someone with women in his family who have suffered sexual assault, I find your refusal to even acknowledge her crying, both sickening and cowardly. That's not even to mention your unwavering support for the CCP. But that will be on your conscience not mine.
As someone who also has a close woman friend who suffered such assault, and as someone who has even discussed the Peng Shuai issue with multiple women, I find your willingness to take a pitchfork to go after imaginary enemies to be sickening.
Okay you know what, this time I'll tell you why I was reluctant to answer.
The first part is: because I don't trust you!
Here, just look at this sentence:
> It's you who support the CCP in almost all your commentary here and on Twitter.
This is a huge misrepresentation of my (much more nuanced and complex) position. If you do good research into my Twitter history will you find multiple points where I disagree with CCP. But the fact that you disregard such facts, and choose to misrepresent me as "supporting CCP in almost all commentary", is telling.
Right off the bat, your suspicious, paranoid behavior gives you away as someone who actively seeks to label people as a propagandist, shill, enemy, criminal, etc. merely for disagreeing with your world view on China. The fact that you continue to stalk and hunt me further confirms it.
The second part is because the Hacker News crowd loves to attack, or downvote without discussing, comments on China that they don't agree with. I have to be careful with not offending the crowd by giving too much wrong opinion. And here you are, zooming in on wrong opinions, which you call "apologist".
I've discussed the Peng Shuai situation in detail in private with multiple people, including women. The opinion among mainland Chinese is, for the most part, very different than the narrative painted in mainstream western media. But why should I say too many things which will potentially cause a flood of downvotes and shitstorm simply because that's not what people here like to hear?
Just think about how wrong this is. For a crowd that loves to preach freedom of speech, I have to fear giving my opinion, in no small part thanks to people like you who continue to harass me and continue to label imaginary enemies. For a crowd who wears the mantra of "we are only against the CCP, not the Chinese people", I have to be wary of giving opinions aligned with the Chinese people. No, having a different opinion on China is not "being an apologist", it's having a different opinion.
So my statement that you are engaging in 1984 thought policing, and actually also in McCarthyism 2.0, is not "irony", it is accurate. The biggest irony is that even though you are supposed to be a supporter of free speech, you attempt to deny others of their free speech by labeling them as enemies, merely because you disagree with them.
You know what, my relatives lives are indeed at stake, and they are indeed being threatened — by a potential US-led war for which its consent is manufactured by anti-China propaganda. So I'm pushing back at that. I can see that you have fully bought into the China threat theory, zooming into anybody who has a different opinion about China, like a drone, denying others of the opportunity to see a different perspective. This is entirely deplorable behavior.
>This is a huge misrepresentation of my (much more nuanced and complex) position. If you do good research into my Twitter history will you find multiple points where I disagree with CCP. But the fact that you disregard such facts, and choose to misrepresent me as "supporting CCP in almost all commentary", is telling.
You've said this a few times so I'm going to call you on it.
Can you point to a few examples? Specifically, do any of your Twitter posts disagree with the CCP's official stance on censorship, human rights, international relations, international boundaries, democracy, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tiananmen Square? Are any of your comments critical of specific, highly ranking CCP officials?
Or, are your comments limited to economic policy and other similarly non-controversial issues?
You've repeatedly touted how critical you are of the CCP on Twitter as proof that your opinion is not one-sided, so I'm looking forward to your response.
And actually, now that I think about, even this is another example of you grossly misrepresenting me:
> and the first time you've even acknowledged that the crying wording exists(!)
Go back and read what I wrote in verbatim! I wrote:
> There is no doubt that Zhao is a manipulative jerk and that he engaged in unacceptable questionable acts.
"unacceptable acts" include that which make her cry! I didn't "omit" saying that he did deplorable things. This is yet another deplorable example of you looking for imaginary enemies and engaging in thought policing.
That's because Taiwan had maintained the One China Policy. This worked very very well for decades. It's only recently when they are becoming more serious about true independence that things are souring.
Furthermore, China can no longer afford to use empty threats when US warships are inceasingly sailing in China's backyard. Things weren't so militarily contested before.
And yet it keeps making them, and no actually doing anything about any of this.
It has been decades of empty threats. I am sure people said the same thing, the last time more empty threats for made.
Yeah, no. Thats the facts. They keep making empty threats, and not following through on them, and they are still doing that to this day.
> more serious about true independence
Well, Taiwan is already truly independent, and that has been the case for decades. They have their own laws, borders, and taxes. That is what an independent country is.
Furthermore, the official stance of the ruling party, is that they are already independent.
Nothing really needs to change, for them to become independent, because that is already the case.
> had maintained the One China Policy.
They have their own taxes, laws and borders. They are already an independent country, actually. There is nothing to be maintained, other than some fantasy make believe lip service.
Of course they keep making them. They don't want bloodshed where it's not needed.
But you seem to think that this trend can go on forever no matter what. That is a dangerous mistake. What's needed is deescalation, not more escalation in the faulty thinking that they will continue to do nothing no matter what happens.
> Of course they keep making them. They don't want bloodshed where it's not needed.
Exactly, I agree. They keep making threats, that they don't follow through on, and they will continue to not follow through on them.
Nothing is needed, to do anything, given the fact that Taiwan is already independent, and that has been the case for decades.
> What's needed is deescalation
There is nothing to de-escalate. Taiwan is already an independent country, and it has been so for decades, and that will continue.
They have had their own taxes, laws, and borders for decades. And they have those same things today. Nothing has changed. They are already independent, and that was the case before, and still is now.
And anyway, the only one who can choose to stop making those empty threats is china. Complain at them if you don't like their big talk, and no follow through threats.
I am saying that none of this has changed. Taiwan is its own independent country, for decades, and we've been doing the same things, which is follow our defensive treaty with them, and have been doing this for decades.
That's the status quo. Nothing needs to change. Nobody is shooting down Chinese military assets.
All that is happening is the same exact, completely normal defensive treaty actions that we've been doing for a while.
And china isn't going to do anything about this status quo, of Taiwan already being an independent country, with a defense treaty with the US.
He cannot kick the can down the road if the West forces a point of no return by suggesting the above.
Chinese people initially saw Taiwan as part of China for historical reasons as well as a result of the civil war. Propaganda slows this from stopping, but the problem very much is not manufactured.
CCP has a much greater control on its people than others can imagine. If they want to give up on Taiwan, they can do it without much trouble. Japan used to be China's mortal enemy. CCP has no trouble normalized relationship with Japan and built "Sino-Japan friendship" [1]. No citizen uprising over this in China, though CCP used Japan as a whipping symbol to flame up nationalism from time to time. Mongolia used to be part of China and it's an independent country now. No one in China made a sound. Vast vast area of Siberia including the city Vladivostok were taken by Russia from China. Under CCP no one made a sound again. In fact, CCP and Soviet/Russia in the 90's signed a treaty to recognize the ceded territory. Again no one in China made a sound, no one overthrowing CCP on that issue. The funny thing is ROC Taiwan doesn't recognize the ceded territory and still claims the land as part of China. Taiwan is a CCP issue; Chinese people really have no say in it.
Having been to both Taiwan and China several times - this is a bit inaccurate.
Yes, there is a certain believe among Chinese that Taiwan is an inalienable part of their territory, but most don't believe that reunification should be achieved by force. There is also the idea that Taiwanese people are indeed different from mainland Chinese, but at the same time, any strong Taiwanese identity is the result of propaganda and indoctrination by the Taiwanese authorities.
In other words, it seems that Chinese citizens believe that Taiwanese are "misguided children", thus there is no reason to punish them militarily, and the Taiwan question should be treated as an internal conflict, like any other separatist movement.
The context of my post is that I replied to another post that talked about the west fighting China.
Hence, I did not say people believe reunification needs to be achieved by force. What I did say is that if foreign forces pressure China into letting Taiwan go, then China will fight back.
> I did not say people believe reunification needs to be achieved by force.
Then this line:
> if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow.
doesn't make much sense to me. Who would overthrow the CCP, if not the Chinese people? And if they would be willing to do that, why wouldn't they believe in achieving reunification by force?
Many accept the status quo in which Taiwan is de facto self ruled but at least there is an aspiration towards future reunification by peaceful means, and in which Taiwan identifies as Chinese (just disagreeing on the government). As one of my (Chinese) family members put it: we can be very flexible and patient in arrangements as long as you reconize you're Chinese; who is the government is not the most imporant.
Letting go of the reunification aspiration entirely, and letting Taiwan relinquish their identity as Chinese, is a whole different matter and would make lots of people angry. It would be seen as a sign of a weak government, one which is in collusion with foreign forces to destroy Chinese sovereignty; an extension of early 20th century efforts by the west to balkanize China. The CCP will lose legitimacy.
Once CCP is overthrown, who can say whether the new policy is peaceful? Maybe a populist will make use of the anger to incite people to call for an invasion.
The CCP are actually moderates. Be careful of what you wish for.
Well there are many mainlanders who disagree with that. To many people, being Chinese is being 中国人, which doesn't mean belonging to the Chinese state (whether that's PRC or ROC), but belonging to Chinese civilization, which is a bigger concept than merely speaking Chinese (中文).
I don't place much value on what mainlanders think, but we have to care because they make us.
> being Chinese is being 中国人, which doesn't mean belonging to the Chinese state
I wish that were the case, but the CCP declare themselves the arbiter and they have all the guns. People's Daily says we are "race" traitors if we don't obey their government.
So we don't like calling ourselves 中國人 anymore. I can read OK but not speak their 國語 well enough with the Taiwanese I meet to understand what they prefer. It is not a simple question. 或者华人? Maybe they ignore the pinks and still say 中國人.
我叫自己唐人
If the PRC were as reasonable as the relative you quoted above, none of this would matter. But they are not.
> if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow
Haha, no. CCP will just present it as a victory for some weird reason, and everyone will just keep applauding. There might be some resentment, but not open one.
China peoples believe what the ccp tell them to believe with their indoctrination, military containment story included Taiwan is a free and democratic coun3tey and a quite decent one in recent history.. bullying a country for for fake historical reunification purposes is not different from religious motivation and the world should take stance
I haven't found anybody actually who would care, only for recent nationalistic voices. If that would be lowered, they wouldn't care less.
And even for those who "cared" I've explained, that imagine yourself as a Taiwanese, who had and always will have a better life than any mainlander. Would they want to have a dictator above themself who beat them up like they did with HKese?
So far, I've found no mainlanders yet who would still insisted to take them over. (of course personally, in chat it might be different)
The Chinese people have been indoctrinated by the CCP for decades. So to just chalk it up to the Chinese people demanding invasion is absurd and completely contrary to the facts.
Chinese Communist Party has tied it's legitimacy into uniting China. Xi has doubled down on it. Giving up would destabilize the party. It's and identity question for China. Chinese law ways that China must go to the war if peaceful unification is not possible.
Even Chinese people seem to think that Taiwanese want to be part of China. In reality support for unification is about 4% of the population. The official One China Policy exists to prevent immediate start of war.
It's not that the Communist Party ties itself to unifying China. It's the culture. It's because that the only way to claiming yourself a legitimate Chinese government is to become the conquerer of all China. All dynasties who did not have reign over every parts of China, like Jin and Song, are considered shames in history by the Chinese people.
There is nothing to do with the Communist ideology or any particular party or people. If it were KMT on the mainland and Communist Party on Taiwan, they would do the same.
You are also missing the part where the Taiwanese have always held an ambiguous stance towards reunification/independence.
I would bet that a Scottish-style ref in Taiwan (which would be tantamount to declaration of independence and hence, dead on arrival) may yield a surprising similar response: no majority support for independence.
> You are also missing the part where the Taiwanese have always held an ambiguous stance towards reunification/independence.
You are also missing the part where the ambiguous stance is mostly a consequence of China's threat of immediate violence if independence is ever declared. Taiwanese support for reunification is under 15% or so - and even lower among Taiwanese who were born in Taiwan. Why would they, when their living standards are way higher than China's and they live a free country?
Actual survey results are a bit more mixed: https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7805&id=6962 Support for moving towards independence has clearly increased a lot since 2018, but many people still haven't made up their minds yet.
That is because formal independence - as used in this survey - means a considerable risk of war with China. It is no surprise that people hesitate going to war when the current status quo is somewhat ok.
There is a strong Taiwanese identity among younger people, and that's one of the reasons why the DPP is so popular right now. Older generations and KMT supporters may favor reunification, but that's a sentiment fading away.
So, no, I don't think Taiwanese would agree to become Chinese.
Obviously they would. If China was democratic they would probably elect a more repressive and economically left wing government. At least that's until the private sector buys enough political influence.
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I hope you are not seriously thinking true propagandists are recruited out in the open via HN comments. Are you seriously paranoid and naive at the same time?
No, there are a lot of strategic reasons beyond that.
People in China and Taiwan are happy as it is right now, yes. But if the status quo changes, for example if Taiwanese independence is recognized, people will become unhappy.
Another factor that complicates things is the fact that Taiwan is a strategic location for the US's military containment of China. The whole "first island chain" depends on it. The US knows it, China's life depends on it.
There's a reason why this issue has persisted since 1949 and why it's China's "reddest of the red lines".