this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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A glorified puppet state? What do you mean?
I started writing out a timeline but I don't know what position you're asking from so I will say for the sake of brevity that the US kept the KMT from being run out of all of China so that the US could us the island as a threat against China -- as it also attempted to do in Korea when it had more-or-less complete control of the southern half. Taiwan spent about 40 years as a military dictatorship killing tens of thousands of dissidents, native Formosans, and others (this was called the "White Terror"), while their patron the US looked the other way while it pumped resources into the country (for the ruling class, mind you) to use the island as a sweatshop site in the interim. This legacy and its connections to fellow US puppet South Korea and US ally Japan go a long way to explaining its current capacity in manufacturing, which make up its other value to the US besides geographical position.
Both Taiwan and SK have made various attempts to assert themselves (with some success in both cases), but with the pathetic diplomatic position of the former and the continued military occupation of the latter by the US, I think "puppet state" is a fair title for them, perhaps as much as Israel, but that's its own can of worms.
I didn't really intend on getting into litigating this topic, but I'm happy to discuss it as best I can.
Not only did the US turn a blind eye to the White Terror, but they were positively gleeful about it, as a key target of it was of course not only indigeneous-politics based, but fundamentally anti-communist.
Indeed a basic presupposition of the US providing you such extensive economic support, as a forward base in Asia against communism, is that you crush any opposition to its 'proper' functioning as such an economic and military asset. That supposes that you will crush any radical, labor, trade-union, let alone explicitly socialist or communist activity which appears to challenge the state.
Yes, I know about its not-so-glorious past and the White Terror. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed. It was terrible. However, I must respectfully disagree with you on the "puppet state" part. I don't think that Taiwan is a puppet state. The US sponsoring Taiwan is a thing of the past. Neither is a pathetic diplomatic position a good reason for being a puppet state.
if US support dropped overnight, reunification with the mainland would become inevitable. it's a puppet state in the sense that it's propped up by the might of the US/NATO military.
ehh yeah I guess so
It's kind of a weird way to define a puppet state IMO, because you could make the same case for a lot of countries. Like the US supports the Mexican government, and would have likely already been overthrown by the Sinoloa Cartel without US support. So is Mexico a puppet state?
Hey now that you mention this, it does kind of make less sense. But I think I should be taking a break from this horrible post. There is no use arguing with someone that is completely unwilling to change their mind. Look at my comment history. I've already wasted hours.
I didn't see this reply before. The other commenter has it right that the relevance of its pathetic diplomatic position is that it is being propped up by the US/NATO and ultimately depends on them to exist apart from the PRC, which makes it very difficult to oppose them. Incidentally, does the US not sponsor Taiwan? Even just recently there was this, which sure seems like sponsorship to me.
Apparently being sponsored by a foreign state is now counted as being a puppet state?
That part was in response to you saying:
I could have formatted it better, but the rest was focused on the puppet part and then I prefaced the sponsorship part with "Incidentally" to indicate changing over to an adjacent subject.
Taiwan is a rump state of the despotism that existed before the Maoist revolution. When the government fled to the island, the US backed them up and prevented the revolution from purging them from power and uniting the whole country under one flag. They exist today as they are because of western intervention, and is therefore a puppet state. I disagree with 'glorified' considering it's taboo internationally to even call them a state.