r/europe • u/Potential-Focus3211 • 1d ago
Why EU stance on Taiwan is a growing cause of concern for mainland China
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3322001/why-eu-stance-taiwan-growing-cause-concern-mainland-china51
u/TheoryOfDevolution Italy 1d ago
This conflicts with Macron's statement on Taiwan.
Do we [Europeans] have an interest in speeding up on the subject of Taiwan? No. The worst of things would be to think that we Europeans must be followers on this subject and adapt ourselves to an American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction.
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u/Nukes-For-Nimbys 1d ago
We're not even willing to stand up to Russia over Ukriane. China would be fools to worry about us over Taiwan.
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u/FatMike20295 1d ago
EU will make some lip service and call it a day. Heck of they aren't willing to do much for Ukraine which is their background what do people expect? They still buy Russia gas and oil to this day m they still refuse to shed soildiers in to help Ukraine.
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u/diamanthaende 1d ago
The EU should try to massively improve relations with Taiwan, it could be key in addressing one major weakness in Europe's economy: semiconductor manufacturing and design.
ASML, Zeiss et al may be crucial for the actual machines (and chemical processes) producing them, but TSMC is arguably the only company in thew world that has managed to perfect the production process and make it profitable and scalable, while reducing the impact of a typically cyclical business. Samsung routinely suffers from the cyclical issues, while the dumpster fire Intel isn't even worth mentioning.
TSMC's new design centre in Munich is a good first step, but there should be much more to come. Europe on the other hand could help improving Taiwan's security, including delivering cutting edge defence kit and technology.
Beijing has no leg to stand on in this regard with their continuous (and massive) support of the Russian aggressor in the EU's neighbourhood.
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u/Droid202020202020 1d ago
delivering cutting edge defence kit and technology
“Delivering” lol.
Xi tasked his armed forces with being able to invade Taiwan in 2027. That’s less than two years from now.
They don’t need deliveries. They need allies that are ready to fight alongside them.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 1d ago edited 1d ago
I doubt China will be ready by 2027, I imagine militaries around the world are trying hard to adapt to the lessons of Ukraine which has been a big surprise (like how come Russia just didn't win in four weeks, which is certainly what they expected to do). The CCP is taking a huge risk ... Failure will be a humiliation. If you're comfortably running the country and things are going well, taking that risk is a big step. Historically I wonder how much of China is prepared to pay the price.
China doesn't just need to invade Taiwan, it must blockade it. That's going to be hard. Currently Chinese submarines are woeful, they have I think only two modern aircraft carriers, the bulk of their fighter jets are poor. Their missile technology is a big unknown... They rely a lot on ship-killing missiles, but ships are more resilient than people think. The houtis have not hit a western warship even once, at much closer range, with Iranian missiles.
And what they couldn't have foreseen is the large increase in European defence spending and the rapid evolution of European weapons due to the fight with Russia. The biggest problem China has is lack of combat experience. Meanwhile even Australia is growing its AWACS capabilities with Wedgetail deployments to Poland.
But we focus too much on external parties. Taiwan has the biggest role to play. For a country under such a threat, they don't yet show sufficient urgency. If Taiwan seriously commits to self defence and the fight, allies will come.
European interests will be viewed through the lens of Russia I think, China being the biggest ally of Russia and clearly willing to make mischief in Europe's zone of direct interest.
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u/Droid202020202020 22h ago edited 22h ago
You can't compare Houthis with their Iranian missiles and China.
China is on a whole different level of technological capabilities. They are behind in some areas - even their couple of aircraft carriers are probably not on par with comparable Western designs, definitely not anywhere close to Nimitz class. They based it on the old Soviet design from the 1980s, which was the first "real" a/c that the Soviets ever built, so it was far from optimal. And yes, their submarine fleet is lacking.
They are, however, very heavily invested in hypersonic missile tech, drones (both airborne and marine), and their shipyard capacity is 240 times higher than the US. Not 2, or 24, but 240. They have been very busy in the last decade building a large fleet of modern missile destroyers and - importantly - a huge fleet of troop carriers, amphibious assault ships, and floating docks. Now, why on Earth would they need those?
I don't honestly know how good their missiles are, but I expect them to be pretty good - definitely better than Iranian ones. More importantly, they can build more of them than anyone else combined. And most likely they did. I do know that they are the world's leader in cheap mass produced drones. They are also the only other nation in the world that has a fleet of 5th generation stealth fighters. Most likely based on stolen US tech and probably not as good as F-35, but good enough.
So in a situation where a huge swarm of air and underwater drones, hypersonic anti-ship missiles and stealth aircraft are going against AEGIS protected ships, the outcome is anyone's guess. China's biggest advantages are the sheer quantities of everything, unmatched production capacity, and logistical proximity to the battle zone. Their disadvantages are the lack of combat experience, economic reliance on trade, and the US nukes.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 13h ago
The industrial capability of the anti-China alliance far exceeds China, and oil is not the only problem China faces. It needs iron ore and advanced semi-conductors, and it probably needs to do something about.the United States huge lead in space.
China has many advantages in this potential battle, such as proximity but the advantages are not overwhelming. The defender always has advantages and China can't really bring any offensive power against its enemies,. except for missiles for which recent experience makes a pretty weak case. That's probably because anti missile defence is getting so much better, and probably because it's hard for a missile to be fast, long range, evasive and to carry a big payload. The most devastating strikes by USA and Israel have been delivered by aircraft. It does appear that China is relying heavily on missiles but the jury is out that this is going to be very effective. Artillery has been the mass weapon of choice in Ukraine. It's probably had the biggest reputation uplift.
The leadership must consider the real risk of failure.. hopefully all we have to do is keep that risk unacceptably high.
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u/Droid202020202020 9h ago
The industrial capability of the anti-China alliance far exceeds China
Are you sure about that? Especially when it comes to defense industry?
China's shipbuilding capacity alone is over 200 times the US. What other "anti-China alliance" countries can reverse that?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gmnpg31xlo
According to CNN, Russia is producing 3 times more artillery shells than the US and Europe combined.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine
I strongly suspect that China can also outproduce the West in the number of missiles, especially hypersonic missiles that they've been concentrating on in the past decade. Also cheap drones - the Chinese are the world's leader in that area.
The US probably still hold an edge in some areas - airpower, submarines, aircraft carriers, probably space. But, outsourcing nearly everything to Asia makes the West vulnerable in areas people don't always comprehend. E.g. India alone supplies a whopping 47% of all generic drugs to the US.
except for missiles for which recent experience makes a pretty weak case
I am not so sure. China could likely fire order of magnitude more missiles than Russia, and keep on producing them in far larger numbers. Their whole approach seems to try and overwhelm the advance missile defense systems with the sheer number of incoming targets.
Their biggest vulnerability is nukes. They don't have the parity, and they have a very high population density. So if it comes to the literal fight to death, the US could destroy them, although at a very high price. But, Russia does have parity with the US (at least in theory), and they are now China's bitch. China's manufacturing overcapacity + Russia's enormous stockpile of Soviet-era nukes (assuming they are still functional) is a very dangerous combination.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 8h ago
I don't think nukes are relevant. They're fairly silly weapons.
Missiles are interesting..i have been really surprised how long it takes to make them in the west. It could be that this is just capacity run down, which can be fixed, or some other bottleneck. One thing with building up stock piles is you are committed to what might turn out to be old technology when it is needed. Western old tech did well against Russia but I doubt it will work for China. Iran depended on a strategy of overwhelming Israel from multiple directions but it wasn't super effective..t
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u/Leather_Structure594 1d ago
Yes, let's pretend that China's missile technology is same with Iran's.
And let's ignore the fact that China's export downgraded version fighter jets just killed Europe's most advanced fighter jets a few months ago.
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u/DueHousing 1d ago
All of Taiwan and its periphery is within missile range. China doesn’t really need to do much with its Navy, it can do what the Houthis did in the Red Sea but even better since they’d have air superiority.
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u/nvkylebrown United States of America 1d ago
Full-scale war, and China is boned. All their energy goes through the Strait of Malacca. China might be able to keep the US out of the South China Sea, but protecting vital energy imports is impossible. Chinese shipping disappears within a couple weeks.
Energy is at the core of the economy. Russia is energy independent, China is not.
Japan had the same problem in WWII, lost partially because of that and partially because they picked a fight with the world's biggest economy, hoping that the US would lose interest quickly.
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u/Leather_Structure594 1d ago
Russia is energy independent, but not independent in industrial production, so why doesn't the West just block Russia now to end the war? It’s even simpler than blockade China.
The reason is simple - blockading a nuclear armed country is not feasible.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 23h ago
In a full scale shooting war, no oil is getting to China by ship. If the threat of nuclear attack was decisive, Taiwan would already be under CCP rule.
War would economically devastate China (and Taiwan). Chinese leadership has to evaluate what would happen to national unity and CCP leadership under those circumstances. This is the hope: neither side actually wants to start fighting. The risk is that it might happen anyway by misjudgment.
The west is not blockading Russia because it's not at war with Russia. It's only a proxy war.
However, Russia is blocked from sending more naval ships to the Black Sea, nuclear power or not, and it is complying.
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u/Leather_Structure594 19h ago edited 19h ago
Oil from Russia and Central Asia can be transported to China through pipelines.
Oil from the Middle East may also be transported through Pakistan and Myanmar to China without passing through the Strait of Malacca, which is why China invests in ports and economic corridors in these two countries.
China itself is the sixth largest oil producing country in the world, and I believe that if China needs it, it has the ability to expand its oil production in a short period of time.
China's energy structure is dominated by coal, not oil, and with the expansion of its EV market share, China's dependence on imported oil will only further decrease.
So the West will not go to war with nuclear armed Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, how can we say that the West will enter a full-scale war with China just for Taiwan —— the West does not even recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
Finally, we cannot pretend that blocking China is harmless to the economies of other countries in the world. The damage caused by the lack of Chinese supply in the global industrial chain is no less than the lack of oil.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 13h ago
We don't know if the west will go to war over Taiwan, that's the point of current policy. But we can see it is getting ready to do so. And yes, war would be hugely damaging economically. Democracies go to war despite that,. sometimes. China itself has been reluctant to start wars.
The elements making war against China likely would be the strategic concerns of neighbouring countries, the strategic concerns to a lessor extent of the USA and Australia, and the public sympathy for a democracy under attack. It seems very likely to me there would be war unless China appears to be on track for a short victory. There is a broad and capable coalition of countries that would join this war.
You are correct that Taiwan is not technically recognised as a sovereign state. You seem well informed so you are probably aware that the US government is under a legal obligation to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, so Taiwan is in a strange situation, in the court of public opinion it is is treated as an independent country, and western rhetoric is shifting to saying that it is unacceptable to change the status quo by force. This is in effect recognition of independence.
The role of Europe would be economic sanctions and weapons supply, I would say.
The biggest problem the Europeans had was that they had energy dependence on Russia, so we had the funny situation of gas pipelines being left alone, a terribly run down military capability and a lack of leadership from the USA. Plus everyone expected a quick victory by Russia. Ukraine was considered a hopeless case. Before the war we heard so much about the uplift in Russian military capabilities under Putin, which sounds familiar.
Russia has tried a few nuclear bluffs but they have been ignored, I don't think it matters much. No one is going to invade China in a war over Taiwan, so I doubt it would reach a situation where Chinese leadership felt nuclear was in play.
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u/Droid202020202020 22h ago
Russia has plenty of oil, and it doesn't need ships to deliver it to China.
Also, there's such thing as strategic reserves.
Any war of such magnitude between superpowers will be short. Either there's a quick and very brutal victory/ defeat / draw, or one side decides to go nuclear.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 13h ago
Wars hardly ever go as planned. That's what China, which would start this, needs to consider.
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u/Droid202020202020 9h ago
I don't disagree. However, just like Russia, we're not really dealing with China, we're dealing with one man who has way too much power. People can be delusional.
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u/Klutzy-Desk-4408 4h ago
That's the worry. However I think the Chinese system is probably more balanced. There are a lot of rich people who might wonder what the obsession is with Taiwan and lot of families with only one child, children being the traditional Chinese social security system. I think it all has a long way to play out.
Meanwhile I learnt today that China has 6 nuclear attack subs, which are noisy, and the US has 67 in service and ten under construction, all of which are better.
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u/MajesticActuary7648 1h ago
What a joke. You really think china has not the military power to invade this island today ?
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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 1d ago
This.
The EU imports more from China by value, but ideally much can & should be suplanted by domestic products.
Impove collaboration with Taiwan & TSMC, while spending massively to on-shore even some of the critical stuff imprted from China: less fancy chips, solar, and batteries.
Ain't clear if the EU could do much directly against Russia-China reations, except help Ukraine build more long range drones.
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u/koensch57 1d ago
this.....
Realise that China depends on sales to the EU and US. Withour US or EU markets, China's economy will collapse. China can not afford to lose that.
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u/No_Specific8949 1d ago
China for now is only supporting Russia by maintaining economic ties, in the same way Israel supports Russia. At the same time China has increased a lot of trade with Ukraine. Ukrainian military drones have been observed to have a lot of Chinese components.
So for the capabilities China actually has of supporting Russia as the largest economy and manufacturing power in the world, for now their support to them is miniscule.
If the EU declared war to China, be sure that China be very quick to offer actual mass-support to Russia.
This is not the EU's fight, the EU can only play a minor role anyways, and for that you are going to risk China mass-sending weapons to Russia, and breaking economic ties?
Taiwan will be the fight of the US, Japan and maybe Australia. The EU would be risking everything just to play a minor role. The best way the EU has to help Taiwan is to focus on being able to defend themselves so that the US can pull all its troops out of Europe and focus on China.
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u/Nagash24 France 1d ago
Paywalled, didn't read past the intro. But at the same time, let's be real. The EU can't defend Taiwan against China, just based on demographics and geography. I'm also not sure that the EU depends on Taiwan more than it does on China (fact-check me on that though!), with all the stuff we import because Europe moved its entire industry to China.
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u/grumpsaboy 1d ago
Basics come from China.
Taiwan makes the world's complex semiconductors.
You want anything more complicated than a tumble dryer, you're using a Taiwan produced semi conductor.
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u/Glory4cod 23h ago
Highly overrated on the real-world effectiveness of cutting-edge semiconductor chips. You don't need N3 node to make your TV, router and coffee machine work.
If we calculate by value, mainland China is the biggest semiconductor exporter in this world by its massive production of mid-to-low range chips.
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u/Gepap1000 1d ago
This is false. The most advanced chips, which are the ones TSMC has a near monopoly on go into expensive electronics and conputers, not even things like cars, which use less advanced chips.
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u/No_Specific8949 1d ago
Probably when the time comes of invasion, it will be at a moment China and the US will already be competitive in semiconductors.
China is already mass-manufacturing advanced (enough) chips after the 2023 SMIC breakthrough, that's how Huawei for example produces their 5-7nm SMIC manufactured Ascend GPUs which are 80% there compared to NVIDIA's best, mainly lacking in software rather than hardware at this point.
And supposedly Huawei is about to reach another breakthrough launching the first Chinese 3nm EUV litography machine.
It is to be expected that in 5-10 years China will be very close to both TSMC and ASML with domestic options. The US surely will be there too with the massive push for chips with Biden and now Trump.
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u/grumpsaboy 1d ago
Not really. The US can fill a class room with people on the expertise. Taiwan can fill a couple football stadiums. It takes quite a while to train people and when you don't have many in the first place it takes longer to train a hundred people than if you've got a lot of people in the first place.
As for China, that last 20% is very difficult to fo
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u/Felix-LMFAO Community of Madrid (Spain) 1d ago
We'll say any remarks but in practice we'll get on all fours for China, just as we did with Trump, Russia and Israel. No spine, we're jellyfish.
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u/coprosperityglobal 1d ago
China is helping Russia in Ukraine, so why not make them understand is not acceptable? So EU does the same
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u/MikelDB Navarre (Spain) 1d ago
Because the EU has no way to protect Taiwan or project it's power that far from our borders. If China does something, Taiwan is on their own.
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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 1d ago
They're not purely on their own, or else they'd already be conquered.
Also, Trump hating China maybe helps, although TACO.
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u/ZeEa5KPul 1d ago
No, they are on their own. The reason they aren't already conquered is that China doesn't want to destroy its own property and holds out the hope that Chinese Civil War can be resolved peacefully.
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u/DueHousing 1d ago
It’s because China doesn’t want to deal with the reputation damage of turning Taiwan into a parking lot. It’s a pragmatic export based economy and does not benefit from becoming a global pariah and getting internal dissent as most mainlanders and Taiwanese consider each other separated brothers.
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u/cinematic_novel 🇮🇹➡️🇬🇧 1d ago
The best it could do is to evacuate and offer asylum to key figures such as government officials and probably engineers
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u/TrueRignak France 1d ago
Because both the US and Russia want to dismantle the EU and grab territories at the same time. We won't survive if China too takes drastic measures against us.
As much as I would like to support the right of the Taiwanese to live in a liberal democracy, we don't have the leisure to take a strong position on this problem.
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u/4got_2wipe_again 1d ago
China wants to dismantle the EU as well, hence the support Russia. Your president seems to have missed this as well.
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u/TrueRignak France 1d ago
China wants to dismantle the EU as well, hence the support Russia.
At least, and contrary the former two, they did not publicly call for the annexation of an EU member's territory.
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u/cinematic_novel 🇮🇹➡️🇬🇧 1d ago
We can definitely resist militarily IF it comes to that - we are too used to our freedom, if faced with the threat of living under authoritarian occupation, we would fight hard like the Ukrainians are doing. And, while we may not be able to hold China or US off, we absolutely can inflict mortal wounds on them.
Problem is, it won't come to that. We will face humiliation, coercion and constant threats and provocation. We will be formally independent, but we will become a de facto colony and backwater.
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u/coprosperityglobal 1d ago
I have the same opinion on the first statement and I hope we are wrong. The only doubt is that EU is a huge importer, so maybe China could disagree on this and anyway we give away our ass to US with the recent deals. Also we are still importing a lot of Russian natural resources, so before 'killing EU' they have to find alternatives
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u/gookman European Union 1d ago
You cannot compare the US and Russia. Russia has always been an enemy of Europe. In the US there are groups of people that would love for the EU to be gone. Unfortunately, they are also behind the current administration.
The only reason we cannot do much about China is because the EU is not a country. It's just a glorified economic union. Every country has their own interests. If things were different we could definitely cripple China. Which means it's also in their interest to keep the EU as it is or even dismantle it.
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u/TrueRignak France 1d ago
You cannot compare the US and Russia.
Two imperialist countries run by a far-right government are interfering in our politics to fuel eurosceptic parties, who criticize our so-called "decadent" values, with a militaristic mindset and an expansionism that has led them to threaten territories of EU countries with annexation.
Yeah, the comparison is totally unfounded.
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u/the_quail alien 1d ago
trump saying things about greenland and russia literally waging the largest european conventional war in decades is a little bit different
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u/2GR-AURION 1d ago
Dont say things like that. People dont like hearing the truth on this sub. You will be downvoted to oblivian.
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u/2GR-AURION 1d ago
China is selling shit to everybody: Ukraine AND Russia. USA & Taiwan. UK & EU. And the rest of the world.
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u/Suppergetii-MstrMndr 1d ago
And the US is help Ukraine and Israel. That's not the moral high ground you think it is.
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u/Adorable-Database187 The Netherlands 1d ago
If you have three braincells vying for 2nd place and your moral compass is a fingetspinner, its completely the same.
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u/Suppergetii-MstrMndr 1d ago
Thanks for all the insults and zero points against what I said and which is a fact.
Typical.
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u/Pension-Helpful 1d ago
I mean, Ukraine is a globally officially recognized independent country, while Taiwan is not officially recognized by any EU countries besides the Vatican. Also, China isn't helping Russia the same as the EU or the US is helping Ukraine with actual military equipment and hundreds of billions of dollars of financial aid, but more so, continuing normal trade, which helps Russia's economy to withstand the West's sanctions and receive equipment for its war via materials with dual application.
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u/CMuenzen Poland if it was colonized by Somalia 1d ago
so why not make them understand is not acceptable
How exactly? Telling them that a magical international law says it is mean? Do you think the CCP cares about that?
A big part of the non-Western world respects only force and considers diplomacy to be a weak man's game.
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u/ZealousidealDance990 1d ago
It’s as if Western countries don’t think the same way. The US and Europe dare to invade and bomb certain countries at will, but do you dare to treat Russia or even North Korea like that? In the end, it all comes down to power.
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u/Mrstrawberry209 Benelux 1d ago
The EU is also awfully quiet about Sudan and Israel/Gaza.
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u/mehateorcs0 1d ago
What? People constantly talk about Israel/Gaza? We talk too much about it not too little.
And in random internet Forum like reddit people can't help, but to talk about Palestine everytime any other conflict is mentioned.
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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 1d ago
Yes, but he's right about Sudan. People only talk about Israel/Gaza, never Sudan.
It makes sense that Americans only talk about Israel/Gaza, since their taxes pay for Israel's genocide, making it personal for them.
In Europe, we do not give Israel money or weapons, since most countries now have arms embargos against Israel, except Germany (UK is not EU). Sudan should be equally important for us.
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u/mehateorcs0 1d ago
Why should we care about Sudan? We shouldn't even care about Palestine. Both are shitholes.
How about Myanmar? Why didn't you mention that?
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u/JoeyYee_2000 17h ago
The EU can't even handle its own problems, yet it still thinks of reaching out all the way to the other end of the Eurasian continent. 🤣
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u/wolflance1-5 1d ago
Well, European countries should take a very hard look at Lithuania and its economy before doing anything too reckless.
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u/Kaliente13 1d ago
After the US fiasco in Afghanistan and now Ukraine, I wouldn’t bet a cent on Taiwan being even willing to go to war.
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u/BartD_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wouldn’t be beyond the EU to take another idiotic foreign policy stance and ruin China relations.
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u/Myrang3r Budget Finland 1d ago
Yes, instead let's keep bowing to imperialist authoritarian dictatorships as long as the trade is good. Who cares about some annoying democracy that just gets in the middle of all that amirite?
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u/No_Specific8949 1d ago
Still giving the democracy speeches? Isn't democracy decaying in all of the western world, and we are still focusing in ideology? Pure propaganda and brain wash.
The sacred duty and holy war of democracies to oppose other forms of government. Come on...
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u/Myrang3r Budget Finland 1d ago
And why should we be happy for more oppression? No other form of government has given as much freedoms for the people as a democracy.
The sacred duty and holy war of democracies to oppose other forms of government. Come on...
And yet it's China who's just itching to invade Taiwan, not the other way around... And let's not forget that China already annexed Tibet as well.
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u/BlinkIfISink 22h ago
“The only democracy in the Middle East” is committing genocide with US and European money. You guys can’t even condemn it as they slaughter your journalists.
Still conducting trade with Saudi Arabia as they fund a genocide in Yemen.
No one is buying your Europe moral high grounds.
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u/ZealousidealDance990 1d ago
If you didn’t have to bow and scrape to Arab countries, then maybe these words would actually be convincing.
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u/RubCharacter7272 1d ago
Snort if we couldn’t even defend our brothers in Ukraine and Georgia, do we honestly think our spineless leadership will defend Taiwan
No, it’s enraging because Taiwan is what China could be a beautiful democracy with strong social contracts and amazing technology and society. But only America can defend Taiwan now and who knows with the current MAGA admin
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u/Glass-Cabinet-249 1d ago
Actually there's another thing...
... How would we do it exactly? How to we move enough firepower to achieve anything into the theatre, that doesn't simultaneously invite a Russian offensive due to both the US and European forces being out of position?
We aren't geared for that kind of expeditionary force.
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u/RubCharacter7272 1d ago
Yes their are limits to what Europe can do, but to be honest even as far back Obama we were warned America would focus on Asia and we needed to take a bigger role in our own defence and we didn’t now Russia despite their poor performance in Ukraine we still need a corrupt US government to bail us out our bad policies
The result has been a reduced West that looks weak and China notes this and Taiwan will suffer for it and it’s beyond frustrating
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u/Sakakidash 1d ago
Not having recognised Taiwan as a country is a Stain on the European Union.
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u/rumora 1d ago
Taiwan does not recognize Taiwan as a country. In fact there is more support for recognizing Taiwan as a country in the US and EU than there is in Taiwan itself. You might want to stop having such strong opinions on topics you know nothing about.
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u/Sakakidash 1d ago
In reality, that statement is not accurate. Taiwan’s political stance is shaped less by a lack of national identity and more by pragmatic considerations. Successive Taiwanese governments have deliberately pursued a cautious approach to avoid provoking China, whose economic influence and military capacity pose significant risks.
At the same time, surveys consistently show that a majority of Taiwanese people regard Taiwan as a sovereign entity, distinct from mainland China. The primary reason Taiwan has not been widely recognized as an independent state on the international stage is not because of domestic ambiguity, but because of Beijing’s substantial diplomatic leverage, economic clout, and willingness to exert pressure on states and international organizations that consider formal recognition.
In short, Taiwan’s international status is constrained not by the will of its people, but by the geopolitical realities imposed by China’s global influence.
Taiwan should never have been evicted from the UN but granted the same treatment as done for South and North Korea.
I will have my opinion any day any time any place.
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u/Eclipsed830 Taiwan 1d ago
I assure you we recognize and consider ourselves a sovereign and independent country.
If we aren't a country, what are we? Do you think we believe we fall under another country?
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u/articman123 1d ago
Taiwan should be offically regonized by Europe and China said they are an independenet,m seperate nation that wants to be left alone.
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u/Zedilt Denmark 1d ago
Why?
Taiwan does not recognize Taiwan as a country, their official name is Republic of China.
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u/Eclipsed830 Taiwan 1d ago
Yes... Taiwan, officially called the Republic of China, is a sovereign and independent country.
Taiwan and China, or the ROC and PRC as we are officially called, are two sovereign, separate, and independent countries.
So yes, Taiwan is an independent and separate nation.
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u/HAL9000_1208 Italy 1d ago
People talking about Taiwan as if it's a country, there is the "one China policy" and the EU recognizes the PRC not the ROC... As it stands right now Taiwan is a rebel province whose government lays claim over the rest of China.
The EU should work to facilitate peaceful reconciliation NOT foment an unwinnable war.
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u/Eclipsed830 Taiwan 1d ago
Taiwan is a country, this is just the reality for the 23.5 million of us that call Taiwan home.
Calling Taiwan a rebel province is hilarious considering the current ROC government was already established on the island of Taiwan well before Mao founded the PRC in October of 1949. Yeah man, we are rebelling from something we have never factually been part of. 🤣🤣
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u/HAL9000_1208 Italy 1d ago
You lost the civil war, Taiwan wasn't liberated only due to external interference... The island is recognized as chinese territory, the refusal to surrender and reconcile to what is now the officially recognized government makes you the rebel faction in the civil war.
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u/Eclipsed830 Taiwan 1d ago
The Taiwanese government lost the civil war, which is why they no longer represent China and only the people of Taiwan.
Taiwan was given to our current government by Japan via the Treaty of Taipei. At no point has Taiwan ever been part of or under the jurisdiction of the PRC.
Again, you can ignore the reality all you want but the facts on the ground here in Taipei is that we aren't part of the PRC.
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u/Psittacula2 1d ago
Let’s superimpose alternative but similar status and test the result of this and then consider in light of Taiwan for logical coherence:
Scotland is a part of the UK.
However this was so historically whereas democratically from principles of demos the Scottish people were given a referendum, which would have been legally binding and international law recognized to vote for independence.
In the event they chose to remain part of the UK.
Now Taiwan has even greater autonomy than Scotland by multiple measures and is already run indendently. So going by first principles should not Taiwan be given the option to choose indepedence as official status from China and in International Law also?
If you say no this cannot be, then please state how their case is less than that of Scotland?
What is important here is the logical consistency which ever way that points to.
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u/CuriousThylacine 1d ago
Taiwan is a country. The "one China policy" is just rhetoric on both sides of the straits. And Taipei have been talking about it less and less in recent years.
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u/Droid202020202020 1d ago
With its powerful blue water navy capable of sustaining long term operations away from the bases against a strong enemy, massive global logistics, and a healthy domestic economy not at all dependent on trade with China, Europe is a global superpower that commands enormous respect.
Oh wait, I got my universes all mixed up…
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u/CuriousThylacine 1d ago
By "mainland China" they just mean "China" because Taiwan is a separate country.
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u/Glory4cod 23h ago
How hilarious.
Ukraine is a European country within doorstep of eastern Europe, yet no European NATO country publicly sends troops on Ukraine's ground for defending her.
Taiwan is on the other side of Eurasia continent, and Europe wants to send naval forces to DEFEND Taiwan?
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u/Eru421 20h ago
The Eu is barely able to support Ukraine( their neighbor) against a regional power in what world would they be able to support an island in Asia against a rising superpower. The Eu should focus on itself and the war near its borders , idk why they are picking fights against one of their biggest trade partners
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u/Demomanwed 10h ago
Why hasn't the EU recognized Taiwan? Maybe they need to slaughter 1200 Jews to get recognition.
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u/Kinderschoko23 23h ago
This thread is run over by chinese bots and U.S. facists…
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u/jidatpait 20h ago
And it doesn't help that many actual Europeans here have defeatist attitude when it comes to china. Feel free to correct me, but that's what I've been observing on this sub.
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u/probable-degenerate 1d ago
The absolute minimum the EU can do is not continue to increase their dependence to china.
But they never learn. I swear to god, before everyone tied their energy dependency on fucking russia because of oil and now they are dependent on china for solar and wind.
And thats before getting into the rare earths and lithium dependency
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u/Patrick_Atsushi 1d ago
Europe’s attitude towards Taiwan is like trump’s attitude towards Ukraine. Or even less.
Even when it’s about Ukraine, their action was so uncoordinated and exploited by Putin.
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 1d ago
It sounds like the EU is creating leverage for deal to be done.
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u/Limp-Operation-9085 1d ago
The EU has no bargaining chips at all in front of China and the United States. The recent EU-US tariff negotiations and the China-EU summit once again proved this. Stop fantasizing
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 1d ago
Dont be defeatist. Even by playing the USA off against China there is plenty of leverage for the EU.
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u/CapableCollar 1d ago
What leverage?
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 1d ago edited 1d ago
Up to a few years ago the EU hasn't given China a whole load of reason to believe that it would do a lot about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Now it is becoming more open to acknowledging Taiwan as a trading partner and subtly warning China that it must not cause any disruption to the eu's supplies from Taiwan (semiconductors).
And while individual EU counties have gone much further (because the EU can only represent EU countries on trade. It doesn't control the eu's foreign policy) the EU still follows the one China approach.
I don't think the EU is actually ever going to discard the one China policy. And in this era when america has shit the bed and thrown our trade relationships out the window, while the USA is having it's breakdown, any suggestion that the EU as an institution is going to move away from one China isn't that credible. More likely, if that's the signal the EU are sending, it's to create a bit of leverage for getting deeper relationships and trade deals with China to built it up as an alternative major trade partner to the USA.
The EU isn't going to do much if China invades Taiwan. We need china more than ever now, thanks to trump. We can only hope China chickens out for its own reasons. Which seems unlikely.
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u/Putaineska 1d ago
We should support Taiwan but if we can't support Ukraine without grovelling and bending over to the US, what hope do we have for Taiwan. Probably Taiwan would not want our overt support either as it just antagonises China for no real gain for them.
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u/Mkwdr 1d ago
I seriously doubt that anyone here in Europe has the guts to seriously do anything other than make quiet , polite gestures in the face of Chinese aggression.