China/Taiwan fight.

efil4stnias said
So with regards to your coming out paragraph, who gets to decide what Taiwan is/becomes? China or the Taiwanese people?

I mean i dont see where the KMT, in its current state ( modern ) argue for reunification ( or against ). They are playing both sides. Thats politics.

Every publication ive seen on this matter clearly states the Taiwanese want to become own country/democracy. KMT arent arguing against that either.

Taiwan per capita income is almost 3x that of China. ( $33,000 vs 12,000 ) - they do not wish to have that diluted by incoming Chinese labor. They look to maintain economic independence and wealth which leads to national security interests.

US as always championed burgeoning democracy. Does that make us the "world police"? Hardly. It does make us the defenders of democracy across the globe.

Who gets to decide what Taiwan is/becomes? China or the Taiwanese people?

Ideally a consensuse that represents the interests of both peoples and which can be achieved peacefully. Definitely not a foreign power.

US as always championed burgeoning democracy. Does that make us the "world police"? Hardly. It does make us the defenders of democracy across the globe.

The US champions the democracies it likes and destroys the democracies it does not.

Only a couple of years ago Bolivian democracy was crushed by a fascist coup which was backed by the US. Before that in 2009 the democratically elected president of Honduras was overthrown in another US backed coup because he wished to raise the minimum wage for the very poorest people.

There are literally scores of other examples. Here are just a few.

Chile 1973 (democratically elected PM overthrown and probably murdered - replace by a fascist junta and death squad.
Jamaica 1970s/80s - The US worked extremely hard to overthrow yes you guessed it twice democratically elected Michael Manley. Their efforts included the traditional tactic of 'making the economy scream' and saw automatic weapons and explosives pumped into the country where it was channelled into the hands of the JLP's gangsters who went on to become one of the most dangerous narco gangs in the world.
Palestine 2006 - Another great example of only respecting the winner of an election if they are supportive of US policy. Hamas won the vote, so the US allegedly channeled money, weapons and training into Fatah to promote a Palestinian civil war. Now you can hate Hamas if you want but it won an election so is a democratic movement.
Haiti - multiple times - normally whenever a president tried to raise minimum wage that threatened the profits of North American or European businesses.

The only way it can be honestly be said that the US excellent record of supporting democracy if we define democracy as 'supporting right wing client regimes and brutal dictators who run death squads to terrify the public into submission'

Democracies like Iran under the Shah (and criticising the Shah doesn't mean supporting what came after). The Shah's SAVAK secret police would have won any popular vote, providing they could put the hands of their opponents in mincers and beat them daily in subterranean prisons.
Democracies like Pinochet's in Chile where the regime was so secure in the knowledge it had full US support it even televised the detention of dissidents who were then taken below the national sports stadium to be tortured to death.
Democracies like Paraguay where Stroesnner and the Nazi war criminal elite who helped run the country ran a reign of terror lasting over 30 years. No regime change needed there - while the terrifyingly huge Army of the democratically elected government of Grenada was such a threat to the US it warranted an invasion.

Championing democracy means respecting results you don't like, protecting regimes in danger of being overthrown from military tyrants, not blockading the harbours of democratically elected governments with mines, and not turning a blind eye to drug trafficking by former members of a favoured regime's national guard units to pay for their terrorist cause and then calling them freedom fighters.....just saying