People here are nervous. But the status quo hasn't really changed. I think the fear (And this is a culture that tends to give into fear quickly) is that China will do something irrational or painful. They're more nervous than I've seen in my decade or so living and coming to Taiwan but I do think that they're also living life as they always have. Over here many countries have had entire generations living under martial law or fear of invasion (Like Korea for instance just always having potential invasion from the north). After awhile it's not really that terrifying and most of the news covering it (Like talking about planes entering the ADIZ) tends to ignore that the ADIZe is pretty far out to sea.
And everyone has ethnic ties! They still do business with relatives and family in China, they travel back and forth, it's really a sort of strange situation with many people being intrinsically tied to China and yet constantly bullied by the CCP.
In my opinion (I put a video at the bottom on why) we are pretty well insulated from invasion due to the worldwide reliance on tech from Taiwan.
An invasion would only occur if China thought it was better to invade and destroy it's economy, military, and reputation internationally. That doesn't mean it's impossible but I would assume that an invasion would probably occur out of desperation to maintain political control or stave off famine than a strategic political decision like having Taiwan as a territory.
The biggest issue is in my opinion, keeping Taiwan from moving out of the global supply chain into a lesser role. Once China and the world no longer relies on Taiwan they sort of have a green light to attempt an invasion. I still think that'd be ridiculous though without a much more advanced and prepared military. In fact they tried equipping ferry's as troop transports last year. It's just impossible to send the 400,000 needed soldiers to invade quickly enough and safely enough with China's current untested military.
The video shows the semiconductor argument,
This is absolutely a real concern. I have a good friend who hated Trump for no reason other than media (They don't realize CNN is false here. Or at least didn't) but something shifted around 2020. I think many Taiwanese started to see a political shift once the BLM riots occurred. My friends literally couldn't believe that they weren't being stopped. So many of them started doing research and I found that same friend actually fasted with his friend 7 DAYS during the election for Trump to win. They went from distrust to not eating for days! Wild.
What I've seen is basically Taiwan feels the only reason America would back them or help them is to get something out of it (Like strategic access/defense from China). And to be fair watching the situation in Afghanistan shook a lot of them up. Some of them really don't think it'd be possible for the US to have "Moral" reasons for defending Taiwan.
I would argue that under the Trump admin there was growing hope of support from the US but this admin has made people a lot more skeptical. But in my opinion, discarding US support in a hot war (Which is all but likely guaranteed due to our allies Japan and South Korea), the reagion here has a lot of interest outside of just China.
Most nations don't have a good reason to trust or ally with China so in the event of a hot war I would expect countries like India, SK, Japan, Phillipines to have a lot of skin in the game meaning the conflict would likely be a world war but also not as simple as China just showing up over here.
Your last question hits the nail on the head. It's more likely economic or political assimilation would be the only way forward. I do a ton of research on this but long story short, most pathways to invasion are wildly unsuccessful for China at this point so if they were intelligent they would fund massive amounts of propoganda. Hire politicians. Try to infiltrate. The problem though is what they did to Hong Kong was so severe that it really set relationships back and I find many of my friends went from "neutral/status quo" to "We need to think of ourselves differently and secure ourselves against the threat of China."
In my opinion assimilation is the biggest risk but it's getting less and less likely as Taiwan starts to step up on the world stage and grapple with their own identity. And it's challenging, Taiwanese really have struggled with knowing what type of ethnic and cultural people they are due to the long history of colonization, conquering, aboriginal groups, and ethnic Chinese groups mingling the last 400 years.
Hey Ashlan! Love your threads :)
It is! 2% is evangelical and it is very much rooted in ancestor worship and Daoism. The big issue is that to a Taiwanese person they have a VERY strong family structure that is also rooted in religious beliefs. So a person converting to being Christian has numerous hurdles. First they have to give up polytheism and put one God as the true God (Meaning many just put Jesus on a shelf with other gods).
Second if they do choose to believe, they may be a closet Christian at first because openly proclaiming faith is difficult. They can get thrown out of homes, cut off from inheritance, or worse. It's strange because the Taiwanese people are very kind and moral and sweet, but the act of stopping ancestor worship is basically condemning relatives to hell so it becomes a very intense challenging experience.
Due to this baptism is often the "Sign" that someone really believes but it creates other problems like people confusing baptism for salvation. So we do a lot of work educating people on the gospel and how baptism is a sign of public confession.
But when a person does believe, it often costs them. This means that some really do count the cost and lose their old life. That means a real conversion isn't some wishy washy decision that someone makes. When life hits them hard, they man up, walk with Christ and hit back because they really believe.
Here is a recent video circulating about the situation with missions in China. We're praying that God would raise up so many through his church!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing that, I'll give it a watch :D
My guess is the tech industry. Taiwan didn't have a cultural revolution and maintains a fairly (as in bizarrely far more) moral culture than most places. I.E. you can leave your iPhone on a bus and someone will return it to you, people don't graffiti, it's a polite and safe society. It's highly unlikely culturally due to the standing in the UN, lack of diplomatic ties, and Confucian values that you'd see them doing some of the shady government stuff that X-22 is saying. Although it is very surprising she of all people is coming, I would wager her ties to the tech industry through insider trading are far more likely to be the culprit if there is nefarious purpose.
I didn't know he was anti-abortion...
Lol not the US. Working abroad and the country I'm in just started mandates.
So great to hear! What church? I'm 4th generation Kirkland lol family been there 100 years.
It was meh, I was taking a shower 20 stories up. Felt a bit terrifying but only lasted like 10 seconds.
Watch out for Nigerians during this time! They hunt people down and poor bleach on them...
As a Washingtonian, thanks for holding the line!