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Comment by mytailorisrich

5 days ago

Reunite is not incorrect in the broader sense.

We use the term "reunification" for Germany but the Federal Republic never "held territory" in the Democratic Republic. However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany". This is the same with the ROC and PRC so bringing both sides together, whatever the mean, is a reunification in that sense.

The narrative of rejecting the term can be said to be broadly propaganda but plays on a peculiarity that both sides don't recognise each others.

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mytailorisrich

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jacquesm  5 days ago

> However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany".

> This is the same with the ROC and PRC

It really isn't.

Note that West Germany did not have to invade East Germany to re-unify and that East Germany was on a per-capita basis much poorer than West Germany.

Unlike Taiwan, which is doing more than twice as good. So this would be more in line with Russia invading Ukraine. And that's precisely the rhetoric they are using: 'unification'.

  • mytailorisrich  5 days ago

    This is all totally inacurrate and beside the point.

    China has factually split, like Germany before. Whether any "reunification" happens peacefully or not is irrelevant to the use of term and so is which side is the richer.

    Russia and Ukraine is obviously not the same at all, and "unification" is obviously not the same as "reunification".

    • komali2  5 days ago

      > China has factually split

      Define "China." 中國? 中華人民共和國? 中華民國? 大清? 大明? 大元? The English term is far overloaded, kinda like the word "dumpling." Having this conversation in English is really hard for that reason.

      The key word is 中國, typically translated literally as "middle country," though if you put it in google translate it'll just say "China." Really though, the word means "empire." Empire of what? China? No, just, The Empire. E.g. 一個中國原則 "one China principle," all things that we could call 中國 ruled by the same government.

      That's the issue I have. The CPC claims a mandate of heaven for a "Chinese" meta-dynasty, claiming to have domain over everything any government in the region has ever touched (even the Mongols!). I reject this, a mandate to rule should be earned basically every day, and self determination matters far more than maintaining a dynasty of a culture.

      Like many empires, the PRC is even creating an ethnostatic justification, calling everyone Han 漢族人 or Hua 華人 and claiming a mandate to rule everyone that could feasibly be called that, using race science to expand their domain. Like "white," under scrutiny, these terms are meaningless. We could translate either, in the context of their usage by the CPC, as "people the CPC thinks it should be allowed to govern." That includes people in Xinjiang, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, America, hell even Okinawa lately.

      That kind of ethnostatic imperialist expansionism should be roundly rejected by anybody that values self determination. And, that's why "reunify" isn't the correct word, because there is no country on earth called "China" and there never has been, there's just a government ruling a territory that wants some more territory. The PRC isn't some magical inheritor of every racial, cultural, linguistic, and historical aspect of that region. "China" has not split with the fleeing of the KMT to Taiwan in the 50s, nor was "China" overthrown when the Taiwanese deposed the KMT military dictatorship in the 90s, or when the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the KMT.

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