tjh290633 wrote:Dod101 wrote:The Chinese are nothing if not sensible (or sensitive) to realpolitik. I think we can forget all of AiY's comments in this case. scrumpyjack is I think much nearer the mark. The Chinese look at history in the long term and although some hothead may close in on Taiwan I think it more likely that they will eventually just show them and the world that they might as well join the motherland.
Dod
But is the Motherland China or Japan? Our agent in Taiwan was brought up under Japanese rule, although Chinese culture is evident.
Although we must be mindful of Confucius's viw, that 100 years is a short time in politics.
TJH
I do not know, assuming you are being serious. Japan of course was forced into giving up Formosa as it was known after it was defeated in the Second World War when it reverted to China, pre Communist China of course. I guess using the word reverted means that I am assuming that it was Chinese before the Japanese took control. The Japanese treated the weak government of China pretty appallingly in the 1930s. I think Formosa was at one time Portuguese but then many places were at one time.
Japan got control of Taiwan in 1895 I find, taking advantage of a very weak China which was forced to cede Taiwan, just in the same way that the British got HK and then the New Territories and the Germans Tsingtao. So in the same way that the motherland of Hong Kong has always been China the same with Taiwan.
It then in 1949 became the place of refuge for the remaining Chinese Nationalists after Mao took over the Mainland.
Dod