Re: Jim Craven on Taiwan

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

So you're advocating that the PRC take over Taiwan by force if
necessary? The way they invaded Vietnam? (Was it US imperialism that
caused the latter?)

BTW, who said that the Chinese CP wasn't "communist"? not I. It does
seem to me that after decades in power, the internal nature of party has
change radically. Currently, its status and power rests on the fact that
China is a low-cost exporting country (in alliance with US capitalists,
perhaps even dominated by them) and that it would be vary hard for the
CPC to change directions once that capitalism has been fully
established. 

Jim Devine, e-mail: jdevine@xxxxxxx
web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Charles Brown
 
> For moi, an important aspect of analyzing a situation concerning the
> right
> to national liberation and self-determination is considering
> oppressed
> nation and oppressor nation dynamics, and the history.  The main
> oppressor
> nationalism involved in the history and origin of Taiwan as a
> separate
> nation was the U.S. imperialism, not China's. "Divide and conquer"
> or
> "divide and oppress" was the U.S. imperialist strategy in separating
> Taiwan
> from the larger Chinese nation.  Disruption of Chinese national
> unity for
> national liberation was the U.S. imperialist gambit. This history
> still
> shapes the current situation. So, these status quo boundaries are a
> status
> quo established by imperialism in the neo-colonialist
> imperialist/Cold War
> period. This cuts against retaining those boundaries under national
> liberation/self-determination analysis. This cuts against presuming
> for the
> status quo boundaries and putting the burden on the oppressed
> nation, China,
> to give "good reasons". We should,on the contrary, presume against
> the
> neo-colonialist boundaries and put the burden on imperialism to give
> reasons
> for retaining the neo-colonialist boundaries.
> 
> The PRC has never headed a socialist country. The relations of
> production in
> post-rev. China were not socialist.  This fact did not prevent the
> PRC from
> "being" communist in the past. The fact that the PRC headed a sort
> of feudal
> society with the landlords beheaded, a non-socialist country in the
> early
> years following the revolution, did not prevent PRC from being
> communist
> then.
> 
> Clearly, the PRC is "saying" that China must go through some
> capitalism to
> be capable of being socialist; and that the role of a communist
> party in a
> country that has not had capitalism is to lead that massive process,
> with
> the intention of building socialism after going through capitalism.
> And
> they maintain that they are still communists in following this
> approach.
> This is an outline of how I think the PRC would respond to your
> claim that
> the PRC is not communist.
> 
> I see no analysis that ,in this plan of _not_ bypassing  capitalism
> on the
> road to socialism, China is acting as an _imperialist_ and oppressor
> capitalist nation, particularly vis-a-vis Taiwan. China's position
> is that
> the reunification with Taiwan is repair of a breach of Chinese
> national
> unity, a breach carried out by the true imperialists of this era,
> the U.S.
> imperialists.
> 
> CB
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  "Devine, James" :
> 
> To me, I see no reason to change national boundaries (e.g., merging
> China and Taiwan) unless there are really good reasons. Preferably,
> whether these reasons are good or not is a decision to be made by
> the
> people of the two countries involved, in a democratic way. This kind
> of
> decision can't be made by foreign intellectuals living off in some
> other
> country.
> 
> Charles refers to >distinct language, history, territory, culture,
> traditions, [etc., as] indicia of indigenous sovereignty and
> independence<
> 
> Obviously, these are important indicia, but it's up to the people
> involved (the Mainlanders, the Taiwanese) to decide how distinct
> they
> are, in a democratic way. One thing that should be noted is that
> Taiwan
> has a "Formosan" (non-Han) population that the PRC lacks. The
> history
> since 1950 or so has been different, so that language, culture,
> traditions, etc. have not been parallel or converging.
> 
> 
> It's true that > This imperialist, oppressor nation [the U.S.]
> already
> played a main role in creating "Taiwan" as a nation separate from
> the
> larger Chinese nation, not because Taiwan had been a historically
> derived separate nation, but because the U.S. was trying to stop the
> development of communism in the world .<
> 
> This is true, but seems irrelevant in a period when the PRC isn't
> communist except in the sense that an organization that calls itself
> a
> "Communist Party" controls the state. (Further, in a lot of ways,
> the
> PRC is an ally of the US, despite obvious differences on many
> issues.
> It's more distant than France, but may be closer to the US than
> Russia
> is.)
> 
> And the CPC's rule isn't that different from the way that the KMT
> used
> to control the Taiwanese state. (Originally, BTW, the KMT was set up
> along "Leninist" lines, following advice from the USSR, though its
> goals
> were clearly different from those of the CPC.)
> 
> Jim Devine, e-mail: jdevine@xxxxxxx
> web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/