“Unification brings strength while division leads to chaos,” declares China’s State Council, referring to its aim of absorbing Taiwan. “This is a law of history.”
No. What’s a law of history is that wars of conquest never pay.
China obsesses over “reunification” with Taiwan, as somehow required for its national apotheosis; the “One China” dictum to which everyone must bow down.
But how about: Two Chinas are better than one.
Is that naive? Why can’t China simply realize it would be better off in peaceful friendship with a brother neighbor Taiwan? Reaping all the benefits of mutually advantageous trade and cultural exchange. A reorientation that would also gain China enormous global goodwill. In contrast to invading Taiwan, at stupendous cost, making China a pariah state, to add just a tiny fraction to its territory and population — devastated by war, that will never submit peaceably to their rape.
In fact it’s a law of history that such conquests never stick. Always eventually coming undone.
A nation’s greatness isn’t gauged by how many square miles and people it controls, but by how good their lives are. And doesn’t plain morality count for something?
Yet China’s regime has heedlessly whipped up a jingoist frenzy for “reunification” that would be hard to dial down. Lying that Taiwan’s people too thirst for reunification, blocked only by nefarious conspiring by China’s enemies (mainly America of course). While in reality most Taiwanese are terrified of subjugation into China’s Orwellian dictatorship. Hong Kong an immediate object lesson.
I am no dreamy pacifist, against all war. Some things are worth fighting for. Mainly opposing aggression like what China threatens vis-a-vis Taiwan. And Russia’s against Ukraine. America and Europe, in failing to aim for Russia’s defeat (achievable at comparatively modest cost) have been shamefully squeamish, cowardly even. (Republicans blocking Ukraine aid were worse. But, despite them, we’ve now managed to prove Churchill’s adage that America will always do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives.)
Ukraine also exemplifies the same laws of history. What could Russia possibly gain from crushing Ukraine, to justify the vast cost, in lives and wealth, and international opprobrium? To acquire an embittered hostile population? And here too the invasion’s rationale is a tissue of absurd lies; here too ridiculously blaming America and other notional enemies — when in fact it’s Russia’s bloody conduct that’s made enemies. After the Cold War, we’d tried to help Russia join the world’s civilized nations, but Putin took it elsewhere.
Israel’s Gaza war likewise embodies the same historical paradigm. Really another truly insane, inhuman, immoral war of conquest. The “self defense” excuse long since become moot. The supposed aim of annihilating Hamas is delusional. Israel’s actions, heartlessly imposing vast human suffering, can only serve to multiply the ranks of its hate-filled enemies, while shredding its international standing. Where is the sense?
Many deem our species incorrigibly prone to such aggression. But I see instead a basically peaceful human character, most people wanting nothing to do with violence. (I haven’t personally encountered any in decades.) Yet we can be manipulated, with psychological buttons pushed by exploitive leaders, for their own purposes. And people can be sucked into mobs that behave in ways they never would individually. Xi, Putin, and Netanyahu all have self-serving reasons for their transgressions. When will we learn to punish such harmful demagoguery, rather than succumbing to it?
