Duane Filan: "when Japan invaded China, Taiwan had already been Chinese territory for centuries."
It always strikes me that many make an unfounded distinction between land-based empires and empires which acquire most territory across the sea, thus they are unable to recognise that Putin's Russia or Tsarist Russia are/were imperialist (well, they might admit Tsarist Russia was because they heard that Lenin said so, but in the next breath they'll tell you that "Russia was never a party to the colonial conquest of Africa," as if imperialism is defined as only conquering territory and subjugating peoples in Africa, and not in the Caucasus, central Asai, Siberia etc). It seems the same goes for the Manchurian Empire (Manchu Dynasty ruling China and non-Chinese territories) which was ruling Taiwan at the time the island's subjugation switched to another empire, the Japanese empire. Yet even by this strange distinction, Taiwan is, after all, over the sea - close perhaps, like Ireland to the British empire. Thus at this same time Duane refers to, 1895, "Ireland had already been British territory for centuries." It is not as if the Taiwanese population took this lying down. " Despite significant immigration into Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, Beijing’s two-hundred-year rule over the island’s coastal regions was plagued by an almost constant wave of insurgency, marked by more than a hundred rebellions between 1683 to 1895"( https://www.blakdwarf.org/post/taiwan-and-the-national-question-in-china). In his original message, Duane said not only that Taiwan was part of China before the Japanese invasion of 1895, but also "before the U S Navy parked its seventh fleet between the island and the mainland," by which I assume Duane means 1949. But that second time was only four years, 1945-49, when the island was handed back to Chiang's KMT regime without consulting the population. It didn;t take long before the Taiwanese population rose up in 1947 against this supposedly "natural" state of affairs of being ruled by some Chinese empire. The KMT dictatorship crushed the uprising in rivers of blood, slaughtering thousands. Then when driven from the mainland, they conquered Taiwan ... for "China," or their imaginary version of it. The end of decades of KMT dictatorship in the late 1980s allowed for the rise of the Democratic Progressive Party, based more among the Taiwanese population than the KMT, based as it was among the 1949 conquerors from the mainland. hence the rise of the concept of Taiwan as an independent nation, as opposed to the KMT's absurd idea that it was just their base to reconquer China from the Communists. How ironic, or not, that the KMT today is the most "pro-China" party in Taiwan. On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 12:16 AM Avram Rips via groups.io <mltbarips= [email protected]> wrote: > No Taiwan was never part of China. > https://fapa.org/taiwans-history-and-status-taiwan-has-never-been-a-part-of-china/ > > On Thursday, November 20, 2025, Duane Filan via groups.io <duanefilan44= > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Avram - "Maybe read leftists Taiwan is not part of China" >> >> I read what Avram suggested, and, in spite of the spin by the Taiwan >> comrades, it appears to support what I said - that when Japan invaded >> China, Taiwan had already been Chinese territory for centuries: >> >> "Chinese and Japanese pirates would seek shelter among the marshes and >> inlets of the southwestern Taiwanese coast. >> >> Ming rulers [1368-1644] were never able to defeat the pirates, but in the >> 17th century they decided to make common cause with them against their >> enemy, the Dutch settlers in South Taiwan. The Ming Court approached Cheng >> Chihlung who it appointed admiral of the imperial fleet with >> responsibility to stamp out the "others". >> >> His son Koxinga, became increasingly important as the Manchus [Qing >> dynasty 1645-1912] captured first Beijing, then Banging, and, in 1646 >> Fuzhou. Both the remaining Ming and Qing courted Koxinga who maintained his >> fleet and ruled over an enclave along the southern China coast... >> >> In 1661 he laid seige to Fort Zeelandia, the Dutch trading center on the >> southwest coast. On February 1, 1662 the Dutch surrendered, retreating to >> Batavia (present day Jakarta, Indonesia)... But it was not until 1683 that >> the Kangxi Emperor, the Qing dynasty's third, forced Taiwan into submission >> and incorporated it as a prefecture of the Fujian province, with an 8,000 >> man garrison of Qing soldiers." >> >> The RCIT is pushing a dumb idea - "For a socialist Taiwan as part of a >> federation of workers states in the region!" >> Why not just call for "Global socialist revolution soon!"?? >> >> > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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