For discussion

[fpb]

I think that the future of the whole world depends on two monstrous gambles, in which most of us are concerned. One is to do with Islam: the effort to tame the rebellious and Titanic spirit of this religion by continued acquaintance and collaboration with a world that now includes not only the West but also the Far East and India. The other is the Chinese leadership's gamble that they can keep the colossal Chinese rate of economic growth going for another generation, absorbing the immense mass of unemployed in new businesses (the unemployed in China are estimated to be anything up to fifty or a hundred million) and stabilize the Chinese state on the income from taxation. If that fails, China might collapse into another of its civil wars, which are historically her reaction to change; but a civil war in a country of 1.4billion and with the atom bomb simply does not bear thinking about.

(That is why I was alarmed by bufo_viridis' offhand reference to the likelihood of China invading and taking over Taiwan by force. This would be a disastrous step; even supposing for a second that the US and Japan would not become involved in such a war, Taiwan is a virtually independent country that is one of the world's top ten economies. Its investments abroad, and foreign investments in it, are enormous. Its sudden destruction in a surely bloody and expensive war - Taiwan is armed to the teeth, as far as its small size allows it to be - would be a worldwide economic disaster; and China itself would suffer as much as anyone. The after-effects might be just as bad, if China's export markets suddenly start feeling mistrust towards it. Altogether, I can imagine no foreign-policy development more likely to stop the great Chinese growth in its tracks and endanger the great Chinese gamble.)

Comments

Taiwan

[fpb.livejournal.com]

From my point of view, and from that of most linguists and anthropologists, the ruin of the aboriginal populations and languages of Taiwan is the worst result of the Chinese invasion, especially after 1945. Those tiny and neglected ethnic groups are generally reputed to be the most archaic in the immense Austronesian language group, that spread across the face of the globe from Madagascar to Easter Island; and there seems to be a consensus among many linguists that the ancestors of the Austronesians actually set out from Taiwan, which would make this island one of the most important spots in human history. Apart from anything else, the spread of these languages indicates some early technological breakthrough that made the aboriginal Taiwanese able to master the oceans, which nobody else until the Vikings managed. I understand that the neglect and persecution of aboriginal languages are now being to some extent reversed, but it may be too late, and that would be very sad.