this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Yeah, obviously it's a glorified puppet state but there's no point in arguing from that standpoint here. If a country is to exist, it should know about local air traffic, that's all I'm saying.
A glorified puppet state? What do you mean?
I started writing out a timeline but I don't know what position you're asking from so I will say for the sake of brevity that the US kept the KMT from being run out of all of China so that the US could us the island as a threat against China -- as it also attempted to do in Korea when it had more-or-less complete control of the southern half. Taiwan spent about 40 years as a military dictatorship killing tens of thousands of dissidents, native Formosans, and others (this was called the "White Terror"), while their patron the US looked the other way while it pumped resources into the country (for the ruling class, mind you) to use the island as a sweatshop site in the interim. This legacy and its connections to fellow US puppet South Korea and US ally Japan go a long way to explaining its current capacity in manufacturing, which make up its other value to the US besides geographical position.
Both Taiwan and SK have made various attempts to assert themselves (with some success in both cases), but with the pathetic diplomatic position of the former and the continued military occupation of the latter by the US, I think "puppet state" is a fair title for them, perhaps as much as Israel, but that's its own can of worms.
I didn't really intend on getting into litigating this topic, but I'm happy to discuss it as best I can.
Not only did the US turn a blind eye to the White Terror, but they were positively gleeful about it, as a key target of it was of course not only indigeneous-politics based, but fundamentally anti-communist.
Indeed a basic presupposition of the US providing you such extensive economic support, as a forward base in Asia against communism, is that you crush any opposition to its 'proper' functioning as such an economic and military asset. That supposes that you will crush any radical, labor, trade-union, let alone explicitly socialist or communist activity which appears to challenge the state.