Hi Cowbee, I see your posts on here often and appreciate your patience and thoroughly explained takes. I am curious your take on another issue tangentially related to this.
I understand a lot of the appeal of China from a leftist perspective, but one of the things I struggle most with is their imperial ambitions with regard to Taiwan. This is less based on us propaganda and more based on a few trips I have made there and friends who live there, who frequently express concern over a Chinese functional takeover. When I last talked with them, as far as that got was China functionally sponsoring political campaigns for Taiwanese candidates who agreed to campaign on unification with China. Even with the financial backing, these candidates are still consistently voted down by the Taiwanese people, a clear statement to me about their lack of desire to be part of China. As it is, I would view any effort to make Taiwan part of China as against the will of the Taiwanese people and view China as dabbling with imperialism here, which is obviously not aligned with leftist values.
Bonus second question, the most common refrain I hear from liberals about China is regarding the Uyghur genocide. I don’t know very much about this so struggle to make any effective counterpoint beyond pointing out US genocides over the years. Is your opinion that this is all propaganda and doesn’t happen? Or just overblown? Or what?
Thank you, as always, for the thorough response. I’ll start with these links you sent for reading