What game was this?

British Imperial colonization is awesome who would not want that.

If they wanted to, or be independent. Whatever really, but very few there wanted to be part of china.

The one constant with China is change. There have been plenty of dynasties whose power waxed and waned over the years. Much of the current Chinese territory is being held through force, like East Turkestan or Tibet. As long as the people keep experiencing better living conditions they’ll tolerate the tyrannical governance of the CCP. The government’s betting big on censorship and shows of force, but I doubt it’ll suffice if enough civil discontent rises at once. China’s not a very resource independent country and all it takes is a shortage of food or oil to quickly destabilize its economy and its hold on power by extension.

Since much of the world still relies on China’s factories for so many general goods there’s a balance on its power through trade. As production and logistical chains continue to diversify outside its territories though, it’ll have a harder time keeping its citizens in check through economic growth. It’ll either have to start shifting into a service economy with good relations on its trade partners and neighbors for goods, or it may start to take a more nationalistic path. There’s an argument that both paths are actively being followed.

China heavily investing in trade and infrastructure with African countries may keep things peaceful as it continues to grow economically. This prosperity will only delay the inevitable though. People will eventually want to move away from factory work into more lucrative but limited service jobs as inflation starts to take hold due to an ever increasing amount of money in circulation. Its expected population decline will also start to kick in as the much higher population of older citizens would burden the comparatively smaller one child policy generation that would be needed to take care of them.

China promoting nationalism will distract the resentment of its people from the government to outside powers instead, but it would come with some severe geopolitical consequences. It’s already pissed off all its maritime neighbors by trespassing and overfishing in their waters, along with intentionally using its navy to attack fishing vessels. It’s also trying to claim vast swathes of international waters by dumping a bunch of sand and establishing forts on them all over the South China Sea. China and India routinely fight in border skirmishes using sticks and stones to try to keep the conflict from escalating. Eventually all the regional countries might decide to form a coalition and starve China out of its oil via a few strategically placed blockades either on the Strait of Malacca or along Sri Lanka. The economic damage over something like this might provide enough domestic unrest to force the government to change.

The CCP is now what it was before. There was just a brief period inbetween horrible dictators after the last one died and before the new one dismissed the concept of term limits.

There’s no US military stationed in Taiwan. The closest US bases are in Okinawa and the Philippines.

The only “military” the US has in Taiwan are some training consultants for the taiwan army, there’s no boots on the ground.

And nobody even knows if the US administration would get involved in it. All depends on Orange’s mood on the day and whether his friends call him to “tell him good things”

There are no us military bases (or any other foreign bases afaik) in Taiwan.

Under Britain, Hong Kong was a literal bourgeois democracy. Like not as in “the capitalists are really in control”, but “only 18 of the 59 seats weren’t appointed by major companies, representatives of the crown, or the governor”. Hong Kong has only known anything remotely close to democracy under China.

lemmy.world

Ah