Well… 80% of the weight humans lose is lost through the breath as CO2… Does that count?

Oh wow, that was an awesome clarification. Thank you! I see now that I was greatly confused by the analogy with the European concept of a fetish in foreign cultures, that such a thing was a set of beliefs held by a people. It did not click for me that commodity fetishization is not an analog to what the European’s believed foreign cultures believed about certain objects, but rather an analog to the role Europeans believed it to play in that society, specifically a material role, a causative role.

Thank you for that.

On the content front, I think there’s a debate to be had, but not now. I need to process and reread with this new focus. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Genuine question, have you read any of Capital?

Yes, but I definitely don’t fully understand it. You and I disagree on the meaning of this concept, and I’m keen to learn, but if it’s not too arrogant, I’d like to continue pushing my understanding and having you critique it so I can learn where my error in understanding is.

“Fetish”, in “commodity fetish” refers to the commodity appearing to have mystical properties, when in actuality it’s an inanimate object.

I always thought this was sort of a metaphorical or poetic way of describing the phenomenon. Like, what even is an example of a “mystical property” that would apply in the context of industrial modernity? I don’t think Marx was critiquing the phenomenon of people believing their kitchen knives were sharp because of their connection with the divine or that automobiles were able to heal your epilepsy if you just laid your head against the engine block.

But it appears animate; it appears to be capable of magical things

Again, this seems metaphorical. My understanding is that Marx’s analysis is that when individual commodities are fetishized he meant that people believe that commodities as commodities are capable of meeting the believer’s personal human needs, when in reality it is actually the human relationships that are meeting the needs through the application of labor on nature to produce that which is needed.

To reiterate, I’m presenting my understanding so you can critique it and help expose my incorrect understanding.

it also makes social relations between people appear as relations between things

I understood this not to be an also but rather a restatement of the same thing referred to by the magical/mystical framing.

the relation of domination between capitalist and worker appears as an exchange of commodities, a wage in exchange for labour-power

Yes, this I see and agree with. I believe it’s consistent with my understanding and does not represent a contradiction with my understanding. Although it’s interesting to see it framed this way and think “was Marx saying this as individual human relations or as class relations, or both?”

Clout-chasing is just clout-chasing, The desire to make money is because, well, we live in a capitalist society, and more money means you can get more stuff

Isn’t this mystical thinking? “Money means you can get more stuff” is ascribing a power to commodity (in this case money) that is actually a power inherent in the relationship between humans. Money is a perfect example of “a belief that the exchange values of goods are inherent to them” and an example of a pathway by which “social phenomena such as market value, wages and rent are reified”

Bringing it back to the video thing, content creators see what they produce as a commodity, a commodity collectively call “content”. If you’ve spent any time at all in the world of content, you know that the way people relate to the production and management of content has “absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this” (to quote Marx).

And the OP’s post is a prime example. Communication is the fundamental reality when it comes to content. Humans communicate with each other. We’ve created ways to communicate across time and space. And instead of using it to communicate things that humans need or desire to communicate, content creators see content as a way to make money. As such, they subvert the original communication goals and produce lies, rage bait, or shallow attractors and then fill that content with “calls to action” to “like and subscribe” or spend their time trying to be part of other content to spread their “brand awareness” etc, etc, etc.

All of these things feel like the magical properties Marx is describing. All of these things reify the social phenomena of rent, intellectual property, advertising revenues, etc. And none of these things bear any resemblance to real human communication, which is the fundamental “what” that content actually is.

That’s my argument. And I feel like it’s pretty solid. But again, it’s easy for me to feel that way if I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. If I thought cheese was anything that contained milk, and I poured milk on spaghetti, it still wouldn’t mac-n-cheese but I would be real confident it was. So, please don’t take my words to be a religious argument or something I hold strongly. I’m happy to abandon my whole argument if you can help me understand what I’m missing or what I’ve assumed that makes my thinking erroneous.

And if you do engage with this, thanks for your time and effort in helping me develop a clearer understanding.

You expect any country to give you the materials you need to build the weapons systems you’re actively threatening it with?

Characteristics which had appeared mysterious because they were not explained on the basis of the relations of producers with each other were assigned to the natural essence of commodities. Just as the fetishist assigns characteristics to his fetish which do not grow out of its nature, so the bourgeois economist grasps the commodity as a sensual thing which possesses pretersensual properties.

So when OP says “fuck why are videos like this. Why can’t videos just be like that” what is happening?

Is it that OP is assigning characteristics to videos that are actually expressions of the relationship between the producers and consumers of those videos, and of the distributors and the advertisers etc?

As far as I can tell, people chasing clout for money is a human relationship, one of deprevation, desperation, and manipulation. And those relationships drive behaviors which result in the characteristics of commodities, like media.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted Marx all this time. It’s certainly a topic I haven’t deeply wrestled with in concert with others. Happy to be corrected and learn.

And what observable effect does that have on the world that isn’t exactly what OP is describing?

It means turning everything into a commodity - every hobby, every human act, every creative endeavor, every way of life. The commodity form is fetishized and the drive to commodify everything is what OP is railing against.

Commodity Fetishization

Taiwanese is not a nationality. There is an indigenous population on the island. But the dominant population of the island is Chinese and has been for 400 years. Taiwan is an island province of the country of China and has never stopped being an island province of the country of China. The KMT is a political party of the Chinese people. It lost in a civil war against another political party of the Chinese people. It retreated to the island of Taiwan, a province of China. Once there, it declared itself the rightful government of the country of China, of which Taiwan was a province. The CPC also declared themselves the legitimate government of the country of China, of which Taiwan was a province.

They’re Chinese and they always have been. You’re not even asking the right question.

The question is whether the people living in the island of Taiwan want to secede and become their own independent nation or whether they do not. The majority do not want to secede and become an independent nation.

And the problem with secession is that no one allows secession. The US wouldn’t allow a state to secede - it’s not in the constitution. The USSR is the only country that I know of that enshrined the right to secede directly in their constitution. They limited it to national republics, which meant that, for example the nation of Ukrainian people, which had their own Republic, could legally secede from the Soviet Union. But even if China had such a law, the people on the island of Taiwan are not a separate nation. They are Chinese people, descended from Chinese people. Only the indigenous inhabitants of the island are a nation separate from China. And maybe one day they’ll get their island back.

The other important thing to note is that the KMT spent 40 years killing, torturing, and imprisoning anyone who didn’t support the KMT’s program of government-in-exile. After 40 years of the fascist reign of the White Terror, I think it’s easy to acknowledge that public opinion on the topic might be massively, violently, and illegitimately skewed in one direction. It’s why I imagine that there are so many who support taking no action - it’s the safest way to avoid being persecuted. Not that the current government on the island is persecuting people today, but 40 years of trauma likely means that culturally people are disinclined (to say the least) to take a risk on this topic.

Im saying this is a country that seems to want to participate in their own democratic system and is being told no.

And yet, they’re being told yes. China is the only country in the world with a “One Country Two Systems” approach to managing these conflicts. It has been the position of the CPC for 50 years now that Taiwan can maintain its government bureaucracy, its leaders, etc. But the PLA will be the one national military providing national security and self defense, which means the government of Taiwan would no longer be able to buy arms and train its own military against the PLA. China’s been consistent on this point, again, for 50 years.

The author doesn’t seem to view Taiwanese independence as legitimate.

Is that a problematic position or simply a difference in world view and political analysis. Do you think anyone that disagrees with you on this topic is morally bankrupt, delusional, or otherwise “problematic”?

Im a big fan of letting people who want to be independent, be independent. I can think of a current genocide happening based on very similar sentiments.

You’re not though. You wouldn’t support racist white supremacists claiming independence from “woke” America. You wouldn’t support Chinatown in NYC seceding from NYC and then forming military ties with China. I assume you don’t support Russians in Ukraine seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia.

Your support is therefore selective. It is based on specific conditions, not on a shallow principle like “anyone should be able to declare themselves a nation and then secede and it doesn’t matter at all if they then ally with their previous nation’s psychotic mortal enemy, and it certainly doesn’t matter if that psychotic mortal enemy has been promoting secession for decades as part of their program of violence”

You have real standards. But you’re not fully informed of the history, the real details and nuances in the debate, nor the steelman versions of both sides of the argument.

This author has a different perspective than you born from their engagement with the topic which is different from your engagement with the topic. I wouldn’t call that problematic.

Each U.S. sale intended to “boost morale” in Taipei instead triggers a tightening of the strategic circle, reminding the world that the “One-China” principle is backed by the credible and growing capability to enforce it. True peace in the Taiwan Strait cannot be purchased from a defense contractor. It can only be maintained through the recognition of historical reality and the cessation of separatist provocations. If Washington continues to arm the “Taiwan independence” forces, it will eventually find that it has sliced the salami so thin that nothing remains of the peace it claims to protect.

What troubling phrasing are you talking about? Clearly the writer really doesn’t like the US.

Migration out of Venezuela is caused by 20+ years of US economic sanctions that have crippled their economy and made it very difficult to live there. Under the initial sanctions Venezuela ended up in severe food insecurity. Maduro had a huge part in increasing domestic food production to address this but it took many years to recover.

When the economy is crippled by sanctions, poverty takes broad hold of the population. Poverty spawns crime. Poverty + crime spawn migration.

Drugs in South America, almost universally, are infiltrated by CIA black ops. That’s not to say every cartel is infiltrated, but it is to say that nearly every supply chain has the CIA in it somewhere and nearly every inter-cartel conflict has the CIA involved at some level.

The problem with opiates is not a problem of supply, it’s a problem of demand. US CIA drug production is plenty enough for the US to consume. The problem is that the billionaires decided they could make a lot of money getting. Americans hooked on opiates. We know this fact, the research was done, the smoking guns were found, the pharma executives knew exactly what they were doing, the indicitments were issued. A couple people went to jail for a few years. The government took some of their money. Everyone else got away with literal mass murder and made hundreds of millions for it.

Venezuela is not a drug manufacturer. They probably have significant drug trafficking that goes through the country and they probably take a cut of the money to help alleviate the damage 20+ years of sanctions have been doing to their country. Plus everyone needs a source of untraceable cash if they’re going to build a covert force to fight against US covert operations, which have also been on the ground in Venezuela for 20+ years.

No, the price of gasoline is not the reason. However, Venezuela’s oil extraction operations in 2025 reached a million barrels per day, which generates about $2B USD each money in oil revenues.

Oil is one reason.

Socialism is another reason - Venezuela is part of the Bolivarian movement and has been openly anti-imperialist for 25 years and it’s been working, even against brutal sanctions.

Domino theory is another reason - linked with the socialism aspect, if one anti-imperialist is successful, the fear is that it will spread. But also, if one anti-imperialist falls, then the hope is that others will fall. We see this form of domino theory happening even today with administration’s threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico.

Again you display a total lack of historical awareness. Korea was subdivided into two occupational zones by two imperialist powers, both intent on expanding their influence in the area. The people of neither area voted for such a division.

What you call historical awareness I call ideological fiction. The USSR was not an imperialist power, especially not in the period we are talking about. The Russia, China, and Korea are neighbors. They all have an interest in what happens with each other one. Korea was subdivided into two occupational zones because Korea was occupied fully by Japan and then occupied again by the US. The North was NEVER occupied by the USSR nor by China. The USSR had just survived the most brutal war in the history of the world and they had borne the brunt of the onslaught. The US, however, was fresh and ready to fight and firmly ideologically committed to their psychotic rapacious mass murderous program.

Again, it was Trumans policy to let China fall to the PRC, and it only changed after they started getting involved in Korea, not before.

It’s none of the USA’s business what the fuck is happening on the Korean peninsula. The fact that China lent support to one faction of the Korean civil war, which was happening because the Japanese occupiers had been defeated, is not relevant and does not give the US any standing to do anything ESPECIALLY nuke another country.

Later, when the war did not go so well for NK anymore they sent even more troops.

You gotta stop reifying this shit. There was only Korea. Japan occupied all of it. The US came in and the Chinese and Soviets said that Korea should be allowed to resolve their own issues and as neighbors they’ll support whoever is anti-imperialist, which they did. The US said “hells no” because they thought they should have a say over the spread of communism. Because they are actual imperialists. I know it’s confusing, but China and the USSR were not imperialists at the time of this conflict. China has never been an imperialist since the civil war. The USSR could be argued as imperialist during Kruschev’s tenure, but the Korean situation was entirely created by two imperialist powers - Japan and the US.

The North-Korean government was installed by the Soviet Union in the Soviet occupation zone

The Soviet Union created a provisional government in the power vacuum that was to exist upon the Japanese surrendering. The problem emerged when the US thought that because they nuked Japan that the USA should occupy Korea, so the USSR needed to actually garrison the area with military force to prevent its supposed ally from building a military base on its Eastern border.

It has just about as much legitimacy as the SK government, which came about through elections held by the US in the American occupation zone.

Sure, the legitimate elections that resulted in military dictators for 40 years. Very legitimate.

Just to disabuse you of your total fantasy - the people of Korea in both the Northern and Southern administrative zones participated in the creation of their governments. The Soviets provided a ready-built structure for that government, and the US provided a ready-built structure for that government. In both cases, there were to be leaders. Under the Soviet model, leaders were selected in a more parliamentary way, that is to say that representatives selected the leader. Under the US model, the electorate has a direct election for the president. Both models are democratic in different ways. But to imagine that because the South elected their president that the USA didn’t fully impose that entire bureaucratic structure on them is willful ignorance, and to imagine that the Soviet system, which consisted of democratic workers councils in every workplace and in every village was somehow imposed on the Korean people without their participation is just more Manichean fantasy bullshit that keeps your psyche safe from reality.

We’re done here.

Good riddance.

Oh Lord. Supporting North Korea made China an imperialist?! Look, I don’t have the stomach for you anymore. You have NO fucking clue what you’re talking about and you clearly don’t give a shit. The US was the imperialist force on the Korean Peninsula, having taken over the imperialist occupation from Japan. The fucking US military leadership was trying to find a way to nuke China to end the communist scourge.

And let’s just fucking clear, becoming communist is a choice that nations make as part of their self-determination. The idea that the US had any fucking grounds to be in Korea deciding how they should govern themselves is total fucking apologia.

Chinese involvement in helping it’s neighbor against a brutal genocidal invade from the other side of the planet is not grounds for the US to intervene in Taiwan. And you think I have an imperialist reading of history?!

You think Israel has a right to exist as a settler state because it managed to survive long enough to have a couple kids? You think the USA and Canada are legitimate too and have legitimate claim to the lands because they bred there?! And I’m the fucking imperialist?!

Get fucked.

Supporting independence does not inherently make a nationality. There are clear economic reasons for independence. There are also clear violent reasons for independence (remember the KMT tortured and killed thousands of people who supported reunification, which obviously had a psychological and social effect on the island’s population)

Again Taiwanese isn’t a nationality. Believing it is doesn’t make it so. Just like white people thinking they’re indigenous or mixed race Mexicans inventing Chicanismo. These things are historically constructed, not merely cynical fiat declarations.

The right to self-determination is not a blanket “right”. The self-determination as an individual is a thing. The right to self-determination as a group is sort of a thing. But the right to self-determination as a nation is a very particular thing with very difficult to reason about limits. It’s not just something you can apply based on feelings. And this is because the definition of a nation is very difficult to establish and it’s different than the definition of a state. The right to self determination as a nation is not the same as the right to self determination as a state.

Taiwan is not a nation, it does not qualify for the right to self-determination as a nation.

There is no right to self-determination for a state or a government. The Taiwanese government does not have a right to self determination any more than the government of NYC or Paris or Yorkshire County or the province of Alberta.

And again, as usual, rights are tricky in themselves, because they have to be balanced against competing rights. Does any nation’s right to self-determination include invading and subjugating another? No. Similarly, I would argue that ina MAD world, no one has the right to undermine MAD. Taiwan is militarily strategic asset to the US. It is very difficult to disentangle independence of Taiwan with vassalage to the USA. Were Taiwan to become “independent” and then sign a “defense pact” with the US that saw the US station nuclear capabilities on the island, this would not be self determination but submission to the empire for the purpose of subjugating others. No, that is not included in the right to self-determination as a nation. And again, Taiwan is not a nation.

The history of slavery in America actually gives rise to a legitimate claim of a new nation being formed, that of black African diaspora in America. Despite having come from various nations historically, the manner by which they came to their current culture fully severed them from their national identity by stripping them of their culture, their language, their religion, and their connection with everything in their past.

The history of Taiwan does not give rise to a legitimate claim of nationhood but instead reinforces the idea that Han living on Taiwan are part of the Chinese nation and always have been.

Words mean things. You have to stop starting from your assumptions and then arriving at your assumptions as though they are conclusions. You can’t say history matters here but not there and conveniently keep carving our rhetorical space through special pleading for your preferred conclusion.

Look, I didn’t understand any of this before I started researching it. It thought Taiwan was an independent nation and country. I thought Chicano was a real national identity. Hell, I thought the US was a nation. I have had to give up all my assumptions and follow the research, the literature, and the history.

Your example of Israel is great. It’s a settler colony. It doesn’t have a right to exist. There is no nation of Israelites. The majority of Israelis come from Europe. There were Jews living in Palestine long before the Balfour declaration.

Taiwan is a settler colony too. The Han Chinese displaced and assimilated the indigenous inhabitants of the island. But those settlers are the people who you are claiming make up their own nation. Your disdain for the Zionist claim is incongruous with your support of the claim of independence for Taiwan. You are making exceptions for your preselect conclusion. You are begging the question.

Basically, if you’re forcing someone to move somewhere else, or are forcibly assimilating them into your country without any form of proper democratic input, I think it’s wrong

The CPC agrees with you, which is why they have been committed to peaceful reunification for 50 years and why they want nothing more than for the US to stop militarizing the island so that the Chinese people can engage in dialog without the constant presence of US military and military intelligence making everything so much more complicated and dangerous. The CPC is convinced that the people on Taiwan will, over time, come to regard reunification as a positive force for good. They have no desire to force assimilation. Again, unlike every other country you are comparing China to, China is the only country with a concept of One Country Two Systems that currently functions incredibly well in giving literal nations self-determination within that multi-national state of China.

I think that the rights of people who live in Taiwan trump some claim based on territorial borders from over a century ago

I am so sick if you ignoring the imperialist interventionism that created this situation. The people on the island have been living under the protection of the US and UK because the imperialists desired to create exactly this conflict. This is not a pure example of self-determination, it is an ongoing cold military conflict between China and the US and Taiwan is being used by the US as a proxy. The US could take one very simple action of stationing nuclear missile defense on the island and hundreds of thousands of people on the island would die while American soldiers remained safe. It is definitionally a proxy. Stop acting like you can just pull the island into a completely abstract rhetorical space devoid of all context, all history, all international norms, all international laws, all relationships, etc. Yes, you are totally right about your position if we ignore literally everything except the simplistic moral framing that assumes words don’t have meaning and that China has zero legitimate claim to anything ever. But that’s not how these things work. You can’t live in your head and expect to reach reasonable conclusions about complex topics like this.

Again, I implore you to engage with reality.

Like this thing you said:

Unless the people there vote to become a part of the PRC, the PRC has no right to annex them.

Even if the people there vote to become part of the PRC, the PRC would have no right to annex them. Words have meaning. Reunification would happen when the people on Taiwan vote to recognize that the island of Taiwan is already part of China and therefore they agree to place their local government into a One Country Two Systems arrangement with the PRC. No annexation. No colonization. No invasion. No assimilation. No subjugation.

And just to clear this up in case you were wondering: I am not an American.

I know, I looked up up. You’re some kind of European. Europe’s track record isn’t much better than the USA’s, considering Europe created the global white supremacist settler colonial system. The guilt and projection accusations will remain.

Sorry, “who” considers themselves a nation? The Han Chinese living on the island of Taiwan. No. I don’t think you’ll find that opinion to be very popular nor very defensible. You wouldn’t say New Yorkers consider themselves a nation just because they have developed an identity called “New Yorker”. The Hong Konger identity is not a national one. Nor is the Taiwanese identity.

The right to self-determination suggests that the CPC should give nations the right to secede through a popular voting mechanism. That would be the nation of Tibet and the nation of Xinjiang. Taiwan, not being a nation, does not have a special status that would allow it to secede. Further, as a protectorate of the US and Britain, it would not be independent and self-determined much like Iran was not independent self-determined after the US overthrew their democratically elected government.

How it came about is precisely as relevant as the discussion of Israel’s claim to the land, why Palestine isn’t considered a nation-state today, why the US prison system incarcerated black people at higher rates than white people, why wealth is distributed the way it is, etc.

I know Americans like to argue that history doesn’t matter, but let me tell you about how that came about - America was founded by genocidaires who literally prayed thanksgivings to their God after slaughtering entire villages of the native inhabitants of the land, then built the entire country through mass slave labor, which was not merely kidnapping but also forced breeding programs. As late as 1980 they were forcibly removing the culture from indigenous children in brutal boarding schools. As late as 1970 they were forcibly sterilizing black and brown women by removing their uteruses. They are so misogynistic that a doctor invented a way to lobotomize women with an ice pick through their eye socket which “didn’t mar their pretty faces” so they would stop resisting their husbands.

I know you want to say history doesn’t matter, but it does. You can keep saying it, but it won’t make it true. And you don’t live like it’s true either. Your claims to what you own, the lands you walk on, the freedom of movement you have and where you have, those are all historical in nature. You don’t imagine that you have to reassert your claims to the public park system in your city every few years, do you?

It is this enforced unification of people that is not a very socialist viewpoint, people should want to unify on their own accord.

Yes, and it is this enforced unification that Lenin specifically addressed in the socialist context. The Catalan are a nation. The Bretons and Alsatians are nations.

The Han Chinese of Taiwan are not a nation unto themselves. The concept of Taiwanese identity was manufactured around the same time the Hong Konger identity was manufactured. Both were manufactured around the time the Brits and Americans realized that they couldn’t keep running the world with direct subjugation. Hong Kong and Taiwan got democracy within a year of each other. Would seem like an interesting connection until you realize they’re both under the deep influence of the UK and US. Taiwanese is not a nationality nor is it an ethnicity. There is a nation on the island of Taiwan. They are indigenous to the island. There is no conversation about that nation claiming sovereignty over the island.

You missed my point. Regarding the HRE, the point wasn’t that it’s sole histotical original location was the Holy See but rather that it is one of the few remaining city-states in the world. Regarding the Ottoman empire, the people were Turks but they were organized into various tribes, many of whom were nomadic or being displaced by conflict with e.g. the Mongols. A specific tribe which had settled down for about a century was not the entire Turkic nation, and no one would call their 150-year settlement a nation-state. They became the Ottoman Empire around the time they took Constantinople, and did not establish a Westphalian nation-state, so the idea that the modern nation-state of Turkey would be the same state as The Ottoman Empire doesn’t make sense. I agree that saying the Ottoman empire is equivalent with the a city-state located in Instanbul is not correct. My point was that your questions have answers that can be distilled from analyzing history. Should the nature of society collapse back to city-states, along with all the conquest-driven empire building, I think a city-state in Instanbul could claim inheritance to the Ottoman Empire, given a bunch of other conditions, and I think other city-states and their empires would likely recognize them.

Regarding China - you are correct, it is not a nation-state in the narrowest definition of the word as used by the Westphalian system as it was originally articulated. But by the same standard the US is not nation-state, nor is Canada, nor is any country in the Western hemisphere except maybe Haiti. So while you are technically correct about a very specific narrow definition of China’s status as a nation-state, you are fundamentally incorrect that it does not participate in the social construction of nation-statehood. It is a nation-state in the same way the the US, Russia, and India are nation states, despite them not actually meeting the exact criteria of a nation-state in the strictest sense of the word. This is important because international “law” and relations does not see a mechnical difference between a nation-state and a civilization-state, nor between a nation-state and a settler colonial state, nor between a nation-state and a plurinational-state. Maybe one day the world will operate differently regarding these things, and if it does I would assume the claims of China as a civilization state would carry significantly more international weight than the claims of the settler colonies in the US, Canada, Australia, etc.

Interestingly it’s a perspective the CPC is keen to avoid (since it’s not very “socialist” after all).

Hmm. This is a tangled mess of a sentence. Nation-states are quite socialist. Lenin’s work on the national question is very socialist. The idea of national self-determination, that is the self-determination of a nation of people not of a nation-state, is quite foundational to socialist politics. Nation-states are a clear mechanism for national self-determination in the current global order.

The CPC has been keen to avoid the narrative of being a nation-state, that’s true, because they are working on a narrative that is older than most of the systems that invented the nation-state system. But Europeans conquered the globe and this is the system China finds itself in. It has very few claims if it is not recognized as a nation-state (however inaccurate) by the majority of the world’s governments. From the lens of the European governments and the UN, China is a nation, and it is a nation-state, and they deal with it on those terms. The Han on the island of Taiwan are not a distinct nation from China and the government of the island of Taiwan claims to be the same nation-state that the government of the mainland claims to be. There is only one nation-state, from the perspective of the North Atlantic world order, that is being claimed by both parties. There are not claims of the existence of 2 distinct nation-states (again, of the form understood by the current North Atlantic world order) except by Western chauvinistic citizens with no power except to rage at the immorality of others to avoid the immorality they are a part of.

If nation-state talks sounds nationalistic and imperialist, it’s because it comes from the European nationalistic imperialism that has been subjugating the world for the last 600 years and subjugated 80% of the world’s population at its height. We’re still coming down from that. Decolonizing, as it were. Part of that is refusing to play into the hands of the imperialist North Atlantic on the topic of Taiwan. And not for nothing, it seems clear that both the leaders in Beijing and the leaders in Taipei understand this which is why they are using the language they are and why they are making the claims they are and why they are NOT doing many of the things Westerners think they are doing or should be doing.

The Quebecois as a faction currently do not govern Canada at all

That’s not the point. I guess you could argue that’s the point, but the point of the counterfactual was to demonstrate how, if partitioning states with puppet governments could produce new states then the US would be doing it to contiguous land masses. Taiwan feels different because it’s an island, but it’s not really that different from doing it on contiguous land.

the Canadian government does

Sigh. I’m so tired of explaining category errors to you. The Canadian government is a role. The role is currently played by the parties involved in governing Canada. There is a Quebecois faction in those parties. So because of your category error, you are wrong. The Quebecois, by participating in the government of Canada DO in fact govern Canada. But that’s not as relevant to my point as you make it out to be.

Similar to how the CPC did not govern China

Again, not relevant to my point. Because for whatever reason, you think that it’s relevant to discuss whether the CPC had a claim to the seat of the government for this discussion. It’s not. New parties form all the time. Just because they didn’t exist before doesn’t mean they cannot become the government after. I swear it’s like playing Calvinball with you (and not just you, everyone who wriggles about on this topic does the same thing). The reason the CPC did not govern is because they were violently purged by the KMT, which is what caused the civil war in the first place. Again, would you say that Democratic Socialists of America cannot govern the US if they take power (either by election or otherwise) simply because socialists were purged from the US (twice)? I wouldn’t say so.

Revolution is a valid form of seizing power within a state.

The CPC, as mentioned, understands it differently from you, as they by their own words founded a new state.

Yeah. Unfortunately we’re just going to have to disagree on this. The CPC didn’t even have the power to do such a thing. What they founded was a new republic. That’s different than a new state. Again, there is not precedent for a revolutionary struggle creating a net new state without secession, except in the case of the USSR, but it did not eliminate the prior state of Russia. Russia remained a state and joined a net new state called the USSR.

You really can just read the literature. “China became communist”. “China became a one-party state”. Etc, etc. All of the literature establishes that there is this state called China and it transformed through various transitions while still maintaining its existence as the state of China. It did not dissolve. It did not splinter. It did not seceded. It did not divest. It did not merge. It remained the state of China. You’re doing to have to bring a lot more than “this English translation of the words of the CPC prove that its a new state”.

Coups are different than civil wars, as with a coup a faction seizes control of an existing governmental structure. A civil war is a more fundamental break. And there’s plenty of precedent in this. Take the American Civil War

They aren’t as different as you think. China certainly follows the model of a coup far more than it follows the model of the American Civil War. I’ll reiterate, the CSA seceded from the Union. No such thing happened in China. Instead, the CPC fought the KMT for the existing governmental structure.

the CSA can’t really be considered the same state as the United States

Because it seceded, formally.

Had the civil war ended in a stalemate, they likely would have remained that way.

Because it seceded, formally.

But if the CSA had won and annexed the US, there’s a decent chance they’d consider themselves the legitimate continuation of the US (despite having declared a new constitution, like the CPC did).

They wouldn’t have because they seceded, formally. They had no interest in annexing the Union. But again, new constitutions happen within states, not between two states. That’s how revolutionary change works. There are dozens of examples of countries adopting new constitutions but not becoming net new states. Surely you understand this.

Regardless, the problem is that civil wars are messy. Take the Vietnam war. Technically French Indochina was split into two Vietnamese states, yet the Vietnam war is considered a civil war and ended with the “reunification” of the two states. You can endlessly debate definitions, but none will see definitively fit all of history.

I mean, it’s pretty clear exactly what’s going on there, right? European Imperialists arbitrarily divided a nation-state, and despite that division, the mechanisms for defining a nation-state supersede the imperialist intervention. There was in fact one Vietnamese nation-state that the French arbitrarily split apart creating two net new nation-states that the international consensus recognized (because imperialism) but when the war broke it all of the analysis agrees that it was actually a civil war within a single nation-state ending when the integrity of that nation-state was restored. You can see it for Vietnam, but you can’t see if for China. You’re arguing my points, but you just can’t give up the moral position that you don’t believe the CPC is good and because you don’t believe it’s good you can’t possibly see any argument that would promote the position it has.

Even in China the lines are blurred

Obviously

Since 1991 the ROC does not actually regard the PRC as a rebellious group, and abandoned its claim to be the sole representative of China

Yup, because it realized that it can’t maintain the international consensus. It was a conciliatory move towards the PRC.

But the PRC has not responded in kind, not acknowledging the ROC as legitimate

And this is problematic because why? Because the ROC deserves to be considered legitimate despite losing a civil war and then prosecuting the White Terror for 40 years while under imperialist protection? The PRC has not responded in kind because it has no need to. It is in the right.

De facto the war has ended

That’s a correct use of “de facto” for sure! Yes, the war has ended, de facto, but it has not ended de jure. And of course, what is the end of a war in the de jure sense? Mutual agreement. Terms of surrender. In essence - law. That has not happened yet, so the war is de facto over but not de jure over.

yet there’s no one party now in control of both the mainland and Taiwan

That’s also correct. Because, again, the war has not ended de jure because de facto Taiwan is a protectorate of the imperialists who seek to continue to exploit and subjugate China.

It’s solely diplomatic pressure from the PRC that is preventing countries from acknowledging this (even though they do have embassies and such in Taiwan, so it’s de facto accepted).

Yes, the PRC, the current government of the nation-state of China, of which Taiwan is a part, is refusing to acknowledge that there is a separate nation-state and Taiwan is not demanding that it do so. The only people demanding that it do so are internet quarterbacks. No government has asked China to recognize Taiwan as independent. There are no claims of independence for China to recognize. And, I’ll argue your side, China has stated that if Taiwan should announce secession, it will invade. It does not recognize the right of the people on the island of Taiwan to secede from China, much like the US does not recognize the right of any portion of its country to secede. The only nation-state that I am aware of that has ever established a right to secede is the USSR. As for the embassies, they are the form of diplomacy. I don’t know that it makes sense to read into it. Embassies exist for non-nation-states all over the world.

Civil wars that don’t de facto end in a reunification are typically considered to have spawned separate states (e.g. North and South Korea for example, or North and South Sudan).

Yeah, I just don’t think that’s true. Korea was partitioned by, you guessed it, American imperialists (yes the USSR agreed to it because appeasement was their best option). It wasn’t a civil war that caused a partition and didn’t end in reunification. North Korea still considered South Korea to be an occupied territory, which generally speaking is pretty true. The Japanese occupied the peninsula, the Americans occupied it. The Americans drew a line in the sand like Yosemite Sam and dareds the Koreans to cross it and then they bombed the entire northern part of the country to rubble. South Korea was occupied, then the Americans established a fascist vassal there, and is now a vassal state of the US. If reunification happens, what will result is the ORIGINAL nation-state of Korea, out from pages of history. North Korea and South Korea as states will cease to exist, but the original nation-state that the imperial Japanese, and subsequently the imperial US, stomped on will return. Just like in your Vietnam example. You understand this for the examples you’re OK with. You have cognitive dissonance for China, and I assume for the DPRK, because of your moral framing.

But even if they do the lines are blurred; is Turkey the same state as the Ottoman Empire? Or is it a successor state?

No, because the Ottoman Empire, like the Roman Empire, was formed during the time of city-states. The Ottoman Empire would be contiguous with Istanbul, like the Roman empire would be contiguous with Rome and the Holy Roman Empire would be contiguous with the Vatican. In fact, the interesting question would be whether the Holy See is in fact contiguous with the Holy Roman Empire. I think it might be. But that’s the only interesting question along these lines you’ve raise. Every example you raise fits quite well into the framework of Westphalian nation states (which Rome and Istanbul were not).

Wait until you find out who developed the transatlantic slave trade…

It was the liberals.

You are using the word liberal to mean “moral”.

That’s not how it works.

Liberal can’t be the opposite of monarchic, fascist, communist, authoritarian, and protectionist all at the same time.

Protectionism is universal. Liberalism has nothing to say on it.

Use of authority is liberal. Have these gentlemen ever seen a liberal revolution?

You want liberal mean sugar and spice and all things nice. It doesn’t

Musk funded

With profits gained from private property

a illiberal president

Who built his whole wealth on private property and is actively attacking Venezuela for the crime of nationalizing (deliberalizing) their natural resources.

that uses the power of the government to terrorize people with draconian anti-immigration policies and pushes highly destructive import tariffs

None of which are illiberal

How much does Musk receive every year from government subsidies and government contracts?

A lot. Because he owns the companies that receives them. Because the system is a liberal system of private ownership and everything else is illegitimate in their eyes.