Personally I’m not sure the gate keeping you’re observing is all that much of an issue. I think it’s useful to remember many vegans are also public advocates for veganism. It’s important to them that people generally know what they mean when they advocate for veganism.

However, the definition of all words are always in flux. It’s not uncommon to see people call themselves vegan when a more apt description of their lifestyle would be plant based, flexitarian, vegetarian, etc. As such, I think edge cases like your friend take on an outsized importance that goes beyond the morality of your friend eating honey.

Basically, the goal may not be the social exclusion of your friend which is what I think is usually the problematic aspect of gatekeeping.

She would likely gain voters because she would be distinguishing herself from Biden who remains deeply unpopular.

I kind of suspect things were always too big and complex for one person to address but the rampant individualism of our society obscures that history.

I think you’re confusing two different tendencies.

Small parties that do not have a social base can become insular. If they do not realize that their limitations are set by external factors they can turn inwards and become cult like. You see that a lot in Maoist groups in western countries where there is no peasant class their brand of politics can mobilize.

On the other hand successful socialist parties that come to take power end up having to defend it from various reactionary forces, both external and internal. Being put on the defensive causes these parties to seek resiliency through centralized decision making.

That said, I don’t think either of these tendencies are unique to Marxist parties. Also, Marxism is meant to be scientific so learning from past experiences is key to avoiding the mistakes of other Marxists.

China has plenty of right wingers and social conservatives living there. They just can’t organize for their beliefs outside of the existing political structures.

There’s no diplomatic solution if the US decides there’s none to be had and doesn’t even try. Diplomacy fails at times but putting in a serious effort to resolve conflicts peacefully is almost always preferable to the hardships of war. Even if you think the PRC is belligerent it’s worth actually trying.

That’s why Taiwanese people prefer maintaining the status quo. To them it seems like the best of the bad options available to them as long as they have no control over what the PRC or US does.

Im seriously trying to work with you here. It’s very clear when I said “full autonomy” I did not mean only a “high degree of autonomy” as was the case with Hong Kong. Please listen to what I said and don’t get side tracked by imagining how a made up solution that you invented is doomed.

Hong Kong doesn’t have full political autonomy. It never did, not under the British nor under the PRC. How’s that at all relevant to what I said?

That’s not how diplomacy works. You can’t just declare the outcome you want and expect the PRC to abide by it when they have no incentive to. The PRC also likely believes that if they ever recognized Taiwan as independent the US would immediately look to set up military bases on Kinmen and other islands Taiwan controls. They rightly see that as massive threat to their ability to trade if the US ever decided to try and enforce a blockade.

Don’t doubt that the US has always wanted to exert military pressure on the PRC. It’s why the US supported Chiang Kai-shek’s militarily and then protected his retreat to Taiwan with the US navy. It’s why they continued to support the KMT and the ROC as the legitimate government of China even as they were massacring the indigenous people’s of Taiwan. The Korean War was also viewed by the PRC as an extension of US aggression against its regional security. They weren’t really wrong either. Douglas MacArthur famously wanted to go so far as to nuke the PRC into submission during the Korean War. US-PRC relations only really got better after the Soviet-Sino split when the US saw they could use the PRC as an instrument against the USSR. However, even today the US aims to maintain military supremacy in the region and so it continues its military first approach towards the situation with Taiwan. The ROC’s transition to a liberal democracy means nothing to them.

The PRC looks at that all and it just confirms their fears about the US. If you wanted an actually diplomatic solution it would almost certainly require that the US military is excluded from Taiwanese land. With that, I’d be willing to bet the PRC would agree to a solution which maintains the pretext of “one China” under the guise of an economic union even as Taiwan maintains full political autonomy. The reality is though that neither the US nor the current Taiwanese government have given any indication that’s a negotiation they’re willing to have. As such, tensions rise and the people of Taiwan are left to wonder if war is coming without having any serious ability to stop it.

It’s not black and white like that! Saying Taiwan is pro US is incredibly reductive. It’s true that the majority of Taiwanese people welcome US support. The majority of them also think that the military first way in which the US is supporting them is going to push Taiwan towards war, something they do not want. A majority also voted for parties that prefer to find diplomatic solutions to the tensions with the PRC.

Also, Taiwan doesn’t have to trust the PRC to for a diplomatic solution to be possible. Rarely is diplomacy solely based on trust. I genuinely believe they could find some sort of compromise that is amenable to all parties. However both Taiwan’s current president, elected with only a plurality of the vote, and the US are not working to find a permanent diplomatic solution and are therefore escalating tensions against the will and interests of the Taiwanese populace. This isn’t good for anyone except the US which wants to use Taiwan as a pawn to contain its adversary, the PRC.

Well the majority of people in Taiwan are not happy with the US’s military first approach and would in fact prefer diplomacy. You can’t just foreclose the possibility of diplomacy because of your preconceived expectations that the PRC is intransigent. You can’t just assume that will accept nothing less than the political subjugation of Taiwan. Doing that just makes war a more likely outcome and the people of Taiwan seem to understand that. The US is just pushing for a military forward strategy because it serves their interests and not the interests of the Taiwanese people.

I suggest you admit that the age of any particular government is irrelevant to its legitimacy before defending fascists. It’s not that hard.

Chiang Kai-shek’s claim to a legitimate ROC government are tenuous at best. He basically used his position to launch a right wing coup against the unity government and attempted to purge it of all left wing elements. Claiming legitimacy when you’ve basically used force to try and take full control over a government is par for the course for fascism. That’s why I don’t believe the CPC demonizes the ROC prior to Chiang Kai-shek. They still holds Sun Yat-sen, a key founder of the ROC, in high regard.

Also, IIRC most of the dissidents in Taiwan were mostly people who lived there or who were indigenous to the Island prior to the KMTs arrival. As such, the white terror did involve suppression of a Taiwanese ethnic identity.

I’m not so sure. A majority of people polled in Taiwan disagreed with the US’s approach of a military forward strategy of ensuring Taiwan’s political independence. I believe the reasons the US has not pursued a diplomatic solution is largely because it wouldn’t serve their geopolitical interests. By pursuing a militaristic strategy, they’ve escalated the stakes at the expense of the Taiwanese people and I think Taiwanese people generally understand that.

I’m not sure you want to stake the validity of Taiwan’s independence on the fact that Chiang Kai-shek’s fascist dictatorship predates the PRC. lol

I don’t think you’re naive for having that perspective. I think a lot of Taiwanese people likely feel the same way. A majority of voters in Taiwan voted for parties that want to try and reduce tensions diplomatically. They’re stuck between a rock and hard place though because first past the post voting meant a party more aligned with the US won the presidency. Unfortunately for Taiwan, it’s in the US’s geopolitical interest to act as if there are no diplomatic solutions to tensions between with the mainland. As such, I think the majority of the people in all the countries involved lose out.

It’s just not true to say that China is relying on copying other’s technology anymore. In the last decade, they’ve caught up and are now at the cutting edge of research in many fields. I think this shift is catching a lot of people off guard including many western journalists and pundits.

“I trust the United States government and so should you!” -Alphane Moon

How’s that relevant? Do you have counter evidence for any of the points I made or are you just desperately trying to prove you’re not a dupe?

I do check out RFE/RL and its sister outlets from time to time. It’s pretty obvious that their agenda aligns 1 for 1 with American foreign policy objectives. To be fair though, the US wouldn’t fund RFE/RL if it didn’t effectively dupe people into believing it was an unbiased source.