What would happen if America recognized Taipei?

[Taixinomee]

Taiwan is a de facto independent country; Tibet is not. The situation of Tibet is indeed like that of the Lakotah, except that the Dalai Lama's exile government enjoys clear continuity with the last government to preside over independent Tibet (much as the ROC in Taiwan enjoys continuity with the pre-1949 ROC, except that the Taiwan ROC also continues to control some territory, which the Tibetan exile government does not). The Lakotah activists are self-selected, and have no more substantial a connection with the original parties to the U.S. treaties than I do.

More generally--yes, the U.S. is guilty of ethnic cleansing and illegitimate conquest of Indian territory. This does not make it right for China to do the same thing. Realistically, it is too late to reverse the situation in the USA, and possibly in China as well--though this would not exclude arrangements for genuine autonomy, as the Dalai Lama has been proposing for Tibet. Is it not self-serving for China to offer autonomy to Taiwan, which it does not control, but not Tibet, which it does?

As I said it's all a question of definition. What is too late? What is not? Somehow the US have commited genocide... but from another point of view if they had not driven the Indians away, put black slaves on plantations, tricked Chinese immigrants to build their railroads, I doubt they would be enjoying their dominance today. Western imperialism was one the most important reasons why Caucasians rule this world. In a certain way they have done everything right until WW1. And just a note: If the Americans really really wanted to say sorry to the natives, they could permit an independent Indian state on US soil as the original treaties state. They can have a dozen trillion dollars in debts and still spend somewhere between 0.5 to 1 trillion dollars every year on military (depending how many countries they are raiding at the same time). They have enough nuclear weapons to scorch the entire planet. They can do everything if they really wanted to!!

[Zla'od]

So you admit that it was wrong of China to annex Tibet and East Turkestan, and agree that they should be allowed plebiscites? After all, you wouldn't want China to become evil, like the USA...

[FurTrader]

If we're playing the "what if" game, we should also consider what would have happened if the US never established diplomatic relations with the PRC back in 1979.

Where would Apple be making millions of iPods, iPhones, and iPads? Probably not in China....