Thomas_More
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Taiwan was never viewed by Chinese Imperial governments as belonging to them until the Ch’ing (Manchu) government seized the island from Ming rebels in the mid-17th century. The Ming govt. was happy to let the Dutch East India Company use Taiwan for a trading base since it wasn’t considered Chinese territory anyway, whereas the Pescadores were.
This map may surprise many British readers.
On the left, the black border dashes separate minute islands from mainland China. These tiny islands actually belong to Taiwan.
Also, in the middle of the strait, we see the Pescadore Islands, also belonging to Taiwan. South East of Taiwan there is Orchid Island, the only island still inhabited by the native Formosans.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid_Island#/media/File%3ATaiwan_relief_location_map.jpg
ArabLit Quarterly. Poetry readings.
Japan occupied the island in the 1890s and Japanese settlers moved there, integrating well with the population, who were Hokka-speaking Chinese and Formosans. Japan’s occupation marked the end of the 19th century Formosan Republic.
Unlike later conquests, the Japanese did not subject the islanders to the cruelties of a later period, and there was peace on the island and inter-marriage. Japanese became the second language.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, advance forces of the KMT arrived from China and Chiang Kai-shek put General Chen Yi in charge of subduing the population. As shown in the film CITY OF SORROW, mass murder was immediately unleashed, with reprisals from the Taiwanese which were crushed.The Chinese Communist Party was originally part of the Kuomintang in China, from which it was purged in April 1927.
A remnant of the Left KMT was allowed to remain in existence by Mao, and was represented by Sun Yat-sen’s wife, Soong Ch’ing-ling, who had opted to support Mao, while her younger sister, Soong Mei-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek and went with him to Taiwan.The first sign of a move to independence would be for Taiwan to dump its Chinese KMT flag.
Taiwan: independantists winning presidential vote but Kuomintang winning majority within the parliament. So very unlikely island will go for independence.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67935464.amp
“Prepare mentally for war” (Sweden)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44208921
Sweden distributes leaflets to citizens on preparing for war.LEVEL of consciousness. Plus, you have already said you think we are HIGHER than other animals, not just in some ways different. You must also believe, since most of my messages are quotes, that Gould talks nonsense, since there is nothing i have said about animals that he would have disagreed with.
You indicate too that you have a dilemma regarding your determinism since you cannot reconcile it with moral agency. I have no such dilemma.
So i, likewise, say sayōnara* to you.
*Sayōnara is what the Japanese say when they no longer wish to have further dealings with someone.
Stephen Jay Gould:
“We have generally tried to unite our intellectual duty to accept the established fact of evolutionary continuity with our continuing psychological need to see ourselves as separate and superior, by invoking one of our worst and oldest mental habits: dichotomization, or division into two opposite categories, usually with attributions of value expressed as good and bad or higher and lower.
” we considered distinctive mental attributes — the existence of a moral sense, or the ability to form abstractions. All have failed as absolutes of human uniqueness.
“The development of ”culture” — defined as distinct and complex behavior originating in local populations and clearly passed by learning, rather than genetic predisposition — has persisted as a favored candidate for a ”golden barrier” to separate humans from animals, but must now be rejected as well.
” the basic formulation of them vs. us, and the resulting search for a ”golden barrier,” represents a deep fallacy of human thought. “
All animals are conscious. Their consciousness suits their needs. A lioness, co-operating with her sisters on the hunt, knows enough of the laws of nature to channel the flight of a gazelle into their trap.
Elephants and other animals grieve and also play. They are all conscious and all intelligent. They all have language. But you will only apply the term to the word formation-based language of humans. Your knowledge and awareness suits your function as an ape, their knowledge and awareness suits their needs.No doubt you deny them free will. I agree with you. You don’t have it either.
I live with two cats. I am aware that i am of a different species to them. I’m not SUPERIOR or HIGHER, just different. I do what I do, they do what they do.
So you see evolution, nature, as a ladder, an hierarchy. That is your arrogance.
So your imperfect sense of the laws of nature (since you want your will to be free of those laws) means you know about Saturn and Jupiter and Das Kapital, but your power of smell will never approach that of a dog, nor your agility that of a monkey. An elephant and a lion do not NEED to know the workings of a computer or car engine.
Your insistence on SUPERIOR and INFERIOR, on HIGH and LOW, says more about you and the society you are from than about the diversity and splendour of nature. Your need to be centre-stage says a lot about your fear and insecurity faced with the cosmos and with your minuscule place in it.If they think they can transport proles to Mars to produce surplus value there, after wrecking their own planet, why not? The beginnings of an expansion of capitalism beyond Earth.
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
Stephen Jay Gould
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-28-vw-322-story.html
