Lai Ching-te argues the reverse may be true because the Republic of China – the mantle that nationalists carried with them to Taiwan – predates the communist People’s Republic

It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.

Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.

The Chinese nationalist government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. Mao set up the People’s Republic of China, which continues to claim self-governed Taiwan as its territory.

    • Maxy
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      3 months ago

      Source: Gapminder, cited as source by the above graph as well

      Funny how much the graph changes when you have more than 1 data point per decade every decade. Almost makes me wonder whether the creator of the above graph was trying to paint a certain picture instead of presenting raw data in a way that makes it easier to grasp, without bias.

      Notice the inflection point where Mao implements the “great leap forward”. Also notice other countries’ similar rates of increasing life expectancy in the graph below, just without the same ravine around 1960.

      I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with (what I think to be) your implicit claim that Mao somehow single-handedly raised China’s life expectancy through the power of communism or whatever. Please do correct me if this wasn’t your implicit claim, and if you we’re either 1) yourself mislead by the graph you shared, or 2) you have some other claim entirely that is somehow supported by said graph.

    • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      People forget this. Also they forget that until the 90s Taiwan was an authoritarian military state. I’ve been to Taiwan, it’s a beautiful country and the people are wonderful, but it was founded by horrific and brutal men who were rightfully chased out of mainland China (not to mention there were already lots of people living there, who like indigenous people the world around have been made second class citizens in their own lands)