Hi everyone. I’m a Taiwanese American who’s been trying to seriously understand cross-strait politics, history, and why people come to such different conclusions about China, Taiwan, the KMT, and the DPP. I want to be upfront that I’m not well-informed, and I’m posting here in good faith because I genuinely want perspectives I don’t usually hear.
Growing up, my family (especially my mom) has been very distrustful of both China and the KMT. She strongly emphasizes KMT atrocities in Taiwan (228, White Terror, martial law) and believes that those crimes permanently disqualify the KMT from being trusted with power. From her perspective, supporting the KMT feels like ignoring real historical trauma.
At the same time, I’m seeing more people — including Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans — argue that supporting the KMT today is a pragmatic choice, mainly because of fear of war. The argument I hear is basically:
Even if the KMT committed crimes in the past, the immediate threat of conflict with China matters more, and accommodation reduces the risk of catastrophe (even nuclear escalation).
I honestly don’t know how to weigh these things. If the worst-case scenario is massive civilian death, it feels rational to prioritize avoiding war — but I also understand why people say that appeasement can make things worse in the long run.
Another topic that’s come up is history and propaganda. My mom believes events like the Nanjing Massacre are heavily politicized by the CCP and sometimes goes as far as questioning why Japan has not “fully admitted” to it in the same way Germany did with WWII crimes. I know this is extremely sensitive, and I’m not trying to deny history — I’m trying to understand why different societies remember and frame history so differently, and how that affects trust today.
More broadly, I struggle with political cynicism:
– the idea that all countries spy on their citizens
– that foreign money influences governments everywhere
– that corruption is inevitable
– that ordinary people have very limited power
Sometimes it feels like everyone is partially right and partially wrong, and that most people are just trying to protect their families and live decent lives under imperfect systems.
So my questions (asked sincerely):
• Why do you think supporting the KMT or closer ties with China is reasonable (or not)?
• How should historical crimes factor into present-day political choices?
• How do people in China or pro-China communities view the risk of war versus resistance?
• How should Taiwan navigate survival without becoming a pawn of any major power?
I’m not here to argue or “win.” I’m trying to learn how people who disagree with me reason about these issues. I appreciate thoughtful, respectful responses.
Thank you for reading.
The original was posted on /r/Taiwanese by /u/This-Education4450 at 2025-12-29 07:18:46+00:00.
HWTseng
I think there is a lot of things that you’re unclear of, and those who support KMT is also unclear of.
Firstly is unification and the status quo, who wants the status quo? The best answer is nobody. China wants to take Taiwan, Taiwan wants de jure independence. Therefore Taiwan and China are ultimately working towards different goals that are completely opposite to each other. So appeasing China, siding with KMT that is more “China friendly” is suicidal when China is militarising and modernising their military at a break neck pace. It’s akin to your neighbour telling you “I’m going to kill you and take your house” then, as you watch him to go the local gun store and buy an arsenal of guns, you’re thinking to yourself, maybe if I baked him cookies he won’t kill me.
If you rock up at his door with cookies, sure, it might work you could smother him with kindness and make him change his ways, but this isn’t a hallmark movie, the most likely outcome is he will shoot you dead, eat your cookies and then take your house, if you’re not secretly holding a gun behind you while you present the cookies just in case. You’re an idiot.
Make no mistake, there is no “reduce in risk” of Chinese invasion there is no avoiding war, China is determined to take Taiwan by force or otherwise, there is only delaying their timeline and make sure when they do their calculations, they think the risk to reward ratio is not favourable, and delay the invasion. The only way to increase calculations in our favor is stronger allies, stronger ties with allies, and of course, increasing our own strength. Who is in government doesn’t even factor into it, electing KMT being friendly to China just reduces our resistance and speed up China’s timeline for invasion. Whether our demeanour is friendly or hostile towards them doesn’t matter. Their goal is domination.
Second is Nanking massacre, it’s an atrocity, it’s a great tragedy, and to explain why Taiwanese views it differently compared to Chinese, it’s simple, politically Taiwan needs all the allies it can get, and in the East Asia region, the dominant friendly force is USA, then Japan, and Japan is local. As for China, it’s also simple, they need to continuously fan hatred to garner the attention of their citizens away from their problems. I don’t believe the Chinese genuinely care about the loss of their compatriots during Nanking, because CCP is the biggest murder of Chinese in modern Chinese history, far surpassing the Japanese, and they don’t bat an eyelid about Mao. If you look at how Japanese and US commemorate WW2, compared to Chinese, the lessons are so different. US, Japan, They remember ww2 to remember peace and cooperation. The Chinese remember WW2 to remember hate and suspicion. For a country that supposedly was on the winning side of WW2, they sure act like sore losers
Personally I don’t think KMT’s historical crimes mean anything. I think we should remember them, but with every election the shackles of authoritarian past is broken and weakened, for me it became a non factor after the first election and first time another party was elected to govern Taiwan.
For Japan, they have fundamentally changed their constitution, and we need them as allies, we must always be weary of imperialism, but we have arguably a bigger problem (China) right now, Japanese imperialism is so far down our “worry” list.
As for when Taiwan can stop being pawns, unfortunately until (if) the Chinese threat is gone, we’ll always be at the whims of greater powers