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- cross-posted to:
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Currently, Taiwan has set an increase in its defense budget to 3.3% of its GDP for 2026, allocating $949.5 billion Taiwan dollars ($31.18 billion). U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded Taiwan raise its defense spending to as much as 10% of GDP, a proportion well above what the U.S. or any of its major allies spend.
Lai had previewed the announcement in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Wednesday, saying the special budget would be used to purchase arms from the U.S. He told reporters Wednesday, however, that the budget has nothing to do with the government’s tariff negotiations with the U.S.
I couldn’t really find any confirmation for most of the stuff you mentioned, apart from the obvious democracy index, which is hard to argue against. Though now that I look at it, I can’t really reliably verify my own statements either, as the sources are usually singular and not the best. By the democracy index alone, it looks like there’s something to what you’re saying, but it’s not easy to check, since most information online about China and Taiwan is propaganda, either from the Chinese or from Americans. Could you give me any links to refer to?
This I think is only partially true. It’s not like the US did it out of pure good will and not for their own profit. And it’s not like China did it because they deeply believed in capitalist values. We can tell they didn’t from the government backtracking on a lot of that in later years, up to today. Also, as far as I know, Deng wasn’t a particularly good leader for the CCP. He’s practically the reason why the Tiananmen Square event happened, along with others. He was no longer the chairman at the time, but a lot of others looked up to him for guidance, while he did absolutely nothing and stood by, leading to more radical officials making poor decisions.
These two mean almost nothing, but I admit the rest does sound good. My own country has a very steadily growing economy. The GPD per capita is increasing quite rapidly, but the opposite is true for quality of life. In many countries, GDP, or some part of it, comes in good chunks from deregulation and reverting workers’ rights and workplace protections. Not saying it’s the case for Taiwan, but simply highlighting that the economy has very limited value to the average person.
The PRC is actually doing a lot of progress in these areas. Some clear examples include their massive shift towards renewables and labor laws pretty much getting on par with some European countries. Of course, their enforcement is a separate topic, but the only sources I can find claim that it’s overall good. The Chinese economy seems pretty stable to me, since every time there’s a global crisis, it affects China less than it does Europe or America. Not to mention they have an actual manufacturing industry.
‘Authoritarian government’ and ‘no individual liberty’ are a bit more complex. I can see arguments in favor, as well as against, on both sides. Liberty is something Americans and Western Europeans like to shout a lot, but it has less of a meaning in Asia, apart from Japan (American vassal state) maybe. Definitely not saying it’s unnecessary or anything, but just that it’s more complicated. According to the World Population Review, Chinese people are pretty much as happy as Taiwanese people are, and not far behind Europe. In fact, a few European nations are reportedly less happy than China is. You can make the case that reporting in China isn’t reliable, and while entirely possible, I feel like this kind of argument is disingenuous and can be made in other parts of the world too.
How can you possibly write paragraphs upon paragraphs with confidence when you’re not even sure if you’re right?
No, this is an incredibly lazy excuse to justify your own ignorance. There’s a lot of good information online about both China and Taiwan. Sources should obviously be ovulated on case by case basis, but the point is that accurate and credible sources are plentiful. Trying to brush anything you don’t like as propaganda, especially because it’s from a certain country, is just childish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Asia_and_Oceania_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index#Global_Peace_Index_ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index#2024_scores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy-Dictatorship_Index
Keep in mind, what I’m saying here is not new, controversial, or a hidden secret. If Taiwan being one of the world’s best democracies and best countries to live in is news to you, then you’re living under a rock. Taiwan outperforms China in just about every relevant metric.
This entire paragraph is meaningless. I’m not making statements about Deng Xiaoping’s leadership and the topic isn’t the America’s motivations. The point is that Deng Xiaoping’s adoption of capitalism and America’s foreign investment money is what turned China into an economic powerhouse, which directly disproves your argument that America is inherently anti China. Prior to Xi Jinping becoming leader and turning the country into a hostile, tyrannical nightmare, the US and China were quite chummy with each other.
That’s because GDP and GDP per capita don’t measure quality of life, they measure the size and strength of the economy. While you’re right that metrics like GDP and GDP per capita don’t reflect quality of life, they still do strongly correlate with it. A high GDP and GDP per capita mean that your country has big, productive, and valuable economy. This is important because a big, powerful economy means that your country has industry, it means that it has leverage in international trade, it means that people have jobs and good salaries, it means there’s money to invest in things like infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc, it means the government can provide welfare programs to its citizens, it means that the government has stable and pragmatic policy, it means your country wield influence on the global stage, and the list goes on and on. These are things that define a prosperous society, and prosperity is what increases quality of life as people’s standards of living rise.
It’s a lot more nuanced than that. China is making progress in some areas, but they’re also horribly regressing in others. For example, the country is going through one of the worst demographic collapses in history, and it is entirely self inflected and can’t be fixed. Another example would be the youth unemployment rate, it has skyrocketed over the past decade and it has gotten so bad that the CCP straight up stopped reporting it. This is bad because a high youth unemployment rate means there’s something fundamentally wrong with the economy, and they’re headed for a bleak future.
Renewable energy? Questionable, but you could make an argument. Labor laws? Hell no. Idk what you’re smoking but China’s labor laws are NOWHERE near European countries. They’re nowhere near the US either or Japan or Taiwan or any other developed country either. China’s labor laws are similar to other developing countries. They’re improving, but the working conditions are still horrid and the pay is still very low.
What sources exactly?
Yeah, you’re definitely not qualified to make assessments on any economy, including the Chinese one. The Chinese economy is notorious for being very unstable. Here’s a few reasons why:
GDP growth has actually slowed down over the past few years, and it’s a sign of things to come. Calling the Chinese economy is stable is crazy.
No offense, but this is just verbal diarrhea. There’s nothing of substance here. You repeated the same claim about how this topic is supposedly more complex 4 times, but you never bothered to explain anything. The thing is that this is the one topic that’s not complex at all. Are people allowed to express themselves as they wish in China? No. Does the government exert an excessive amount of control into people’s lives? Yes. Therefore, China is an authoritarian country with no individual liberty. It’s as straightforward as that.
Also, liberty means something different in the West than in Asia? No, it doesn’t. It means the same thing everywhere. I’m originally from Iraq, and liberty there means the same as liberty in America. The only difference is that Americans have it and Iraqis don’t. Again, you never provided any explanations so this is nothing more than a baseless claim. Also, you calling Japan an American vassal state is not only false, but it also demonstrates that you couldn’t come up with a proper argument and so you desperately just threw this in hopes that it would do something… it didn’t.
World Population Review is not a reliable source. The actual source is the World Happiness Survey, and their 2025 report shows a pretty big gap between Taiwan and China. Taiwan is ranked as the 27th happiest country in the world while China is ranked 68th. That’s a huge difference. You can see it yourself here:
https://data.worldhappiness.report/table
Yeah like Bulgaria and Albania, but that’s not the big win you think it is because those are poor, stagnant countries. When people mention Europe in these conversation, they’re usually referring to Western Europe where the wealthy countries are, not the continent as a whole. If we’re talking about the European continent as whole then China is surpassed by Russia. That’s right, Russians in 2025 feel happier than the Chinese, I think that’s a pretty good sign that China has a long way to go.
What are you even talking about? Do you think the survey is collected by governments asking their people if they’re happy? That’s not how it works. The World Happiness Survey conducts independent surveys, uses an academic methodology with rigorous standards to get its findings.