In a Setback for Beijing, Taiwan Elects Lai Ching-te as President

silence7@slrpnk.net to politics @lemmy.world – 291 points –
In a Setback for Beijing, Taiwan Elects Lai Ching-te as President
nytimes.com
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Good. Taiwan may have once been a province of China, but with over half a century of self-rule it is time to stop pretending that this is still the case. Hong Kong is a very good example for what "reunification" would mean for Taiwan even in the best of cases.

over half a century of self-rule

Seem like this is understating it a bit (even if technically true). It's been 75 years.

It's always fun to go over lists of countries that are younger than Taiwan.

Virtually all of Africa is younger, gaining independence from the various colonial powers in the 60s or so, Eastern Europe is younger thanks to the fall of communism in the 90s. The Caribbean states are younger, also after gaining independence from their colonial powers. Bangladesh is younger, Israel is younger, North and South Korea are younger, Qatar, Singapore, Syria, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Cyprus...

There are currently 193 member states in the UN, and my guess is that about half of them are younger than Taiwan. (I haven't found a good sortable list of country age to check this over though).