Which Taiwan option would be preferable?

[OctoCube]

I hate option 1, but option 2 might be the best change we've had in a while to get WWIII cooking.

Option 1 > WWIII

[TDAS04]

My long-term hope is that the U.S. "trades" Taiwan for North Korea. By that I mean that the U.S. announces that it will no longer protect Taiwan (Taiwan would then ideally become a semi-autonomous part of China), and in return, China cuts off all trade with North Korea. Hopefully, the North Korean regime would semi-peacefully collapse, the U.S. could withdraw the ~20,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea, and China and the U.S. would be much less likely to get involved in WW3.

What an atrocious and repugnant idea.

[Orser67]

My long-term hope is that the U.S. "trades" Taiwan for North Korea. By that I mean that the U.S. announces that it will no longer protect Taiwan (Taiwan would then ideally become a semi-autonomous part of China), and in return, China cuts off all trade with North Korea. Hopefully, the North Korean regime would semi-peacefully collapse, the U.S. could withdraw the ~20,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea, and China and the U.S. would be much less likely to get involved in WW3.

Using 24 million taiwanese people as nothing more than a bargaining chip? That sounds lovely.

The U.S. is overextended against the only other superpower in the world; China cares a lot more about Taiwan then we do. Ideally, the PRC would suddenly become a democracy, or just decide to leave Taiwan alone. But since both of those things are incredibly unlikely, I'd rather the U.S. stop propping up a non-UN member state than risk World War 3.

Also, by gaining China's cooperation, we could play a major role in bringing down one of the most oppressive and dangerous governments in the world in a country (North Korea) of 25 million.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

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The first one, but no fan of it. Taiwan being absorded by USA is more horrible (and imperalistic) and basically shows you how distorted our western POV can be at times.

I'm fine with Taiwan being absorbed by a truly democratic PRC (which is sadly not a realistic option right now) or Taiwan becoming an independent state. The best option is probably the latter one (Taiwan being recognized as an independent nation by UN, all countries in the world (incl. China)).

[Del Tachi]

Both would be abysmal.

Yes, but Option 2 is still preferred.

[bagelman]

Best case scenario is that Taiwan willingly, without any coercion, joins the PRC and puts the past behind it. Because if Taiwan does that it implies that the PRC is better and operates better than it does now.

Worst case scenario is that the PRC conquers Taiwan.

The US state of Taiwan is not realistic.