Ronn! Blankenship wrote:
> At 04:48 PM Monday 10/27/2008, Claes Wallin wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>> Modern version (and possibly a digression):
>>
>> (1) If a country's government is forced out of the capital and loses
>> control of most of the country, is the area controlled by that
>> government still the original country, only with a drastically
>> diminished territory?
>>
>> (2) If the opposition of a country's government forces the government
>> out of the capital and announces a new constitution, is the entity ruled
>> by the new constitution simply the same country, only with a new
>> constitution?
>>
>> In 1949-1972 the governments of the world seem to have felt that
>> the answer to (1) was "yes" and the answer to (2) was "no". In 1972 the
>> position was reversed. So which is true?
>
>
>
> Which specific country[ies] are you thinking of which changed in 1949 and
> 1972?
The Chinese Nationalist Party of the Republic of China were driven to
Taiwan by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, and the People's Republic
of China was founded in Beijing. The world still considered the ROC to
be the "real" China and the PRC had no official diplomatic relations and
was not recognized as a country.
In 1972 the countries of the world changed their mind and recognized the
PRC as a country. The ROC lost its acknowledged countryhood and official
diplomatic relations and the PRC received the "China" chair in the UN.
According to the Mereological Theory of Identity (MTI), that the
scavenger's ship or the disassembled+assembled ship would be the
original ship of Theseus, the PRC is the natural successor of the
pre-Civil War China. The PRC government rules over most of the Chinese
cultural/geographical area and the most of the Chinese population.
According to the Spatio-Temporal Continuity (STC) theory, that the ship
Theseus is on and the parts of which were gradually replaced, the ROC is
the natural successor of the pre-Civil War China. Indeed, the name "The
Republic of China" was the name of the country founded in 1912, and
which encompassed most of the Chinese cultural/geographical area and
most of the Chinese population. When founded, it did not include Taiwan,
but the "planks" of Taiwan were added at the end of World War II and
Mainland China was removed in 1949.
To be sure, China is not the only interesting country in this aspect.
See East and West Germany, Czechia and Slovakia, the former Yugoslavian
countries, the North and the South in the American Civil War etc. But
China is more interesting, because it is still ambiguous today -- both
governments call themselves the "real" China.
/c
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
