This is a cartoon I did about Taiwan's growing economic dependency on China and how China is silently absorbing Taiwan through free trade rather than through military invasion. Although both situations are not easily comparable, China's motive of 'irredentism' appears quite similar to   Russia's vis-a-vis the Ukraine.  Whereas Putin has been forceful and bombastic and gained harsh international condemnation through his military and geopolitcal designs over the region, China's strategy is much more stealthy and aims to coopt Taiwan under the international radar. Having spent four years in Taiwan and been a staff cartoonist for an English paper there, I became very immeresed in the local politics of the island.
  For the last few weeks, students in Taiwan have been occupying the legislature in protest against a piece of legislation that seeks to eliminate trade barriers with China. To provoke even further opposition and distrust, the Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, has enthusiastically rammed through this policy without any real public consultation.
    The fear is, that this would allow Chinese (PRC) companies to invest in Taiwan resulting in increased Taiwanese economic dependency on China and potentially threatening supplant local enterprises that really are lifeblood of Taiwan's cultural identity. Still, others have argued that Taiwanese companies have shown little national loyalty over the last decade-and-a-half, and have instead, abandoned Taiwan in droves to set up operations in Mainland China, where they can enjoy cheaper labour costs and almost zero regulations. The logic flows -- why shouldn't Chinese businesses be allowed to return some of that investment to Taiwan?  The debate is nuanced but from what I gather, the pro-democracy elements in Taiwan are not quick to embrace this "investment and jobs" argument over the potential of surrendering democratic freedoms for totalitarian, one-party rule.  The world should be alerted to this as a test model of the future -- ruthless capitalism sans democracy.