It's been stable based on temporary peace and Mutually Assured Destruction (not just from nukes). For example China-Taiwan are still in a civil war that never officially ended, and China has always wanted to reabsorb Taiwan and Taiwan has always been opposed to. The Koreas are actively still in a cease fire for a war that also never concluded. And the middle east has always been churning with armed conflicts.

The western 1st world countries managed to extract enough wealth to stay far and away from these kinds of conflicts, but they are still heavily dependent on these countries and we'll all feel the impacts if things get worse.

[–] grue 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

China has always wanted to reabsorb Taiwan and Taiwan has always been opposed to

Technically, the mainland and Taiwan both claimed to have rightful rule over the other, although sentiment in Taiwan gradually changed to favor independence instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd support Taiwan taking over China but that just seems very, very, very unlikely.

But yeah, the way it's been handled is both sides willfully ignoring the fact they are two countries, which is an inherently unstable position.

It'd be like if Puerto Rico claimed all of America it's own and America was very upset about that while also ignoring it.