I have written a 'style guide' for markets in the 'Taiwan China Potential Conflict' space. The reason for this is that I think most markets in this space need their resolution criteria tightened or better specified.
I'd like feedback on this piece. I'll give 100 mana to the authors of the first ten thoughtful responses that properly engage with what I've written in enough depth to be useful. There are a further M300, M200 and M100 bonuses for the podium of most useful critiques. I'll award these after the responses seem to have cooled.
If you just want to tell me you think this is unnecessary, please do so (it's useful), but while I'll take that on board I'm not going to give a bounty for a long paragraph that summarises to 'we don't need this'.
I'm definitely not going to police who responds, but if you don't create or bet on Taiwan China Potential Conflict markets I'd just ask that you consider whether your response, however considered, is going to be useful. Maybe it is!
Here is the piece:
1,000People are also trading
Interesting to bring up, thanks for writing this. I don't think I agree that we should assume invading Taiwan means the main Taiwan island. The other islands are administered by Taiwan and are part of Taiwan the country (eg the ROC). Like when Japan bombed the Hawaii base, that was still considered an attack on the US, even though Hawaii isn't connected to the biggest part of the US. I would very much consider an invasion of Hawaii or Puerto Rico an invasion of the US.
The main island of Taiwan is called Formosa apparently. If a market wants to specify the invasion has to be of that island, then that's fair enough, but Taiwan should include all parts of Taiwan. I would argue by default, all the islands would be considered part of Taiwan.
I can think of some weird edge cases for other countries though. Like if a market asked whether Russia would invade France, and then Russia invaded Reunion Island (which is owned by France). It seems not quite what they were asking, but I think I would say it should still resolve Yes.
Anyway, hopefully China doesn't invade any of those islands and they all just resolve No :)
Good point. I think it will be difficult for the average people as it is for the mainstream media to grasp the nuances between a Chinese attack or invasion in Matsu or Penghu and the main Taiwan island.
For what I personally think, the territories controlled by ROC (Taipei) and the ones controlled by PRC (Beijing) are pretty clear to anybody who travelled there, and they can be defined easily by means of borders control, passports, ID, currency in use, military forces in control, etc.
An invasion of Kinmen or Matsu will count as a 'partial' but still an Invasion of Taiwan (ROC). I know it's complicated to explain for the many verbal layers of definitions - ROC, PRC, China, Taiwan, Taiwan Island, etc. - overlapping and not accurately describing the reality on the ground, but it will be hard to say that if China would invade and control all the outer islands a market shouldn't resolve as 'YES, China invaded Taiwan'.
Also an invasion of Taiwan main island could be partial too: for instance PRC controlling Tainan county, but failing to get to Taipei (random example) as in Russia invading Crimea and the east, but not getting control of Kyiv.
Markets should set these limits clear in the descriptions, but very hard to communicate all the different possibilities in a simple YES/NO way.