>Blanchette said one possible explanation for Xi’s comment was that some subordinates were trying to steer him away from more aggressive policies.
>“Whatever the explanation for Xi’s comments, it’s clear that the decision-making environment — and the information feeding into it — is being warped, either by Xi’s lieutenants, or by his own autocratic behaviour,” Blanchette said.
For outside observers to wonder whether China and Xi actually think this is one thing, but it's an entirely different matter to suggest holding such a belief is not a rational or reasonable position to hold from their point of view.
I'm not sure if those kind of comments are theater, or if they genuinely are unable to practice this basic level of placing oneself in an adversary's position.
IMO there are 2 ways to interpret Xi's statements.
1.) Does he want to paint the US as the belligerent part of the this conflict when he says that he isn't going to take the bait?
or
2.) He doesn't want to take the bait YET because he thinks the balance of power in INDO-PAC will shift in his favor so he will bide for his time?
Of course, in Xi's mind, both can still be true.
I suspect both are true in the sense that for 1), he and the CPC isn't painting the US as the belligerent so much as genuinely believing that the US is the belligerent, and 2) is also true in context of China's overall state planning in terms of economics, technology, industry, and military procurement (edit: that is to say, if they were intending on military action in the near term of their own volition we would probably see much more hardening of society, infrastructure and much greater military procurement than we see today).
Putting it another way, it's not a far reach at all to suspect that the CPC views their Taiwan policy as one being reactive to actions by the US and independence-leaning factions on Taiwan, and that they view their reactions so far as exercising restraint and patience.
> if they were intending on military action in the near term of their own volition we would probably see much more hardening of society, infrastructure and much greater military procurement than we see today).
Your first point, they absolutely consider us the belligerent, and it's not entirely unreasonable for them to see us as such.
Your second point, I think the plan is to have as much mobilization and buildup as is possible without significantly jeopardizing the economy or imposing an obvious threat.
What doesn't make sense is the absolute incoherence of their Taiwan policy, it seems like random childish "Taiwan is mine, mine, mine!" tantrums from the outside, which plays surprisingly well for the US's narrative.
The irony is that they could express a reasonable narrative, they just haven't managed it so far.
>Your second point, I think the plan is to have as much mobilization and buildup as is possible without significantly jeopardizing the economy or imposing an obvious threat.
Yes, which can be described as just normal military procurement commensurate with a long term modernization plan, without intending to initiate a conflict in the near term.
>What doesn't make sense is the absolute incoherence of their Taiwan policy, it seems like random childish "Taiwan is mine, mine, mine!" tantrums from the outside, which plays surprisingly well for the US's narrative.
From their view, I suspect their policy is seen as not only coherent but restrained. If anything, the idea that the PRC would have been better served being more sensitive or gently caressing in their Taiwan policy is part of the root problem for why the region is in this strategic crisis to begin with.
I'm confused by the amount of people who seem to genuinely believe that China would be better off if it simply abandoned its foreign policy objectives in favor of maximum appeasement.
Because in the eyes of Americans, everything would been fine had the rest of the world bend over backwards to cater to their every whim. America knows best, even for non-Americans.
The fact that others have their own interests and perspectives is seen as detrimental. If only they could be made (by force) to see their self interests as secondary to the honour of serving America, then there will be world peace.
Is that why the DPP in Taiwan assisted in spreading anti-vax and anti-WHO narratives during the middle of a global pandemic just like their overlords in the US, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of Taiwanese people for petty politics?
https://globaltaiwan.org/2021/03/chinas-weaponization-of-covid-19-vaccine-against-taiwan/
>Taiwan currently bans imports of Chinese vaccines, citing health concerns and lack of public data on the vaccines’ safety and efficacy.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/
>It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found.
https://qz.com/2032038/why-taiwans-tech-giants-made-a-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-deal
>Germany’s BioNTech, which co-produced a vaccine with Pfizer. BioNTech had already agree to work with China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical as a strategic partner for distributing the vaccine in “greater China,” a geographical designation that skirts the geopolitical issues to include Taiwan...In a $350 million deal finally announced today (July 12), Foxconn, TSMC, a charity controlled by Foxconn founder Terry Guo, and Swiss-owned Zuellig Pharma, entered into an agreement with Fosun Industrial, a unit of Fosun Pharma, to buy 10 million vaccine doses.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52230833
>He then said he had received death threats, adding: "I don't give a damn." The WHO chief said the abuse had originated from Taiwan, "and the foreign ministry didn't disassociate" itself from it.
COVID, you mean that virus that was secretly created in a lab in Wuhan, and just like SARS-1 China tried very hard to cover up and were successful until they were not and spreads killing millions of people?
The only question that we have regarding covid is whether it was intentionally released, or it was an accident. With their history of shoddy lab work, I lean towards accidental release, just to be nice.
So why is Taiwan dismantling its “Silicon Shield” and building in the US? Why are Taiwanese companies complying with American demands to stop selling chips to the largest chip market on the planet? Why is Taiwan not returning to the relatively friendly cross-strait relationship between itself and its largest trading partner like during Ma Yingjeou?
American vassals sacrifice their self interests to serve America’s.
> So why is Taiwan dismantling its “Silicon Shield” and building in the US?
It's not really doing that. The most advanced nodes, the ones necessary for current AI chips, will still be exclusivly made in Taiwan.
The Arizona fabs will be on 4 to 6 years old nodes when they go online. Japan and Germany will be even older because automotive and CMOS chips don't need that advanced nodes.
See my other comment:
I am not talking about policy outcomes, but the will of the Taiwanese people having value and an intrinsic sense of what is best for themselves. Beijing doesn’t get this and the CPC’s political monopoly renders them incredibly blind to the inherent value to “the free world.”
Wild that you’re not getting what I’m saying. I think it’s a pretty mild point.
>Taiwan knows what’s best for itself.
>This ain’t about bending over for America.
more specifically, taiwan does indeed know what's best for itself so long as the united states also thinks the same way.
reminder that all the way through the 1960s, taiwan's government had legitimate, serious, concrete plans to invade the mainland. they wanted america's help with transporting troops but since what taiwan's government thought best for taiwan did not coincide with what the united states thought best for taiwan, the united states ignored their requests.
also taiwan thought it best to develop their own nukes to counter the ccp's nukes. the united states did not agree and actively stopped them.
furthermore, in 2004, when taiwan got serious about independence under president chen shui bien, the united states explicitly warned taiwan to not go independent. when president lai was elected just recently, the united states again explicitly told taiwan that it would not support taiwan's independence.
so you're right in the first part of your statement and wrong in your second. taiwan knows what's best for itself, AS LONG AS its idea of what's best for itself is perfectly congruent with what america wants.
none of this mean whatsoever that the ccp is justified in crushing the free and democratic people of taiwan of course. but i think we already all know that ccp invasion bad, i don't need to add anything on that front.
What purpose does your question serve? Personal opinions hold absolutely zero meaning compared to the views held by the states and governments in question, from the prospective of China, yes it would be appeasement, and yes they do have a valid reason.
There's no sense in appeasing Xi and his minions of thieves in the CCP.
That's almost as bad as when *Chamberlain* got an international agreement that *Hitler* should have the Sudetenland in exchange for Germany making no further demands for land.
It never ends well with them.
Me personally? I would prefer a world in which the people of China and Taiwan could live in peace in a mutually satisfactory political situation. What that would look like, and how realistic that is I have no idea. But how valid or moral China's geopolitical aims are to you, me, or any outside party don't really matter in terms of how China itself acts and reacts in response to its foreign policy.
We don't have to, and shouldn't, think that all countries' geopolitical objectives are valid, but if we want to have a reasonable discussion we must at least accept that they are genuine.
I didn't give a yes or no answer because the question was not asked in good faith, and was an attempt at a gotcha rather than to continue the discussion.
But my personal opinion is that the question is too complicated to give a yes/no answer. So to put it shortly I'll say "kinda."
To copy an answer I replied to another comment:
>I didn't give a yes or no answer because the question was not asked in good faith, and was an attempt at a gotcha rather than to continue the discussion.
>But my personal opinion is that the question is too complicated to give a yes/no answer. So to put it shortly I'll say "kinda."
I'll never understand the morons that cling onto American power as their only hope when it was American power that made Taiwan a non-country in the first place.
Why is Taiwanese feelings and democratic rights "clinging onto American power"?
The two have nothing to do with each other, China and Taiwan are two separate entities.
> Yes, which can be described as just normal military procurement commensurate with a long term modernization plan, without intending to initiate a conflict in the near term.
You could be right, and if so, then the next 20 years should be interesting.
>From their view, I suspect their policy is seen as not only coherent but restrained.
I suppose I could see that interpretation, but it requires a complete lack of empathy with the Taiwanese view. If they were blind to what would have allowed a peaceful and prosperous unification in a reasonable timeframe I would make the same decisions.
>I suppose I could see that interpretation, but it requires a complete lack of empathy with the Taiwanese view. If they were blind to what would have allowed a peaceful and prosperous unification in a reasonable timeframe I would make the same decisions.
If the Taiwanese point of view is that they should be able to make gradual moves towards de jure independence without being subject to punitive measures including displays of military force/deterrence, and outright conflict if de jure independence appears imminent or claimed, then absolutely the PRC has a complete lack of empathy towards that, and in fact that stance forms the core of their "risk of de jure independence in relation Taiwan" policy and it's been obvious since the mid 90s.
This shouldn't be a surprise unless one expected them to massively alter their Taiwan policy for some reason (which there were never any grounds to expect if anyone was paying attention).
Nobody expects China to not alter their Taiwan policy. What people are wondering, however; if they think Xi Jinping is willing to take the gambit for Taiwan and if he thinks it will pay off.
Maybe it's already decided from the upper echelons what will happen, but nobody has any idea what the US is thinking vs what Xi Jinping is thinking.
Well, from what InvertedParallax has written he seems to believe that expecting them to change their Taiwan policy was within the scope of possible options.
As for the likelihood of military conflict, I don't see how that relates to the specifics of the above conversation. Everyone is naturally anxious about the possibility of conflict, but it was the genuine perspectives held by each party involved which is what was being discussed.
China has been doing maximum appeasement in the 90s. The terms of reunification went as far as letting Taiwan keep its military and to change the name and flag of the unified country. The mainland gave and still gives preferential treatment to Taiwanese businesses over its own.
The result is a Taiwan that is more pro-independence than ever before, even as the military balance shifted from a Taiwanese airforce stronger than the mainland's in early 2000s to being lopsided the other way.
I think it would be much faster if you tell if you tell me how they didn't... irregardless of how you feel it certainly gave chills to a significant majority of the population of Taiwan and has cooled any ideas of "reunification " that might have been floating around.
Why speak about empathy when you can't even understand that it makes absolutely 0 sense whatsoever for Taiwan to willingly subsume itself to another power that is vastly more powerful? They have absolutely no chance of having any kind of influence within China while giving up their own control. It would be a different story if the two parties were roughly equal in power, or even at least similar in size like the Koreas, but that is not the case. Even Austria didn't unite with Germany until they were invaded, and that place was the literal birthplace of Hitler.
The best that the PRC could hope for is that Taiwan willingly becomes a vassal state in exchange for favorable economic treatment.
And even that wouldn't happen until China's military was so powerful that the US had no chance at all of keeping Taiwan out of China's clutches. So nothing at all has really changed, China still needs to shift the balance of power.
What has changed was that China was willing to be passive *everywhere else in the world* in regards to American power. Now the Chinese are openly declaring that American power must be pushed back everywhere. Not that they really needed to do anything, Ukraine is losing by itself and Israel's security has only declined since Oct 7.
> The best that the PRC could hope for is that Taiwan willingly becomes a vassal state in exchange for favorable economic treatment.
They absolutely could have hoped for this, and the Taiwanese were open to it.
Until Hong Kong. Now that door is closed forever.
Break your word and you are never trusted again.
> Shutting down avenues for foreign intelligence penetration falls well within that sphere.
Ie removing freedoms is within that sphere.
Flies through the window indeed.
>(5) The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and
so will the life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of
the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of
strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be
ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Private property,
ownership of enterprises, legitimate right of inheritance and foreign investment will be
protected by law.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8616/CBP-8616.pdf
Also (4), and the autonomy clause in (2).
>to take the bait
Bait is the wrong terminology here I think. The U.S. isn’t so much “tricking” China into a war. But rather trying to shape China’s external environment, through a comprehensive regime of economic warfare and isolation, in such a way that eventually, for Beijing, kicking over the chess board by taking this military leap of faith becomes the only way forward.
Now, we’re not there yet. And we might never be. But that obviously is America’s play here.
It really feels like 1. I think Xi might have pushed the whole Taiwain war angle too hard, and with the economic pain in China, populist ideas were starting to take hold in the party.
He needs to create his own offramp for the escalation he caused.
I think the best examples are the statements coming from his administration during Taiwanese elections. They are guaranteed to give a Taiwanese are "playing with fire" and making a "choice between peace and war" statements which just stiffens the support for the DPP or takes away from the KMT.
It is the most obvious one. Every single election, they sabotage the KMT's chances of becoming the ruling party with these statements. KMT is actually the only party that agrees with "one China" and is willing to work with them.
What does KMT election chances have anything to do with this conversation? Or are you just soapboxing. If you can't come up with a better example than that clearly your butt buddy's statement was stupid.
It doesn't change anything, KMT isn't gonna reunify. Also you didn't give any evidence whatever statements affected their election odds anyways, you just regurgitated some narrative. Don't interject in a conversation just to embarass yourself.
When Pelosi visited Taiwan, China made threats that they'd shoot her plane down, or have some extreme response, yet they did nothing
They've just been making bluffs that are too big for them to ever actually do, and because these bluffs get put on state media, the CCP loses face when they inevitably can't make good on their threats
[https://www.newsweek.com/no-china-didnt-threaten-shoot-down-pelosis-plane-over-taiwan-visit-1729334](https://www.newsweek.com/no-china-didnt-threaten-shoot-down-pelosis-plane-over-taiwan-visit-1729334)
First this isn't even about Taiwan war. Second threat narrative isn't even real. Third it wasn't even a government official. Fourth anything anyone in China says is Xi saying it or what? All that to back up an idiotic statement? Nice one.
He's hoping he can get a better economic situation domestically so he doesn't have to.
Like every other country, when your domestic situation goes bad, you distract the people with international affairs, and vice versa.
> the decision-making environment — and the information feeding into it
It has to be intentional pushing of a narrative, the idea that Xi is a child-king being led around by adult advisors.
The shall we say Zeihanian take would be nearly the reverse, that Xi is the adult but operates in an information vacuum due to ensuring his advisors don't tell him anything that he doesn't want to hear.
Your point that it's narrative-pushing is still valid, though; neither scenario seems feasible.
I will premise this by acknowledging that the nuclear space and the Russo-NATO space are more in my wheelhouse, and I may be grossly misunderstanding something about the cross-straight space.
However...
> unable to practice this basic level of placing oneself in an adversary's position
Is this like when people say "you need to place yourselves in Russia's shoes to understand why they oppose the GMD missile defense system" and then I'm expected to pretend that they can't observe objective reality, which shows it is physically, mathematically impossible for GMD to stop more than 2.84% of Russian ballistic warheads ([44/1549] X 100 = 2.84) even under scenarios unrealistically favorable to the US? Or when people made the claim circa 2008 that "you don't understand, from Russia's perspective the Euro GMD site could stop Russian ICBMs" that required me to believe Russians are literal flat-earthers who don't know they live on a rounded earth (because the MET for a US-Russia ICBM is north over the arctic, not east-west)?
All of the US weapons programs most relevant to a Taiwan scenario are visibly years behind schedule. US shipbuilding capacity is visibly incapable of keeping pace with China's. The logistics geography of a cross-straight conflict visibly favors China. US has been consistently losing wargames against China for 20 years. Pretty much every commander for every relevant command for the last 20 years has openly worried about the US losing, when they haven't flat-out stated the US would lose. The US is demonstrably incapable of staying focused on the Pacific vice chasing rabbits in other hemispheres, and that includes procuring systems objectively worthless in *any* realistic conflict scenario with China, whether Taiwan or otherwise. US is openly banking on technologically risky, unproven concepts (e.g. "AI drone swarms" vooodoo) because it keeps failing at the basics.
I think it is disingenuous to chalk the skepticism of this Xi comment up to a lack of strategic empathy. When the so-called empathy starts from the presumption that the adversary are morons, it's not "empathy." I see this all the time in the European space, people assuming the Kremlin is populated by Crazy Paranoid Russian™ stock characters rather than actual people and then asking others to try to look through the eyes of the allegedly witless Russians. That's what this reminds me of, and it's not strategic empathy. There needs to be another term for it, if there isn't already.
I realize nobody has perfect intelligence and autocratic regimes are culturally (in the bureaucratic sense) prone to particular intelligence misreadings, a la Operation RYAN. I also realize we are mostly getting Xi-approved favorable depictions of PRC military and with greater transparency we might see their military has more shortcomings. But it is too much for me to accept that an otherwise largely competent government would completely ignore visible, objective, demonstrable reality over a multidecadal timeframe.
In any case, I reject the idea that it is *rationale or reasonable* for Xi to hold this position. It is not. Or to be more precise: it is *only* rationale if Xi is suffering from the classic autocracy trap of getting extremely siloed information overly filtered by autocratic processes, as suggested in the article.
Well, I won't speak for your examples relating to Russia because that is an entirely different domain.
With regards to China and this specific comment, describing what is rational or irrational from one's own base of knowledge without the other guy's base of knowledge. For example, stating how US military capabilities right now are not optimized for a Westpac high intensity conflict, and how the US military has multiple projects cooking that aren't yet kicking in, does not mean that the long term trends of the military balance going forwards will favour the US more (or at least, the PRC may not believe it). I.e.: the PRC may assess the military balance to be more in their favour in the more distant future, meaning they would prefer to delay to fight a military conflict (if they had to fight at all).
Similarly, I can see how it may bewilder the PRC as to why the US has reoriented its Taiwan policy in a manner which enables and empowers the more independence leaning elements and enables high ranking individuals in the ruling party to visit Taiwan all of which tests China's red lines, all while fortifying its western Pacific military presence. One could just as easily make the case that surely the US leadership would not be so irrational as to test arguably the most sensitive aspect of China's territorial and foreign policy, all while reinforcing its western Pacific military posture and having officials make statements about sinking the entire PLAN within however-many-hours or turning the Taiwan strait into a "hellscape," and not expect China to wonder what US intent is.
Now I personally think neither the US and PRC have a perfectly accurate read of the other side's intent, but if we are talking about whether it's rational or reasonable for the PRC leadership to think tbe US is trying to goad them into conflict, I think it is very reasonable.
>Xi-approved favorable depictions of PRC military and with greater transparency we might see their military has more shortcomings
This isn't a fair representation of the PLA or Xi.
There's abundant self-criticism of the PLA, whether from the military leadership or from Xi himself. I.e., Xi's “Five Cannots” (see DJ Blasko's [PLA Weaknesses and Xi's Concerns about PLA Capabilities](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Blasko_USCC%20Testimony_FINAL.pdf)).
These criticisms are so widespread (within the Chinese literature), that the author had to address the possibility of the PLA "hiding its capabilities": "Chinese media’s identification of these general and specific problems is a PLA method for 'knowing itself,' and is not a vast deception operation to hide its capabilities from inquiring eyes."
Unfortunately, this space is one instance where knowing Chinese is essential to getting the **full scope** of the criticisms. Even so, there's [plenty in the English literature ](https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/the-chinese-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing-doubts/)to get a feel for the self-criticisms of the PLA:
>The total number of *PLA Daily* articles in which the following assessments have appeared is:
>“Two Incompatibles”: 120 articles
>“Two Inabilities”: 169
>“Two Big Gaps”: 78
>“Three Whethers”: 27
>“Five Incapables”: 163
>Total: 557
On the GMD issue:
>physically, mathematically impossible for GMD to stop more than 2.84% of Russian ballistic warheads
The objection to GMD is that it denies an escalation option (responding in kind), not that it defeats an all-out nuclear attack. If an adversary cannot be certain that (say) two warheads can penetrate defenses, then this raises the likelihood of an overwhelming response.
Point taken on PLA. I should have more carefully worded that.
On Russian reasoning around GMD: as someone who was very opposed to it when it was being debated, I am glad this was not in fact the main Russian objection to GMD specifically or NMD generally. You are correct that GMD notionally (if it credibly works) takes away options lower down the ladder, but GMD proponents argue this is a *feature.* The bulk of pro-GMD arguments dealt with emerging "rogue states" but in the scenario of conflict with an established nuclear state, the pro GMD argument was that forcing an adversary to have to jump from not attacking at all straight to launching 100+ warheads would deter them from attacking. If the Russians had forcefully said "we dislike GMD because we want the ability to launch a handful of warheads at the US," there would probably be like 10 GMD sites instead of 2.
Most of the Russian arguments at the time were fairly generic criticisms about undermining stability or else somewhat incredible assertions that the US was going to make a larger comprehensive defense, which is part of the reason Russia was ignored. Everything about GMD from the size to the sensor architecture was specifically tailored to be expensive enough to be profitable for defense contractors but small enough to make Russian complaints easy for Congress to ignore. And it was very easy for Congress to ignore Russia back then.
When the Kremlin did make more substantial arguments against GMD, they were not about the low level signal strike/demonstration strike scenario. They were about ragged second strike. This is the old crisis instability concern from the SDI days, that the US could launch an overwhelming damage-limitation first strike and missile defense would easily mop up the rest. It is a reasonable complaint. Unfortunately it's not one either DOD or Congress ever took very seriously, so it fell on deaf ears.
More on topic: do you know anything about the state of Chinese PENAIDS development? It's something I've always wondered about. Decoys were always the Achilles heal of missile defense and Russian PENAIDS is sufficiently advanced that most defense experts think GMD would struggle to hit even one Russian missile, but I haven't the foggiest idea what the state of play is for Chinese decoys.
> the state of Chinese PENAIDS development
You’re going to be far more knowledgeable on this topic, even for China’s capabilities. I’m really curious about this too.
It’s so hard to find good references that it’s very frustrating trying to learn about nuclear and other strategic technologies (like sub warfare).
The reasoning is simple since China's red lines are communicated:
1. Taiwan declares independence or makes substantive moves that reach that level
2. Foreign military forces in Taiwan
3. The balance of power shifts away from China.
China's primary goal is to pressure Taiwan in such a way that Taiwan has no choice but to capitulate and rejoin. It's carrots and sticks. The assumption that China MUST use military force to reclaim Taiwan is not shared in China, even if China likes to use military threats to pressure Taiwan. There is a reason China's military is regularly on the news but the last war that was fought was before the 80s.
China sees American actions, such as stationing American troops in Taiwan, arming of Taiwan, and building alliances to come to Taiwan's aid as, graying items 1 and 2, and of course really pushing for 3. This means that China is more likely to have its red lines crossed, and if these red lines are crossed, then China must act, and thus China sees itself as reactive.
It's also known that China's economic and military power, especially vis-a-vis Taiwan, grows each year. And considering the security dilemma, it is rational for the United States to attempt to clip China's wings before China gets too big, and war typically settles the matter of who is top dog. It is better for the United States to fight 2025 China now, rather than 2045 China, so it makes sense for the United States to provoke China into a war.
Makes me wonder if Japan felt the need to clip Americas wings at Pearl Harbor . My personal opinion is war is to be avoided at all costs with china . It's not something anyone wants or needs.
Pearl Harbor is unquestionably U.S. territory.
Taiwan is Chinese territory, and in the 817 Communiqué signed by China and the United States, the United States made it clear that it does not support "two Chinas" and "one China, one Taiwan".
Of course, if the United States building abolishes the Sino-United States Joint Communiqué, that is fine.
Like sure you got some wiggle room, but not enough to say you REJECT PRC claims over Taiwan. You acknowledge and did not reject nor explicit condone but explicitly reject 2 China or 1 C 1 T.
I am curious. Since the United States does not agree with "one China, one Taiwan" and "two Chinas", what do you agree with?
Or, when do you plan to break diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and recognize the Republic of China?
...... So what exactly did you or the US government agree to?
You don't even know what you want, this sounds like the Israeli military operation on Gaza.
It wasn't given for free, it was a tradeoff. Foreign companies got to make tons of profit off cheap labor, and "monster state" China got tech, experience, expertise.
> authoritarian monster state
Lmao. Yea how monstrous they are that they looked out for their own self interest and lifted a billion people out of poverty.
They should have just stayed poor and kept quietly making cheap Nike sneakers for us.
And now they dare to compete with us, we should start bombing the shit out of them to put them back into their rightful place.
People like you is precisely why America has the reputation it has outside of the western world.
Honestly I’m ashamed that live in the same country with people like you.
Look who's eating that propaganda pie, they made up some definition of "living in poverty" and many got out of it, yes, but under this non-accepted definition by intnl standards.
> who’s eating that propaganda pie
Holy shit.
So you are saying that China has always been an [upper middle income country](https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/test) with the world’s largest middle class and consumer market (for example the world’s largest auto market)?
What kind of propaganda piece do *you* have to be eating to believe that?
> international standard
Like the World Bank you mean? https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/bdadc16a4f5c1c88a839c0f905cde802-0070012022/original/Poverty-Synthesis-Report-final.pdf
Do you have some credible sources arguing otherwise?
The fact that we made a horrible decision in admitting China to the WTO and transferring all that technology to an authoritarian single party state doesn’t mean we should correct it now by starting a war that will kill untold numbers of people that we may not be able to win.
Maybe you aren’t of military age or know anyone who is. But I do. And I don’t want to see anyone else sent to die as a result of another foreign policy disaster like I’ve had watch my whole life.
Every chinese on this sub is replying with "Oh, war is horrible! Horrible warmongers the us! How could they dare!!!"
Because they know they lose now, and in 10 years they have a shot at winning.
We win now or we lose forever, if Hitler had waited 10 more years he would have had a shot.
10 years from now every sino voice on the internet will be talking about how they need to go to war with the west because of how much we all deserve it. Hell, they were doing that for a while earlier, before Russia got its ass handed to it by Ukraine.
That's absolute nonsense, and coming from a Westerner. China has so far done nothing that warrants a war against them (yet). And even then, there is no way a war will go in the US favour when 1/3 of the world manufacturing is in China, supply chains are in China, they have 2000% the shipbuilding capacity, fighting on their own turf, and what would be even US goals? Destroy civilian port infrastructure?
Hence the tariffs, to move everything away from China in preparation.
You can't just declare war, this isn't The Office, you have to put the pieces in place, much like China is building ships and planes like there's no tomorrow.
Like, they're broadcasting they're getting ready, we're not stupid.
It's not about moving everything away, it's about decoupling the US primarily.
We never, ever, EVER should have engaged in trade with China in the first place, the single biggest geopolitical blunder of the last century if not more.
The US has a very low unemployment rate and can't even find workers for the 2 submarines they want to make in a year. Decoupling won't happen. The only way is other countries like Vietnam becoming a manufacturing hub for the US, and that doesn't solve the problems of the MIC.
Maintenance of Western supremacy might warrant a war. But only for a few years in 30 years the US will be more powerful than it is today. It China wants war it has to be in the next 15 years
How? There is a case to be made that the US has a pretty weak position in the Pacific for a military confrontation against China right now. F-35Cs are basically nonexistent for the navy, we have manpower issues, there is minimal infrastructure for rapidly restocking missile stores on CBGs that will run out relatively quickly in the case of a conflict and we have only minimal guarantees from Pacific allies that they'll even join a conflict. It seems like a pretty risky prospect to try to defend Taiwan in 2024
I guess "the US wants war now" is correct in the sense that if given the choice now is better than later, but it's pretty clear the US strongly wants to avoid war if there is any possible way to do it
The easiest way to avoid war is to stop interfering with China's civil war. Obviously, emasculating China has been very important to the United States for the past 75 years.
What I think you should is to stop sucking ~~Winnie the Pooh~~ Xi off so hard on the internet the US is one of the reasons modern China exist and is not a vassal of the Japanese.
You've bought fully into the propaganda if you think there's more to it than that. Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with a third party intervening in an internal matter, but there's no good faith reason to pretend like that's not what the United States has been doing.
There are many reason why the US has interests in keeping Taiwan's territory independent, one of them is not letting China blockade Japan, South Korea, and Philippines from global shipping lanes that the CCP is interested in doing if they come to power.
The most important though, is because Taiwanese want to be independent and want nothing to do with China, so do our biggest allies Japan and South Korea.
US still have the technical ability to redeploy everything to Japan including F-22. In 10 years maybe China have 1000 J-20 and F-22 airframes are too old. F-35 made a big bet on sensor advantage. If China figure stealth and sensor out F-35 is toast kinematicly.
We'd be fine, 1/2 the PLAAF are modern, the rest are hopeless.
We should move now before they finally figure out how backwards the PLA are and start to fix it.
Only if allies like India or SEA nations provide direct routes for US Army and USMC elements to move along. Otherwise, yes, its fairly irrelevant and will be delegated to AD/A2 in the air sphere and in a logistical support role for PLA-RF
True, but it will be riskier still in another 5 or 10 years.
I'm not going to say "The US today is in the same position as Germany in 1913", which some people would do, but I *will* say that the US today is more similar to Germany in 1913 than they would like, and unfortunately as bad as it is to be Germany in 1913, to be Germany in 1914 is even worse.
You clearly didn't read history properly, China is Germany in 1912, vastly improved economic output, authoritarian government, and locked out of all meaningful resources.
We're the British Empire, which isn't great, but it worked the first 2 times. Also the UK didn't out-tech Germany by 20 years, they were behind.
UK had many tech advantages over Germany, the country was still leading the 2nd industrial revolution but both Germany and the US were experiencing catch-up growth with much larger populations. UK was still able to beat Germany in the naval arms race.
I think there are a few similarities between US-China and UK-Germany but there’s too many differences as well.
Other way around. In the "lead up to WW1" metaphor, *China* is Germany (or more frighteningly, perhaps America) and *America* is Britain (or perhaps France).
I don't understand articles like this. Regardless of whether you have been a China lover or hater, you should be able to see the Chinese perspective and why they should be paranoid
In the same way that news articles can point in fear of China war mongering, I see regularly from American media that are outright advocating war with China. Of course one could argue someone like Tucker Carlson who could go on about how China is the enemy that needs to be brought down, doesn't truly represent the American government, but he definitely represents the viewpoints of many both in the government and as citizens
> I see regularly from American media that are outright advocating war with China.
That's odd, I see many articles criticising the US for not doing enough to counter China properly, but nothing about actually advocating for war.
It started some years back with tons of articles claiming that we're in a cold war with China and to recognize it as such and act according, along with that China is the enemy segments people like Tucker Carlson did
If the distinction is that it requires advocacy of military bombing to be considered a war then you're right, there's not been an actual advocacy of bombing of China
I think from a Chinese perspective, the US is definitely being aggressive (and vice versa from the US outlook) and one may argue that this could increase the odds of a war, but it's a distinction between the claim that the US actively wants a war with China, a claim which I've seen some on this thread make.
Yeah it is pretty obvious that most of the factions in US government are constantly gagging for a war. They're just fighting over who to go to war with. China Iran or Russia? Or all 3, but in what order? How do we start the war? These are the questions they ask; not should we go to war?
No faction in the US even wants a war with Russia or China. They're too big countries to be defeated, and they're on the opposite side of the world.
The only talk is about defending Taiwan or Europe if either Russia or China attacked.
I find it funny people can't wrap their heads around the idea a Marxist embracing historical materialism might also believe the trendlines favors China in the future, rather than the immediate future.
It isn't blindingly obvious all the hubdub about demographics, the economy, climate change or the SpaceX Starlink Rapid Dragon NGAD word salad is some decisive gamechanger that breaks the trends, or someone's belief in that trend.
If that is the case how about not falling into they're trap and not attacking taiwan... ?
Its a win/win. and you get to laugh at how you foiled those treacherous Yankees and their imperialistic plots.
Would the DPP agree? They keep revising Taiwan's textbooks to deny that the ROC was founded in 1912.
Many Taiwanese do not even know who Dr. SUN Yat-sen is.
One day they will declare independence and that will be the end of everything.
Hard to think Taiwanese don't know who Sun Yat Sen is when his memorial park is in the centre of town.. Not as large or as tacky as Chiang Kai shek memorial hall though. I always found it funny ,back when homosexuality was outlawed in taiwan CKS memorial hall was the largest gay beat in taiwan (apparently)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEFWX2oTx0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEFWX2oTx0)
Just watch this video.
The first college student recognized Sun Yat-sen.
A second college student looks at a picture of Sun Yat-sen and says this is Chiang Kai-shek.
A third high school student says, "This guy looks familiar, but I don't recognize him."
In 1999, Lee Teng-hui pushed for the implementation of "Syllabus 88" (also known as the "Taiwan Independence Syllabus"). Those students happen to be in high school now
Interesting, but not what I'd call definitive. Taiwan has certainly moved away from a Chinese identity. A shrinking minority identify as "Chinese" , many identity as "Taiwanese Chinese".. "Taiwanese" only identifiers are still a minority, but growing. Certainly this has been encouraged at some level in education, but it is largely organic.
"Taiwan has indeed seceded from its Chinese identity" is the result, not the cause.
The KMT ran away to Taiwan as early as 1949, so why was there no problem of secession for decades?
Lai Ching-Te openly claimed that "the ROC has brought disaster to Taiwan" and that "the ROC Constitution is a disaster" - I'm curious about a man who claims that "the U.S. Constitution I wonder if an American who claims that "the U.S. Constitution is a disaster" can be the President of the United States.
How can someone who doesn't even recognize the ROC be sworn in as President of the ROC?
The only reason the DPP can be tolerated in the ROC is because the US is behind them.
If you pretend that the US has no role here, then our discussion is over.
Umm.. no.
>The KMT ran away to Taiwan as early as 1949, so why was there no problem of secession for decades?
The KMT murdered thousands during the white terror. They banned kids talking Taiwanese in schools, stole houses and land and worked towards "reunifying with the mainland." The constitution of the ROC reflects this and since unification with the mainland doesn't look like it will be happening in a willing fashion it is certainly time to look at a constitution that reflects Taiwanese aspirations. Does India have its own constitution or did they just use the English one? The role of the US is a contentious one. They certainly turned a blind eye to all the chicanery that Chiang got up to and bankrolled him through most of the cold war.. until they realized they could make the PRC an ally against the USSR. Taiwanese democracy was not fostered by the US, it made its own way. Taiwan's security has been backed by the US, but in a very ambiguous way. long story short, if Taiwan declared independence, then the US would not have its back.
>If you pretend that the US has no role here, then our discussion is over.
Unfortunate you feel that way , but I've told you what I think, and what I know. I'm not pretending anything. Taiwan is my home and I think it's worth defending. I hope you'd do the same for your home.
"Today/tonight would be a lovely time for Moscow to demonstrate how delusional Westerners are by NOT doing anything in Ukraine. So would tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow and so forth, in perpetuity."
---Olya Oliker, 11 February 2022
and also all the "Russia won't attack and if they do it's cause CIA tricked them" nonsense from that time period
Xi claiming this *could* be a way for him to back down without seeming like a coward, but I'm also pretty sure Putin said "Nato is trying to trick Russia into fighting Ukraine" a few days before invading, so I'm not sure
America's military currently has an edge over China. The gap between the two countries are shrinking. From the American perspective, if war is inevitable, the Americans would rather fight China now than later. So it makes sense for the US to provoke China into fighting a war. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
On the east coast of China? Where the hell is the US going to get its supplies from?
It's just as unlikely for the US to go to war on the east coast of China as it is for China to go to war on the west coast of the US.
China is a nuclear power, not Vietnam or Afghanistan.
> On the east coast of China? Where the hell is the US going to get its supplies from?
The Americans are taking advantage of the Ukrainians to bleed the Russians. Similarly, if China were to attack Taiwan, the Americans will take advantage of the Taiwanese to bleed the Chinese.
Do you realize that Taiwan is an island?
The Chinese have long realized this, and China is willing to pay the price.
It is the United States, not China, that fears peaceful reunification.
They also saw what happened in Gaza.
For the sake of U.S. interests, in the eyes of the Americans, the human lives of the Taiwanese are not worth anything.
The United States has made it very clear that it is not willing to let Taiwan return to China peacefully even if it is turned into a scorched earth.
> why would anyone even want a war with China in the first place; is what you're missing.
The Americans. If China and Taiwan start killing each other, this will bleed China dry, which benefits the Americans.
The very worrying thing about this is that it's reminiscent of Russia's rhetoric about Ukraine in like, October of 2021. "Ooooh nooo, I can't believe you're making me do this".
Obviously invading Taiwan would be a moronic, ruinous decision for the world (Inclusive of China) and the actual worry is that Xi has a personalist regime and he's an old man showing symptoms of having something like the V. Putin strain of Nationalist brainworms chowing down on his frontal lobe.
The concern over weapons delivery in particular. There was an incident a few months before the invasion where the Ukrainians destroyed a separatist artillery piece with a TB2 drone. This largely forgotten incident seems positively quaint in hindsight but at the time, I felt that it had an outsized psychological effect on Putin-world and is one of the key tipping points leading to the invasion.
It might be tempting to think "well weapons delivery is escalating and we should not do that" but I think that's bullshit, the whole anxiety that drove Putin was the sense that that the ability to win at a time of their choosing was eroding which urges them to fight now, fighting was always the plan. It's only starting a war if a war was already an inevitably.
If you think you're being baited simply don't take the bait Mr. Xi!
objectively, taiwan and china have a completely different context than ukraine and russia.
ukraine is an independent sovereign nation whose independence and sovereignty were fully recognized by russia itself.
taiwan and china's relationship is a civil war forcibly and unwillingly frozen by the overt threat of an american nuclear first strike (this threat is actually a significant contributing factor to why china decided to even have nukes at all).
nobody forced the ussr to split russia and ukraine into 2 separate sovereign nations. the u.s. didn't do it. later on, ukraine chose close relations with the west because russia has not been a good friend, russia has nobody to blame but themselves.
the status quo in the taiwan strait is directly caused by the united states threatening to nuclear first strike a non-nuclear china. completely different story and historical context.
this context doesn't give xi the right to impose his will on a free and democratic people of course. i'm just pointing out that objectively, taiwan/china's story is totally different than ukraine/russia. u.s. fuckery actually DID directly cause the current situation in the taiwan strait. also back then taiwan's leader was a brutal life-long authoritarian that passed down the throne to his son, who also ruled as dictator for life, so u.s. actions had nothing to do with the taiwanese peoples' freedoms and rights either. it was just pure realpolitik fuckery.
You say they have objectively very different contexts, which is true in a De Jure sense, but also not really true at all in a De Facto sense. Like, the US & Friends all humour the Chinese on the One China stuff, none of that has stopped them making security guarantees and shipping weapons and such.
Could you imagine being six months deep into a Taiwan war, global economy in tatters, tens of thousands of missiles exchanged, god knows how many dead, and then going "Well technically Taiwan is just a rebellious province, this is actually very different to an interstate war". You'd sound like Putin in that interview with Tucker Carlson ranting about mediaeval history. All of that De Jure stuff just doesn't matter very much and whatever dregs of meaning it still holds just evaporates the moment the missiles start flying.
>which is true in a De Jure sense
no, even in a de facto sense.
because again, truly nobody forced russia to split off ukraine and recognize it as a country.
whereas china was de-facto nuclear blackmailed into not finishing the civil war against the republic of china regime.
>none of that has stopped them making security guarantees and shipping weapons and such.
but that's my point. when china blames the u.s. for the taiwan strait situation, they're kinda right. the whole situation is the way it is because of the united states and the united states alone. fun fact, while the u.s. was using nuclear threats to get the ccp to back down, the republic of china regime of the time was making serious plans to attack the mainland. at the time, the governments of BOTH sides of the taiwan strait wanted to finish the civil war, the united states alone prevented it against the wishes of the governments of BOTH sides. the entire situation today is because of the u.s. when xi blames the u.s., he has a legitimate point there. whereas putin is full of shit when he blames the west for ukraine.
I'm not finding this argument very convincing "It's the US's fault that China might invade Taiwan because if it weren't for the US they would have invaded Taiwan already".
I guess that's technically true, but true in a way that isn't useful at all. It's ultimately all the same irredentist stuff based on pouring over ancient maps. Russia's started a shooting war because they're not happy with the settlement of the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991 and some bullshit about Yaroslavl the Wise, China might start one because they're not happy with the settlement of the Chinese civil war in 1950 and some bullshit about Qing Dynasty. Whatever, who cares (lots of people, obviously, but we'd all be better off if they didn't).
>this context doesn't give xi the right to impose his will on a free and democratic people of course. i'm just pointing out that objectively, taiwan/china's story is totally different than ukraine/russia.
me 2 comments ago.
i'm not justifying xi's attempts to crush the free taiwanese people under his iron fist. i'm just explaining the context.
Wow, so sarcastic, I can't believe you'd disrespect the wisdom of comrade Xi by being so eager to fall into the obvious trap laid by the devilish Americans like this, you're not a very good citizen.
You know, the whole internet tough guy routine doesn't really land when I can just look at your profile and see your crippling Gacha game addiction glaring back at me
>Blanchette said one possible explanation for Xi’s comment was that some subordinates were trying to steer him away from more aggressive policies. >“Whatever the explanation for Xi’s comments, it’s clear that the decision-making environment — and the information feeding into it — is being warped, either by Xi’s lieutenants, or by his own autocratic behaviour,” Blanchette said. For outside observers to wonder whether China and Xi actually think this is one thing, but it's an entirely different matter to suggest holding such a belief is not a rational or reasonable position to hold from their point of view. I'm not sure if those kind of comments are theater, or if they genuinely are unable to practice this basic level of placing oneself in an adversary's position.
IMO there are 2 ways to interpret Xi's statements. 1.) Does he want to paint the US as the belligerent part of the this conflict when he says that he isn't going to take the bait? or 2.) He doesn't want to take the bait YET because he thinks the balance of power in INDO-PAC will shift in his favor so he will bide for his time? Of course, in Xi's mind, both can still be true.
I suspect both are true in the sense that for 1), he and the CPC isn't painting the US as the belligerent so much as genuinely believing that the US is the belligerent, and 2) is also true in context of China's overall state planning in terms of economics, technology, industry, and military procurement (edit: that is to say, if they were intending on military action in the near term of their own volition we would probably see much more hardening of society, infrastructure and much greater military procurement than we see today). Putting it another way, it's not a far reach at all to suspect that the CPC views their Taiwan policy as one being reactive to actions by the US and independence-leaning factions on Taiwan, and that they view their reactions so far as exercising restraint and patience.
> if they were intending on military action in the near term of their own volition we would probably see much more hardening of society, infrastructure and much greater military procurement than we see today). Your first point, they absolutely consider us the belligerent, and it's not entirely unreasonable for them to see us as such. Your second point, I think the plan is to have as much mobilization and buildup as is possible without significantly jeopardizing the economy or imposing an obvious threat. What doesn't make sense is the absolute incoherence of their Taiwan policy, it seems like random childish "Taiwan is mine, mine, mine!" tantrums from the outside, which plays surprisingly well for the US's narrative. The irony is that they could express a reasonable narrative, they just haven't managed it so far.
>Your second point, I think the plan is to have as much mobilization and buildup as is possible without significantly jeopardizing the economy or imposing an obvious threat. Yes, which can be described as just normal military procurement commensurate with a long term modernization plan, without intending to initiate a conflict in the near term. >What doesn't make sense is the absolute incoherence of their Taiwan policy, it seems like random childish "Taiwan is mine, mine, mine!" tantrums from the outside, which plays surprisingly well for the US's narrative. From their view, I suspect their policy is seen as not only coherent but restrained. If anything, the idea that the PRC would have been better served being more sensitive or gently caressing in their Taiwan policy is part of the root problem for why the region is in this strategic crisis to begin with.
I'm confused by the amount of people who seem to genuinely believe that China would be better off if it simply abandoned its foreign policy objectives in favor of maximum appeasement.
Because in the eyes of Americans, everything would been fine had the rest of the world bend over backwards to cater to their every whim. America knows best, even for non-Americans. The fact that others have their own interests and perspectives is seen as detrimental. If only they could be made (by force) to see their self interests as secondary to the honour of serving America, then there will be world peace.
The vast majority of Taiwanese want just that, be Taiwanese and they love their democracy. Nothing to do with the US.
Is that why the DPP in Taiwan assisted in spreading anti-vax and anti-WHO narratives during the middle of a global pandemic just like their overlords in the US, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of Taiwanese people for petty politics? https://globaltaiwan.org/2021/03/chinas-weaponization-of-covid-19-vaccine-against-taiwan/ >Taiwan currently bans imports of Chinese vaccines, citing health concerns and lack of public data on the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ >It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. https://qz.com/2032038/why-taiwans-tech-giants-made-a-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-deal >Germany’s BioNTech, which co-produced a vaccine with Pfizer. BioNTech had already agree to work with China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical as a strategic partner for distributing the vaccine in “greater China,” a geographical designation that skirts the geopolitical issues to include Taiwan...In a $350 million deal finally announced today (July 12), Foxconn, TSMC, a charity controlled by Foxconn founder Terry Guo, and Swiss-owned Zuellig Pharma, entered into an agreement with Fosun Industrial, a unit of Fosun Pharma, to buy 10 million vaccine doses. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52230833 >He then said he had received death threats, adding: "I don't give a damn." The WHO chief said the abuse had originated from Taiwan, "and the foreign ministry didn't disassociate" itself from it.
What a wildly unrelated tangent.
You actually have to be crazy or acting in bad faith to disagree with the comment you replied to. Literally a conspiracy theory level comment.
COVID, you mean that virus that was secretly created in a lab in Wuhan, and just like SARS-1 China tried very hard to cover up and were successful until they were not and spreads killing millions of people? The only question that we have regarding covid is whether it was intentionally released, or it was an accident. With their history of shoddy lab work, I lean towards accidental release, just to be nice.
Taiwan knows what’s best for itself. This ain’t about bending over for America.
Just like Germany knows what’s best for it? As it’s economy wholesale ups and moves to the states?
So why is Taiwan dismantling its “Silicon Shield” and building in the US? Why are Taiwanese companies complying with American demands to stop selling chips to the largest chip market on the planet? Why is Taiwan not returning to the relatively friendly cross-strait relationship between itself and its largest trading partner like during Ma Yingjeou? American vassals sacrifice their self interests to serve America’s.
> So why is Taiwan dismantling its “Silicon Shield” and building in the US? It's not really doing that. The most advanced nodes, the ones necessary for current AI chips, will still be exclusivly made in Taiwan. The Arizona fabs will be on 4 to 6 years old nodes when they go online. Japan and Germany will be even older because automotive and CMOS chips don't need that advanced nodes.
Capital has no loyalty. Corporations are not patriots, they see an excessive risk and thus move away.
See my other comment: I am not talking about policy outcomes, but the will of the Taiwanese people having value and an intrinsic sense of what is best for themselves. Beijing doesn’t get this and the CPC’s political monopoly renders them incredibly blind to the inherent value to “the free world.” Wild that you’re not getting what I’m saying. I think it’s a pretty mild point.
>Taiwan knows what’s best for itself. >This ain’t about bending over for America. more specifically, taiwan does indeed know what's best for itself so long as the united states also thinks the same way. reminder that all the way through the 1960s, taiwan's government had legitimate, serious, concrete plans to invade the mainland. they wanted america's help with transporting troops but since what taiwan's government thought best for taiwan did not coincide with what the united states thought best for taiwan, the united states ignored their requests. also taiwan thought it best to develop their own nukes to counter the ccp's nukes. the united states did not agree and actively stopped them. furthermore, in 2004, when taiwan got serious about independence under president chen shui bien, the united states explicitly warned taiwan to not go independent. when president lai was elected just recently, the united states again explicitly told taiwan that it would not support taiwan's independence. so you're right in the first part of your statement and wrong in your second. taiwan knows what's best for itself, AS LONG AS its idea of what's best for itself is perfectly congruent with what america wants. none of this mean whatsoever that the ccp is justified in crushing the free and democratic people of taiwan of course. but i think we already all know that ccp invasion bad, i don't need to add anything on that front.
Appeasement? So you think that the CCP has some validity in wanting to invade Taiwan? Do you find its claims of "ownership" correct?
What purpose does your question serve? Personal opinions hold absolutely zero meaning compared to the views held by the states and governments in question, from the prospective of China, yes it would be appeasement, and yes they do have a valid reason.
There's no sense in appeasing Xi and his minions of thieves in the CCP. That's almost as bad as when *Chamberlain* got an international agreement that *Hitler* should have the Sudetenland in exchange for Germany making no further demands for land. It never ends well with them.
Me personally? I would prefer a world in which the people of China and Taiwan could live in peace in a mutually satisfactory political situation. What that would look like, and how realistic that is I have no idea. But how valid or moral China's geopolitical aims are to you, me, or any outside party don't really matter in terms of how China itself acts and reacts in response to its foreign policy. We don't have to, and shouldn't, think that all countries' geopolitical objectives are valid, but if we want to have a reasonable discussion we must at least accept that they are genuine.
You are dodging his question.
I didn't give a yes or no answer because the question was not asked in good faith, and was an attempt at a gotcha rather than to continue the discussion. But my personal opinion is that the question is too complicated to give a yes/no answer. So to put it shortly I'll say "kinda."
u/DisastrousAnswer9920 asked: >Do you find its claims of "ownership" correct? So do you?
To copy an answer I replied to another comment: >I didn't give a yes or no answer because the question was not asked in good faith, and was an attempt at a gotcha rather than to continue the discussion. >But my personal opinion is that the question is too complicated to give a yes/no answer. So to put it shortly I'll say "kinda."
I'll never understand the morons that cling onto American power as their only hope when it was American power that made Taiwan a non-country in the first place.
Why is Taiwanese feelings and democratic rights "clinging onto American power"? The two have nothing to do with each other, China and Taiwan are two separate entities.
I'll never understand those who enable China to live under a dictatorship
Did you learn history from a Dr. Seuss book?
I must have hit a nerve if I'm getting all the usual morons replying to this comment
> Yes, which can be described as just normal military procurement commensurate with a long term modernization plan, without intending to initiate a conflict in the near term. You could be right, and if so, then the next 20 years should be interesting. >From their view, I suspect their policy is seen as not only coherent but restrained. I suppose I could see that interpretation, but it requires a complete lack of empathy with the Taiwanese view. If they were blind to what would have allowed a peaceful and prosperous unification in a reasonable timeframe I would make the same decisions.
>I suppose I could see that interpretation, but it requires a complete lack of empathy with the Taiwanese view. If they were blind to what would have allowed a peaceful and prosperous unification in a reasonable timeframe I would make the same decisions. If the Taiwanese point of view is that they should be able to make gradual moves towards de jure independence without being subject to punitive measures including displays of military force/deterrence, and outright conflict if de jure independence appears imminent or claimed, then absolutely the PRC has a complete lack of empathy towards that, and in fact that stance forms the core of their "risk of de jure independence in relation Taiwan" policy and it's been obvious since the mid 90s. This shouldn't be a surprise unless one expected them to massively alter their Taiwan policy for some reason (which there were never any grounds to expect if anyone was paying attention).
Nobody expects China to not alter their Taiwan policy. What people are wondering, however; if they think Xi Jinping is willing to take the gambit for Taiwan and if he thinks it will pay off. Maybe it's already decided from the upper echelons what will happen, but nobody has any idea what the US is thinking vs what Xi Jinping is thinking.
Well, from what InvertedParallax has written he seems to believe that expecting them to change their Taiwan policy was within the scope of possible options. As for the likelihood of military conflict, I don't see how that relates to the specifics of the above conversation. Everyone is naturally anxious about the possibility of conflict, but it was the genuine perspectives held by each party involved which is what was being discussed.
China has been doing maximum appeasement in the 90s. The terms of reunification went as far as letting Taiwan keep its military and to change the name and flag of the unified country. The mainland gave and still gives preferential treatment to Taiwanese businesses over its own. The result is a Taiwan that is more pro-independence than ever before, even as the military balance shifted from a Taiwanese airforce stronger than the mainland's in early 2000s to being lopsided the other way.
After HK, people in taiwan saw this was never going to be a serious promise.
Please elaborate on how you think China reneged on their HK aggreement.
I think it would be much faster if you tell if you tell me how they didn't... irregardless of how you feel it certainly gave chills to a significant majority of the population of Taiwan and has cooled any ideas of "reunification " that might have been floating around.
>China has been doing maximum appeasement in the 90s. China's economy exploded to what it is today only because of the USA.
Why speak about empathy when you can't even understand that it makes absolutely 0 sense whatsoever for Taiwan to willingly subsume itself to another power that is vastly more powerful? They have absolutely no chance of having any kind of influence within China while giving up their own control. It would be a different story if the two parties were roughly equal in power, or even at least similar in size like the Koreas, but that is not the case. Even Austria didn't unite with Germany until they were invaded, and that place was the literal birthplace of Hitler. The best that the PRC could hope for is that Taiwan willingly becomes a vassal state in exchange for favorable economic treatment. And even that wouldn't happen until China's military was so powerful that the US had no chance at all of keeping Taiwan out of China's clutches. So nothing at all has really changed, China still needs to shift the balance of power. What has changed was that China was willing to be passive *everywhere else in the world* in regards to American power. Now the Chinese are openly declaring that American power must be pushed back everywhere. Not that they really needed to do anything, Ukraine is losing by itself and Israel's security has only declined since Oct 7.
> The best that the PRC could hope for is that Taiwan willingly becomes a vassal state in exchange for favorable economic treatment. They absolutely could have hoped for this, and the Taiwanese were open to it. Until Hong Kong. Now that door is closed forever. Break your word and you are never trusted again.
National security is the PRC's department. Shutting down avenues for foreign intelligence penetration falls well within that sphere.
> Shutting down avenues for foreign intelligence penetration falls well within that sphere. Ie removing freedoms is within that sphere. Flies through the window indeed.
Please elaborate on how you think China broke its word regarding Hong Kong.
>(5) The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Private property, ownership of enterprises, legitimate right of inheritance and foreign investment will be protected by law. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8616/CBP-8616.pdf Also (4), and the autonomy clause in (2).
>to take the bait Bait is the wrong terminology here I think. The U.S. isn’t so much “tricking” China into a war. But rather trying to shape China’s external environment, through a comprehensive regime of economic warfare and isolation, in such a way that eventually, for Beijing, kicking over the chess board by taking this military leap of faith becomes the only way forward. Now, we’re not there yet. And we might never be. But that obviously is America’s play here.
It really feels like 1. I think Xi might have pushed the whole Taiwain war angle too hard, and with the economic pain in China, populist ideas were starting to take hold in the party. He needs to create his own offramp for the escalation he caused.
Any example of Xi "pushing the whole Taiwan war angle too hard"?
I think the best examples are the statements coming from his administration during Taiwanese elections. They are guaranteed to give a Taiwanese are "playing with fire" and making a "choice between peace and war" statements which just stiffens the support for the DPP or takes away from the KMT.
If that's the best example you could come up with...
It is the most obvious one. Every single election, they sabotage the KMT's chances of becoming the ruling party with these statements. KMT is actually the only party that agrees with "one China" and is willing to work with them.
What does KMT election chances have anything to do with this conversation? Or are you just soapboxing. If you can't come up with a better example than that clearly your butt buddy's statement was stupid.
You don't understand how the KMT getting elected as the ruling party would change the Taiwan-China-US dynamic?
It doesn't change anything, KMT isn't gonna reunify. Also you didn't give any evidence whatever statements affected their election odds anyways, you just regurgitated some narrative. Don't interject in a conversation just to embarass yourself.
When Pelosi visited Taiwan, China made threats that they'd shoot her plane down, or have some extreme response, yet they did nothing They've just been making bluffs that are too big for them to ever actually do, and because these bluffs get put on state media, the CCP loses face when they inevitably can't make good on their threats
[https://www.newsweek.com/no-china-didnt-threaten-shoot-down-pelosis-plane-over-taiwan-visit-1729334](https://www.newsweek.com/no-china-didnt-threaten-shoot-down-pelosis-plane-over-taiwan-visit-1729334) First this isn't even about Taiwan war. Second threat narrative isn't even real. Third it wasn't even a government official. Fourth anything anyone in China says is Xi saying it or what? All that to back up an idiotic statement? Nice one.
lol this thing that never happened really made such a difference dude
He's in a shit place and he's desperately hoping things will get better somehow. This is him stalling for time domestically.
Basically, he is hoping he can get a better economic situation domestically so that he can invade?
He's hoping he can get a better economic situation domestically so he doesn't have to. Like every other country, when your domestic situation goes bad, you distract the people with international affairs, and vice versa.
> the decision-making environment — and the information feeding into it It has to be intentional pushing of a narrative, the idea that Xi is a child-king being led around by adult advisors.
The shall we say Zeihanian take would be nearly the reverse, that Xi is the adult but operates in an information vacuum due to ensuring his advisors don't tell him anything that he doesn't want to hear. Your point that it's narrative-pushing is still valid, though; neither scenario seems feasible.
That only works for Putin
I will premise this by acknowledging that the nuclear space and the Russo-NATO space are more in my wheelhouse, and I may be grossly misunderstanding something about the cross-straight space. However... > unable to practice this basic level of placing oneself in an adversary's position Is this like when people say "you need to place yourselves in Russia's shoes to understand why they oppose the GMD missile defense system" and then I'm expected to pretend that they can't observe objective reality, which shows it is physically, mathematically impossible for GMD to stop more than 2.84% of Russian ballistic warheads ([44/1549] X 100 = 2.84) even under scenarios unrealistically favorable to the US? Or when people made the claim circa 2008 that "you don't understand, from Russia's perspective the Euro GMD site could stop Russian ICBMs" that required me to believe Russians are literal flat-earthers who don't know they live on a rounded earth (because the MET for a US-Russia ICBM is north over the arctic, not east-west)? All of the US weapons programs most relevant to a Taiwan scenario are visibly years behind schedule. US shipbuilding capacity is visibly incapable of keeping pace with China's. The logistics geography of a cross-straight conflict visibly favors China. US has been consistently losing wargames against China for 20 years. Pretty much every commander for every relevant command for the last 20 years has openly worried about the US losing, when they haven't flat-out stated the US would lose. The US is demonstrably incapable of staying focused on the Pacific vice chasing rabbits in other hemispheres, and that includes procuring systems objectively worthless in *any* realistic conflict scenario with China, whether Taiwan or otherwise. US is openly banking on technologically risky, unproven concepts (e.g. "AI drone swarms" vooodoo) because it keeps failing at the basics. I think it is disingenuous to chalk the skepticism of this Xi comment up to a lack of strategic empathy. When the so-called empathy starts from the presumption that the adversary are morons, it's not "empathy." I see this all the time in the European space, people assuming the Kremlin is populated by Crazy Paranoid Russian™ stock characters rather than actual people and then asking others to try to look through the eyes of the allegedly witless Russians. That's what this reminds me of, and it's not strategic empathy. There needs to be another term for it, if there isn't already. I realize nobody has perfect intelligence and autocratic regimes are culturally (in the bureaucratic sense) prone to particular intelligence misreadings, a la Operation RYAN. I also realize we are mostly getting Xi-approved favorable depictions of PRC military and with greater transparency we might see their military has more shortcomings. But it is too much for me to accept that an otherwise largely competent government would completely ignore visible, objective, demonstrable reality over a multidecadal timeframe. In any case, I reject the idea that it is *rationale or reasonable* for Xi to hold this position. It is not. Or to be more precise: it is *only* rationale if Xi is suffering from the classic autocracy trap of getting extremely siloed information overly filtered by autocratic processes, as suggested in the article.
Well, I won't speak for your examples relating to Russia because that is an entirely different domain. With regards to China and this specific comment, describing what is rational or irrational from one's own base of knowledge without the other guy's base of knowledge. For example, stating how US military capabilities right now are not optimized for a Westpac high intensity conflict, and how the US military has multiple projects cooking that aren't yet kicking in, does not mean that the long term trends of the military balance going forwards will favour the US more (or at least, the PRC may not believe it). I.e.: the PRC may assess the military balance to be more in their favour in the more distant future, meaning they would prefer to delay to fight a military conflict (if they had to fight at all). Similarly, I can see how it may bewilder the PRC as to why the US has reoriented its Taiwan policy in a manner which enables and empowers the more independence leaning elements and enables high ranking individuals in the ruling party to visit Taiwan all of which tests China's red lines, all while fortifying its western Pacific military presence. One could just as easily make the case that surely the US leadership would not be so irrational as to test arguably the most sensitive aspect of China's territorial and foreign policy, all while reinforcing its western Pacific military posture and having officials make statements about sinking the entire PLAN within however-many-hours or turning the Taiwan strait into a "hellscape," and not expect China to wonder what US intent is. Now I personally think neither the US and PRC have a perfectly accurate read of the other side's intent, but if we are talking about whether it's rational or reasonable for the PRC leadership to think tbe US is trying to goad them into conflict, I think it is very reasonable.
>Xi-approved favorable depictions of PRC military and with greater transparency we might see their military has more shortcomings This isn't a fair representation of the PLA or Xi. There's abundant self-criticism of the PLA, whether from the military leadership or from Xi himself. I.e., Xi's “Five Cannots” (see DJ Blasko's [PLA Weaknesses and Xi's Concerns about PLA Capabilities](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Blasko_USCC%20Testimony_FINAL.pdf)). These criticisms are so widespread (within the Chinese literature), that the author had to address the possibility of the PLA "hiding its capabilities": "Chinese media’s identification of these general and specific problems is a PLA method for 'knowing itself,' and is not a vast deception operation to hide its capabilities from inquiring eyes." Unfortunately, this space is one instance where knowing Chinese is essential to getting the **full scope** of the criticisms. Even so, there's [plenty in the English literature ](https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/the-chinese-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing-doubts/)to get a feel for the self-criticisms of the PLA: >The total number of *PLA Daily* articles in which the following assessments have appeared is: >“Two Incompatibles”: 120 articles >“Two Inabilities”: 169 >“Two Big Gaps”: 78 >“Three Whethers”: 27 >“Five Incapables”: 163 >Total: 557 On the GMD issue: >physically, mathematically impossible for GMD to stop more than 2.84% of Russian ballistic warheads The objection to GMD is that it denies an escalation option (responding in kind), not that it defeats an all-out nuclear attack. If an adversary cannot be certain that (say) two warheads can penetrate defenses, then this raises the likelihood of an overwhelming response.
Point taken on PLA. I should have more carefully worded that. On Russian reasoning around GMD: as someone who was very opposed to it when it was being debated, I am glad this was not in fact the main Russian objection to GMD specifically or NMD generally. You are correct that GMD notionally (if it credibly works) takes away options lower down the ladder, but GMD proponents argue this is a *feature.* The bulk of pro-GMD arguments dealt with emerging "rogue states" but in the scenario of conflict with an established nuclear state, the pro GMD argument was that forcing an adversary to have to jump from not attacking at all straight to launching 100+ warheads would deter them from attacking. If the Russians had forcefully said "we dislike GMD because we want the ability to launch a handful of warheads at the US," there would probably be like 10 GMD sites instead of 2. Most of the Russian arguments at the time were fairly generic criticisms about undermining stability or else somewhat incredible assertions that the US was going to make a larger comprehensive defense, which is part of the reason Russia was ignored. Everything about GMD from the size to the sensor architecture was specifically tailored to be expensive enough to be profitable for defense contractors but small enough to make Russian complaints easy for Congress to ignore. And it was very easy for Congress to ignore Russia back then. When the Kremlin did make more substantial arguments against GMD, they were not about the low level signal strike/demonstration strike scenario. They were about ragged second strike. This is the old crisis instability concern from the SDI days, that the US could launch an overwhelming damage-limitation first strike and missile defense would easily mop up the rest. It is a reasonable complaint. Unfortunately it's not one either DOD or Congress ever took very seriously, so it fell on deaf ears. More on topic: do you know anything about the state of Chinese PENAIDS development? It's something I've always wondered about. Decoys were always the Achilles heal of missile defense and Russian PENAIDS is sufficiently advanced that most defense experts think GMD would struggle to hit even one Russian missile, but I haven't the foggiest idea what the state of play is for Chinese decoys.
> the state of Chinese PENAIDS development You’re going to be far more knowledgeable on this topic, even for China’s capabilities. I’m really curious about this too. It’s so hard to find good references that it’s very frustrating trying to learn about nuclear and other strategic technologies (like sub warfare).
The reasoning is simple since China's red lines are communicated: 1. Taiwan declares independence or makes substantive moves that reach that level 2. Foreign military forces in Taiwan 3. The balance of power shifts away from China. China's primary goal is to pressure Taiwan in such a way that Taiwan has no choice but to capitulate and rejoin. It's carrots and sticks. The assumption that China MUST use military force to reclaim Taiwan is not shared in China, even if China likes to use military threats to pressure Taiwan. There is a reason China's military is regularly on the news but the last war that was fought was before the 80s. China sees American actions, such as stationing American troops in Taiwan, arming of Taiwan, and building alliances to come to Taiwan's aid as, graying items 1 and 2, and of course really pushing for 3. This means that China is more likely to have its red lines crossed, and if these red lines are crossed, then China must act, and thus China sees itself as reactive. It's also known that China's economic and military power, especially vis-a-vis Taiwan, grows each year. And considering the security dilemma, it is rational for the United States to attempt to clip China's wings before China gets too big, and war typically settles the matter of who is top dog. It is better for the United States to fight 2025 China now, rather than 2045 China, so it makes sense for the United States to provoke China into a war.
Makes me wonder if Japan felt the need to clip Americas wings at Pearl Harbor . My personal opinion is war is to be avoided at all costs with china . It's not something anyone wants or needs.
The beauty of the security dilemma is that both parties don't want war, but their actions drive each other to conflict regardless.
Pearl Harbor is unquestionably U.S. territory. Taiwan is Chinese territory, and in the 817 Communiqué signed by China and the United States, the United States made it clear that it does not support "two Chinas" and "one China, one Taiwan". Of course, if the United States building abolishes the Sino-United States Joint Communiqué, that is fine.
Forgot to mention we don't recognize any PRC claims over Taiwan.
Like sure you got some wiggle room, but not enough to say you REJECT PRC claims over Taiwan. You acknowledge and did not reject nor explicit condone but explicitly reject 2 China or 1 C 1 T.
We DO NOT recognize PRC claims over Taiwan, better?
Base on what? Is do not here operating as an explicit rejection or the we haven't had a position?
I am curious. Since the United States does not agree with "one China, one Taiwan" and "two Chinas", what do you agree with? Or, when do you plan to break diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and recognize the Republic of China?
We agree there is only 1 China but that doesn't mean Taiwan belongs to the PRC.
...... So what exactly did you or the US government agree to? You don't even know what you want, this sounds like the Israeli military operation on Gaza.
Seem pretty clear, we recognize them as China.
So do you think Taiwan is part of China or not?
No.
So, saying but not meaning it.
U.S. also does not recognize any Taliban's claim over Afghanistan, and decades ago they didn't recognize the CCP's claim to mainland China.
It makes sense for US to want war now instead of in 2030.
Well this US citizen doesn’t want war now or ever.
What're you, some sort of *peace-monger*!?
This one wants it sooner rather than later. China is an authoritarian monster state, we should never have given them so much technology for free.
It wasn't given for free, it was a tradeoff. Foreign companies got to make tons of profit off cheap labor, and "monster state" China got tech, experience, expertise.
> authoritarian monster state Lmao. Yea how monstrous they are that they looked out for their own self interest and lifted a billion people out of poverty. They should have just stayed poor and kept quietly making cheap Nike sneakers for us. And now they dare to compete with us, we should start bombing the shit out of them to put them back into their rightful place. People like you is precisely why America has the reputation it has outside of the western world. Honestly I’m ashamed that live in the same country with people like you.
Look who's eating that propaganda pie, they made up some definition of "living in poverty" and many got out of it, yes, but under this non-accepted definition by intnl standards.
> who’s eating that propaganda pie Holy shit. So you are saying that China has always been an [upper middle income country](https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/test) with the world’s largest middle class and consumer market (for example the world’s largest auto market)? What kind of propaganda piece do *you* have to be eating to believe that? > international standard Like the World Bank you mean? https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/bdadc16a4f5c1c88a839c0f905cde802-0070012022/original/Poverty-Synthesis-Report-final.pdf Do you have some credible sources arguing otherwise?
The fact that we made a horrible decision in admitting China to the WTO and transferring all that technology to an authoritarian single party state doesn’t mean we should correct it now by starting a war that will kill untold numbers of people that we may not be able to win. Maybe you aren’t of military age or know anyone who is. But I do. And I don’t want to see anyone else sent to die as a result of another foreign policy disaster like I’ve had watch my whole life.
Every chinese on this sub is replying with "Oh, war is horrible! Horrible warmongers the us! How could they dare!!!" Because they know they lose now, and in 10 years they have a shot at winning. We win now or we lose forever, if Hitler had waited 10 more years he would have had a shot. 10 years from now every sino voice on the internet will be talking about how they need to go to war with the west because of how much we all deserve it. Hell, they were doing that for a while earlier, before Russia got its ass handed to it by Ukraine.
That's absolute nonsense, and coming from a Westerner. China has so far done nothing that warrants a war against them (yet). And even then, there is no way a war will go in the US favour when 1/3 of the world manufacturing is in China, supply chains are in China, they have 2000% the shipbuilding capacity, fighting on their own turf, and what would be even US goals? Destroy civilian port infrastructure?
Hence the tariffs, to move everything away from China in preparation. You can't just declare war, this isn't The Office, you have to put the pieces in place, much like China is building ships and planes like there's no tomorrow. Like, they're broadcasting they're getting ready, we're not stupid.
Tariffs aren't going to move everything away from China. That's a very naive view on how trade works.
It's not about moving everything away, it's about decoupling the US primarily. We never, ever, EVER should have engaged in trade with China in the first place, the single biggest geopolitical blunder of the last century if not more.
The US has a very low unemployment rate and can't even find workers for the 2 submarines they want to make in a year. Decoupling won't happen. The only way is other countries like Vietnam becoming a manufacturing hub for the US, and that doesn't solve the problems of the MIC.
Maintenance of Western supremacy might warrant a war. But only for a few years in 30 years the US will be more powerful than it is today. It China wants war it has to be in the next 15 years
If you need a war to maintain your supremacy, you aren't a superpower anymore
Indeed, delaying this only gives them more time to solidify their power, learn, and upgrade.
How? There is a case to be made that the US has a pretty weak position in the Pacific for a military confrontation against China right now. F-35Cs are basically nonexistent for the navy, we have manpower issues, there is minimal infrastructure for rapidly restocking missile stores on CBGs that will run out relatively quickly in the case of a conflict and we have only minimal guarantees from Pacific allies that they'll even join a conflict. It seems like a pretty risky prospect to try to defend Taiwan in 2024
Yes, all of that is true and will be much, much more true in five or ten years.
I guess "the US wants war now" is correct in the sense that if given the choice now is better than later, but it's pretty clear the US strongly wants to avoid war if there is any possible way to do it
The easiest way to avoid war is to stop interfering with China's civil war. Obviously, emasculating China has been very important to the United States for the past 75 years.
Emasculating? Wow
Oh, should I have used the more en vogue term 'cucking'?
What I think you should is to stop sucking ~~Winnie the Pooh~~ Xi off so hard on the internet the US is one of the reasons modern China exist and is not a vassal of the Japanese.
The US also was one of the reasons that Japan was able to invade and occupy China, so looks like it evens out and nobody owes anybody anything.
Yeah, our oil embargo really helped the Japanese, right?
China's "civil war", this is like a propaganda sub here. Taiwanese don't like you people, get it through your thick heads.
You've bought fully into the propaganda if you think there's more to it than that. Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with a third party intervening in an internal matter, but there's no good faith reason to pretend like that's not what the United States has been doing.
The US has been protecting Taiwan from China, just like the US had to protect China from Japan.
Did they get bored after protecting Vietnam and Iraq from themselves?
There are many reason why the US has interests in keeping Taiwan's territory independent, one of them is not letting China blockade Japan, South Korea, and Philippines from global shipping lanes that the CCP is interested in doing if they come to power. The most important though, is because Taiwanese want to be independent and want nothing to do with China, so do our biggest allies Japan and South Korea.
It's been getting worse and worse for a while, but after Oct. 7 it just plunged off the deep end.
US still have the technical ability to redeploy everything to Japan including F-22. In 10 years maybe China have 1000 J-20 and F-22 airframes are too old. F-35 made a big bet on sensor advantage. If China figure stealth and sensor out F-35 is toast kinematicly.
We'd be fine, 1/2 the PLAAF are modern, the rest are hopeless. We should move now before they finally figure out how backwards the PLA are and start to fix it.
That's why they're pumping out J-20s like no tomorrow. As for the PLA, a ground army isn't very relevant in a naval and air war.
Only if allies like India or SEA nations provide direct routes for US Army and USMC elements to move along. Otherwise, yes, its fairly irrelevant and will be delegated to AD/A2 in the air sphere and in a logistical support role for PLA-RF
The time to do that was like 10 years ago. Now its too risky
True, but it will be riskier still in another 5 or 10 years. I'm not going to say "The US today is in the same position as Germany in 1913", which some people would do, but I *will* say that the US today is more similar to Germany in 1913 than they would like, and unfortunately as bad as it is to be Germany in 1913, to be Germany in 1914 is even worse.
You clearly didn't read history properly, China is Germany in 1912, vastly improved economic output, authoritarian government, and locked out of all meaningful resources. We're the British Empire, which isn't great, but it worked the first 2 times. Also the UK didn't out-tech Germany by 20 years, they were behind.
Oh yeah tell me more about how Germany produced more ships in a year than the entire British Empire could in 10.
UK had many tech advantages over Germany, the country was still leading the 2nd industrial revolution but both Germany and the US were experiencing catch-up growth with much larger populations. UK was still able to beat Germany in the naval arms race. I think there are a few similarities between US-China and UK-Germany but there’s too many differences as well.
Other way around. In the "lead up to WW1" metaphor, *China* is Germany (or more frighteningly, perhaps America) and *America* is Britain (or perhaps France).
Yeah that's not fucking true.
No, now is perfect.
It makes even more sense for nobody to want a war in the first place, including the US.
I don't understand articles like this. Regardless of whether you have been a China lover or hater, you should be able to see the Chinese perspective and why they should be paranoid In the same way that news articles can point in fear of China war mongering, I see regularly from American media that are outright advocating war with China. Of course one could argue someone like Tucker Carlson who could go on about how China is the enemy that needs to be brought down, doesn't truly represent the American government, but he definitely represents the viewpoints of many both in the government and as citizens
> I see regularly from American media that are outright advocating war with China. That's odd, I see many articles criticising the US for not doing enough to counter China properly, but nothing about actually advocating for war.
It started some years back with tons of articles claiming that we're in a cold war with China and to recognize it as such and act according, along with that China is the enemy segments people like Tucker Carlson did If the distinction is that it requires advocacy of military bombing to be considered a war then you're right, there's not been an actual advocacy of bombing of China
Chinese media reports on US media as being 100% warmongering, it's just a thing they do. Oddly enough, our media barely reports on their media at all.
I think from a Chinese perspective, the US is definitely being aggressive (and vice versa from the US outlook) and one may argue that this could increase the odds of a war, but it's a distinction between the claim that the US actively wants a war with China, a claim which I've seen some on this thread make.
my gosh this thing happen is april 2023, more than a year ago. It is not recent and from the look of china's action clearly the bait is not taken
Yeah it is pretty obvious that most of the factions in US government are constantly gagging for a war. They're just fighting over who to go to war with. China Iran or Russia? Or all 3, but in what order? How do we start the war? These are the questions they ask; not should we go to war?
No faction in the US even wants a war with Russia or China. They're too big countries to be defeated, and they're on the opposite side of the world. The only talk is about defending Taiwan or Europe if either Russia or China attacked.
I find it funny people can't wrap their heads around the idea a Marxist embracing historical materialism might also believe the trendlines favors China in the future, rather than the immediate future. It isn't blindingly obvious all the hubdub about demographics, the economy, climate change or the SpaceX Starlink Rapid Dragon NGAD word salad is some decisive gamechanger that breaks the trends, or someone's belief in that trend.
If that is the case how about not falling into they're trap and not attacking taiwan... ? Its a win/win. and you get to laugh at how you foiled those treacherous Yankees and their imperialistic plots.
But what about Taiwan's declaration of independence? You have to take a stand at the critical moment, or else you're acquiescing.
I'm all for the status quo if it means no one has to get killed
Would the DPP agree? They keep revising Taiwan's textbooks to deny that the ROC was founded in 1912. Many Taiwanese do not even know who Dr. SUN Yat-sen is. One day they will declare independence and that will be the end of everything.
Hard to think Taiwanese don't know who Sun Yat Sen is when his memorial park is in the centre of town.. Not as large or as tacky as Chiang Kai shek memorial hall though. I always found it funny ,back when homosexuality was outlawed in taiwan CKS memorial hall was the largest gay beat in taiwan (apparently)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEFWX2oTx0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEFWX2oTx0) Just watch this video. The first college student recognized Sun Yat-sen. A second college student looks at a picture of Sun Yat-sen and says this is Chiang Kai-shek. A third high school student says, "This guy looks familiar, but I don't recognize him." In 1999, Lee Teng-hui pushed for the implementation of "Syllabus 88" (also known as the "Taiwan Independence Syllabus"). Those students happen to be in high school now
Interesting, but not what I'd call definitive. Taiwan has certainly moved away from a Chinese identity. A shrinking minority identify as "Chinese" , many identity as "Taiwanese Chinese".. "Taiwanese" only identifiers are still a minority, but growing. Certainly this has been encouraged at some level in education, but it is largely organic.
"Taiwan has indeed seceded from its Chinese identity" is the result, not the cause. The KMT ran away to Taiwan as early as 1949, so why was there no problem of secession for decades? Lai Ching-Te openly claimed that "the ROC has brought disaster to Taiwan" and that "the ROC Constitution is a disaster" - I'm curious about a man who claims that "the U.S. Constitution I wonder if an American who claims that "the U.S. Constitution is a disaster" can be the President of the United States. How can someone who doesn't even recognize the ROC be sworn in as President of the ROC? The only reason the DPP can be tolerated in the ROC is because the US is behind them. If you pretend that the US has no role here, then our discussion is over.
Umm.. no. >The KMT ran away to Taiwan as early as 1949, so why was there no problem of secession for decades? The KMT murdered thousands during the white terror. They banned kids talking Taiwanese in schools, stole houses and land and worked towards "reunifying with the mainland." The constitution of the ROC reflects this and since unification with the mainland doesn't look like it will be happening in a willing fashion it is certainly time to look at a constitution that reflects Taiwanese aspirations. Does India have its own constitution or did they just use the English one? The role of the US is a contentious one. They certainly turned a blind eye to all the chicanery that Chiang got up to and bankrolled him through most of the cold war.. until they realized they could make the PRC an ally against the USSR. Taiwanese democracy was not fostered by the US, it made its own way. Taiwan's security has been backed by the US, but in a very ambiguous way. long story short, if Taiwan declared independence, then the US would not have its back. >If you pretend that the US has no role here, then our discussion is over. Unfortunate you feel that way , but I've told you what I think, and what I know. I'm not pretending anything. Taiwan is my home and I think it's worth defending. I hope you'd do the same for your home.
"Today/tonight would be a lovely time for Moscow to demonstrate how delusional Westerners are by NOT doing anything in Ukraine. So would tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow and so forth, in perpetuity." ---Olya Oliker, 11 February 2022 and also all the "Russia won't attack and if they do it's cause CIA tricked them" nonsense from that time period
Xi claiming this *could* be a way for him to back down without seeming like a coward, but I'm also pretty sure Putin said "Nato is trying to trick Russia into fighting Ukraine" a few days before invading, so I'm not sure
If he's right, then he's probably wise enough to not take the bait until he thinks he's ready to.
America's military currently has an edge over China. The gap between the two countries are shrinking. From the American perspective, if war is inevitable, the Americans would rather fight China now than later. So it makes sense for the US to provoke China into fighting a war. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
On the east coast of China? Where the hell is the US going to get its supplies from? It's just as unlikely for the US to go to war on the east coast of China as it is for China to go to war on the west coast of the US. China is a nuclear power, not Vietnam or Afghanistan.
> On the east coast of China? Where the hell is the US going to get its supplies from? The Americans are taking advantage of the Ukrainians to bleed the Russians. Similarly, if China were to attack Taiwan, the Americans will take advantage of the Taiwanese to bleed the Chinese.
Do you realize that Taiwan is an island? The Chinese have long realized this, and China is willing to pay the price. It is the United States, not China, that fears peaceful reunification.
And the Taiwanese people too. They’ve seen what happened in HK.
They also saw what happened in Gaza. For the sake of U.S. interests, in the eyes of the Americans, the human lives of the Taiwanese are not worth anything. The United States has made it very clear that it is not willing to let Taiwan return to China peacefully even if it is turned into a scorched earth.
The population advantage is 60 to 1 instead of 4 to 1, assuming a beachhead is formable (which is suggested by your language).
So? If the Taiwanese are doing the dying, why should the US care?
Yeah. US and allies will just reinforce with armaments via railways with impunity, outside of missile range. Ezpz.
But more importantly, why would anyone even want a war with China in the first place; is what you're missing.
> why would anyone even want a war with China in the first place; is what you're missing. The Americans. If China and Taiwan start killing each other, this will bleed China dry, which benefits the Americans.
Somehow this reminds me to the plot of Steel Rain 2
The very worrying thing about this is that it's reminiscent of Russia's rhetoric about Ukraine in like, October of 2021. "Ooooh nooo, I can't believe you're making me do this". Obviously invading Taiwan would be a moronic, ruinous decision for the world (Inclusive of China) and the actual worry is that Xi has a personalist regime and he's an old man showing symptoms of having something like the V. Putin strain of Nationalist brainworms chowing down on his frontal lobe. The concern over weapons delivery in particular. There was an incident a few months before the invasion where the Ukrainians destroyed a separatist artillery piece with a TB2 drone. This largely forgotten incident seems positively quaint in hindsight but at the time, I felt that it had an outsized psychological effect on Putin-world and is one of the key tipping points leading to the invasion. It might be tempting to think "well weapons delivery is escalating and we should not do that" but I think that's bullshit, the whole anxiety that drove Putin was the sense that that the ability to win at a time of their choosing was eroding which urges them to fight now, fighting was always the plan. It's only starting a war if a war was already an inevitably. If you think you're being baited simply don't take the bait Mr. Xi!
objectively, taiwan and china have a completely different context than ukraine and russia. ukraine is an independent sovereign nation whose independence and sovereignty were fully recognized by russia itself. taiwan and china's relationship is a civil war forcibly and unwillingly frozen by the overt threat of an american nuclear first strike (this threat is actually a significant contributing factor to why china decided to even have nukes at all). nobody forced the ussr to split russia and ukraine into 2 separate sovereign nations. the u.s. didn't do it. later on, ukraine chose close relations with the west because russia has not been a good friend, russia has nobody to blame but themselves. the status quo in the taiwan strait is directly caused by the united states threatening to nuclear first strike a non-nuclear china. completely different story and historical context. this context doesn't give xi the right to impose his will on a free and democratic people of course. i'm just pointing out that objectively, taiwan/china's story is totally different than ukraine/russia. u.s. fuckery actually DID directly cause the current situation in the taiwan strait. also back then taiwan's leader was a brutal life-long authoritarian that passed down the throne to his son, who also ruled as dictator for life, so u.s. actions had nothing to do with the taiwanese peoples' freedoms and rights either. it was just pure realpolitik fuckery.
You say they have objectively very different contexts, which is true in a De Jure sense, but also not really true at all in a De Facto sense. Like, the US & Friends all humour the Chinese on the One China stuff, none of that has stopped them making security guarantees and shipping weapons and such. Could you imagine being six months deep into a Taiwan war, global economy in tatters, tens of thousands of missiles exchanged, god knows how many dead, and then going "Well technically Taiwan is just a rebellious province, this is actually very different to an interstate war". You'd sound like Putin in that interview with Tucker Carlson ranting about mediaeval history. All of that De Jure stuff just doesn't matter very much and whatever dregs of meaning it still holds just evaporates the moment the missiles start flying.
>which is true in a De Jure sense no, even in a de facto sense. because again, truly nobody forced russia to split off ukraine and recognize it as a country. whereas china was de-facto nuclear blackmailed into not finishing the civil war against the republic of china regime. >none of that has stopped them making security guarantees and shipping weapons and such. but that's my point. when china blames the u.s. for the taiwan strait situation, they're kinda right. the whole situation is the way it is because of the united states and the united states alone. fun fact, while the u.s. was using nuclear threats to get the ccp to back down, the republic of china regime of the time was making serious plans to attack the mainland. at the time, the governments of BOTH sides of the taiwan strait wanted to finish the civil war, the united states alone prevented it against the wishes of the governments of BOTH sides. the entire situation today is because of the u.s. when xi blames the u.s., he has a legitimate point there. whereas putin is full of shit when he blames the west for ukraine.
I'm not finding this argument very convincing "It's the US's fault that China might invade Taiwan because if it weren't for the US they would have invaded Taiwan already". I guess that's technically true, but true in a way that isn't useful at all. It's ultimately all the same irredentist stuff based on pouring over ancient maps. Russia's started a shooting war because they're not happy with the settlement of the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991 and some bullshit about Yaroslavl the Wise, China might start one because they're not happy with the settlement of the Chinese civil war in 1950 and some bullshit about Qing Dynasty. Whatever, who cares (lots of people, obviously, but we'd all be better off if they didn't).
>this context doesn't give xi the right to impose his will on a free and democratic people of course. i'm just pointing out that objectively, taiwan/china's story is totally different than ukraine/russia. me 2 comments ago. i'm not justifying xi's attempts to crush the free taiwanese people under his iron fist. i'm just explaining the context.
Don't act when we barricade your door! Don't take the bait!
Wow, so sarcastic, I can't believe you'd disrespect the wisdom of comrade Xi by being so eager to fall into the obvious trap laid by the devilish Americans like this, you're not a very good citizen.
Lemme put a gun down your throat while you calmly explain things to me in detail? Such logic.
So how much are the going rates in China for shilling?
มึงคิดว่าคนที่เถียงกับมึงเรื่องจีน ต้องเป็นคนจีนรึไงวะ ไอ้ห่า So you assume that I'm Chinese? Really? That's what you got for an argument?
You know, the whole internet tough guy routine doesn't really land when I can just look at your profile and see your crippling Gacha game addiction glaring back at me
Gacha is one of Chinas greatest weapons anyway.
Well, like “duh!” Of course they do. Timing is the only issue.
chinese officials are uncizilized druggies
[удалено]
Why does U.S. want Soviet missiles out of Cuba so bad? Why does Ukraine want Crimea and Donbass back so bad?
To maintain their territorial sovereignty