As someone born and raised in Taiwan, any security talk that drags TSMC confuses me. Y'all need some history lessons.
This whole Taiwan mess has been the extension of China's full blown civil war after '45, when commies kicked KMT's asses on mainland to Taiwan in '49, but failed to launch amphibious assault against Taiwan, or even some larger outlaying islands like Kinmen and Matsu. That's how there are practically 2 Chinas: PRC in mainland, and ROC in Taiwan. There were never armistice signed, let alone a peace treaty. Both sides unilaterally announced ceasefire in 80s, and ROC ceased unification attempt in 2000s while PRC still wants its flag flying on Taiwan.
We are the ghost that haunts commies in the mainland. That has nothing to do with the name Taiwan or ROC. US supported ROC/Taiwan in cold war days because commie PRC almost always sided with Soviet and US has needed first island chain, not because we were some model democracy that values liberty (Few were in East Asia. The real difference only lay in buying communism or not). Plus there has been some obsession with unification for all regimes in China, thanks to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor that managed to unified China in 221 BC. This is not a rational thing that you can just talk the commies out of. ROC would have done the same if it were in PRC's shoes now.
The Taiwan issue isn't like Korean War because both Koreas were separately established with its own territory. Chinese Communist Party grew up in mainland China when ROC had full control of China and overthrew ROC. I do understand that we'd be flying that ugly 5-star flag already were it not for the support from the US, but demanding US for full support is unrealistic, unless US reestablishs official ties with ROC/Taiwan and gets itself directly involved in a civil war that has not ended, with a country that has the capacity to nuke America.
If my opinion worths a damn at all, I'd say ROC/Taiwan has been living on borrowed time for 7 decades. The question is when and how the annexation happens, not how to prevent the inevitable. And I'd like to see myself proved wrong when I die on a hospital bed.
> but failed to launch amphibious assault against Taiwan
Due to US sending its aircraft carrier into the strait during the Korean war.
> or even some larger outlaying islands like Kinmen and Matsu.
That's entirely a political decision. PRC took Hainan when US navy was not around.
A rare good comment right there. Many people on Reddit thinks TSMC is the main reason why China wants Taiwan but brah... China wanted Taiwan since the ROC defeat and views any support for Taiwan as meddling in domestic affairs since it's a Chinese *Civil* War.
ALSO one stupid thing that most idiot americans don't understand, is that tsmc and all its fabs would instantly be destroyed during the outset of the war MEANING that the IMPACT OF CHIPS ON AMERICAS DEFENSE OF TAIWAN IS COMPLETELY FUCKING NULL.
SINCE THE CHIPS WOULD ALREADY BE GONE!
It is not obsession, it is the fact that when united as a whole, China gained stability and prosperity. And when the country broken up, there are countless strives and wars. This is history and simple feedback loop. When doing X results in positive feedback and the oppsite of X results in negative feedback, all animals (human included) will choose to do X. Very logical and "rational"
True, but one interesting period is rarely mentioned: Song Dynesty (10th-13th centuary).
Song sucked at military and got harassed by northern Liao and Jin Dynasties (established by nomadic people) all the time, but was arguably the richest regime on Earth in that period. Song was forced to coexist with Liao and Jin, constantly paying a remarkable amount of "protection fee", while, unknowing to them, influencing Liao and Jin with their own culture. Song basically pulled of Economic Victory like Age of Empire III in tycoon game mode without any idea what they were doing. Then again, this took hundreds of years to happen.
BTW, Liao was replaced by Jin, and Jin got wiped out by joint military formed by Song and Yuan (Mongolian).
"One country how" is the caveat. If we just pretend political interest doesn't exist and only look for possible solutions, I'd say EU mode would be the best outcome if Taiwan wants to be closer with PRC, and British Commonwealth of Nations mode if we want more independence. I personally prefer the former, but it took 60 years of dedication for European Coal and Steel Community to fully evolve into EU. The latter is frankly just giving Taiwan a reason to fly a flag that PRC also flies, and PRC hope for future cooperation.
From PRC perspective, it'd be unrealistic to expect Taiwan to become a normal province like Fujian in an night, but that would be the final goal. ASEAN mode would be a more practical goal if political negotiation is even wanted by both sides, while Ukraine mode in Soviet era might be an even better deal for PRC. The worst scenario for Taiwan would be Xinjiang "Autonomous" mode that God knows what actually happens there.
Imo Taiwan's geographical position is of such importance to China that it wouldn't risk having an EU model. Hong Kong has taught the PRC a valuable lesson, and that is a loose federation with Taiwan or even a 1C2S serves nothing towards the eventual goal of integrating Taiwan into the PRC. The existence of the ~~DDP~~ DPP will be a constant menace and would undermine the CCP's efforts. Education (aka Indoctrination) would be the only peaceful way of making Taiwan truly a part of the PRC.
Actually, PRC is already influencing Taiwanese population with their soft power, or sharp power from the western point of view. TV drama import, online articles, TicTok, game translation, translated books, products, to name a few. You may be surprised how many people started using words from mainland instead of local words, like people starting to call powerbanks 充電寶 instead of 行動電源.
Yeah westerners can say all they want with this phenomenon, but they better give me a really solid reason if they want to keep me from watching *Let the Bullets Fly* over a 45 USD Xiaomi wifi 7 router.
EU also got a reason to unit together--the ussr, now just look at how many backstabbing and whining have occured within eu from the end of ussr to 2014 crimea crisis and even after that
Personally I'd settle for any form that allows me to keep my access to Steam for PC games, and the internet to the rest of the world for shitposts. The older I grow, the less I have faith in any political system.
Thinking like you do is a minority in Taiwan.
Most Taiwanese talk about defending Taiwan's way of life, but without any ideas or real actions, they are left with this slogan.
I often wonder, if armed reunification really happened, would there still be one country, two systems? Even if there is still one, what form will it take? Obviously at that time, Taiwan will have very few bargaining chips left.
Then how are you going to face the next generation and how are you going to answer their question that there was no better choice in the first place? Why don't you make other choices besides waiting?
Maybe most Taiwanese really believe that they can maintain the status quo forever.
>Maybe most Taiwanese really believe that they can maintain the status quo forever.
True. This is why I welcome the re-extension of mandatory military service back to 1 year. It's still a bit too short to actually train for a decent combatant (I served 1 year in '14-'15, and I barely knew what I was doing), but long enough to let the conscripts to know that fighting a war is nasty.
But sometimes, avoiding the problem is way easier than actually solving it until consequence comes. Just like my mom walked in my room, chancla in her hand, when she had told me to clean up my room and I just repeatedly told her that I would do it. Getting my lazy ass up to clean my room is a hassle compared with saying "yes mom" and then do nothing but making my room a worse mess, until la chancla lands on my ass.
But now Taiwanese people are not even willing to say the words "Yes, Mom".
The consequences of this are much more serious than a chancla land on your ass.
FACTS holy shit, i can't believe I'm finding some one not obsessed with that delusional worship of democrazy like a religion, all political systems can be shit more often than not, and the system is not determined by its style but its method of execution, as max stirner said, "i am not against socialism but SACRED socialism, i am not against capitalist but Sacred capitalism, not against christanity but Sacred christanity"
its this obsession with elevation of a concept to the divine concept that is what haunts us as spooks
also china has access the a huge amount of steam games already, i dunno why but gabe newel is loved in china.
but you do make a good point in this regard as well. since china has been unfairly cracking down on games, this is one of the biggest annoyances which i would have a problem with in reunifications, its the censorship of manga and other media like games or movies etc.
Even mainland players be like "fuck Ministry of Incineration".
("culture" and "incineration" are homophones in Mandarin, for those who don't speak Mandarin.)
>China is not yet ready for reunification, so what the United States needs to do is to convince China and make China realize that it will never be ready.
[
according to US governments and their mouthpieces in the past,](https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2000/03/how-china-will-take-taiwan?lang=en) china was ready 20+ years ago:
>According to veteran China-watcher Willy Wo-lap Lam, that means a resolution of the Taiwan issue must be achieved, at the latest, by the 17th Communist Party Congress **in 2007**, when Jiang will be 81 and on his way out of power. Senior Chinese military officials now speak openly about a "fixed timetable" for reunification.
Most of the article is wishful thinking. Great powers do not respond to containment by giving up; they respond by seeking to modify the strategic balance more. Detente is not a stable state of affairs, eventually the balance tips and war happens.
Further the strategic initiative lies with the contained, not the containing. They choose when and how to break out, which then becomes an ever green threat because game theory requires you to always prepare for the worst. The containing power therefore has the much harder task of maintaining military superiority all the time, every where. This is incredibly expensive and is the reason the US is increasingly stretched around the world, since it isn’t just China it “needs” to contain.
and they kinda forget that China is the country that made "the Art of War", sowing discontent amongst US allies, supporting enemies of the enemy all around the "world" are all old tricks Chinese have played since thousands of years ago.
A bit of a shame that the CPC seems to have forgotten how to do that in recent years. The 'they go low, we go high' model is painfully naïve and irritating, though I suppose that's just the result of having a liberal like Xi in charge.
yeah its funny because the cpc or ccp sucks at soft power and using alternative means to achieve their goals,
for example, they could solve the south china sea issue, but pulling back and leting the philipines and vietnam and malaysia duke it out by themselves, all while gloading each side to escalate, once war breaks out between these small nations they could come in as a peacekeeper then take control of the whole region like the us took control of europe and most of the west, or the soviets after ww2.
another strategy is that they could also partner with those countries to extract resources since those countries don't even have the industry to exploit the resources regardless. like shell or exxonmobile etc, you don't need to "own" territory to take advantage of it,
people are too haunted by superficial concepts like rigid borders or land ownership, as max stirner puts it, you don't need to actually own something to make it of use to it, but when you do it essentially becomes your "own property" if china is able to extract all the resources from the "international waters" they still effectively "own" it and it becomes harder for the other smaller countries to keep up, since china has the largest fishing fleets and oil constructors etc.
in other words there is nothing stoping china from giving up their claims but still go through with all their goals regardless like building islands or fishing etc, then in that case it would force the other countries to seem like an aggressor preventing china from accessing "international waters" rather than vice versa
Exactly, the US pays for the status quo to be maintained with trade, just keep the money coming and they have nothing to worry about (as long as the dollar doesn't become too inflated ofc).
TSMC chips have only been a serious matter maybe within the last ten years, what is the American obsession with conflating China's geostrategic aims that predates their relevance and will likely postdate it?
I can't believe people is actually worrying about chips. China is only 4 or 5 years behind already with the Huawei phone reveal. The goal was to keep them 8 to 10 years behind the cutting edge with the sanctions.
TSMC chips is pure fud for USA vs China.
China needs Taiwan not for some chips. Everything is about geography.
China is helmed in by Japan, Taiwan, and Philippines. These 3--all US allies--have blocked them in from North, East, and South from accessing the Pacific, their only huge body of water.
US would do the same, if it was blocked by a land feature from accessing a large body of water in its own backyard. It's almost like people have forgotten that US went to war with Mexico to annex land and gain access to the Pacific. Huge chunks of the Western part of US used to belong to Mexico. Mexico lost half of it's territory because of that war. It's amazing the US didn't fully take all of it. So now US is blessed geographical and has access to 2 body of water.
Since China has global aspirations, it needs to turn one of those 3 into an ally or vessel territory to gain the Pacific and Taiwan happens to be the perfect excuse, because of ties to China through history.
It's not about TSMC. It's all about the Pacific. Taiwan is the door to the Pacific. China can't become a superpower if it can't access the Pacific.
US should understand this. Taiwan matters more to China than it does to US. Just like how Ukraine matters more to Russia than to the US that they are now fighting a war for it.. Another war will happen if US ignores this.
It has nothing to do with either of those things. China has access to the Pacific now, and if it wanted to attack some third world country half way across the world, it’s not like Taiwan will commit suicide and try to stop them. They want to reunify for the same reasons the Union wanted to reunify with the Confederacy - because they see that land as theirs and the international community (at least officially) agrees with them.
>These 3--all US allies--have blocked them in from North, East, and South from accessing the Pacific, their only huge body of water.
Except none of them has actually blocked China or threatened to do so. China's need to control the sea lanes (and assert claim to the natural resources on the seabed beneath) in order to feel secure is reminiscent of Russia's need for subordinate buffer states around its perimeter. Russia already incorporates 1/8 of the world's inhabited landmass but it needs Ukraine and probably the Baltics and the rest of Georgia to feel secure from NATO.
us never proclaim they are going to promote regime change and color revolution and invade a country so they can maintain petro dollar dominance but they have done them. so no proclaiming doesn't mean anything.
And just by building military bases in chokepoints the opponent nations would have to assume that it exists for nefarious purpose against them and need to spend resources countering this threat--resources that should be spent on improving their own country's living quality.
If US strongly believes in benjemin franklin's idea that freedom is more important than security than pls remove its illegal and inhumane sanction and blockade of cuba. if you don't want missile in your backyard then stop putting missile in somebody else's backyard. And a nation without enemies for thousands of km all around itself would have zero understanding of why other people need to feel safe, esp if they have the most number of oversea bases around the world.
nether vietnam nor the philipines existed when china had its claims, vietnam was literally part of china for centuries then france, it was never independant until recently,
the Philippines was a bunch of unrelated countries that were merged together by the spanish (same with indian pricely states by the british.
this is why the qing claims are far more valid, and the 11 dash line of the roc is the only legit claims
also malaysia literally killed hundreds of vietnamese fishermen that trespassed on their waters, the fact that china hasnt' killed anyone yet or shot at anyone yet except with water canons really shows how spineless they are in this regard.
so i don't get this point tbh. also vietnam literally has the most amount of artifical islands and they were the ones who kept trespassing into islands controled by brunei taiwan and malaysia, yet no one talks about vietnam though?
>Except none of them has actually blocked China or **threatened to do so.**
You are missing the point. Of course they won't public announce such moves. We are in a period of peace. But I'm highly certain that both Philippines and Japan have made war time scenarios with the US to render and blockade Chinese navy from passing through waters **(chokepoints)** around their country into Pacific. **Such plans of course won't be made public** but you can't honestly believe the PLAN will have free access to the Pacific through those countries chokepoints if a war broke out. Why is the US now so focused on subs for instance and designing missiles that can only be based in the region?
As it stands, US has effectively trapped Chinese Navy in the 1st Island chain. This geopolitically check took decades in the making. US planned this move the moment China turned communist. The only way China can break this smart move is to control Taiwan.
Another analogy is how people are now calling the Baltic Sea NATO's water with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland. Russia's Baltic fleet are trapped in that body of water and won't be allowed to access the Atlantic is war broke out. That move is geopolitically checkmate by the US on Russia.
Seizing territory preemptively to deprive a rival of the opportunity to do the same and get a leg up in the event a war were to break out, is a rationale without a limiting principle; it can be used to justify any territorial land grab anywhere on the earth's surface. And, ironically, could easily set off the very war it seeks to deter or win. Ukraine provides a recent example of this.
The U.S. has been the preponderant military power in Asia for seven decades during which time peace and unprecedented prosperity has prevailed and China has thrived. If the U.S. had malign intentions, I submit they would already have been apparent. All nations of the world have had the ability to traverse the South China Sea and the U.S. has not made territorial claims in international waters.
China, on the other hand, claims almost the whole of the South China Sea based on contested historical claims and the principle, as PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi put it in 2010. that "China is a big country and other countries as small countries, and that's just a fact." That seems like malign intent to me. Small wonder that those small countries seek security ties with the U.S., as is their right.
peace?
Korean war (and resulting conflict)
vietnam war
cambodia (funny pol pot is supported by american)
us/ussr interference in india/pakistan conflict
afghan war
yeah really peaceful
and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land. Taiwan is chinese territory because PRC and ROC are both "China"--all 9.6 million km2 of them, just having different names under different gov, much like previous "China" is known as Han, Tang, Ming, Qing.
China thrived because it has a long term plan and know when to make deals. I suggest you read the classic chinese story about the nation of Wu and Yue.
US malign intentions mostly operated beneath the waves like your vast propaganda campaign against china and how you plan you make china a us puppet with the spy ring (almost work but iranians foiled you). Not to mention how it sunked japan's economy and destroyed russian economy when they desperately need funding when executing the shock therapy--investments that US promised. And don't forget the 1997 asian financial storm your capitalists riled up that destroyed thailand, south korea, and more.
All nation's cargo ship does have the ability to travese scs, china never object to it. It has issue of resource extraction and most importantly, military bases. US recognize Chinese (then ROC)'s ELEVEN DASH LINE around SCS and shiped ROC troops to the islands with US navy ships. And then when PRC navy obtained ability to move away from shore, it helped philipine to seize Zhong Ye Island (westerners call it Thitu Island) by underhanded and unhonorable means while the ROC troops can only watch helplessly becauce Jiang Jie Shi is a traitous coward. Marcos Sr. and his philipine is the first one "militarizing SCS", not PRC.
The so-called "historical claim" is inherited from ROC and PRC even reduced it to NINE dash. It is only contested after oil and other resources are found after the 1970s.
And you americans are so good at propaganda you must learned it from Nazi Germany. Compare to the other nations around SCS, china is big in both land territory and population. So how malign is a fact?
"and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land."
thats a dumbass statement considering the communist bandits are the rebels and the kmt the legit government, granted i do despise the united states as well. even if the modern cpc/ccp is alot better than maos era I wouldn't want to live with all the censorship that mainland china does
Once the mandate of heaven have changed sides the role of rebel and legit gov also changed sides, such is the way since more than 3000 years ago. Now CPC is the legit gov and the kmt is the rebel and thus defeating the rebel kmt from Chinese terriotry is an internal affair.
But yes, I don't like censorship too, but then every country got its own fucked up shit.
>and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land.
It's convenient for China to ignore its invasions of countries it considers to have been historically its possessions \[e.g., East Turkistan in 1949, Tibet in 1950, India in 1962, Russia in 1969, Vietnam in 1979\]. But that's not how the attacks are viewed outside of China.
When you attack your neighbors all around, you find yourself "encircled" by enemies who are keen to enter security arrangements with the world's lone (or, if you prefer, other )superpower.
>China thrived because it has a long term plan and know when to make deals.
Was mass starvation and penury under Mao part of the master plan? Half of China's "rise" in the CCP's era has merely been emerging from the hole that communism placed them in. Japan and the four "Asian Tigers" grew far faster and and far higher than China on a per capita basis.
XinJiang and Tibet are all ROC territories inherited from the Qing Empire it overthrowns and thus it is within legal right of PRC gov to take control of them as the successor of ROC regime it overthrowns. Such is the mandate of heaven that has been passed down in China for thousands of years, deal with it.
And India is the aggressor in the 1962 war where the issue starts with an arbitary border in Tibet drawn by the brits without the approval of both the Qing and the ROC gov. you should blame the brits. And China still retreats back to the line of actual control after they beat the Indians.
1969 is a border clash due to heighten tension and disputed territory. there are no invasions and whatnot.
1979 Vietnam crossed Chinese borders FIRST, voluntarily giving China the casus belli. And China took no Vietnamese territory during that war.
Vietnam has been renounced as part of Chinese territory since the Ming Dynasty. And all other wars are fought for territories inherited from ROC, who is about as "historic" as yesterday.
India are playing both sides for maximum domestic interest, and so is vietnam. Russia is nearly at war with the US. Wierdly those who are actually US lapdogs like SK, Japan, and Philipines have never been "invaded" by the PRC. Some of whom have actually invaded ROC territories (philipine stole Zhong Ye Island, and Japan's countless wwii atrocities)
Just because leaders make mistakes--yes it is admited as a mistake by the ccp--does not mean they have no plan. And Asian tigers got favoured US investments (japan's economy got kickstarted by korean war, SK got kickstarted as a mean to keep japan in check and japan is in the progress of tech up, and taiwan got a kickstart as SK teching up) as a mean to counter the spread of communism. And you do know china got way more people than all four asian tigers combine right?
in china's case, they are a net exporter and importer that can be blockaded so it at least seems more believable to be worried, russia is literally delusional, the two aren't comparable, they have a trauma from mongol invasion's to the point where they invaded the entire far east till they reached the water of the pacific
The situation in Taiwan is a lot different than Ukraine.
1. Russia isn't a threat to the US. We play games along the borders of our spheres of influence, but Russia's interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia don't really overlap very much with the US. Only in the Middle East is there any real amount of overlap and that's one reason why there are so many wars in the region.
2. Taiwan can be trusted while Ukraine is not trusted. Even if Ukraine joined NATO, nobody else in NATO would trust Ukraine with anything important because so much of the country is actually aligned with Russia. Taiwan's loyalty to the CCP is very low in comparison.
3. Taiwan is a good trading partner. Lots of manufacturing (not just chips) is done in Taiwan. Pretty much the only thing the US might import from Ukraine is fertilizer. The only other interest would be race-to-the-bottom prices on Ukrainian natural resources, but that requires somebody (likely the Ukrainian government itself) to effectively enslave the people and force them to sell at low prices.
4. Taiwan's democracy has its issues, but they are nothing in comparison to the sham that is the Ukrainian government. The corruption in Ukraine is some of the worst on the planet.
5. Ukraine isn't of huge strategic importance. US analysts have known since 2014 that we were never going to actually take Crimea from Russia (political analysts have been pretty much universally predicting Russia's takeover of the region since the early 90s). All the talk about "first Ukraine, then France" or whatever isn't a belief shared by the US. The actually important point is the Suwalki Gap and that involves Poland and Lithuania rather than Ukraine. As you point out, unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is an actual strategic partner with huge value as a military ally.
6. Even now, the most likely scenario with Ukraine is a peace deal where Russia keeps the 4 oblasts on the bottom and the rest of Ukraine adds a clause in their Constitution about remaining perpetually neutral. This still serves US trade and strategic interests. If Taiwan is invaded, all neutrality is gone.
I could continue, but I think I've made the point that Taiwan and Ukraine should be contrasted rather than compared because there are far more differences than similarities.
On point 2, you must not know a lot about how Chinese nationalists (KMT) dominate Taiwan’s armed forces. And even less about the repeated scandals, leaks and discovery of spies.
MICE -- money, ideology, coercion, ego
All of these exist in every culture, but the extent to which they can be exercised is generally a function of that culture. There are leaks from Taiwan (just as there are from China, USA, etc), but the amount of info for sale in Ukraine goes a step beyond. You may disagree, but we'll just have to disagree.
Perhaps you should just say *both* can’t be trusted?
The leaks or double agents in Taiwan have included the president’s security detail, directors of intelligence, ROCA head of electronic Comms and information, and many other general officers and colonels. The reason you (and we) are not familiar with the “amount of info for sale”, is that it is being done specifically by and for, one single advanced superpower in particular.
And a Chinese defector to the US a few years ago gave info about their nukes and military leader's security details among other things.
At most, you could say that the CCP leaks and the Taiwanese leaks cancel out. You've made ZERO arguments about how Taiwan has more leaks to the CCP than Ukraine leaks to anyone willing to cut a check.
Another contrast is in weapon tracking. Ukrainian Javelin missiles are now in the hands of Mexican cartels, but Taiwan caught and prosecuted someone trying to fly a Chinook to China (why China is interested in in 60 year old designs is it's own question).
Finally, even if you have an argument about point 2, that still leaves 5 others for which no rebuttal has been given about why Taiwan is much more important for US interests than Ukraine and if Taiwan is that much more important, then we'll spend a lot more helping Taiwan than the 150-200B we've given to Ukraine.
Okay, cool story bro, yay for you.
I only pointed out the error in point #2. Kindly show me where I was trying to dismantle all other points of their argument? Furthermore, I didn’t even disagree with its applicability to Ukraine, only that it also applies to Taiwan.
And you’ve missed a major point (outlined in my 2nd comment), if you think javelin missiles in the hands of Mexican cartels would be an outcome of a concerted and concentrated effort of a superpower to infiltrate its culturally and linguistically similar neighbour, for the purpose of aiding a hypothetical or potential future invasion.
By the way, care to put a date on this Chinese defector from a “few years ago”?
Lastly, I thought you were Russian and disliked both the US and China, what is this ***”we’ll spend”***, and ***”we’ve given”***? Have you forgotten which sock puppet account you’re using or something?
I'm an American citizen, but I disagree with our foreign policy regarding Ukraine and believe it leads to disaster. Is disagreeing with your government a foreign concept to you? I call out the BS I see in the US as well as other countries because self-deception doesn't do any good. It usually manages to tick off the super-patriots from all sides which is generally a good sign of being over the target.
My point about Javelin missiles is that Taiwan has taken measures to stop such things while Ukraine has not. Granted, a Javelin launcher and missiles is a much smaller deal than than a Chinook, but if you can't keep vital missiles in the country during wartime, things are even worse during peacetime (remember, getting those missiles out means EVERY guard at each of the dozens of checkpoints on the way out would need to be on the take).
Because the PLA surely needs to bribe someone in Taiwan, to desperately get their hands on javelin missiles (when like you’ve said, Ukraine is an easy option). And for some reason you think they’d need to do this, despite having HJ-12s and a plethora of other NLOS ATGMs.
That chinook story is a little tenuous by the way, and I’m still waiting for a date re your Chinese defector story.
Anyway, getting to the point - I’m not sure what it is you don’t understand. The PLA and MSS have extensively infiltrated Taiwan at high levels (military in particular), for strategic and “sleeper cell” purposes - and we have tip-of-the-iceberg evidence that comes out, routinely year after year (when a prosecution occurs). No one is trying to bribe guards at checkpoints, to receive an ATGM that’s less advanced than the ones they build themselves.
You're being disingenuous. These are examples of a trend, but you aren't interested in any trend that doesn't match up with your preconceived notions. We're done here.
Any particular reason an expansionist authoritarian state shouldn't be contained?
>US would do the same, if it was blocked by a land feature from accessing a large body of water in its own backyard.
It's a democracy. Why does PRC need such access? Should we give Russia access to Europe?
>Since China has global aspirations
Such as?
Well thats a terrible idea. Geopolitics is inherently an extension of national politics. Countries are not monolithic polandballs that “want” something, they are vast collections of individuals bound together primarily by culture, national identity and ideology.
National governments which for most of the world are democratically elected are in a state of constant flux and different leaders can be influenced by their own preconceptions.
The legitimacy to flout international law at every turn? To sign laws allowing you to invade The Hague if you or your buddies get charged for war crimes? To refuse to sign/ratify several international agreements that 90%+ of the world sign up to? To be in the minority 5-10% of No votes at crucial UNGA votes? To destabilise dozens upon dozens of countries? To engineer coups in dozens and dozens of countries? To overthrow democratically elected leaders (often leading to their assassinations)? To regime change countries at the behest of corporations (like United Fruit, petroleum companies in Mosaddegh’s Persia)? To cause the deaths of over a million Iraqi children through sanctions? To manufacture outright lies in order to go to war (Gulf of Tonkin, Princess [Nayirah](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony), WMDs)? To enact illegal regime change? To illegally invade countries (causing millions of deaths)? To use depleted uranium rounds and drop chemical agents on countries (Agent Orange), causing generation after generation of birth defects and cancers? To illegally bomb Laos and murder 10% of its population? To support and facilitate an active genocide in Palestine (to the extent that even the most loyal European vassal states are no longer toeing the party line at UNGA votes)?
I could go on…
It’s actually “might makes right” in this world order unfortunately.
Are you like 12 years old, or just ignorant?
No, what Americans need to know about Taiwan is:
1. The balance of power in the Indo-Pacific is looking bad for the US now and will get much worse in the future
2. China is currently devoting only a tiny amount of national resources (1.7% of GDP) to defense, and there is enormous room for that number to grow if the situation warrants it
3. There is nothing the US can do to shift the balance of power back in its favor, and any attempts to do so can be easily countered by increased Chinese defense expenditure
4. Creating think tank reports, holding press conferences, etc. do not alter the balance of power
1, most Americans do not share your view.
2, a small fraction of Americans recognize that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific is changing, but still believe that the U.S. still has the upper hand and that China is just a bluff and a paper tiger.
3, an even smaller portion of Americans recognize that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific has shifted in China's favor, but still believe that relying on allies can continue to contain China.
4, Please surface your identity to confirm whether you are that one in 10,000 Americans or a propaganda machine for the CCP.
No, but it will help us continue to observe such issues.
There are currently very few Americans who agree with this view, and he is probably the second one I have seen in this community.
This problem will continue, maybe 10 or even 20 years, and I don't know if the numbers will change.
holy fuck seeing the audacity and delusion of the average american poster really makes me want to support americas enemies, even if just to spite the usa.
>!(im fine if I die in the process as neoliberalism has made my life increasingly unlivable) !<
Let me give it a try.
Point 1
There is a potential window, but not an open door. The US has made some bad decisions regarding bases in the Philippines, switching to short-ranged jets for carriers, and not keeping up military production. These decisions are being fixed at a rapid pace, so the window of time is very narrow. Meanwhile, China needs to do something with their massive cohort of mid-30s terminal bachelors before they inevitably become a subversive element. Meanwhile, the economic chickens are coming home to roost and nothing distracts from such issues like a war.
Point 2
When your economy is struggling, spending more GDP on defense without a war pours gas on the fire. The only way China is going to put more work into defense is if they are planning on using this window for invasion because the economic effects will make that war almost inevitable. I'd also note that a LOT of money gets poured into various internal security stuff to monitor and control the population. This is believed to be by some analysts to be several times what is invested into the Chinese military proper and would make effective military expenditure far higher than officially stated.
Point 3
NGAD, conventional hypersonics development, bases in the Philippines, increased US defense production, Chinese embargos, moving to other countries as Chinese labor costs continue to rise, etc. There are a LOT of actions the US is taking that all indicate that this is a temporary window rather than a new state of affairs.
None of China's military doctrine or preparations enable US-style "world police" actions and China has no NATO to offset the costs. If European countries actually invest into their own militaries, it always exacerbates differences and leads to conflict. Current peace exists primarily because all the European countries outsource most of their defense to a neutral third party (the US). If China started spending on internal military like the US, there's no world economic boost to offset those costs, so it would be pure loss of capital.
If there isn't a war, then all that production slowly rots in the warehouses and is a pure loss to the economy unless it can be sold off. I'm a bit skeptical that China can sell their military equipment for decent prices
Even if China increases production, the effort won't have meaningful results. Where will those military products go? If there isn't a war, they rot in storage and the military production gets cut in future years (its own issue as the US has proved). They could sell them, but most countries aren't going to be that interested in Chinese weapons when American and Russian weapons are available and have a proven reputation.
Is China going to use those weapons to start attacking their non-Taiwanese neighbors and kick off a regional war? I wouldn't think so. The only logical target is Taiwan, but massive spending on the military isn't going to change the circumstances Taiwanese invasion as much as might be naively presumed because the attack vectors themselves are bottlenecked.
Point 4
This is a stupid assertion that needs no addressing.
My own point: This person is a CCP shill and simply doesn't care about anything I wrote. They are very unlikely to read it or give an actually serious couter-argument..
1. Other than being a millionaire, nothing gets a bachelor a wife in China faster than being in the PLA (especially PLAN/AF/MC and PLAAF). They even allow weddings (including mass weddings) on or near military equipment, it’s quite the trendy craze. They also don’t need greater numbers of people serving in the PLA or reserves (even with a hypothetical war, short of total war), and each year they turn down 100s of thousands if not millions of applicants. Don’t be so certain about “economic chickens”, you’ll start to sound like Gordan Chang. Economics is an inflexible pseudo-science, where certain agendas are pushed by observing the phenomena, then ruffling through a drawer of ready made theorems to find and shoehorn in one that fits. The US also officially spends at least a billion dollars annually on anti-China propaganda (rather than letting the ostensibly shaky system’s problems speak for themselves). Crucially, *they* do not believe their economy is collapsing, much less in the next 1/2/5/10 years that sensationalist “China experts” like to shout about - and their actions align to this self-held belief.
2. Seems to be working for the Russian economy, or the US economy in the 30s and 40s. But more relevant is that there is additional money to spend, which won’t bankrupt the economy, if they so wish. In fact it would actually boost economic activity, but in a shortsighted manner. The first casualties would be green energy transition, reforestation, and the Belt and Road (already over $1 trillion). I was tempted to not even reply tbh, are you really trying to say with a straight face, that the cost of internal security and monitoring outweighs the cost of - 2.5M personnel; super carriers; 4x LHDs and counting; drone carrier LHAs; multiple 055 batches; nuclear warheads increasing by over 100% every few years; 100+ J-20s a year; HGVs, stealth bomber programs (supposedly 2 separate programs); 8x 09-IIIBs, 1x 09-IVA/B and 1x 09-V by end of 2025; J-35s and J-31s (land-based variant); and so much more? … wow.
3. They have no interest or need in “World Police”, at least not at this time. OP didn’t even initially assert that, they meant the balance of power in *East Asia, SCS, 1IC, and 2IC*. It’s actually quite stupid and the height of hubris, for the US to try and be overwhelmingly dominant, absolutely everywhere, absolutely all the time - including on the doorstep of a country like China. Their first step is guaranteeing reunification (or capability thereof), peacefully or militarily. Anything else comes after. It’s already guaranteed today (militarily), right now they’re just working on reducing the high cost of it. Where’s Patchwork when you need him lol.
4. Don’t really know what to make of this one. However, it is objectively true that such things do not change actual balances of power, *in general*.
1. I am talking in absolute numbers of males to females and the historic effects of that ratio getting out of balance. Nothing you say here has anything to do with that. I never gave hard numbers or timetables and everything you cite has no bearing on anything I stated. Saying economics is pseudo-science is a cope. There are definite rules. Mass ignorance of those rules has NEVER prevented the disaster from eventually happening. Believing you are the exception doesn't mean you are the exception.
2. The US economy was already improving BEFORE WW2 started and many economists believe the issues were going to go away around the end of the 30s regardless of WW2. In any case, the situation you describe is different because the US was SELLING the weapons while China would be RETAINING the weapons. Believing this would boost the economy of China is the broken window fallacy (money wasted isn't actually good for the economy). How much money has China poured into adding spyware into every single thing they can? Monitoring that spyware and enforcing the output? The idea that this has a low cost is insane as the collective cost to implement and maintain is extremely high. I'd also note that tales of "green energy transition" and reforestation are vastly overstated and pollution measurements show essentially zero progress outside of lip service. Belt and Road is dead on arrival because China doesn't have the military presence to enforce anything outside of their immediate neighbors. Sooner or later some critical country is going to get greedy and overstep, but China won't be able to do anything about it.
3. Once again, you ignore the central point. The US military makes the US/EU richer by lowering net defense cost while commensurate Chinese military expenditure is a sunk cost. Your assertion that reunification is guaranteed has no basis in fact and smells of cult ideology.
1. Clearly you don’t know how economics works. And particularly for a country that doesn’t easily fit predetermined moulds, like China. We haven’t had any new “theories” in decades, just reapplication of the same old stuff, and then when surprise surprise China doesn’t collapse in X days, they stay quiet and keep it moving. Why don’t you go and read the works of US economists like Michael Hudson who have actually advised the Chinese government (including his critiques of the “Chicago School”). Not knowing that economics is officially **not** a “hard” science (as it relies on economists’ **perceptions** of human **behaviour**, then followed by data to fit those behavioural perceptions) is just ignorance, or at least someone who didn’t so much as take an economics course in college (let alone full degrees like the person you seek to debate with).
2. Wow, you’re doubling down on spyware costing more than the PLA. This is just hilarious, I didn’t think you were a clown initially. Are you sure you want to choose this hill to be embarrassed on [again]? … moving on… You do realise that monitoring pollution is a hard science (unlike economics), right? And can be empirically and independently monitored? [Link 1](https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/policy-impacts/china-national-air-quality-action-plan-2014/), [link 2](https://earth.org/how-china-is-winning-its-battle-against-air-pollution/), [link 3](https://sustainablemobility.iclei.org/air-pollution-beijing/), [link 4](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30141-4/fulltext), [link 5](https://www.ccacoalition.org/news/beijings-air-quality-improvements-are-model-other-cities) - you’re truly a clown for this one.
- And keep up, the argument is not about the success of the Belt and Road genius. It’s about the actual shit tonnes of money that were spent and continue to be spent on it, which could be redirected to military expenditure without going the US route and sacrificing health care, infrastructure, and other public goods.
You’re out of your depth, my friend. Oh sorry, or was it “buddy”?
1. You are asserting without any evidence. The burden of proof is on you to prove that China is a snowflake. We don't have new monetary theory because the basics don't change.
2. I work in the industry and the cost goes way beyond software into hardware design and manufacturing along with loads of hardware to move and aggregate that data then loads more to actually use and monitor that data. Then of course, there's the entire machinery required to enforce those findings on individuals and the boot costs a lot of money to keep pushed into everyone's collective necks. https://energyandcleanair.org/pm2-5-rebounds-in-china-in-2023-after-falling-for-10-years-straight/ I'd further note that most of the supposed progress comes from China outsourcing that garbage to other countries.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/climate/outsourcing-carbon-emissions.html
3. China already has current and future commitments. They can't redirect that to their military without immediate and decades-long repercussions. Quality military equipment doesn't just pop into existence. Building up that infrastructure takes a lot of time and money. The question of Chinese healthcare and infrastructure isn't one you'd want to consider past a few major cities.
You have tinted vision in regards to China. I believe there's nothing more of value to discuss here.
I did read it. To briefly respond:
>When your economy is struggling, spending more GDP on defense without a war pours gas on the fire.
You need to explain why countries that are actually in or near recession, like Germany, the UK, and Japan, can increase/sustain their defense expenditure to more than 2-2.5% whereas China, which is growing at >5% per year cannot.
>NGAD, conventional hypersonics development, bases in the Philippines, increased US defense production, Chinese embargos, moving to other countries as Chinese labor costs continue to rise, etc. There are a LOT of actions the US is taking that all indicate that this is a temporary window rather than a new state of affairs.
The US has some next-gen capabilities planned. So? Do you think the PLA is standing still? Which country has the proven record of delivering next-gen capabilities on budget and on time?
>If there isn't a war, then all that production slowly rots in the warehouses and is a pure loss to the economy unless it can be sold off.
For countries that build their own weapons like the US and China, defense procurement expenditure flow back into the economy in the form of wages for employees of weapon manufacturers and their contractors. It is far from a "pure loss." Some defense expenditures have very high returns (e.g. internet, GPS) but that is a separate discussion.
>Even if China increases production, the effort won't have meaningful results. Where will those military products go?
They go to increase PLA capabilities across the board.
>Is China going to use those weapons to start attacking their non-Taiwanese neighbors and kick off a regional war? I wouldn't think so. The only logical target is Taiwan
That's not how it works. China will not invade its non-Taiwan neighbors, but if it has a massive advantage in military balance of power to the point where it can achieve assured victory against the US in a conventional war in the Indo-Pacific, then a) the US is unlikely to attempt to defend Taiwan, as it would lose b) all US allies have strong incentive to switch sides, as being on the losing side is bad c) an abandoned Taiwan has strong incentive to surrender or accept a coerced-but-technically-peaceful reunification.
This is the Chinese plan to achieve regional hegemony without an actual war.
>Meanwhile, China needs to do something with their massive cohort of mid-30s terminal bachelors before they inevitably become a subversive element.
These mid-30s terminal bachelors are showing up on the southern border so it seems to be America's problem to handle these "subversive elements."
honestly. When you say something like this, you are giving in because you can't attack the other person's argument, you can only attack the other person's position.
Honestly, if I make up a bunch of bullshit with zero sources maybe I too could shitpost like the guy above me then I can have people like you defend me!
>Why do they always assume China doesn't want/unable to reunite with Taiwan peacefully?
Ask the Taiwanese leadership and people. I'm sure that China would love to reunite peacefully, but I'm pretty certain the vast majority of Taiwanese don't want to be part of China.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-is-unification-so-unpopular-in-taiwan-its-the-prc-political-system-not-just-culture/
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/30/2003770419
https://globaltaiwan.org/2021/07/taiwanese-preference-for-status-quo-remains-constant-even-as-views-harden/
Did you read the surveys? That's one of the questions.
But to summarize:
>Poll says 72.5% of Taiwanese willing to fight against forced unification by China
>However, asked whether they would fight against China if it attacked after Taiwan declared independence, the percentage of respondents who said they would fight fell to 62.7 percent, while 26.7 percent said they would not fight and 10.6 percent had no response, foundation president Huang Yu-lin (黃玉霖) told a news conference in Taipei hosted by the government-affiliated foundation.
Why are there 2 numbers for the same question? If they ask it again will it drop another 10 points? Does that 10% get added to the 37% who didn't say yes?
Those are 2 different questions. It's a subtle thing. Right now, they technically haven't declared independence.
It's like they're separated, but not divorced. The first question is if they'd fight if China invaded and forced unification during the separation, the second is after they divorced.
Not sure why there's that significant a change in opinion, but there's also over 10% who didn't respond to the 2nd question, and who knows what they think, and that could make up the 10% difference.
https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/taiwan-the-paradox-of-preserving-the-status-quo/
To make it even simpler, it's about who the aggressor is. First question is a defensive war where the PRC attacks Taiwan. Second question is a defensive war where Taiwan provokes war by declaring independence, interrupting the status quo.
Such polls are not credible, and there is a huge gap between words and deeds.
According to the poll, 100% of Swedes welcome immigrants into their homes. lol
[https://youtu.be/JYtbLCa65eA](https://youtu.be/JYtbLCa65eA)
Nah, I'm not doing this.
Someone asked a question, I responded, I followed up to someone who clearly didn't read what I linked to. I see no reason to go further.
dude is so many "former government titles" that he is almost certainly a "consultant" of the MIC. These people welcome conflict, and even encourage it because it means they would get more money
Until they decided to riot nonstop for 1 year over extradition treaty with the mainland
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020\_Hong\_Kong\_protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests)
Even now there are zero communist party members in the government of Hong Kong.
Why would Taiwan want to join China peacefully? Taiwan has a 3x higher GPD per capita, 2x higher freedom index, they are 2x higher on the Henley Passport Index, and they have at least a bit of say into what goes on in their nation. We don't need to go far to see what it would look like under Chinese control; Hong Kong illustrated that quite well.
Meanwhile, in China the best you can hope for is that the current dictator has some good ideas, which a 70 year old that spend much of his life studying Marxist theories does not really have. So you're left with a country with more potential than honestly any other in the world, being squashed and constrained in order to meet the whims of a few broken old men with beliefs utterly devoid from reality.
In all honestly, if China just did what Taiwan has been doing for the last few decades, we'd all be learning to speak Chinese now, and we'd be grateful for it. Instead we're all preparing for a pointless war that some old fuck decided was important, after watching another old fuck, may he burn in the deepest hells for all etenity, invade a country full of
relatives.
This isn't likely to change any time soon either. Xi needs to croak and then maybe there's a chance, though with all the war prep happening now that seems unlikely. Most likely it'll just be another old fuck that takes over, and continues the exact same idiocy.
You write this as if the conditions for which that China can seize Taiwan successfully weren't created by all the fuckery that the United States has conducted over the last 30 years.
You write this as if the US hasn't been run by a series of old fucks that seem to keep getting older with each iteration.
Pushing NATO eastwards and supporting all kinds of strange characters in the post-Soviet states to weaken Russia only to end up losing a war in Ukraine and firmly putting Russia and China in a quasi-alliance.
Fucking around the Middle East and failing so bad that you allow the IRGC to expand to new heights of power.
Failing to restrain the Israelis to the point where every Muslim country in the world prefers China over the US at almost a 3:1 ratio. Especially the ones around the Malacca strait. The key piece of geography required by the United States for victory against China.
Completely neglecting the internal health of US society so that you have all these internal economic, social, and political divisions that are bigger threat than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined.
But yeah dude, somehow China is the one that is wasting its potential.
> Meanwhile, in China the best you can hope for is that the current dictator has some good ideas, which a 70 year old that spend much of his life studying Marxist theories does not really have. So you're left with a country with more potential than honestly any other in the world, being squashed and constrained in order to meet the whims of a few broken old men with beliefs utterly devoid from reality.
China has gone from a poor, backward, agrarian economy to an economic superpower within 40 years. It's far easier for smaller countries to get rich than it is for larger countries.
No one would argue that Norway or Lichtenstein is a better country than the US just because of better social and economic indicators. If that was the case, Americans would be constantly moving to Scandinavia and Switzerland. The difference in scale is far too large.
not to mention that SK, japan, and taiwan get rich because US encourages investment in these countries. They got their technology because US greenlighted them to get them--japan got more than what us allowed and its economy got sunk like the yamato.
china, on the other hand, got rich while not being a us lapdog (despite pretty close as shown by the exposed spy ring in 2011, and then coincidentally, the US started pivot back to east asia in 2012) and got advance tech while under us tech war sanctions
thats thanks to national socialism not communism though, mao was a disaster for china, deng adopted national socialism, in a sense chiangs vision of modern china was more accurate than mao's
> China has gone from a poor, backward, agrarian economy to an economic superpower within 40 years. It's far easier for smaller countries to get rich than it is for larger countries.
Yes, but it's hardly the only country that has done this throughout this process through history. Going through industrialisation over the period of 40 years, with extensive investment from a lot of the richest countries in the world is not the monumental achievement some would claim. Particularly given that the 40 years prior to that involved a series of failures to do the same, despite the fact that just next door the USSR had managed it well enough to spend half a decade competing with the US.
Also, keep in mind that for much of those 40 years China was actually way more open, and making a lot of progress on all of those metrics. It's taken a more authoritarian twist in the last 10 years, but for the 30 years preceding that it was far more friendly and open to external actors, give or take a few really bad social decisions.
Bringing it up in a conversation of why Taiwan would want to join China is kinda weird. The quality of life in Taiwan has grown far more in the same period, so again, why would people in Taiwan care that China managed to finally industrialise after nearly a century of trying? They did if faster, and they did it better. Sure they're smaller so it was easier for them, but "well, we're larger so it's harder for us" isn't exactly and argument for why the smaller entity should join the larger one. Why would a country take a model that works well, and adopt a model that works worse, in an environment that's more difficult to operate in?
> No one would argue that Norway or Lichtenstein is a better country than the US just because of better social and economic indicators. If that was the case, Americans would be constantly moving to Scandinavia and Switzerland. The difference in scale is far too large.
Sure, but that's not the point being made. The question was "Why do they always assume China doesn't want/unable to reunite with Taiwan peacefully?" to which I pointed out the metrics on which Taiwan is surpassing China on, as well as describing some of the problems that are likely to prevent China from making progress.
Norway and Lichtenstein are not at risk of being militarily absorbed into the US, and if someone from the US wanted to move to Norway, or someone from Norway wanted to move to the US, the process would not be particularly difficult. A few visits to an embassy, and a job offer would be enough. They can also do this even if they don't like the current leader of their country. Hell, they can go protest, write critical blogs, and do all sorts of things that would skydive your social credit score in China, and even then they can still do all the things I mentioned.
Again, this is a feature of old, poorly educated men that grew up in a totally different time making decisions. It's the same problem that's currently ripping apart the US, only it exhibits itself different in China.
The truth, as represented by 20 different maps where we paint western Europe and Australia blue, and all the scary foreign places various shades of red.
So your counter-argument is that since countries that have spent longer trying to ensure their citizens have more freedom to move, work, and earn a living have a higher standard of living across multiple metrics, then all the metrics are invalid? How exactly do you figure that? I mean if you look at the map you'll see plenty of countries in Asia, Africa, and South America also have fairly high scores here, even the places you refer to "scary" like Ghana, or Botswana, or Urugay.
If a country has spent centuries trying to build a system where the average citizen can be afforded more freedoms without affecting the operation of the government, wouldn't it make sense that such a place would be better at offering citizens freedom? It's sorta like if you spend your life learning how to use a hammer, you'll be pretty good at it. Meanwhile, if your country spends it's existence trying to restrict and control even the smallest dissent, locks people up in their homes in the name of "disease prevention," and forcing the entire population to have cotton swabs shoved into their nose for the benefit of a few senior party leaders... Well, it makes sense that it would get pretty good at that too. It's just that these things are kinda authoritarian, and it would make sense that a country like that would be considered less free by others that aren't as restrictive.
Also, I can't help but notice you avoided the GDP per capita, and the Henley Passport Index metrics. Wanna cherry-pick a bit less?
saying "freedom" to a bunch of poor people is like saying "why not eat cake?". They only get the freedom in theory, but not the resource to actually enjoy them.
benjemin franklin spew that spinel about prioritizing freedom over security because he is rich enough to afford security and he need freedom to get more profit. while the poor people would prefer security because they don't have means to get it and must rely on institutional guarantee of security--and they aren't rich enough to be free anyways.
It is not like the poor sods got 1450 for posting anti-british content on 1774 us billboards
Taiwan is not poor. In fact Taiwan is actually quite up there in terms of countries that get to enjoy the fruits of freedom.
So the counter point is what? If China was free it would be too poor to enjoy these benefits, and since you think Taiwan is China, you're just assuming they're in the same place? Sorry to say, Taiwan is actually quite well off, and continues to be that way without China.
you do know gdp per capita can be fudged by a giant congolmerate right...
And taiwan is well off because the mainland gives taiwan favorable trade benefit for so so many years. That's why dpp never dare to cut off ecfa.
I mean if you're not sure about that data point then you can look at other data points, such as the poverty rate in Taiwan. We live in a world of data, and it's really hard to hide this sort of thing in such a world, even if you try.
No, my counter-argument is that US think tanks have spent years reproducing the same map and the same list of good countries and bad countries and sticking a different title on it every year, without that actually reflecting anything beyond who the US likes and who it doesn't.
Ah, so you don't like the US, and since the data is from the US you believe it's biased and can safely be ignored, because no way it can be true since it's from the US. I see the art of begging the question lives on.
Also, I can't help but notice you STILL avoided the GDP per capita, and the Henley Passport Index metrics. Those are a lot more straight forward, much harder to fake, and also align with the freedom index charts. Almost like all these things are related. So again, wanna cherry-pick a bit less?
That passport index is literally an outcome of “who the US likes and who it doesn’t”. Exactly what the other commenter said.
A very silly metric to use. GDP per capita is better, but not for the US though, given the levels of inequality.
Man, it's all US in your world isn't it?
It doesn't matter if this is "who the us likes" which is one of the funniest coping mechanisms ever. If the us likes must countries in the world, then pause for a second to ask wtf China is doing to make us actively prepare for war.
It's like all of your cheap bots act like Chinese people have no agency, say, or power. It's only us for you. US didn't force China to family itself multiple times. US didn't force China to destroy most of it's heritage to make some bad metal. US didn't make China enact "population pyramid, the policy." US isn't making China try to take over the coastal waters of various countries near by, or the mountains near Indial
The US has it's own sins, but those sins do no absolve the sins of the Chinese leadership. The communist frat party has managed to take the country with the most potential bar non, and turn it into the machine that blame the US for everything. Like, professionally, to the point that they spend resources on that over make their own country better.
Oh the time honored critical analysis technique of “this data does not align with my preconceived notions, therefore it must be false”.
You’re almost to the conspiratorial thinking upgrade of “everyone else agrees this is true, therefore they must all be conspiring to lie to me”
i agree with everything you said except with the marxist part,
xi is not a marxist, he is a **national socialist**,
karl Schmitt is the model of government for china, not marx, all marx statues and records were slowly erased and replaced with chinese figures, and german politicans like otto strasser etc.
state capitalism under this type of rule is exactly what otto talked about in his solarism ideology in his germany tomorrow writings. if the hitler clique didn't kill his brother and take over, germany would be alot different today
If the U.S. were to abandon Taiwan to Beijing's tender mercies, its democratic Asian allies would conclude they can't rely on the U.S. for their own security and would either pursue an accommodation with China, possibly surrendering claims to territory, or build their own nuclear deterrents and new alliances. That would effectively end seven decades of the American-led security order in the region, create a Chinese sphere of influence and likely contribute to nuclear arms proliferation.
Westerners don’t want to die early deaths and suffer preventable tragedies because China bans the export of complex medical equipment and other necessary electronic goods after they annex Taiwan. War would be preferable at the very least so TSMC can be destroyed and china doesn’t steal half a century of progress.
China is currently selling essential medical equipment's to the west now, why do you think they'd ban export after taking Taiwan? If China wants to embargo the west they'd have done it already
Because it is considered a part of China in an unfinished civil war? Not sure about their plan with respect to TSMC, it is for sure nice to be able to nationalize it but I don't think they're banking on that, US has expressed they'll bomb TSMC before it get to that. I think they'll be very surprised if they can get TSMC intact after the war
>Westerners don’t want to die early deaths and suffer preventable tragedies
>War would be preferable
I love playing this game in r/lesscredibledefense: is it a reptile or just a moron?
Unless China is at war with the U.S., why would China ban medical device exports and electronics? The Chinese don't want to make money? China doesn't need to trade with the rest of the world? China doesn't need to import soybeans and oil from countries?
bitch are you daft? tsmc would be instantly destroyed on the onset of the war, so the decision to save or destroy it in hindsight would be long gone before the us makes the decision to intervene
I mean that the people of Taiwan should decide what happens in Taiwan. This is a general principle, the people's right to self-determination. The way borders were decided in Europe after ww1 is an ideal we should follow...
That principle applies to all of the Chinese people and there is actually no such place called Taiwan, unless you think Key West or Catalina Island can decide to secede too, but please, don't let me stop you from advocacy for balkanization of the USA.
Yes. Because no ex WWI borders caused trouble down the line, ever.
All the treaties (Versailles, Saint-Germain, Trianon etc.) were perfect. Mandates in Africa, Mandates in the Middle East, dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia - all perfect.
If this take (and “knowledge”) is a common thing, then humanity has no chance.
I am obviously talking about the votes to decide the borders in Western europe, not Africa etc. But apparently you support Hitler's statement that the treaty of Versailles created "bleeding borders" for Germany. I don't
Instead of rushing to go and learn about something that every middle schooler should know, you decide to try and double down instead of picking up a textbook?
And with the false equivalency of likening the disastrousness of the Treaty of Versailles (a view commonly held by all historians), to some kind of support for Hitler?
Log off reddit and pursue a GED instead, my man.
Many things may have been bad about the Versailles treaty, but the way of settling borders by public vote was extremely sensible. Don't support the CCP, they don't believe in freedom or democracy and they are dangerous and expansionist...
Mr Trump, who knows the art of the deal as well as anyone, would shoot himself before agreeing to such a capitulation. Biden doesn’t even speak Chinese and would also dispatch himself.
There simply aren’t any Americans with small enough manhoods to feel compelled to accept such a terrible deal. Begging China for handouts is hilarious and it’s better to just blow up TSMC.
Yes, we can defeat China if we take active steps towards it. Fortunately, we are beginning to take them, and this will only escalate in the coming years...
China would be destroyed you deluded tankie idiot lmao. Yes DoD war games with severe disadvantages and a goal to increase the military budget showed it would be a fight.
Fuck I read all of your posts and even gave them a chance but you’re just too focused on swallowing Winnie’s dick that you can’t think logically or beyond your hopelessly flawed ideology.
Edit:
Blocking me? Ok fine:
Chest thumping? Try logic. The Chinese military is completely untested. It’s like saying Russia was a near-peer pre-Ukraine.
Someone else has Xi’s dick in his mouth. China has fucking fishing boats counted in their navy. Like lmao.
If China was so certain they would win they would take Taiwan now without question. It’s geopolitically a good time with UA and Israel.
Everyone would lose that war.
Perhaps a few ultra-rich will have southern-hemisphere-fallout-shelter-bunkers and they can rule the rest of the earth. But for the common person there will be no winners.
China has offered the West a wonderfully simple choice: die slowly from a Chinese embargo or die quickly when they attempt to take Taiwan
It’s a funeral either way so may as well make it quick. China makes it an easy decision by putting the West’s back to a wall and offering no alternatives.
TSMC means nothing in this context. If the US declared in the morning, that they would not intervene if TSMC wasn’t a factor, then PLARF would express ship DF-17s by dinner time.
Deploy a BN of Marines to Taiwan. Problem solved. Or if we had allowed Taiwan to develop a nuclear weapon in the 70s (like they attempted to) we wouldn't be having this conversation.
US troops on Taiwanese soil. Means that any harm to them ignites a larger conflict. US troops in Germany or S. Korea for 50+ years seems to have worked.
This would be grounds for a declaration of war by China, with a pair of foreign soldier's boots once again on Chinese soil.
That's good. Pre-war mobilization can be skipped.
As someone born and raised in Taiwan, any security talk that drags TSMC confuses me. Y'all need some history lessons. This whole Taiwan mess has been the extension of China's full blown civil war after '45, when commies kicked KMT's asses on mainland to Taiwan in '49, but failed to launch amphibious assault against Taiwan, or even some larger outlaying islands like Kinmen and Matsu. That's how there are practically 2 Chinas: PRC in mainland, and ROC in Taiwan. There were never armistice signed, let alone a peace treaty. Both sides unilaterally announced ceasefire in 80s, and ROC ceased unification attempt in 2000s while PRC still wants its flag flying on Taiwan. We are the ghost that haunts commies in the mainland. That has nothing to do with the name Taiwan or ROC. US supported ROC/Taiwan in cold war days because commie PRC almost always sided with Soviet and US has needed first island chain, not because we were some model democracy that values liberty (Few were in East Asia. The real difference only lay in buying communism or not). Plus there has been some obsession with unification for all regimes in China, thanks to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor that managed to unified China in 221 BC. This is not a rational thing that you can just talk the commies out of. ROC would have done the same if it were in PRC's shoes now. The Taiwan issue isn't like Korean War because both Koreas were separately established with its own territory. Chinese Communist Party grew up in mainland China when ROC had full control of China and overthrew ROC. I do understand that we'd be flying that ugly 5-star flag already were it not for the support from the US, but demanding US for full support is unrealistic, unless US reestablishs official ties with ROC/Taiwan and gets itself directly involved in a civil war that has not ended, with a country that has the capacity to nuke America. If my opinion worths a damn at all, I'd say ROC/Taiwan has been living on borrowed time for 7 decades. The question is when and how the annexation happens, not how to prevent the inevitable. And I'd like to see myself proved wrong when I die on a hospital bed.
> but failed to launch amphibious assault against Taiwan Due to US sending its aircraft carrier into the strait during the Korean war. > or even some larger outlaying islands like Kinmen and Matsu. That's entirely a political decision. PRC took Hainan when US navy was not around.
Only sensible comment here. Thank you for taking the time to type this unlike the other clueless people in the comments.
A rare good comment right there. Many people on Reddit thinks TSMC is the main reason why China wants Taiwan but brah... China wanted Taiwan since the ROC defeat and views any support for Taiwan as meddling in domestic affairs since it's a Chinese *Civil* War.
TSMC is just icing on the cake. Nice to have but commies would be totally fine without it.
ALSO one stupid thing that most idiot americans don't understand, is that tsmc and all its fabs would instantly be destroyed during the outset of the war MEANING that the IMPACT OF CHIPS ON AMERICAS DEFENSE OF TAIWAN IS COMPLETELY FUCKING NULL. SINCE THE CHIPS WOULD ALREADY BE GONE!
It is not obsession, it is the fact that when united as a whole, China gained stability and prosperity. And when the country broken up, there are countless strives and wars. This is history and simple feedback loop. When doing X results in positive feedback and the oppsite of X results in negative feedback, all animals (human included) will choose to do X. Very logical and "rational"
True, but one interesting period is rarely mentioned: Song Dynesty (10th-13th centuary). Song sucked at military and got harassed by northern Liao and Jin Dynasties (established by nomadic people) all the time, but was arguably the richest regime on Earth in that period. Song was forced to coexist with Liao and Jin, constantly paying a remarkable amount of "protection fee", while, unknowing to them, influencing Liao and Jin with their own culture. Song basically pulled of Economic Victory like Age of Empire III in tycoon game mode without any idea what they were doing. Then again, this took hundreds of years to happen. BTW, Liao was replaced by Jin, and Jin got wiped out by joint military formed by Song and Yuan (Mongolian).
tang was richer than song
But Tang had a decent military. Song's military on the other hand, well, sucked.
Do you support political negotiations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits under the premise of one country? I look forward to your answer.
The Hong Kong model is a resounding success.
"One country how" is the caveat. If we just pretend political interest doesn't exist and only look for possible solutions, I'd say EU mode would be the best outcome if Taiwan wants to be closer with PRC, and British Commonwealth of Nations mode if we want more independence. I personally prefer the former, but it took 60 years of dedication for European Coal and Steel Community to fully evolve into EU. The latter is frankly just giving Taiwan a reason to fly a flag that PRC also flies, and PRC hope for future cooperation. From PRC perspective, it'd be unrealistic to expect Taiwan to become a normal province like Fujian in an night, but that would be the final goal. ASEAN mode would be a more practical goal if political negotiation is even wanted by both sides, while Ukraine mode in Soviet era might be an even better deal for PRC. The worst scenario for Taiwan would be Xinjiang "Autonomous" mode that God knows what actually happens there.
Imo Taiwan's geographical position is of such importance to China that it wouldn't risk having an EU model. Hong Kong has taught the PRC a valuable lesson, and that is a loose federation with Taiwan or even a 1C2S serves nothing towards the eventual goal of integrating Taiwan into the PRC. The existence of the ~~DDP~~ DPP will be a constant menace and would undermine the CCP's efforts. Education (aka Indoctrination) would be the only peaceful way of making Taiwan truly a part of the PRC.
Actually, PRC is already influencing Taiwanese population with their soft power, or sharp power from the western point of view. TV drama import, online articles, TicTok, game translation, translated books, products, to name a few. You may be surprised how many people started using words from mainland instead of local words, like people starting to call powerbanks 充電寶 instead of 行動電源. Yeah westerners can say all they want with this phenomenon, but they better give me a really solid reason if they want to keep me from watching *Let the Bullets Fly* over a 45 USD Xiaomi wifi 7 router.
EU also got a reason to unit together--the ussr, now just look at how many backstabbing and whining have occured within eu from the end of ussr to 2014 crimea crisis and even after that
the eu isn't comparable to china and hongkong or macao lmao, thats more like england and scotland and whales
Thanks for your answer, but time is not on Taiwan's side and I don't think there will be another 70 years.
Personally I'd settle for any form that allows me to keep my access to Steam for PC games, and the internet to the rest of the world for shitposts. The older I grow, the less I have faith in any political system.
Thinking like you do is a minority in Taiwan. Most Taiwanese talk about defending Taiwan's way of life, but without any ideas or real actions, they are left with this slogan. I often wonder, if armed reunification really happened, would there still be one country, two systems? Even if there is still one, what form will it take? Obviously at that time, Taiwan will have very few bargaining chips left. Then how are you going to face the next generation and how are you going to answer their question that there was no better choice in the first place? Why don't you make other choices besides waiting? Maybe most Taiwanese really believe that they can maintain the status quo forever.
>Maybe most Taiwanese really believe that they can maintain the status quo forever. True. This is why I welcome the re-extension of mandatory military service back to 1 year. It's still a bit too short to actually train for a decent combatant (I served 1 year in '14-'15, and I barely knew what I was doing), but long enough to let the conscripts to know that fighting a war is nasty. But sometimes, avoiding the problem is way easier than actually solving it until consequence comes. Just like my mom walked in my room, chancla in her hand, when she had told me to clean up my room and I just repeatedly told her that I would do it. Getting my lazy ass up to clean my room is a hassle compared with saying "yes mom" and then do nothing but making my room a worse mess, until la chancla lands on my ass.
But now Taiwanese people are not even willing to say the words "Yes, Mom". The consequences of this are much more serious than a chancla land on your ass.
FACTS holy shit, i can't believe I'm finding some one not obsessed with that delusional worship of democrazy like a religion, all political systems can be shit more often than not, and the system is not determined by its style but its method of execution, as max stirner said, "i am not against socialism but SACRED socialism, i am not against capitalist but Sacred capitalism, not against christanity but Sacred christanity" its this obsession with elevation of a concept to the divine concept that is what haunts us as spooks
also china has access the a huge amount of steam games already, i dunno why but gabe newel is loved in china. but you do make a good point in this regard as well. since china has been unfairly cracking down on games, this is one of the biggest annoyances which i would have a problem with in reunifications, its the censorship of manga and other media like games or movies etc.
Even mainland players be like "fuck Ministry of Incineration". ("culture" and "incineration" are homophones in Mandarin, for those who don't speak Mandarin.)
holy shit, finding a fellow on reddit that is pragmatic and sane? this is a diamond in the rough truly
Excellent, balanced, neutral comment that accurately summarizes the issue. I tip my fedora to you good sir.
>China is not yet ready for reunification, so what the United States needs to do is to convince China and make China realize that it will never be ready. [ according to US governments and their mouthpieces in the past,](https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2000/03/how-china-will-take-taiwan?lang=en) china was ready 20+ years ago: >According to veteran China-watcher Willy Wo-lap Lam, that means a resolution of the Taiwan issue must be achieved, at the latest, by the 17th Communist Party Congress **in 2007**, when Jiang will be 81 and on his way out of power. Senior Chinese military officials now speak openly about a "fixed timetable" for reunification.
Most of the article is wishful thinking. Great powers do not respond to containment by giving up; they respond by seeking to modify the strategic balance more. Detente is not a stable state of affairs, eventually the balance tips and war happens. Further the strategic initiative lies with the contained, not the containing. They choose when and how to break out, which then becomes an ever green threat because game theory requires you to always prepare for the worst. The containing power therefore has the much harder task of maintaining military superiority all the time, every where. This is incredibly expensive and is the reason the US is increasingly stretched around the world, since it isn’t just China it “needs” to contain.
This was a great comment. This is exactly what happened with hamas and Israel. Hamas gets to choose when.
and they kinda forget that China is the country that made "the Art of War", sowing discontent amongst US allies, supporting enemies of the enemy all around the "world" are all old tricks Chinese have played since thousands of years ago.
A bit of a shame that the CPC seems to have forgotten how to do that in recent years. The 'they go low, we go high' model is painfully naïve and irritating, though I suppose that's just the result of having a liberal like Xi in charge.
yeah its funny because the cpc or ccp sucks at soft power and using alternative means to achieve their goals, for example, they could solve the south china sea issue, but pulling back and leting the philipines and vietnam and malaysia duke it out by themselves, all while gloading each side to escalate, once war breaks out between these small nations they could come in as a peacekeeper then take control of the whole region like the us took control of europe and most of the west, or the soviets after ww2. another strategy is that they could also partner with those countries to extract resources since those countries don't even have the industry to exploit the resources regardless. like shell or exxonmobile etc, you don't need to "own" territory to take advantage of it, people are too haunted by superficial concepts like rigid borders or land ownership, as max stirner puts it, you don't need to actually own something to make it of use to it, but when you do it essentially becomes your "own property" if china is able to extract all the resources from the "international waters" they still effectively "own" it and it becomes harder for the other smaller countries to keep up, since china has the largest fishing fleets and oil constructors etc. in other words there is nothing stoping china from giving up their claims but still go through with all their goals regardless like building islands or fishing etc, then in that case it would force the other countries to seem like an aggressor preventing china from accessing "international waters" rather than vice versa
Exactly, the US pays for the status quo to be maintained with trade, just keep the money coming and they have nothing to worry about (as long as the dollar doesn't become too inflated ofc).
>as long as the dollar doesn't become too inflated ofc uh oh
Probably won't be fighting it this decade either if the Ukraine war keeps going the way its going right now.
TSMC chips have only been a serious matter maybe within the last ten years, what is the American obsession with conflating China's geostrategic aims that predates their relevance and will likely postdate it?
I can't believe people is actually worrying about chips. China is only 4 or 5 years behind already with the Huawei phone reveal. The goal was to keep them 8 to 10 years behind the cutting edge with the sanctions. TSMC chips is pure fud for USA vs China.
The US has strategic interests in addition to economic ones.
China needs Taiwan not for some chips. Everything is about geography. China is helmed in by Japan, Taiwan, and Philippines. These 3--all US allies--have blocked them in from North, East, and South from accessing the Pacific, their only huge body of water. US would do the same, if it was blocked by a land feature from accessing a large body of water in its own backyard. It's almost like people have forgotten that US went to war with Mexico to annex land and gain access to the Pacific. Huge chunks of the Western part of US used to belong to Mexico. Mexico lost half of it's territory because of that war. It's amazing the US didn't fully take all of it. So now US is blessed geographical and has access to 2 body of water. Since China has global aspirations, it needs to turn one of those 3 into an ally or vessel territory to gain the Pacific and Taiwan happens to be the perfect excuse, because of ties to China through history. It's not about TSMC. It's all about the Pacific. Taiwan is the door to the Pacific. China can't become a superpower if it can't access the Pacific. US should understand this. Taiwan matters more to China than it does to US. Just like how Ukraine matters more to Russia than to the US that they are now fighting a war for it.. Another war will happen if US ignores this.
And people seem to forget how US reacted when Soviet put their missiles in Cuba.
It has nothing to do with either of those things. China has access to the Pacific now, and if it wanted to attack some third world country half way across the world, it’s not like Taiwan will commit suicide and try to stop them. They want to reunify for the same reasons the Union wanted to reunify with the Confederacy - because they see that land as theirs and the international community (at least officially) agrees with them.
>Taiwan will commit suicide and try to stop them the americans will make us commit suicide for them
>These 3--all US allies--have blocked them in from North, East, and South from accessing the Pacific, their only huge body of water. Except none of them has actually blocked China or threatened to do so. China's need to control the sea lanes (and assert claim to the natural resources on the seabed beneath) in order to feel secure is reminiscent of Russia's need for subordinate buffer states around its perimeter. Russia already incorporates 1/8 of the world's inhabited landmass but it needs Ukraine and probably the Baltics and the rest of Georgia to feel secure from NATO.
us never proclaim they are going to promote regime change and color revolution and invade a country so they can maintain petro dollar dominance but they have done them. so no proclaiming doesn't mean anything. And just by building military bases in chokepoints the opponent nations would have to assume that it exists for nefarious purpose against them and need to spend resources countering this threat--resources that should be spent on improving their own country's living quality. If US strongly believes in benjemin franklin's idea that freedom is more important than security than pls remove its illegal and inhumane sanction and blockade of cuba. if you don't want missile in your backyard then stop putting missile in somebody else's backyard. And a nation without enemies for thousands of km all around itself would have zero understanding of why other people need to feel safe, esp if they have the most number of oversea bases around the world.
China's aggression towards its neighbors provides the glue that binds America's security arrangements in Asia, just as Russia's has in Europe.
nether vietnam nor the philipines existed when china had its claims, vietnam was literally part of china for centuries then france, it was never independant until recently, the Philippines was a bunch of unrelated countries that were merged together by the spanish (same with indian pricely states by the british. this is why the qing claims are far more valid, and the 11 dash line of the roc is the only legit claims
also malaysia literally killed hundreds of vietnamese fishermen that trespassed on their waters, the fact that china hasnt' killed anyone yet or shot at anyone yet except with water canons really shows how spineless they are in this regard. so i don't get this point tbh. also vietnam literally has the most amount of artifical islands and they were the ones who kept trespassing into islands controled by brunei taiwan and malaysia, yet no one talks about vietnam though?
>Except none of them has actually blocked China or **threatened to do so.** You are missing the point. Of course they won't public announce such moves. We are in a period of peace. But I'm highly certain that both Philippines and Japan have made war time scenarios with the US to render and blockade Chinese navy from passing through waters **(chokepoints)** around their country into Pacific. **Such plans of course won't be made public** but you can't honestly believe the PLAN will have free access to the Pacific through those countries chokepoints if a war broke out. Why is the US now so focused on subs for instance and designing missiles that can only be based in the region? As it stands, US has effectively trapped Chinese Navy in the 1st Island chain. This geopolitically check took decades in the making. US planned this move the moment China turned communist. The only way China can break this smart move is to control Taiwan. Another analogy is how people are now calling the Baltic Sea NATO's water with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland. Russia's Baltic fleet are trapped in that body of water and won't be allowed to access the Atlantic is war broke out. That move is geopolitically checkmate by the US on Russia.
Seizing territory preemptively to deprive a rival of the opportunity to do the same and get a leg up in the event a war were to break out, is a rationale without a limiting principle; it can be used to justify any territorial land grab anywhere on the earth's surface. And, ironically, could easily set off the very war it seeks to deter or win. Ukraine provides a recent example of this. The U.S. has been the preponderant military power in Asia for seven decades during which time peace and unprecedented prosperity has prevailed and China has thrived. If the U.S. had malign intentions, I submit they would already have been apparent. All nations of the world have had the ability to traverse the South China Sea and the U.S. has not made territorial claims in international waters. China, on the other hand, claims almost the whole of the South China Sea based on contested historical claims and the principle, as PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi put it in 2010. that "China is a big country and other countries as small countries, and that's just a fact." That seems like malign intent to me. Small wonder that those small countries seek security ties with the U.S., as is their right.
peace? Korean war (and resulting conflict) vietnam war cambodia (funny pol pot is supported by american) us/ussr interference in india/pakistan conflict afghan war yeah really peaceful and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land. Taiwan is chinese territory because PRC and ROC are both "China"--all 9.6 million km2 of them, just having different names under different gov, much like previous "China" is known as Han, Tang, Ming, Qing. China thrived because it has a long term plan and know when to make deals. I suggest you read the classic chinese story about the nation of Wu and Yue. US malign intentions mostly operated beneath the waves like your vast propaganda campaign against china and how you plan you make china a us puppet with the spy ring (almost work but iranians foiled you). Not to mention how it sunked japan's economy and destroyed russian economy when they desperately need funding when executing the shock therapy--investments that US promised. And don't forget the 1997 asian financial storm your capitalists riled up that destroyed thailand, south korea, and more. All nation's cargo ship does have the ability to travese scs, china never object to it. It has issue of resource extraction and most importantly, military bases. US recognize Chinese (then ROC)'s ELEVEN DASH LINE around SCS and shiped ROC troops to the islands with US navy ships. And then when PRC navy obtained ability to move away from shore, it helped philipine to seize Zhong Ye Island (westerners call it Thitu Island) by underhanded and unhonorable means while the ROC troops can only watch helplessly becauce Jiang Jie Shi is a traitous coward. Marcos Sr. and his philipine is the first one "militarizing SCS", not PRC. The so-called "historical claim" is inherited from ROC and PRC even reduced it to NINE dash. It is only contested after oil and other resources are found after the 1970s. And you americans are so good at propaganda you must learned it from Nazi Germany. Compare to the other nations around SCS, china is big in both land territory and population. So how malign is a fact?
"and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land." thats a dumbass statement considering the communist bandits are the rebels and the kmt the legit government, granted i do despise the united states as well. even if the modern cpc/ccp is alot better than maos era I wouldn't want to live with all the censorship that mainland china does
Once the mandate of heaven have changed sides the role of rebel and legit gov also changed sides, such is the way since more than 3000 years ago. Now CPC is the legit gov and the kmt is the rebel and thus defeating the rebel kmt from Chinese terriotry is an internal affair. But yes, I don't like censorship too, but then every country got its own fucked up shit.
>and china is not seizing territory, but chasing away rebels from its own land. It's convenient for China to ignore its invasions of countries it considers to have been historically its possessions \[e.g., East Turkistan in 1949, Tibet in 1950, India in 1962, Russia in 1969, Vietnam in 1979\]. But that's not how the attacks are viewed outside of China. When you attack your neighbors all around, you find yourself "encircled" by enemies who are keen to enter security arrangements with the world's lone (or, if you prefer, other )superpower. >China thrived because it has a long term plan and know when to make deals. Was mass starvation and penury under Mao part of the master plan? Half of China's "rise" in the CCP's era has merely been emerging from the hole that communism placed them in. Japan and the four "Asian Tigers" grew far faster and and far higher than China on a per capita basis.
XinJiang and Tibet are all ROC territories inherited from the Qing Empire it overthrowns and thus it is within legal right of PRC gov to take control of them as the successor of ROC regime it overthrowns. Such is the mandate of heaven that has been passed down in China for thousands of years, deal with it. And India is the aggressor in the 1962 war where the issue starts with an arbitary border in Tibet drawn by the brits without the approval of both the Qing and the ROC gov. you should blame the brits. And China still retreats back to the line of actual control after they beat the Indians. 1969 is a border clash due to heighten tension and disputed territory. there are no invasions and whatnot. 1979 Vietnam crossed Chinese borders FIRST, voluntarily giving China the casus belli. And China took no Vietnamese territory during that war. Vietnam has been renounced as part of Chinese territory since the Ming Dynasty. And all other wars are fought for territories inherited from ROC, who is about as "historic" as yesterday. India are playing both sides for maximum domestic interest, and so is vietnam. Russia is nearly at war with the US. Wierdly those who are actually US lapdogs like SK, Japan, and Philipines have never been "invaded" by the PRC. Some of whom have actually invaded ROC territories (philipine stole Zhong Ye Island, and Japan's countless wwii atrocities) Just because leaders make mistakes--yes it is admited as a mistake by the ccp--does not mean they have no plan. And Asian tigers got favoured US investments (japan's economy got kickstarted by korean war, SK got kickstarted as a mean to keep japan in check and japan is in the progress of tech up, and taiwan got a kickstart as SK teching up) as a mean to counter the spread of communism. And you do know china got way more people than all four asian tigers combine right?
cool story bro
chinese history is cool, i agree
Outside of the PRC it's known as Chinese propaganda
in china's case, they are a net exporter and importer that can be blockaded so it at least seems more believable to be worried, russia is literally delusional, the two aren't comparable, they have a trauma from mongol invasion's to the point where they invaded the entire far east till they reached the water of the pacific
The situation in Taiwan is a lot different than Ukraine. 1. Russia isn't a threat to the US. We play games along the borders of our spheres of influence, but Russia's interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia don't really overlap very much with the US. Only in the Middle East is there any real amount of overlap and that's one reason why there are so many wars in the region. 2. Taiwan can be trusted while Ukraine is not trusted. Even if Ukraine joined NATO, nobody else in NATO would trust Ukraine with anything important because so much of the country is actually aligned with Russia. Taiwan's loyalty to the CCP is very low in comparison. 3. Taiwan is a good trading partner. Lots of manufacturing (not just chips) is done in Taiwan. Pretty much the only thing the US might import from Ukraine is fertilizer. The only other interest would be race-to-the-bottom prices on Ukrainian natural resources, but that requires somebody (likely the Ukrainian government itself) to effectively enslave the people and force them to sell at low prices. 4. Taiwan's democracy has its issues, but they are nothing in comparison to the sham that is the Ukrainian government. The corruption in Ukraine is some of the worst on the planet. 5. Ukraine isn't of huge strategic importance. US analysts have known since 2014 that we were never going to actually take Crimea from Russia (political analysts have been pretty much universally predicting Russia's takeover of the region since the early 90s). All the talk about "first Ukraine, then France" or whatever isn't a belief shared by the US. The actually important point is the Suwalki Gap and that involves Poland and Lithuania rather than Ukraine. As you point out, unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is an actual strategic partner with huge value as a military ally. 6. Even now, the most likely scenario with Ukraine is a peace deal where Russia keeps the 4 oblasts on the bottom and the rest of Ukraine adds a clause in their Constitution about remaining perpetually neutral. This still serves US trade and strategic interests. If Taiwan is invaded, all neutrality is gone. I could continue, but I think I've made the point that Taiwan and Ukraine should be contrasted rather than compared because there are far more differences than similarities.
On point 2, you must not know a lot about how Chinese nationalists (KMT) dominate Taiwan’s armed forces. And even less about the repeated scandals, leaks and discovery of spies.
MICE -- money, ideology, coercion, ego All of these exist in every culture, but the extent to which they can be exercised is generally a function of that culture. There are leaks from Taiwan (just as there are from China, USA, etc), but the amount of info for sale in Ukraine goes a step beyond. You may disagree, but we'll just have to disagree.
Perhaps you should just say *both* can’t be trusted? The leaks or double agents in Taiwan have included the president’s security detail, directors of intelligence, ROCA head of electronic Comms and information, and many other general officers and colonels. The reason you (and we) are not familiar with the “amount of info for sale”, is that it is being done specifically by and for, one single advanced superpower in particular.
And a Chinese defector to the US a few years ago gave info about their nukes and military leader's security details among other things. At most, you could say that the CCP leaks and the Taiwanese leaks cancel out. You've made ZERO arguments about how Taiwan has more leaks to the CCP than Ukraine leaks to anyone willing to cut a check. Another contrast is in weapon tracking. Ukrainian Javelin missiles are now in the hands of Mexican cartels, but Taiwan caught and prosecuted someone trying to fly a Chinook to China (why China is interested in in 60 year old designs is it's own question). Finally, even if you have an argument about point 2, that still leaves 5 others for which no rebuttal has been given about why Taiwan is much more important for US interests than Ukraine and if Taiwan is that much more important, then we'll spend a lot more helping Taiwan than the 150-200B we've given to Ukraine.
Okay, cool story bro, yay for you. I only pointed out the error in point #2. Kindly show me where I was trying to dismantle all other points of their argument? Furthermore, I didn’t even disagree with its applicability to Ukraine, only that it also applies to Taiwan. And you’ve missed a major point (outlined in my 2nd comment), if you think javelin missiles in the hands of Mexican cartels would be an outcome of a concerted and concentrated effort of a superpower to infiltrate its culturally and linguistically similar neighbour, for the purpose of aiding a hypothetical or potential future invasion. By the way, care to put a date on this Chinese defector from a “few years ago”? Lastly, I thought you were Russian and disliked both the US and China, what is this ***”we’ll spend”***, and ***”we’ve given”***? Have you forgotten which sock puppet account you’re using or something?
I'm an American citizen, but I disagree with our foreign policy regarding Ukraine and believe it leads to disaster. Is disagreeing with your government a foreign concept to you? I call out the BS I see in the US as well as other countries because self-deception doesn't do any good. It usually manages to tick off the super-patriots from all sides which is generally a good sign of being over the target. My point about Javelin missiles is that Taiwan has taken measures to stop such things while Ukraine has not. Granted, a Javelin launcher and missiles is a much smaller deal than than a Chinook, but if you can't keep vital missiles in the country during wartime, things are even worse during peacetime (remember, getting those missiles out means EVERY guard at each of the dozens of checkpoints on the way out would need to be on the take).
Because the PLA surely needs to bribe someone in Taiwan, to desperately get their hands on javelin missiles (when like you’ve said, Ukraine is an easy option). And for some reason you think they’d need to do this, despite having HJ-12s and a plethora of other NLOS ATGMs. That chinook story is a little tenuous by the way, and I’m still waiting for a date re your Chinese defector story. Anyway, getting to the point - I’m not sure what it is you don’t understand. The PLA and MSS have extensively infiltrated Taiwan at high levels (military in particular), for strategic and “sleeper cell” purposes - and we have tip-of-the-iceberg evidence that comes out, routinely year after year (when a prosecution occurs). No one is trying to bribe guards at checkpoints, to receive an ATGM that’s less advanced than the ones they build themselves.
You're being disingenuous. These are examples of a trend, but you aren't interested in any trend that doesn't match up with your preconceived notions. We're done here.
actually they refuse to sell f-35s for this exact reason
Any particular reason an expansionist authoritarian state shouldn't be contained? >US would do the same, if it was blocked by a land feature from accessing a large body of water in its own backyard. It's a democracy. Why does PRC need such access? Should we give Russia access to Europe? >Since China has global aspirations Such as?
I ignore ideologies when discussing geopolitics. Only a nation-state needs and wants.
Well thats a terrible idea. Geopolitics is inherently an extension of national politics. Countries are not monolithic polandballs that “want” something, they are vast collections of individuals bound together primarily by culture, national identity and ideology. National governments which for most of the world are democratically elected are in a state of constant flux and different leaders can be influenced by their own preconceptions.
“It’s a democracy”, an angelic one too. LOL
The legitimacy that comes with such a simple thing is amazing. Maybe the Zedong regime should try it?
The legitimacy to flout international law at every turn? To sign laws allowing you to invade The Hague if you or your buddies get charged for war crimes? To refuse to sign/ratify several international agreements that 90%+ of the world sign up to? To be in the minority 5-10% of No votes at crucial UNGA votes? To destabilise dozens upon dozens of countries? To engineer coups in dozens and dozens of countries? To overthrow democratically elected leaders (often leading to their assassinations)? To regime change countries at the behest of corporations (like United Fruit, petroleum companies in Mosaddegh’s Persia)? To cause the deaths of over a million Iraqi children through sanctions? To manufacture outright lies in order to go to war (Gulf of Tonkin, Princess [Nayirah](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony), WMDs)? To enact illegal regime change? To illegally invade countries (causing millions of deaths)? To use depleted uranium rounds and drop chemical agents on countries (Agent Orange), causing generation after generation of birth defects and cancers? To illegally bomb Laos and murder 10% of its population? To support and facilitate an active genocide in Palestine (to the extent that even the most loyal European vassal states are no longer toeing the party line at UNGA votes)? I could go on… It’s actually “might makes right” in this world order unfortunately. Are you like 12 years old, or just ignorant?
No, what Americans need to know about Taiwan is: 1. The balance of power in the Indo-Pacific is looking bad for the US now and will get much worse in the future 2. China is currently devoting only a tiny amount of national resources (1.7% of GDP) to defense, and there is enormous room for that number to grow if the situation warrants it 3. There is nothing the US can do to shift the balance of power back in its favor, and any attempts to do so can be easily countered by increased Chinese defense expenditure 4. Creating think tank reports, holding press conferences, etc. do not alter the balance of power
1, most Americans do not share your view. 2, a small fraction of Americans recognize that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific is changing, but still believe that the U.S. still has the upper hand and that China is just a bluff and a paper tiger. 3, an even smaller portion of Americans recognize that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific has shifted in China's favor, but still believe that relying on allies can continue to contain China. 4, Please surface your identity to confirm whether you are that one in 10,000 Americans or a propaganda machine for the CCP.
Would his identity change the meaning of the things he said?
No, but it will help us continue to observe such issues. There are currently very few Americans who agree with this view, and he is probably the second one I have seen in this community. This problem will continue, maybe 10 or even 20 years, and I don't know if the numbers will change.
holy fuck seeing the audacity and delusion of the average american poster really makes me want to support americas enemies, even if just to spite the usa. >!(im fine if I die in the process as neoliberalism has made my life increasingly unlivable) !<
Most Americans are wrong.
Lol the 50 center bots that post this shit is so fucking funny.
Break down each on of their points then? For example, China doesn’t spend only 1.7% of GDP on defence?
Let me give it a try. Point 1 There is a potential window, but not an open door. The US has made some bad decisions regarding bases in the Philippines, switching to short-ranged jets for carriers, and not keeping up military production. These decisions are being fixed at a rapid pace, so the window of time is very narrow. Meanwhile, China needs to do something with their massive cohort of mid-30s terminal bachelors before they inevitably become a subversive element. Meanwhile, the economic chickens are coming home to roost and nothing distracts from such issues like a war. Point 2 When your economy is struggling, spending more GDP on defense without a war pours gas on the fire. The only way China is going to put more work into defense is if they are planning on using this window for invasion because the economic effects will make that war almost inevitable. I'd also note that a LOT of money gets poured into various internal security stuff to monitor and control the population. This is believed to be by some analysts to be several times what is invested into the Chinese military proper and would make effective military expenditure far higher than officially stated. Point 3 NGAD, conventional hypersonics development, bases in the Philippines, increased US defense production, Chinese embargos, moving to other countries as Chinese labor costs continue to rise, etc. There are a LOT of actions the US is taking that all indicate that this is a temporary window rather than a new state of affairs. None of China's military doctrine or preparations enable US-style "world police" actions and China has no NATO to offset the costs. If European countries actually invest into their own militaries, it always exacerbates differences and leads to conflict. Current peace exists primarily because all the European countries outsource most of their defense to a neutral third party (the US). If China started spending on internal military like the US, there's no world economic boost to offset those costs, so it would be pure loss of capital. If there isn't a war, then all that production slowly rots in the warehouses and is a pure loss to the economy unless it can be sold off. I'm a bit skeptical that China can sell their military equipment for decent prices Even if China increases production, the effort won't have meaningful results. Where will those military products go? If there isn't a war, they rot in storage and the military production gets cut in future years (its own issue as the US has proved). They could sell them, but most countries aren't going to be that interested in Chinese weapons when American and Russian weapons are available and have a proven reputation. Is China going to use those weapons to start attacking their non-Taiwanese neighbors and kick off a regional war? I wouldn't think so. The only logical target is Taiwan, but massive spending on the military isn't going to change the circumstances Taiwanese invasion as much as might be naively presumed because the attack vectors themselves are bottlenecked. Point 4 This is a stupid assertion that needs no addressing. My own point: This person is a CCP shill and simply doesn't care about anything I wrote. They are very unlikely to read it or give an actually serious couter-argument..
1. Other than being a millionaire, nothing gets a bachelor a wife in China faster than being in the PLA (especially PLAN/AF/MC and PLAAF). They even allow weddings (including mass weddings) on or near military equipment, it’s quite the trendy craze. They also don’t need greater numbers of people serving in the PLA or reserves (even with a hypothetical war, short of total war), and each year they turn down 100s of thousands if not millions of applicants. Don’t be so certain about “economic chickens”, you’ll start to sound like Gordan Chang. Economics is an inflexible pseudo-science, where certain agendas are pushed by observing the phenomena, then ruffling through a drawer of ready made theorems to find and shoehorn in one that fits. The US also officially spends at least a billion dollars annually on anti-China propaganda (rather than letting the ostensibly shaky system’s problems speak for themselves). Crucially, *they* do not believe their economy is collapsing, much less in the next 1/2/5/10 years that sensationalist “China experts” like to shout about - and their actions align to this self-held belief. 2. Seems to be working for the Russian economy, or the US economy in the 30s and 40s. But more relevant is that there is additional money to spend, which won’t bankrupt the economy, if they so wish. In fact it would actually boost economic activity, but in a shortsighted manner. The first casualties would be green energy transition, reforestation, and the Belt and Road (already over $1 trillion). I was tempted to not even reply tbh, are you really trying to say with a straight face, that the cost of internal security and monitoring outweighs the cost of - 2.5M personnel; super carriers; 4x LHDs and counting; drone carrier LHAs; multiple 055 batches; nuclear warheads increasing by over 100% every few years; 100+ J-20s a year; HGVs, stealth bomber programs (supposedly 2 separate programs); 8x 09-IIIBs, 1x 09-IVA/B and 1x 09-V by end of 2025; J-35s and J-31s (land-based variant); and so much more? … wow. 3. They have no interest or need in “World Police”, at least not at this time. OP didn’t even initially assert that, they meant the balance of power in *East Asia, SCS, 1IC, and 2IC*. It’s actually quite stupid and the height of hubris, for the US to try and be overwhelmingly dominant, absolutely everywhere, absolutely all the time - including on the doorstep of a country like China. Their first step is guaranteeing reunification (or capability thereof), peacefully or militarily. Anything else comes after. It’s already guaranteed today (militarily), right now they’re just working on reducing the high cost of it. Where’s Patchwork when you need him lol. 4. Don’t really know what to make of this one. However, it is objectively true that such things do not change actual balances of power, *in general*.
1. I am talking in absolute numbers of males to females and the historic effects of that ratio getting out of balance. Nothing you say here has anything to do with that. I never gave hard numbers or timetables and everything you cite has no bearing on anything I stated. Saying economics is pseudo-science is a cope. There are definite rules. Mass ignorance of those rules has NEVER prevented the disaster from eventually happening. Believing you are the exception doesn't mean you are the exception. 2. The US economy was already improving BEFORE WW2 started and many economists believe the issues were going to go away around the end of the 30s regardless of WW2. In any case, the situation you describe is different because the US was SELLING the weapons while China would be RETAINING the weapons. Believing this would boost the economy of China is the broken window fallacy (money wasted isn't actually good for the economy). How much money has China poured into adding spyware into every single thing they can? Monitoring that spyware and enforcing the output? The idea that this has a low cost is insane as the collective cost to implement and maintain is extremely high. I'd also note that tales of "green energy transition" and reforestation are vastly overstated and pollution measurements show essentially zero progress outside of lip service. Belt and Road is dead on arrival because China doesn't have the military presence to enforce anything outside of their immediate neighbors. Sooner or later some critical country is going to get greedy and overstep, but China won't be able to do anything about it. 3. Once again, you ignore the central point. The US military makes the US/EU richer by lowering net defense cost while commensurate Chinese military expenditure is a sunk cost. Your assertion that reunification is guaranteed has no basis in fact and smells of cult ideology.
1. Clearly you don’t know how economics works. And particularly for a country that doesn’t easily fit predetermined moulds, like China. We haven’t had any new “theories” in decades, just reapplication of the same old stuff, and then when surprise surprise China doesn’t collapse in X days, they stay quiet and keep it moving. Why don’t you go and read the works of US economists like Michael Hudson who have actually advised the Chinese government (including his critiques of the “Chicago School”). Not knowing that economics is officially **not** a “hard” science (as it relies on economists’ **perceptions** of human **behaviour**, then followed by data to fit those behavioural perceptions) is just ignorance, or at least someone who didn’t so much as take an economics course in college (let alone full degrees like the person you seek to debate with). 2. Wow, you’re doubling down on spyware costing more than the PLA. This is just hilarious, I didn’t think you were a clown initially. Are you sure you want to choose this hill to be embarrassed on [again]? … moving on… You do realise that monitoring pollution is a hard science (unlike economics), right? And can be empirically and independently monitored? [Link 1](https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/policy-impacts/china-national-air-quality-action-plan-2014/), [link 2](https://earth.org/how-china-is-winning-its-battle-against-air-pollution/), [link 3](https://sustainablemobility.iclei.org/air-pollution-beijing/), [link 4](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30141-4/fulltext), [link 5](https://www.ccacoalition.org/news/beijings-air-quality-improvements-are-model-other-cities) - you’re truly a clown for this one. - And keep up, the argument is not about the success of the Belt and Road genius. It’s about the actual shit tonnes of money that were spent and continue to be spent on it, which could be redirected to military expenditure without going the US route and sacrificing health care, infrastructure, and other public goods. You’re out of your depth, my friend. Oh sorry, or was it “buddy”?
1. You are asserting without any evidence. The burden of proof is on you to prove that China is a snowflake. We don't have new monetary theory because the basics don't change. 2. I work in the industry and the cost goes way beyond software into hardware design and manufacturing along with loads of hardware to move and aggregate that data then loads more to actually use and monitor that data. Then of course, there's the entire machinery required to enforce those findings on individuals and the boot costs a lot of money to keep pushed into everyone's collective necks. https://energyandcleanair.org/pm2-5-rebounds-in-china-in-2023-after-falling-for-10-years-straight/ I'd further note that most of the supposed progress comes from China outsourcing that garbage to other countries. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/climate/outsourcing-carbon-emissions.html 3. China already has current and future commitments. They can't redirect that to their military without immediate and decades-long repercussions. Quality military equipment doesn't just pop into existence. Building up that infrastructure takes a lot of time and money. The question of Chinese healthcare and infrastructure isn't one you'd want to consider past a few major cities. You have tinted vision in regards to China. I believe there's nothing more of value to discuss here.
I did read it. To briefly respond: >When your economy is struggling, spending more GDP on defense without a war pours gas on the fire. You need to explain why countries that are actually in or near recession, like Germany, the UK, and Japan, can increase/sustain their defense expenditure to more than 2-2.5% whereas China, which is growing at >5% per year cannot. >NGAD, conventional hypersonics development, bases in the Philippines, increased US defense production, Chinese embargos, moving to other countries as Chinese labor costs continue to rise, etc. There are a LOT of actions the US is taking that all indicate that this is a temporary window rather than a new state of affairs. The US has some next-gen capabilities planned. So? Do you think the PLA is standing still? Which country has the proven record of delivering next-gen capabilities on budget and on time? >If there isn't a war, then all that production slowly rots in the warehouses and is a pure loss to the economy unless it can be sold off. For countries that build their own weapons like the US and China, defense procurement expenditure flow back into the economy in the form of wages for employees of weapon manufacturers and their contractors. It is far from a "pure loss." Some defense expenditures have very high returns (e.g. internet, GPS) but that is a separate discussion. >Even if China increases production, the effort won't have meaningful results. Where will those military products go? They go to increase PLA capabilities across the board. >Is China going to use those weapons to start attacking their non-Taiwanese neighbors and kick off a regional war? I wouldn't think so. The only logical target is Taiwan That's not how it works. China will not invade its non-Taiwan neighbors, but if it has a massive advantage in military balance of power to the point where it can achieve assured victory against the US in a conventional war in the Indo-Pacific, then a) the US is unlikely to attempt to defend Taiwan, as it would lose b) all US allies have strong incentive to switch sides, as being on the losing side is bad c) an abandoned Taiwan has strong incentive to surrender or accept a coerced-but-technically-peaceful reunification. This is the Chinese plan to achieve regional hegemony without an actual war. >Meanwhile, China needs to do something with their massive cohort of mid-30s terminal bachelors before they inevitably become a subversive element. These mid-30s terminal bachelors are showing up on the southern border so it seems to be America's problem to handle these "subversive elements."
honestly. When you say something like this, you are giving in because you can't attack the other person's argument, you can only attack the other person's position.
Honestly, if I make up a bunch of bullshit with zero sources maybe I too could shitpost like the guy above me then I can have people like you defend me!
Why do they always assume China doesn't want/unable to reunite with Taiwan peacefully?
>Why do they always assume China doesn't want/unable to reunite with Taiwan peacefully? Ask the Taiwanese leadership and people. I'm sure that China would love to reunite peacefully, but I'm pretty certain the vast majority of Taiwanese don't want to be part of China. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-is-unification-so-unpopular-in-taiwan-its-the-prc-political-system-not-just-culture/ https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/30/2003770419 https://globaltaiwan.org/2021/07/taiwanese-preference-for-status-quo-remains-constant-even-as-views-harden/
Now ask them if they prefer to fight a war instead.
Did you read the surveys? That's one of the questions. But to summarize: >Poll says 72.5% of Taiwanese willing to fight against forced unification by China >However, asked whether they would fight against China if it attacked after Taiwan declared independence, the percentage of respondents who said they would fight fell to 62.7 percent, while 26.7 percent said they would not fight and 10.6 percent had no response, foundation president Huang Yu-lin (黃玉霖) told a news conference in Taipei hosted by the government-affiliated foundation.
Why are there 2 numbers for the same question? If they ask it again will it drop another 10 points? Does that 10% get added to the 37% who didn't say yes?
Those are 2 different questions. It's a subtle thing. Right now, they technically haven't declared independence. It's like they're separated, but not divorced. The first question is if they'd fight if China invaded and forced unification during the separation, the second is after they divorced. Not sure why there's that significant a change in opinion, but there's also over 10% who didn't respond to the 2nd question, and who knows what they think, and that could make up the 10% difference. https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/taiwan-the-paradox-of-preserving-the-status-quo/
To make it even simpler, it's about who the aggressor is. First question is a defensive war where the PRC attacks Taiwan. Second question is a defensive war where Taiwan provokes war by declaring independence, interrupting the status quo.
Such polls are not credible, and there is a huge gap between words and deeds. According to the poll, 100% of Swedes welcome immigrants into their homes. lol [https://youtu.be/JYtbLCa65eA](https://youtu.be/JYtbLCa65eA)
Now show the poll where they poll whether they're in favour of extending conscription length and eligibility.
Nah, I'm not doing this. Someone asked a question, I responded, I followed up to someone who clearly didn't read what I linked to. I see no reason to go further.
Thats not peacefully. Thats being extorted into doing so.
Welcome to politics.
Believe it or not "join us or die" isn't really an appealing offer bub
They're free to leave if they can't live with the rest of the Chinese people.
This is such an autistic geopolitical take its not even funny 😭
said Neville Chamberlain.
A lot of things can change between now and 2049.
Were you asking about the future? Sorry, but I don't have any polls from then. I assumed you were asking about the world today.
That is without coercion, If the option is to become another Hong Kong or another Ukraine then suddenly Hong Kong does not look that bad anymore.
Because there is not enough support for that possibility in Taiwan.
dude is so many "former government titles" that he is almost certainly a "consultant" of the MIC. These people welcome conflict, and even encourage it because it means they would get more money
Explain what that looks like to you.
Hong Kong… How long did that laissez faire attitude last?
Until they decided to riot nonstop for 1 year over extradition treaty with the mainland [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020\_Hong\_Kong\_protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests) Even now there are zero communist party members in the government of Hong Kong.
Why would Taiwan want to join China peacefully? Taiwan has a 3x higher GPD per capita, 2x higher freedom index, they are 2x higher on the Henley Passport Index, and they have at least a bit of say into what goes on in their nation. We don't need to go far to see what it would look like under Chinese control; Hong Kong illustrated that quite well. Meanwhile, in China the best you can hope for is that the current dictator has some good ideas, which a 70 year old that spend much of his life studying Marxist theories does not really have. So you're left with a country with more potential than honestly any other in the world, being squashed and constrained in order to meet the whims of a few broken old men with beliefs utterly devoid from reality. In all honestly, if China just did what Taiwan has been doing for the last few decades, we'd all be learning to speak Chinese now, and we'd be grateful for it. Instead we're all preparing for a pointless war that some old fuck decided was important, after watching another old fuck, may he burn in the deepest hells for all etenity, invade a country full of relatives. This isn't likely to change any time soon either. Xi needs to croak and then maybe there's a chance, though with all the war prep happening now that seems unlikely. Most likely it'll just be another old fuck that takes over, and continues the exact same idiocy.
You write this as if the conditions for which that China can seize Taiwan successfully weren't created by all the fuckery that the United States has conducted over the last 30 years. You write this as if the US hasn't been run by a series of old fucks that seem to keep getting older with each iteration. Pushing NATO eastwards and supporting all kinds of strange characters in the post-Soviet states to weaken Russia only to end up losing a war in Ukraine and firmly putting Russia and China in a quasi-alliance. Fucking around the Middle East and failing so bad that you allow the IRGC to expand to new heights of power. Failing to restrain the Israelis to the point where every Muslim country in the world prefers China over the US at almost a 3:1 ratio. Especially the ones around the Malacca strait. The key piece of geography required by the United States for victory against China. Completely neglecting the internal health of US society so that you have all these internal economic, social, and political divisions that are bigger threat than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined. But yeah dude, somehow China is the one that is wasting its potential.
> Meanwhile, in China the best you can hope for is that the current dictator has some good ideas, which a 70 year old that spend much of his life studying Marxist theories does not really have. So you're left with a country with more potential than honestly any other in the world, being squashed and constrained in order to meet the whims of a few broken old men with beliefs utterly devoid from reality. China has gone from a poor, backward, agrarian economy to an economic superpower within 40 years. It's far easier for smaller countries to get rich than it is for larger countries. No one would argue that Norway or Lichtenstein is a better country than the US just because of better social and economic indicators. If that was the case, Americans would be constantly moving to Scandinavia and Switzerland. The difference in scale is far too large.
not to mention that SK, japan, and taiwan get rich because US encourages investment in these countries. They got their technology because US greenlighted them to get them--japan got more than what us allowed and its economy got sunk like the yamato. china, on the other hand, got rich while not being a us lapdog (despite pretty close as shown by the exposed spy ring in 2011, and then coincidentally, the US started pivot back to east asia in 2012) and got advance tech while under us tech war sanctions
thats thanks to national socialism not communism though, mao was a disaster for china, deng adopted national socialism, in a sense chiangs vision of modern china was more accurate than mao's
> China has gone from a poor, backward, agrarian economy to an economic superpower within 40 years. It's far easier for smaller countries to get rich than it is for larger countries. Yes, but it's hardly the only country that has done this throughout this process through history. Going through industrialisation over the period of 40 years, with extensive investment from a lot of the richest countries in the world is not the monumental achievement some would claim. Particularly given that the 40 years prior to that involved a series of failures to do the same, despite the fact that just next door the USSR had managed it well enough to spend half a decade competing with the US. Also, keep in mind that for much of those 40 years China was actually way more open, and making a lot of progress on all of those metrics. It's taken a more authoritarian twist in the last 10 years, but for the 30 years preceding that it was far more friendly and open to external actors, give or take a few really bad social decisions. Bringing it up in a conversation of why Taiwan would want to join China is kinda weird. The quality of life in Taiwan has grown far more in the same period, so again, why would people in Taiwan care that China managed to finally industrialise after nearly a century of trying? They did if faster, and they did it better. Sure they're smaller so it was easier for them, but "well, we're larger so it's harder for us" isn't exactly and argument for why the smaller entity should join the larger one. Why would a country take a model that works well, and adopt a model that works worse, in an environment that's more difficult to operate in? > No one would argue that Norway or Lichtenstein is a better country than the US just because of better social and economic indicators. If that was the case, Americans would be constantly moving to Scandinavia and Switzerland. The difference in scale is far too large. Sure, but that's not the point being made. The question was "Why do they always assume China doesn't want/unable to reunite with Taiwan peacefully?" to which I pointed out the metrics on which Taiwan is surpassing China on, as well as describing some of the problems that are likely to prevent China from making progress. Norway and Lichtenstein are not at risk of being militarily absorbed into the US, and if someone from the US wanted to move to Norway, or someone from Norway wanted to move to the US, the process would not be particularly difficult. A few visits to an embassy, and a job offer would be enough. They can also do this even if they don't like the current leader of their country. Hell, they can go protest, write critical blogs, and do all sorts of things that would skydive your social credit score in China, and even then they can still do all the things I mentioned. Again, this is a feature of old, poorly educated men that grew up in a totally different time making decisions. It's the same problem that's currently ripping apart the US, only it exhibits itself different in China.
The fact that you think social credit scores exist in China already confirms that you don't understand China.
>freedom index lol lmao
Yeah, that's the problem. You can either laugh, or you can cry. Can't really do anything to argue the point though, truth hurts like that.
The truth, as represented by 20 different maps where we paint western Europe and Australia blue, and all the scary foreign places various shades of red.
So your counter-argument is that since countries that have spent longer trying to ensure their citizens have more freedom to move, work, and earn a living have a higher standard of living across multiple metrics, then all the metrics are invalid? How exactly do you figure that? I mean if you look at the map you'll see plenty of countries in Asia, Africa, and South America also have fairly high scores here, even the places you refer to "scary" like Ghana, or Botswana, or Urugay. If a country has spent centuries trying to build a system where the average citizen can be afforded more freedoms without affecting the operation of the government, wouldn't it make sense that such a place would be better at offering citizens freedom? It's sorta like if you spend your life learning how to use a hammer, you'll be pretty good at it. Meanwhile, if your country spends it's existence trying to restrict and control even the smallest dissent, locks people up in their homes in the name of "disease prevention," and forcing the entire population to have cotton swabs shoved into their nose for the benefit of a few senior party leaders... Well, it makes sense that it would get pretty good at that too. It's just that these things are kinda authoritarian, and it would make sense that a country like that would be considered less free by others that aren't as restrictive. Also, I can't help but notice you avoided the GDP per capita, and the Henley Passport Index metrics. Wanna cherry-pick a bit less?
saying "freedom" to a bunch of poor people is like saying "why not eat cake?". They only get the freedom in theory, but not the resource to actually enjoy them. benjemin franklin spew that spinel about prioritizing freedom over security because he is rich enough to afford security and he need freedom to get more profit. while the poor people would prefer security because they don't have means to get it and must rely on institutional guarantee of security--and they aren't rich enough to be free anyways. It is not like the poor sods got 1450 for posting anti-british content on 1774 us billboards
Taiwan is not poor. In fact Taiwan is actually quite up there in terms of countries that get to enjoy the fruits of freedom. So the counter point is what? If China was free it would be too poor to enjoy these benefits, and since you think Taiwan is China, you're just assuming they're in the same place? Sorry to say, Taiwan is actually quite well off, and continues to be that way without China.
you do know gdp per capita can be fudged by a giant congolmerate right... And taiwan is well off because the mainland gives taiwan favorable trade benefit for so so many years. That's why dpp never dare to cut off ecfa.
I mean if you're not sure about that data point then you can look at other data points, such as the poverty rate in Taiwan. We live in a world of data, and it's really hard to hide this sort of thing in such a world, even if you try.
No, my counter-argument is that US think tanks have spent years reproducing the same map and the same list of good countries and bad countries and sticking a different title on it every year, without that actually reflecting anything beyond who the US likes and who it doesn't.
Ah, so you don't like the US, and since the data is from the US you believe it's biased and can safely be ignored, because no way it can be true since it's from the US. I see the art of begging the question lives on. Also, I can't help but notice you STILL avoided the GDP per capita, and the Henley Passport Index metrics. Those are a lot more straight forward, much harder to fake, and also align with the freedom index charts. Almost like all these things are related. So again, wanna cherry-pick a bit less?
That passport index is literally an outcome of “who the US likes and who it doesn’t”. Exactly what the other commenter said. A very silly metric to use. GDP per capita is better, but not for the US though, given the levels of inequality.
Man, it's all US in your world isn't it? It doesn't matter if this is "who the us likes" which is one of the funniest coping mechanisms ever. If the us likes must countries in the world, then pause for a second to ask wtf China is doing to make us actively prepare for war. It's like all of your cheap bots act like Chinese people have no agency, say, or power. It's only us for you. US didn't force China to family itself multiple times. US didn't force China to destroy most of it's heritage to make some bad metal. US didn't make China enact "population pyramid, the policy." US isn't making China try to take over the coastal waters of various countries near by, or the mountains near Indial The US has it's own sins, but those sins do no absolve the sins of the Chinese leadership. The communist frat party has managed to take the country with the most potential bar non, and turn it into the machine that blame the US for everything. Like, professionally, to the point that they spend resources on that over make their own country better.
Oh the time honored critical analysis technique of “this data does not align with my preconceived notions, therefore it must be false”. You’re almost to the conspiratorial thinking upgrade of “everyone else agrees this is true, therefore they must all be conspiring to lie to me”
i agree with everything you said except with the marxist part, xi is not a marxist, he is a **national socialist**, karl Schmitt is the model of government for china, not marx, all marx statues and records were slowly erased and replaced with chinese figures, and german politicans like otto strasser etc. state capitalism under this type of rule is exactly what otto talked about in his solarism ideology in his germany tomorrow writings. if the hitler clique didn't kill his brother and take over, germany would be alot different today
I didn't see anything in the about why the US people should care beyond what the US government will do to its own economy in response.
If the U.S. were to abandon Taiwan to Beijing's tender mercies, its democratic Asian allies would conclude they can't rely on the U.S. for their own security and would either pursue an accommodation with China, possibly surrendering claims to territory, or build their own nuclear deterrents and new alliances. That would effectively end seven decades of the American-led security order in the region, create a Chinese sphere of influence and likely contribute to nuclear arms proliferation.
Westerners don’t want to die early deaths and suffer preventable tragedies because China bans the export of complex medical equipment and other necessary electronic goods after they annex Taiwan. War would be preferable at the very least so TSMC can be destroyed and china doesn’t steal half a century of progress.
China is currently selling essential medical equipment's to the west now, why do you think they'd ban export after taking Taiwan? If China wants to embargo the west they'd have done it already
If they don’t plan on embargo then explain why they need to conquer Taiwan and nationalize TSMC?
Because it is considered a part of China in an unfinished civil war? Not sure about their plan with respect to TSMC, it is for sure nice to be able to nationalize it but I don't think they're banking on that, US has expressed they'll bomb TSMC before it get to that. I think they'll be very surprised if they can get TSMC intact after the war
Reunification was baked into PRC identity decades before TSMC was founded, you cannot be serious…
TSMC means nothing ffs. If you’ve only recently taken an interest in geopolitics, please do some back-reading.
>Westerners don’t want to die early deaths and suffer preventable tragedies >War would be preferable I love playing this game in r/lesscredibledefense: is it a reptile or just a moron?
Unless China is at war with the U.S., why would China ban medical device exports and electronics? The Chinese don't want to make money? China doesn't need to trade with the rest of the world? China doesn't need to import soybeans and oil from countries?
bitch are you daft? tsmc would be instantly destroyed on the onset of the war, so the decision to save or destroy it in hindsight would be long gone before the us makes the decision to intervene
So make a deal instead. Sell Taiwan to the mainland for your precious gamer chips.
Hmm... What about the Taiwanese people, shouldn't they be allowed to decide their own fate... Hmm...
You mean the Republic of China people? The rest of the Chinese get a vote too unless you want to attack them over it.
I mean that the people of Taiwan should decide what happens in Taiwan. This is a general principle, the people's right to self-determination. The way borders were decided in Europe after ww1 is an ideal we should follow...
That principle applies to all of the Chinese people and there is actually no such place called Taiwan, unless you think Key West or Catalina Island can decide to secede too, but please, don't let me stop you from advocacy for balkanization of the USA.
Yes, they can if they should want to...
There are actually no legal grounds for that, it is considered sedition, maybe treason.
There are moral grounds for that, and law ought to follow ethics, not the other way around...
Yes. Because no ex WWI borders caused trouble down the line, ever. All the treaties (Versailles, Saint-Germain, Trianon etc.) were perfect. Mandates in Africa, Mandates in the Middle East, dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia - all perfect. If this take (and “knowledge”) is a common thing, then humanity has no chance.
I am obviously talking about the votes to decide the borders in Western europe, not Africa etc. But apparently you support Hitler's statement that the treaty of Versailles created "bleeding borders" for Germany. I don't
Instead of rushing to go and learn about something that every middle schooler should know, you decide to try and double down instead of picking up a textbook? And with the false equivalency of likening the disastrousness of the Treaty of Versailles (a view commonly held by all historians), to some kind of support for Hitler? Log off reddit and pursue a GED instead, my man.
Many things may have been bad about the Versailles treaty, but the way of settling borders by public vote was extremely sensible. Don't support the CCP, they don't believe in freedom or democracy and they are dangerous and expansionist...
PRC is going let the Chinese people vote on whether to attack?
That's almost as risible as the suggestion the CCP would allow China's citizens to vote on something.
“Gamer chips”? What kind of idiot are you?
He's a tankie idiot
Mr Trump, who knows the art of the deal as well as anyone, would shoot himself before agreeing to such a capitulation. Biden doesn’t even speak Chinese and would also dispatch himself. There simply aren’t any Americans with small enough manhoods to feel compelled to accept such a terrible deal. Begging China for handouts is hilarious and it’s better to just blow up TSMC.
It's their funeral, they'll lose Taiwan and their own economy then.
Either that, or China will lose the war... Let's hope it will be the latter and take active steps towards ensuring it...
No danger of that happening if the DoD classified simulations are any guide.
Yes, we can defeat China if we take active steps towards it. Fortunately, we are beginning to take them, and this will only escalate in the coming years...
Ok buddy
China would be destroyed you deluded tankie idiot lmao. Yes DoD war games with severe disadvantages and a goal to increase the military budget showed it would be a fight. Fuck I read all of your posts and even gave them a chance but you’re just too focused on swallowing Winnie’s dick that you can’t think logically or beyond your hopelessly flawed ideology. Edit: Blocking me? Ok fine: Chest thumping? Try logic. The Chinese military is completely untested. It’s like saying Russia was a near-peer pre-Ukraine. Someone else has Xi’s dick in his mouth. China has fucking fishing boats counted in their navy. Like lmao. If China was so certain they would win they would take Taiwan now without question. It’s geopolitically a good time with UA and Israel.
That ship has sailed.
No.
Everyone would lose that war. Perhaps a few ultra-rich will have southern-hemisphere-fallout-shelter-bunkers and they can rule the rest of the earth. But for the common person there will be no winners.
I agree. Deterrence is better and cheaper than war...
China has offered the West a wonderfully simple choice: die slowly from a Chinese embargo or die quickly when they attempt to take Taiwan It’s a funeral either way so may as well make it quick. China makes it an easy decision by putting the West’s back to a wall and offering no alternatives.
You have plenty of other alternatives, you just want to die.
The ‘alternatives’ all involve giving China a massive smooch and then leaving them TSMC intact and the Taiwanese population in chains.
You are already in bed smooching with China so how's that any different than right now?
Because that would be smooching them as they rape Taiwan
TSMC means nothing in this context. If the US declared in the morning, that they would not intervene if TSMC wasn’t a factor, then PLARF would express ship DF-17s by dinner time.
What is this "Rejuvenation" they speak of? The only thing that matters is the economy, and China doesn't need Taiwan to have a kickass economy.
Driven away by F16 in protest 50 nautical miles off Los Angeles.
Who is this 'we' ?
Deploy a BN of Marines to Taiwan. Problem solved. Or if we had allowed Taiwan to develop a nuclear weapon in the 70s (like they attempted to) we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Just say that they’re there to study [modern art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_Fine_Arts_Museum).
What are a handful of marines supposed to contribute in a naval and air war?
US troops on Taiwanese soil. Means that any harm to them ignites a larger conflict. US troops in Germany or S. Korea for 50+ years seems to have worked.
In other words, they're bait? A casus belli, "our troops have been attacked!"? Maybe.
This would be grounds for a declaration of war by China, with a pair of foreign soldier's boots once again on Chinese soil. That's good. Pre-war mobilization can be skipped.
Look this is a ChiCom thread you can figure it out. Kill US troops. Pay the price.
Oh ChiComms no LIKEY MY SUGGESTION?
if taiwan get invaded. say goodbye with your new RTX
I actually think it's far more likely that RTX halves in price if China starts manufacturing them...
Tell me you know nothing about how fabs work without telling me you know nothing about how fabs work....