5 ms·

Next up Taiwan.

by op03 6y ago

Next up Taiwan.

sterlind 6y ago
Taiwan will be a bigger deal geopolitically. PRC has no claim to Taiwan that's recognized by the broader international community (outside China's sphere of influence, anyway.) Under Westphalian rules Hong Kong is seen as an internal matter, but Taiwan would be a straight-up war. Plus it would absolutely wreck the semiconductor industry worldwide to lose TSMC.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Taiwan would be a straight-up war That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
  - pyinstallwoes 6y ago
    Propaganda published, I mean, information published said War Simulations indicated quick win for China - I can't find the exact metric but if I recall correctly it was within hours a decisive victory to a day. This wasn't the one I read but there's plenty like it: https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-held-a-war-game-that-started-with-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-...
  - eloisius 6y ago
    Keep in mind that regardless of who was in power, style of government, and everything else, Japan and China have antagonized each other for about 800 years. Japan is a net importer of food and raw materials. Taiwan sits in the middle of important shipping routes. Letting China take Taiwan would be national suicide for Japan.
  - tlear 6y ago
    Ah yes short victorious war. Because taking over an island is so easy. Chinese economy is also completely dependent on imports. US does not need sail its carriers to Taiwan, it needs to park half a dozen attack subs on Chinese trade routes. Same applies to Taiwanese program to build indigenous electric subs with help of Japan, once even few those are complete the equation changes completely. PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while. Having said that US resolve switches around every 4 years so given a proper timing they might sit it out. However there are some interesting consequences. Japan will test a nuclear weapon and a delivery system and commence crash manufacturing program to assemble an arsenal in matter of weeks. US will get kicked out from Okinawa and mainland Japan and most likely a containment alliance between India, Japan and Australia will become not just paper but more like NATO with Joint command, staff, plans etc. I wonder what Vietnam will do, lets hope for their sake they have a secret nuclear program.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      > PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while. PRC would easily have air superiority in no time.
      - tlear 6y ago
        Which is irrelevant when you do not have lift capacity, landing assets or any ability to actually supply the landing force. They could MAYBE land a brigade(which they could not supply for any length of time), said brigade would get squashed during night counter attack on day 1. Landing a modern military force ashore then suplying it requires immense naval capacity that PRC just does not have. They could obtain it but such buildup would be impossible to hide and would take time. Not to mention you need to practice actually doing it.. before D-day allies landed in Diep, in NA, Sicily and Italy. From zero to landing on beaches in Taiwan would make Galipolee seem like height of military genius.
  - audunw 6y ago
    It would most likely not be a very short war if the people of Taiwan are serious about their independence. What's an embargo really going to do? Piss off the whole world and create a shitload of sanctions on China. Taiwan is not a city state. They'd be devastated economically, but they'd survive for a good while. Taiwan is now building their own long range missiles to enable them to counter-attack strategic locations (marine bases etc) along the China mainland coast. A war would be devastating to China, both economically and to their military. Trying to actually invade Taiwan would incur huge loses considering how defensible Taiwan is. If Taiwan managed to weaken them, it's a real possibility that the US will step in to defend. And most likely China would have to back off if the US made anything resembling a serious threat. The US has stepped into global conflicts for far less. A war or embargo on Taiwan would be the biggest crisis in the international economy since the oil crisis of the 1970s. I'm split on whether China would actually do this. I'm certain it'd be a huge mistake, but the CCP has no regard for what's reasonable outside of their own self-preservation. They are facing the biggest senior citizen boom in history, and they have really not built up their economy well enough to face it. They're getting stuck in an unfortunate situation where they want to move low-value manufacturing out of China to continue to grow. But they have not built up enough international trust to do high-value design and manufacturing for export. Not at a scale that'd support one billion people. It's possible that the CCP will make moves on Taiwan to drum up support and distract from a growing economic crisis. It might work, but the Chinese people are not stupid. They'd not be happy. I don't think a large peoples uprising is likely, but it could destabilize the party internally, shifting power from one faction to another. It'd be extremely destabilizing, and stability and economic prosperity is really the main thing that has built support for the CCP. There's a small chance that it'd trigger some uprising in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong too.
    - christophilus 6y ago
      You’ve summed it up well. But, I still think Taiwan is next. China has been getting more and more aggressive there. A friend of mine lives in Taiwan, and told me that the Chinese have sent fighter jets deeper and deeper into the island’s airspace of late. The US will make a lot of noise, but I’m going to say there’d be no hot war between the US and China. Also, I suspect the PRC will do a fair bit of soft work before making that move. You’ll see pro PRC activism rise in Taiwan so that an invasion no longer seems so black and white. Now, if China ever made a move on Japan, things would be different. But I don’t see that happening. Once China has Taiwan, they control the waters in that area, and there is no need to invade Japan. Japan would basically have to comply with China at that point. From there, China just does their thing, expanding their sphere of influence, etc, taking over small targets that won’t raise too much ire from the rest of the world. Anyway, if we’re making predictions, that’s my current one.
  - anvandare 6y ago
    >And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene. The most absolutely do. They might not want to, but they have no choice. Taiwan is a shackle in a long chain: From South Korea, across the Korean strait, to Japan. From Japan, along the Ryukyu islands to Taiwan. From Taiwan, across the Luzon strait, to the Philippines. From there to Malaysia (and Singapore) and Indonesia. Almost nowhere along this 4000 mile chain is there a gap wider than 100 miles. It is this chain which keeps China from freely accessing the Pacific Ocean. If China could break through they would have unlimited access to the Pacific. And from there to the rest of the world. That is an existential threat to the USA. That is why China wants Taiwan. That is why the US can not allow China to take Taiwan. Both sides know this. So yes, China could most likely take Taiwan through war (albeit it at a high cost). But wars are not over when one side says it's over. The USA would absolutely carry on a multi-year war to regain Taiwan. They would much rather fight the PLAN five miles off Taipei than fight it five miles off Honolulu or San Francisco.
    - Daho0n 6y ago
      Not a chance. The US would instantly have at least one carrier sunk minutes after declaring and that alone could break morale. It's like saying the US would go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Over Taiwan war is either not going to happen or it will be nuclear war. Whichs sounds most likely? The US will sanction and draw lots of red lines in the sand and then tug its tail between its legs.
      - anvandare 6y ago
        >The US would instantly have at least one carrier sunk minutes after declaring and that alone could break morale. Isn't that the exact reasoning which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor? "One quick strike and they'll be out of the war..." >The US will sanction and draw lots of red lines in the sand and then tug its tail between its legs. And that's the kind of reasoning that led to Ukraine being invaded by Russia. The inevitable result of China being allowed to take Taiwan is China sailing their own carrier fleets along the West Coast a decade or two later. Absolutely unacceptable. Great Powers will always use force when faced with an existential threat. The thing that usually leads to a war is thinking the other side lacks the willingness to go to war.
- gmueckl 6y ago
  You make it sound like China is free to attack as soon as it is reasonably independent of products manufactured by the TSMC. That's a scary thought because the rest of the world probably wouldn't be, putting China at an advantage over the rest of the world. The only way to stop that would be to make such a war effort itself too costly, which seems unrealistic.

Next up Taiwan.

by op03 6y ago

Next up Taiwan.

Taiwan will be a bigger deal geopolitically. PRC has no claim to Taiwan that's recognized by the broader international community (outside China's sphere of influence, anyway.) Under Westphalian rules Hong Kong is seen as an internal matter, but Taiwan would be a straight-up war. Plus it would absolutely wreck the semiconductor industry worldwide to lose TSMC.

ekianjo 6y ago
> Taiwan would be a straight-up war That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
- pyinstallwoes 6y ago
  Propaganda published, I mean, information published said War Simulations indicated quick win for China - I can't find the exact metric but if I recall correctly it was within hours a decisive victory to a day. This wasn't the one I read but there's plenty like it: https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-held-a-war-game-that-started-with-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-...
- eloisius 6y ago
  Keep in mind that regardless of who was in power, style of government, and everything else, Japan and China have antagonized each other for about 800 years. Japan is a net importer of food and raw materials. Taiwan sits in the middle of important shipping routes. Letting China take Taiwan would be national suicide for Japan.
- tlear 6y ago
  Ah yes short victorious war. Because taking over an island is so easy. Chinese economy is also completely dependent on imports. US does not need sail its carriers to Taiwan, it needs to park half a dozen attack subs on Chinese trade routes. Same applies to Taiwanese program to build indigenous electric subs with help of Japan, once even few those are complete the equation changes completely. PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while. Having said that US resolve switches around every 4 years so given a proper timing they might sit it out. However there are some interesting consequences. Japan will test a nuclear weapon and a delivery system and commence crash manufacturing program to assemble an arsenal in matter of weeks. US will get kicked out from Okinawa and mainland Japan and most likely a containment alliance between India, Japan and Australia will become not just paper but more like NATO with Joint command, staff, plans etc. I wonder what Vietnam will do, lets hope for their sake they have a secret nuclear program.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while. PRC would easily have air superiority in no time.
    - tlear 6y ago
      Which is irrelevant when you do not have lift capacity, landing assets or any ability to actually supply the landing force. They could MAYBE land a brigade(which they could not supply for any length of time), said brigade would get squashed during night counter attack on day 1. Landing a modern military force ashore then suplying it requires immense naval capacity that PRC just does not have. They could obtain it but such buildup would be impossible to hide and would take time. Not to mention you need to practice actually doing it.. before D-day allies landed in Diep, in NA, Sicily and Italy. From zero to landing on beaches in Taiwan would make Galipolee seem like height of military genius.
- audunw 6y ago
  It would most likely not be a very short war if the people of Taiwan are serious about their independence. What's an embargo really going to do? Piss off the whole world and create a shitload of sanctions on China. Taiwan is not a city state. They'd be devastated economically, but they'd survive for a good while. Taiwan is now building their own long range missiles to enable them to counter-attack strategic locations (marine bases etc) along the China mainland coast. A war would be devastating to China, both economically and to their military. Trying to actually invade Taiwan would incur huge loses considering how defensible Taiwan is. If Taiwan managed to weaken them, it's a real possibility that the US will step in to defend. And most likely China would have to back off if the US made anything resembling a serious threat. The US has stepped into global conflicts for far less. A war or embargo on Taiwan would be the biggest crisis in the international economy since the oil crisis of the 1970s. I'm split on whether China would actually do this. I'm certain it'd be a huge mistake, but the CCP has no regard for what's reasonable outside of their own self-preservation. They are facing the biggest senior citizen boom in history, and they have really not built up their economy well enough to face it. They're getting stuck in an unfortunate situation where they want to move low-value manufacturing out of China to continue to grow. But they have not built up enough international trust to do high-value design and manufacturing for export. Not at a scale that'd support one billion people. It's possible that the CCP will make moves on Taiwan to drum up support and distract from a growing economic crisis. It might work, but the Chinese people are not stupid. They'd not be happy. I don't think a large peoples uprising is likely, but it could destabilize the party internally, shifting power from one faction to another. It'd be extremely destabilizing, and stability and economic prosperity is really the main thing that has built support for the CCP. There's a small chance that it'd trigger some uprising in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong too.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    You’ve summed it up well. But, I still think Taiwan is next. China has been getting more and more aggressive there. A friend of mine lives in Taiwan, and told me that the Chinese have sent fighter jets deeper and deeper into the island’s airspace of late. The US will make a lot of noise, but I’m going to say there’d be no hot war between the US and China. Also, I suspect the PRC will do a fair bit of soft work before making that move. You’ll see pro PRC activism rise in Taiwan so that an invasion no longer seems so black and white. Now, if China ever made a move on Japan, things would be different. But I don’t see that happening. Once China has Taiwan, they control the waters in that area, and there is no need to invade Japan. Japan would basically have to comply with China at that point. From there, China just does their thing, expanding their sphere of influence, etc, taking over small targets that won’t raise too much ire from the rest of the world. Anyway, if we’re making predictions, that’s my current one.
- anvandare 6y ago
  >And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene. The most absolutely do. They might not want to, but they have no choice. Taiwan is a shackle in a long chain: From South Korea, across the Korean strait, to Japan. From Japan, along the Ryukyu islands to Taiwan. From Taiwan, across the Luzon strait, to the Philippines. From there to Malaysia (and Singapore) and Indonesia. Almost nowhere along this 4000 mile chain is there a gap wider than 100 miles. It is this chain which keeps China from freely accessing the Pacific Ocean. If China could break through they would have unlimited access to the Pacific. And from there to the rest of the world. That is an existential threat to the USA. That is why China wants Taiwan. That is why the US can not allow China to take Taiwan. Both sides know this. So yes, China could most likely take Taiwan through war (albeit it at a high cost). But wars are not over when one side says it's over. The USA would absolutely carry on a multi-year war to regain Taiwan. They would much rather fight the PLAN five miles off Taipei than fight it five miles off Honolulu or San Francisco.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    Not a chance. The US would instantly have at least one carrier sunk minutes after declaring and that alone could break morale. It's like saying the US would go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Over Taiwan war is either not going to happen or it will be nuclear war. Whichs sounds most likely? The US will sanction and draw lots of red lines in the sand and then tug its tail between its legs.
    - anvandare 6y ago
      >The US would instantly have at least one carrier sunk minutes after declaring and that alone could break morale. Isn't that the exact reasoning which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor? "One quick strike and they'll be out of the war..." >The US will sanction and draw lots of red lines in the sand and then tug its tail between its legs. And that's the kind of reasoning that led to Ukraine being invaded by Russia. The inevitable result of China being allowed to take Taiwan is China sailing their own carrier fleets along the West Coast a decade or two later. Absolutely unacceptable. Great Powers will always use force when faced with an existential threat. The thing that usually leads to a war is thinking the other side lacks the willingness to go to war.
gmueckl 6y ago
You make it sound like China is free to attack as soon as it is reasonably independent of products manufactured by the TSMC. That's a scary thought because the rest of the world probably wouldn't be, putting China at an advantage over the rest of the world. The only way to stop that would be to make such a war effort itself too costly, which seems unrealistic.