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There's an argument to be made that annexing Taiwan would actually be detrimental to the PRC: doing so would be hugely disruptive to the global supply chains th

by irdc 5y ago

There's an argument to be made that annexing Taiwan would actually be detrimental to the PRC: doing so would be hugely disruptive to the global supply chains that form a major source of income to China.

orangepurple 5y ago
China is willing to decimate its own economy to achieve long term objectives. This includes annexing Hong Kong, shutting down celebrity culture, fintechs, and the tech industry.
- irdc 5y ago
  I don't disagree that the PRC has their own best interests in mind. However, I don't see how they can be oblivious to the fact that going to war with and occupying Taiwan would not only tie up a significant part of their military, but would also immediately give their current trading partners both reason and rationale to cut off trade. Not to mention the brain drain from Taiwan that would follow shortly after. If anything, I'm far more worried about the PRC exercising the soft power it's slowly been building in eg. part of Africa.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    The idea is to get Taiwan during the tail-end of the USA's upgrade cycle. China is building new ships today: roughly 3 aircraft carriers, and a huge number of Destroyers that will (on a tonnage basis), outnumber the entirety of the US Navy. They aren't capital ships, but a mass of lower-quality ships would probably still work if those hypersonic missiles can really kill our capital ships. (A big question in of itself: do China's hypersonic "ship killing" missiles work? If so, can the USA's defense systems shoot them down? If not, then why wouldn't China attack Taiwan?) Meanwhile, the US Navy is just about to upgrade over the next 15 years. This means that a number of our ships will be docked, and the ships that are remaining will be older designs. If China times it correctly, it can attack Taiwan and force the USA to defend with its obsolete ships, and before the new ships come online. In effect: the USA has already "spent" our money / resources on the upgrade process, but we haven't gotten the benefits of it yet. ---------- This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to attack. Once the USA's fleet is upgraded, the opportunity closes (as USA will have newer / better technology ships, while China's old Carriers/Destroyers will be at the disadvantage. And China won't reclaim the advantage until it spends a huge amount of time and money on their own upgrade cycle). Furthermore: this "delay in upgrade cycles" was caused by Bill Clinton's budget in 1996. It takes many years for a budgetary issue to come up, and the USA has spent huge amounts of money on its military from 2001 onwards (because of Afghanistan / Iraq). As such, no such "upgrade gap" will exist for 20+ years at the minimum after this opportunity passes. Will China be willing to wait another 50 years for another opportunity like this? Or will China actually go for it? And remember, China has already dedicated incredible amounts of money towards building a new fleet. China's fleet is a "sunk cost", their only decision now is whether or not to use it.
    - irdc 5y ago
      Sure, they may very well win the battle. What I'm trying to say is that in the course of doing so they would very likely lose the war.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        The Nazis and Imperial Japanese lost the war the minute they made strategic blunders like... pissing off USA + Soviets __simultaneously__. It turns out that the human ability to make strategic blunders is very possible. So if your best argument is "it'd be a strategic mistake to do X". Well... history is filled with horrible strategic blunders. It'd probably be against American interests and a strategic blunder to divert forces from Afghanistan into Iraq on an notion of WMDs for example. Everyone makes strategic blunders all the time. I don't fault people for making them, I just try and study them and understand why it happens. ---------- There's something fascinating about war machines, like carriers, hypersonic cruise missiles, and destroyers. You have to see them in action to understand the intoxicating effects of these machines. Once you understand how these machines can hypnotize a person... how they can make you feel like you can accomplish anything... then, and ONLY then, will you understand why Wars get started. China's got Hypersonic cruise missiles. They know it. We know it. China knows the USA doesn't have them (!!!). That knowledge is intoxicating. China sees that as a military advantage. Will they be intoxicated by that knowledge to the point where they attack Taiwan? Well, no one knows for certain. But they've looked at those missiles and have __already decided__ to build more ships than the entirety of the US Navy. So what does that tell you?
        infamia 5y ago
        > The Nazis and Imperial Japanese lost the war the minute they made strategic blunders like... pissing off USA + Soviets __simultaneously__. This is an important point and why I believe Wolf warrior diplomacy runs contrary to China's national interests. It has caused countries who previously viewed China as merely a competitor to view it as a direct threat and to take appropriate action. You know you've gone too far when your actions have resulted in Korea and Japan aligning with each other about the need for closer ties and to align with the U.S. on regional security.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    China has a policy of making everything in-house and already requires exit visas for its people. Brain drain can't happen if you are not allowed to leave.
    - irdc 5y ago
      Just how many people do you think are needed to sabotage a chip fab? I'd say about one. How many rabid PRC-haters do you think Taiwan harbours? Well, it's more than one...
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        How many "von Braun" types do you think exist in Taiwan? People who are willing to work on cool projects no matter who is in charge? von Braun worked for the Nazis to make missiles during WW2. Then was picked up by USA / NASA to make missiles / ICBMs / Space Program. It turns out that a surprising number of engineers are rather flexible when it comes to ethics. They just want to work on cool things.
        irdc 5y ago
        Yep, that'll likely eventually happen... ...after a couple of years of unrest and social instability. Which as simonh pointed out (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959591) is exactly what the CCP does not want. Knowing that the PRC tends to take the long view, I don't think they'd take the chance regarding Taiwan.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        > ...after a couple of years of unrest and social instability. If China wins Taiwan vs the USA, there wouldn't be any unrest or instability. The Chinese people would be proud of their accomplishment, and the rise of China as a military power. Like... what "instability" occurred from Russia's annexation of Crimea? None what so ever.
        sbierwagen 5y ago
- simonh 5y ago
  It depends what you mean by long term objectives. The supreme objective of the CCP is to stay in power in China. All and every other objective is subsidiary to this. The CCP decided many decades ago that economic growth was absolutely necessary for them to stay in power because it is required in order to maintain social stability. An economy with hundreds of millions of unemployed peasants in the countryside, and feeble industries was not sustainable. This is why they purged a bunch of ideological marxists and embraced communism with Chinese characteristics, AKA Capitalism. For a long time the CCP maintained that 7%+ economic growth was necessary in order to absorb the unused labour pool and maintain social stability. Needless to say a war with Taiwan and the US, plus blockades by the rest of the world would be a somewhat risky situation from a social stability point of view. It would be a complete throw of the dice, and for all Chinese people love gambling with money, that's not the CCP way with politics.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Would the world respond extremely negatively to a Taiwan scenario? Or much more negatively than a Hong Kong scenario? (Which literally just happened, and not much seems to have changed as far as I can tell) We know the USA would respond militarily. But how many other countries would be pulled into the conflict? Germany still trades with Russia despite the Crimea annexation, right? Clearly USA / UK / Australia are making plans but is there anyone else who'd join in the fight? Like, realistically, what would happen under a Taiwan scenario? Do you think McDonalds and Apple will just leave China? Will Tencent games be banned in the USA? Will USA really make League of Legends and Genshin Impact illegal during the war? Or, would the world continue as usual? Would US Video Gamers continue playing their games, McDonalds continue China operations / Apple continue making their iPhones while the whole military stuff happens? Frankly, I see this as the more realistic scenario. We can already see how video gamers reacted to Hong Kong: with a bunch of companies capitulating to Chinese demands.
    - simonh 5y ago
      Hing Kong is a completely different situation, it's always been mainland Chinese territory as Britain only leased it. Full mainland control was always the plan, it was just a matter of time. Also the political administration, elected under a system implemented under British rule, supported the recent changes. I'm in no way justifying what the CCP did to Hong Kong, but frankly it was inevitable. That is not the case with Taiwan, which has a population and democratically legitimate government completely committed to independence. An invasion of Taiwan would be much more similar historically speaking to the German invasion of Poland, or the Korean war. It's utterly and completely unacceptable, and would be legitimate grounds for total war. Should China succeed in conquering the island it would not be possible to counter-invade, but an indefinite blockade of transport into and out of China and total interdiction of it's air and sea traffic both civilian and military would be entirely proportionate and the minimum I would expect. See the blockade of North Korea for an example. We'd buy our phones and video games elsewhere.

by irdc 5y ago

orangepurple 5y ago

China is willing to decimate its own economy to achieve long term objectives. This includes annexing Hong Kong, shutting down celebrity culture, fintechs, and the tech industry.

irdc 5y ago
I don't disagree that the PRC has their own best interests in mind. However, I don't see how they can be oblivious to the fact that going to war with and occupying Taiwan would not only tie up a significant part of their military, but would also immediately give their current trading partners both reason and rationale to cut off trade. Not to mention the brain drain from Taiwan that would follow shortly after. If anything, I'm far more worried about the PRC exercising the soft power it's slowly been building in eg. part of Africa.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  The idea is to get Taiwan during the tail-end of the USA's upgrade cycle. China is building new ships today: roughly 3 aircraft carriers, and a huge number of Destroyers that will (on a tonnage basis), outnumber the entirety of the US Navy. They aren't capital ships, but a mass of lower-quality ships would probably still work if those hypersonic missiles can really kill our capital ships. (A big question in of itself: do China's hypersonic "ship killing" missiles work? If so, can the USA's defense systems shoot them down? If not, then why wouldn't China attack Taiwan?) Meanwhile, the US Navy is just about to upgrade over the next 15 years. This means that a number of our ships will be docked, and the ships that are remaining will be older designs. If China times it correctly, it can attack Taiwan and force the USA to defend with its obsolete ships, and before the new ships come online. In effect: the USA has already "spent" our money / resources on the upgrade process, but we haven't gotten the benefits of it yet. ---------- This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to attack. Once the USA's fleet is upgraded, the opportunity closes (as USA will have newer / better technology ships, while China's old Carriers/Destroyers will be at the disadvantage. And China won't reclaim the advantage until it spends a huge amount of time and money on their own upgrade cycle). Furthermore: this "delay in upgrade cycles" was caused by Bill Clinton's budget in 1996. It takes many years for a budgetary issue to come up, and the USA has spent huge amounts of money on its military from 2001 onwards (because of Afghanistan / Iraq). As such, no such "upgrade gap" will exist for 20+ years at the minimum after this opportunity passes. Will China be willing to wait another 50 years for another opportunity like this? Or will China actually go for it? And remember, China has already dedicated incredible amounts of money towards building a new fleet. China's fleet is a "sunk cost", their only decision now is whether or not to use it.
  - irdc 5y ago
    Sure, they may very well win the battle. What I'm trying to say is that in the course of doing so they would very likely lose the war.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      The Nazis and Imperial Japanese lost the war the minute they made strategic blunders like... pissing off USA + Soviets __simultaneously__. It turns out that the human ability to make strategic blunders is very possible. So if your best argument is "it'd be a strategic mistake to do X". Well... history is filled with horrible strategic blunders. It'd probably be against American interests and a strategic blunder to divert forces from Afghanistan into Iraq on an notion of WMDs for example. Everyone makes strategic blunders all the time. I don't fault people for making them, I just try and study them and understand why it happens. ---------- There's something fascinating about war machines, like carriers, hypersonic cruise missiles, and destroyers. You have to see them in action to understand the intoxicating effects of these machines. Once you understand how these machines can hypnotize a person... how they can make you feel like you can accomplish anything... then, and ONLY then, will you understand why Wars get started. China's got Hypersonic cruise missiles. They know it. We know it. China knows the USA doesn't have them (!!!). That knowledge is intoxicating. China sees that as a military advantage. Will they be intoxicated by that knowledge to the point where they attack Taiwan? Well, no one knows for certain. But they've looked at those missiles and have __already decided__ to build more ships than the entirety of the US Navy. So what does that tell you?
      - infamia 5y ago
        > The Nazis and Imperial Japanese lost the war the minute they made strategic blunders like... pissing off USA + Soviets __simultaneously__. This is an important point and why I believe Wolf warrior diplomacy runs contrary to China's national interests. It has caused countries who previously viewed China as merely a competitor to view it as a direct threat and to take appropriate action. You know you've gone too far when your actions have resulted in Korea and Japan aligning with each other about the need for closer ties and to align with the U.S. on regional security.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  China has a policy of making everything in-house and already requires exit visas for its people. Brain drain can't happen if you are not allowed to leave.
  - irdc 5y ago
    Just how many people do you think are needed to sabotage a chip fab? I'd say about one. How many rabid PRC-haters do you think Taiwan harbours? Well, it's more than one...
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      How many "von Braun" types do you think exist in Taiwan? People who are willing to work on cool projects no matter who is in charge? von Braun worked for the Nazis to make missiles during WW2. Then was picked up by USA / NASA to make missiles / ICBMs / Space Program. It turns out that a surprising number of engineers are rather flexible when it comes to ethics. They just want to work on cool things.
      - irdc 5y ago
        Yep, that'll likely eventually happen... ...after a couple of years of unrest and social instability. Which as simonh pointed out (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959591) is exactly what the CCP does not want. Knowing that the PRC tends to take the long view, I don't think they'd take the chance regarding Taiwan.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        > ...after a couple of years of unrest and social instability. If China wins Taiwan vs the USA, there wouldn't be any unrest or instability. The Chinese people would be proud of their accomplishment, and the rise of China as a military power. Like... what "instability" occurred from Russia's annexation of Crimea? None what so ever.
        sbierwagen 5y ago
simonh 5y ago
It depends what you mean by long term objectives. The supreme objective of the CCP is to stay in power in China. All and every other objective is subsidiary to this. The CCP decided many decades ago that economic growth was absolutely necessary for them to stay in power because it is required in order to maintain social stability. An economy with hundreds of millions of unemployed peasants in the countryside, and feeble industries was not sustainable. This is why they purged a bunch of ideological marxists and embraced communism with Chinese characteristics, AKA Capitalism. For a long time the CCP maintained that 7%+ economic growth was necessary in order to absorb the unused labour pool and maintain social stability. Needless to say a war with Taiwan and the US, plus blockades by the rest of the world would be a somewhat risky situation from a social stability point of view. It would be a complete throw of the dice, and for all Chinese people love gambling with money, that's not the CCP way with politics.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Would the world respond extremely negatively to a Taiwan scenario? Or much more negatively than a Hong Kong scenario? (Which literally just happened, and not much seems to have changed as far as I can tell) We know the USA would respond militarily. But how many other countries would be pulled into the conflict? Germany still trades with Russia despite the Crimea annexation, right? Clearly USA / UK / Australia are making plans but is there anyone else who'd join in the fight? Like, realistically, what would happen under a Taiwan scenario? Do you think McDonalds and Apple will just leave China? Will Tencent games be banned in the USA? Will USA really make League of Legends and Genshin Impact illegal during the war? Or, would the world continue as usual? Would US Video Gamers continue playing their games, McDonalds continue China operations / Apple continue making their iPhones while the whole military stuff happens? Frankly, I see this as the more realistic scenario. We can already see how video gamers reacted to Hong Kong: with a bunch of companies capitulating to Chinese demands.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Hing Kong is a completely different situation, it's always been mainland Chinese territory as Britain only leased it. Full mainland control was always the plan, it was just a matter of time. Also the political administration, elected under a system implemented under British rule, supported the recent changes. I'm in no way justifying what the CCP did to Hong Kong, but frankly it was inevitable. That is not the case with Taiwan, which has a population and democratically legitimate government completely committed to independence. An invasion of Taiwan would be much more similar historically speaking to the German invasion of Poland, or the Korean war. It's utterly and completely unacceptable, and would be legitimate grounds for total war. Should China succeed in conquering the island it would not be possible to counter-invade, but an indefinite blockade of transport into and out of China and total interdiction of it's air and sea traffic both civilian and military would be entirely proportionate and the minimum I would expect. See the blockade of North Korea for an example. We'd buy our phones and video games elsewhere.