9 ms·
Will the Chinese Civil War End with a Bang or with a Whimper?
- 1cvmask 5y agoThe video to it with the slides by Lyle Goldstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRs5501GExc&list=PLBrPYoChOfODJ5GJYD9y0m2L-mpa6muyx&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRs5501GExc&list=PLBrPYoChOf...
- propter_hoc 5y agoThis is a great article, thank you for posting it. Very interesting to see the presentation of the Chinese perspective here.
- ekianjo 5y ago> In 1775, we Americans were only able to achieve self-determination from our British motherland through six years of bitter warfare and two years of tough negotiations. Erm no, Americans were only able to achieve independence because France intervened. They would have been completely crushed otherwise, and this is not even an hyperbole.
- torstenvl 5y agoThat's an interesting theory. How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through, and only after the Americans started winning major battles at, e.g., Saratoga? There's no doubt the French were instrumental in, par exemple, Yorktown. But my admittedly not well-informed view is that "crushed" is a significant overstatement.
- dragontamer 5y agoRoderigue Hortalez and Company (aka: France) started giving USA arms in 1775, at least a year before the Declaration of Independence (but after the "Shot heard round the world" / Battle of Lexington). Without those guns and support, the revolution would have been dead before it even started.
- tasogare 5y ago> How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through Going by your logic the US involvement in WWII wasn't significant because it didn't started with the war. History manuals are saying otherwise though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rkk3 5y agoOf course their involvement was significant in how things played out. But your analogy would like be saying the USSR would have been dominated by Germany without the US entering the war with a Europe first strategy. It would have been a strategically worse situation, but it's really not clear if that would have made Germany successful on the eastern front.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- torstenvl 5y ago> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Those are the site guidelines. If you want to truncate quotes so you can attack a straw man, go somewhere else. (x & y) and (x) dont mean the same thing and you know that.
- ekianjo 5y ago> How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through because you don't set up a massive expedition like that from one day to another, especially in the 1700s. I know we are all used to Amazon-speed these days but just even knowing WHAT was happening on another continent took months at the time.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rkk3 5y agoFrance & Spain were very strategic to how things played out, but they joined years into the war after the failure of the Germain plan at Saratoga. Once the US revolution got under way, England had a herculean task of trying to occupy the entire east coast & US population of 2.5 million, the entire British army was only 48k people (spread across 3 continents) at the start of the war. The war was also incredibly un-popular in England, until France got involved, so devoting resources was difficult. It was almost a civil war since the colonists were British, not a foreign threat. Top military brass actually turned down the post of overseeing the war rather than fight their countrymen & opposition MP's wore the colors of Washington's Army to parliament.
- hobomatic 5y agoThese two things are not mutually exclusive.
- ekianjo 5y agoNot exclusive, but it's like saying "We French won World War II after a bitter fight of 6 years against the German Reich" and completely omitting the American intervention.
- Feint1 5y agoThat’s a detail that’s not really important to the point being made. I know that the Americans have a creation myth where they see the British as unspeakably evil and Americans as an oppressed people, but the reality is that the situation was very messy and there were differing views on all sides. The fact is that American independence actually had some sympathy among the British establishment. This made the Treaty of Paris possible, which made American Independence legal and recognised internationally. There is no longer a disagreement about the status of the United States because of this. There is no such support for Taiwanese independence in China and I cannot see them ever recognising a Taiwanese State, no matter how badly they lose a war. Without Chinese recognition i cant see Taiwan ever getting much recognition internationally.
- ekianjo 5y ago> There is no such support for Taiwanese independence in China How can there ever be since China is a totallitarian state with complete control of information and repression of dissidents? They have setup the game to have a consensus that everyone else is Evil and they are the only ones in the right.
- blockwriter 5y agoDo we? I think our creation myth maintains that the English were irretrievably stuffy, and that’s pretty much good enough for all of us. I never saw them as irretrievably evil, just comical really.
- jrexilius 5y agoIt's a good summary of much of the specifics of the situation but his conclusions aren't quite right. Ignoring Taiwan in relation to the overall strategic conflict with China's regional dominance ambitions is either disingenuous or ignorant to reality. Letting China do to Taiwan what it has done with Hong Kong, or more likely, Xinjiang is not the end but rather the beginning.
- rkk3 5y ago> Letting China do to Taiwan what it has done with Hong Kong, or more likely, Xinjiang Xinjiang is ethnically and culturally (Muslim) different than the rest of China. It would be more like Hong Kong.
- CogitoCogito 5y agoIt wouldn’t be much like Hong Kong actually. Taiwan has a military and is much more capable of defending itself against a Chinese invasion.
- rkk3 5y agoUh Hong Kong wasn't invaded? The British returned control of it to China when the '100 year lease' expired. Somewhat similar situation with a foreign power supporting a democratic government, except support for Taiwan is much more popular domestically in the US.
- CogitoCogito 5y agoI didn’t say that Hong Kong was invaded. It is Taiwan that would require an invasion. Hence there isn’t really any comparing Hong Kong to Taiwan. So thanks for making my point.
- rkk3 5y ago> Taiwan that would require an invasion Maybe at this date & time, but I'd bet in the next 100 years there will be a non military unification. To me it seems like there hasn't been much of a fundamental change in Geo-Politics around Taiwan in a long time... and that the main reason an invasion of Taiwan is being brought up in US media is ironically because of how poorly NeoLiberalism FP went in Afghanistan.
- PoignardAzur 5y agoIt's a very interesting article, but some of the word choices leave a very bad taste in my mouth. > As Vietnam did, China cares deeply about national unity and immunity from foreign intervention. We fought bravely in Vietnam but lost because Hanoi, despite its military inferiority, cared far more about the outcome than we did. Hanoi was prepared to sacrifice everything to reunite its country. We were not willing to do as much to keep it divided. > What sacrifices in lives and treasure are Americans prepared to make to assure unilateral self-determination for Taiwan? The article makes it sound like Taiwan is unreasonable for "unilaterally" not wanting be invaded by a country with overwhelming military superiority and a totalitarian regime. Maybe Taiwan should defer to China's opinion on whether China should invade Taiwan? I mean, if your opinion is "China can and will invade any smaller neighbors it deems to occupy, there's nothing the US can do to stop them, and we shouldn't waste our lives trying", fine, go ahead and say so. But stop using language like "divising" and "reuniting" to pretend this is anything other than a totalitarian regime planning its next military conquest to appease the masses.
- rkk3 5y ago> The article makes it sound like Taiwan is unreasonable for "unilaterally" not wanting be invaded by a country with overwhelming military superiority and a totalitarian regime. The article really focuses on the US foreign policy, not Taiwan's. It's just questioning the US's NeoLiberal Foreign Policy strategy & the cost of interventions; like in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria...
- bronzeage 5y ago
- notbuyit 5y agoTaiwan is one element in the relationship between China and the USA. The author goes out of his way to ignore any of the aggressive actions being taken by China which might be causing the USA to strengthen its grip on Taiwan. I would ask the author: “has China been engaging in…say economic warfare…which might make the USA think handing them Taiwan is not a good idea?” The argument “but you have been inconsistent” is a non argument. The argument “but we deserve to have Taiwan” being portrayed here is a non argument. The entire argument by the author is very suspicious and I suspect he is probably well compensated for producing these deceptive pieces.
- ashwagary 5y agoThe idea that the US has the right to hand anyone anything in Asia is quite hilarious. I expect the civil war will end with a whimper and reunification.
- ElectronCharge 5y ago> I expect the civil war will end with a whimper and reunification. Why do you suppose China hasn’t already prevailed? Taiwan is a hard target. China’s ships crossing the strait will be highly vulnerable, as will aircraft. What Taiwan needs in order to maintain the current status quo is an improved asymmetric threat leveraging anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles. Ideally such missile systems will be numerous, highly mobile and concealable. If China knows it can’t land a viable invasion force, hostilities will never begin. That’s aside from the likely involvement of the US and regional allies like South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Australia.
- dirtyid 5y ago>Why do you suppose China hasn’t already prevailed? Peaceful reunification still priority, except one remark that force is always an option by Xi a few years ago, there hasn't been any PRC/Xi departure from this position in 8 years of his tenure. Notion that PRC wants to invade TW in near/medium timelines is manufactured propaganda. But in terms of actual military capability: taking TW is simple but deterring US is hard. Even ardent "porcupine" advocates from US think tank / blobs have concluded by now no amount of asymmetric porcupining will meaningfully deter PRC but is only useful to buy time for US response. SO PRC focus is to (and has been since modernization started) mitigate US response, while simultaneously making defeating TW simpler. Note simpler does not mean easy, merely all the force balance calculations of PRC taking unsupported TW has been forgone for years by PRC planners. Now US planners in last few years as well. The TLDR is PLA reforms/modernization is aiming to challenge US military hegemony, it's going after the big fish because everything smaller will be manageable by then. And there's likely no involvement especially by SK, Vietnam (or rest of ASEAN). Likely not even Japan or Australia, US most ardent allies who has so far done nothing but theatre that doesn't credibly move posture towards supporting TW defense.
- betwixthewires 5y ago> It has become very hard to see a path to its peaceful resolution. But anything else would be a tragedy with incalculable collateral damage... Why? The article references "Outer Mongolia" too, nobody seems to be clamoring for reunification. State sovereignty splits over geographic areas and populations all the time. Why is reunification a necessity? > U.S. support for Taiwan’s continuing separation from the rest of China is a perpetuation of foreign imperialist efforts to carve their country into spheres of influence, disrespect the right of Chinese to determine their own destiny... Oh I see now. Define "Chinese"?" Do Malay and Singaporean Chinese count? Isn't the author refusing to cede the fact that Taiwanese and mainland Han are diverging cultures an act of denying them self determination? Why must the two groups remain together in perpetuity? > Beijing has repeatedly emphasized its strong preference for accomplishing national reunification peacefully rather than with a use of force. It has offered to accept what amounts to a symbolic rather than substantive form of reunification to Taiwan. But to “win without fighting,” Beijing must show that, even if the U.S. backs Taiwan, its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would surely win if the two sides were to return to combat, and that Taipei therefore has no realistic alternative to the negotiation of some form of reconciliation with Chinese across the Strait. Voluntarily come under our sovereignty or else. See, we are peaceful! > The PLA’s current shows of force are aimed at bringing Taipei back to the negotiating table, which the island abandoned when it elected leaders committed themselves to seek an identity separate from China. So far, Beijing’s shows of force have not changed Taipei’s refusal to talk about “peaceful reunification.” No talks mean no path to peace. Again, they've democratically opted for self determination and sovereignty over themselves. Why can't the PRC do the same? Where's the imperialism here? And that comes to the real truth of this matter. The PRC is imperialist. The majority of what we consider to be "China" is under occupation, and has been even under ROC and the Emperor before that. Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, do I need to keep going? These are not regions within China, these are nations under Han imperialist rule, and they have been to different degrees for centuries. Arguing that these nations don't deserve self determination, and then invoking anti-imperialism, the complete lack of self awareness in this article is quite telling.
- spaced-out 5y agoThe Chinese Civil War is over, it ended 70 years ago. If something starts now it would be a new war.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoI agree that it ended and a new conflict would likely be named something different but formally there was never an armistice or peace treaty.
- CogitoCogito 5y agoI don't see the point of focusing on these formalities. If the PRC and the ROC had signed a peace treaty 70 years ago, the PRC could still declare war today. Just as /u/spaced-out said, the Chinese Civil War really is over. Pretending like that isn't the case due to there not being a peace treaty is just the PRC looking for a flimsy pretext to paper over their military belligerence. Presumably it's easier to do that than it is to admit that the PRC in fact isn't a peaceful government as it likes to claim.
- spaced-out 5y agoThat's an irrelevant formality. The people who will have to do the fighting, and even Xi himself, were not even alive during the Civil War. If he orders people to start shooting after >70 years of peace, he's starting a war.
- dirtyid 5y agoFinishing a war. There wasn't 70 years of peace. ROC port closure policy to blockade PRC lasted into the 80s, while ROC was used as staging for US operations into PRC throughout cold war. This is relatively recent memory, literally everyone in current and prospective PRC leadership was alive to understand the liability of TW as US asset, which has to be addressed eventually via conclusion of civil war. PRC hasn't even retaliated escalation to ROC measures of full island blockade and unrestrict infiltration over TW airspace. Just because PRC is behaving good (relatively) doesn't mean it will continue to. Nor that even if formally PRC had to start a new war to take TW, it will because the underlying security considerations are the same.
- rmk 5y agoThe article raises a very pertinent question vis-a-vis American commitment and the lengths to which the US is willing to go to stop or reverse a Chinese invasion. The last war where Americans went to great lengths willingly was World War 2. I think that was because most Americans were of European descent, and many were relative newcomers with connections to the old countries, and felt a kinship or personal stake in what happened in Europe. Also, there was a large population of men who were willing to sign up to the military effort voluntarily (the draft was imposed later).
- theplumber 5y ago>> think that was because most Americans were of European descent, and many were relative newcomers with connections to the old countries, I think it was more because Japan attacked the US. Germany and Japan were allies and Hitler was developing intercontinetal rockets. If I read it right the US was very "America First" before Pearl Harbour. How ironic that the U.S got back to America First again...
- rmk 5y agoPearl Harbor was the incident (shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania) that catalyzed America's inevitable entry into the war. There was a very strong isolationist mindset before this period, which mean America simply did not want to be involved much in world affairs at all, let alone take on a leadership role. I agree that the attack, and the sinking of America's warships touched a nerve with the public. Americans loved their warships and were very proud of them, and an attack on them simply incensed people.
- rendall 5y agoThis article misses in its analysis that China has just tipped over the precipice of a devastating, all-encompassing economic collapse. 10s of trillions of RMB in real estate value are evaporating right now, never to be recovered. This will have at least some effect on the will and ability to fight.
- mcswell 5y agoFighting might be viewed as a useful distraction. I think Putin is thinking the same.
- mikewarot 5y agoWhat civil war? Taiwan isn't China. There could be a civil war in China once the CCP falls.
- simonblack 5y agoWith a whimper. As long as Taiwan doesn't declare its independence, China won't be in a hurry to integrate Taiwan. Why would it attack Taiwan and destroy its own assets? That would be like the US attacking Hawaii and bombing Honolulu. On the other hand, if Hawaii declared its independence, the US would not hesitate to attack it and bring it 'back to the fold', as happened with the Confederacy only a hundred and sixty years ago. As the US goes, so then China.
- CogitoCogito 5y agoComparing Hawaii to Taiwan makes no sense since Taiwan and China are two separate countries. A better comparison would be the hypothetical situation where Spain starts claiming Portugal is a part of Spain and then pressuring other countries to support that position.
- sofixa 5y agoI'm sorry, but did you read the introduction of the article? And are you familiar with the history of Hawaii ( that they were an independent country and have culture and history of their own)? Taiwan is the remnants of the losing party of the Chinese civil war, that ran away to the island of Taiwan/Formosa, and assimilated the locals. It's like if the Confederacy run away to Hawaii and genocided the locals. They're not a separate country legally, and don't even claim to be.
- CogitoCogito 5y agoIt’s clearly you who are not familiar with history. Hawaii and its position in the US might be compared to Xinjiang and its position in China. But Taiwan is totally different. Taiwan just isn’t a part of of China/PRC. It was before and a some people think it should be again, but today Taiwan/ROC and China/PRC are two separate states.
- sofixa 5y agoNope, you're just conflicting history, international law and recognition, and perception of the current situation. You can't talk about "familiarity with history" and "but today". Precisely because the history is so complicated the "today" is too. How is Taiwan totally different? The Kuomintang lost the civil war, and ran away to Formosa/Taiwan, where they assimilated the local population by not always nice means. (The comparison with Hawaii is valid only in an alternate universe where the CSA run away there and just continued to exist.) There was never a peace treaty, and up until very recently the ROC still pretended to be "the one and only China". They don't themselves claim to be an independent country, and aren't one de jure ( probably to a significant extent because they fear China's retribution if they do so, but still). As far as China and literally almost all of the world are concerned, Taiwan is an island belonging to China. The legitimate Chinese government is the PRC. The de facto situation is that Taiwan is for most intents and purposes an independent country, and the "ideal" solution is for them to just become one, but China has no desire ( and why should they have it?) to just let go of something they consider theirs. It should furthermore be noted that China has experience with temporarily ceded territory they retake after tens if not hundreds of years ( Hong Kong, Liaoning, Manchuria, Qingdao, etc.), so i don't think they see things as "this land hasn't been ours for X time, it's no longer a part of us".