3 ms·
> One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. Not nece
by SkyMarshal 5y ago
> One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more.
Not necessarily. CPC is still waiting to see what the US and NATO do in response to the Russian invasion, and especially Putin's threats of nuclear escalation.
If China perceives that all the West will do is sanctions on Russia, but no direct military intervention to prevent a democratic country from being taken over by force, then China will deduce that nuclear saber rattling is enough to ensure the US won't intervene in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
That may lead them to accelerate their plans to do just that, to accomplish it during a time that 1) Western leadership is easily deterred by nuclear threats, 2) the Chinese Navy has more ships than the US Navy, and 3) US and NATO are divided into fighting a 2-front war.
CPC is also waiting to see the full extent of sanctions on and potential decoupling with Russia, how far the West will go in that regard. If CPC believes they could survive the same, again they'll be encouraged to accelerate their Taiwain plans.
The jury's still out, but it's not a given that events have already decelerated CPC's intent to invade Taiwan. That's still up in the air.
- zdragnar 5y agoWe're still buying millions of dollars worth of oil from Russia daily because our government is afraid of blowback from further energy price inflation. Economic sanctions on China would absolutely cripple us. I don't doubt that, if they were committed to the idea, the CPC would likely be willing to ride out whatever we actually cobble together in response. They've been pushing heavily for self reliance in every industry for quite awhile now.
- vandreas2 5y agoIt would cripple them too. Being rich is only relative.
- zdragnar 5y agoThey haven't had too much of an issue with what Americans would consider insane lockdown measures during COVID. Given the trade surplus they have been running for years- well over $3 trillion worth total held in their foreign exchange reserves- I suspect they know (or believe) they would weather the sanctions better than we would. See: Disney, Apple, Nike and dozens of other large corporations all cut off Russia over Ukraine, yet maintain healthy relationships with China despite all of the horrors reportedly committed against the Uyghur Muslims.
- SkyMarshal 5y agoThe most extreme scenario is decoupling Asia, Europe, and North America from China. As in, they all shift their manufacturing elsewhere and block all imports from China. That would of course drastically harm the West, at least temporarily, but it would be far more devastating to China and the mass uprisings could end CPC.