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China already declared that it will use force in Taiwan if "possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted". From Chinese Anti-Seces

• hardware2win 4y ago
  Seems like bluff
  • ambicapter 4y ago
    Sounds like normal foreign relations/diplomacy. It's all grey areas where politicians politick and diplomats maneuver to get what they want without anyone losing face.
    • ethbr0 4y ago
      But when politicians and diplomats make a miscalculation, soldiers die.
      • computerfriend 4y ago
        Not just soldiers.
• rzwitserloot 4y ago
  > can't be caught off guard by China as EU was caught off guard by Russia. There's always a bigger fish. The last time nations were obsessed with autarky, we got WW1, and soon after, WW2. Most countries (i.e. every country not suffering from a drastic case of the resource curse) have the nature that if they trade a lot with another country, either country would lose economic value if they invade the other, _even if_ that invasion goes off stellarly well with almost no losses: The populace doesn't like being subjugated and produces significantly less. In an inbalanced trade/dependency relationship, such as Saudi Arabia's oil vs. the rest of the world, or Russia's gas vs. europe, it's actually _both_ sides that are dependent on the other. It's the dutch curse all over again. Go back in time: * Europe wants more gas to grow its economy, and doesn't have enough on its own soil. * Russia has more than plenty and is willing to sell it. * We enter a period of years where europe companies and countries more and more build industry that isn't going to work out without the relatively cheap russian gas. As these industries continue to succeed and russia continues to be a reliable supplier, ever more industry takes the leap and becomes dependent on it. * This sounds like handing off quite the 'weapon' to your supplier, but, the problem is, that supplier is now just as dependent on this relationship as the consumer is: Russian economy falls apart without the trade of europe-produced goods (a lot of it by industries that run on russian gas), just as fast as europe falls apart without russian gas. Thus, if russia were to invade europe, russia's economic value falls off a cliff, and the same applies to a lesser extent to europe. The only reason europe could in theory invade russia (assumes a perfect invasion, no nukes, no significant resistance at all, just a dejected populace), is because russia's primary value is not particularly dependent on human capital. My theory about why this theory didn't work out and russia invades ukraine is a mix of: * Misunderstanding by Russia of world/Europe response to this invasion. * Too much power in one person, who, like most people surrounded by yay-sayers for 20 years, has lost grip on reality. * Most of all, a ticking clock: Europe has stated they want to wean themselves off of fossil fuel within a decade or so. And so they should, but it's a torpedo to the trade dependency relationship between europe and russia. That last one is the economic argument: Russia had to do something or their economy would fall apart if europe delivers on their plans to rapidly reduce their dependence on (russian-supplied) gas. Thus, autarky -> war. Because if you're doing economically better than your neighbouring country, you produce more weapons and more people, and just invade em, why not. We can trade the risk of what happened to europe, or what is likely to happen if china and the west become autarkic relative to each other (namely, that china invades taiwan) - with nukes and MAD. But that's got its own problems.
• oneoff786 4y ago
  It’s also in the US’ strategic interests to simply make it clear that China can’t have Taiwan regardless of the TSMC however
  • rr888 4y ago
    • conradfr 4y ago
      Except the Taiwanese people.
    • Huh1337 4y ago
      These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? And don't forget that when Russians still thought they're going to win, they brought in mobile crematoriums and started filtrating people and sending them off to Siberia if not torturing and murdering them. It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive"
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • dr-detroit 4y ago
        [dead]
      • whimsicalism 4y ago
        > These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? Certainly this is not true of Crimea, where people have been independently polled by Western NGOs and the weight of the evidence is they want to be part of Russia. > It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive" Your thesis is that if Russia won they would murder a substantial %-ge of the population in mobile crematoriums?
• bryanlarsen 4y ago
  China will invade Taiwan when the cost to do so is low enough and/or they are desperate. In other words, the probability of success is considerably higher today than it will be in the future (even if the probability of success today isn't great). Russia is a declining state relative to Ukraine & Europe, so Putin's odds of success in 2022 were considerably higher than they would be 10 years later. So if invading Ukraine was necessary at some point, 2022 was the best time to do it. China's regime believes that invading Taiwan is necessary, but OTOH the Chinese military is getting stronger very quickly and they believe they'll be in a much better position to invade in a decade then they are now. So there is no way they're going to invade any time soon. Avoiding a war completely is highly unlikely given Xi & China's policies. But delaying a war is highly likely. And a war indefinitely delayed is a war avoided.
  • breckenedge 4y ago
    Treating political and military leaders as rational entities is dangerous.
    • SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      Likewise, treating everyone you disagree with as completely insane; devoid of any reasonable motivations is a lazy hand-wavy viewpoint. It’ll also make you prone to suck up any and all propaganda that aligns with your biases.
      • whimsicalism 4y ago
        > you prone to suck up any and all propaganda that aligns with your biases. A phenomena that is very clear in threads about China.
      • des1nderlase 4y ago
        Yup, general public needs to read The Art of War to understand these conflicts at a deeper level.
    • bryanlarsen 4y ago
• gdy 4y ago
  "EU was caught off guard by Russia" You've got to be kidding me. Putin had been warning West since the Munich speech in 2007. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladimir_Putin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladim...
  • alexb_ 4y ago
    Well if you've been warning someone for 14 years and literally nothing has happened, why is it unreasonable to be surprised?
    • greedo 4y ago
      Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, then Ukraine in 2014. Pretty sure that's "literally" something happening.
  • computerfriend 4y ago
    And yet, they were caught off guard.
    • gdy 4y ago
      No, they weren't.
      • computerfriend 4y ago
        It really seems that much of the EU thought Putin was bluffing right up until the end of February. EU leaders proudly saying they had personal assurances Russia wouldn't invade again. There was incredible amounts of inaction. Only a handful of countries were shipping weapons, mostly non-EU.
        • gdy 4y ago
          Sorry, you may claim that the EU was indulging in wishful thinking, but you can't call it 'caught off-guard'.
• chaorace 4y ago
  This kind of bluster is a mainstay of Chinese geopolitics. The law was intentionally written in an open-ended way so that the party always gets the final say on what "completely exhausted" should mean. It serves as a propaganda tool internally and a point of leverage externally -- the party never needs to actually act on the threat for it to serve a valuable purpose. With that being said, it's not that simple. Bluster isn't just a political tactic -- it also enables the military to slowly chip away at norms and edge closer towards a strategic advantage (e.g.: progressively violating more and more of Taiwan's sovereign airspace). If the party could have things their way, the military would merely continue pushing the envelope until one day a D-Day assault force seemingly randomly washes up on Taiwan's doorstep.
  • greggsy 4y ago
    Exactly - they’re not constrained by the same four-ish year terms held in most democratic countries, and are able to play out twenty- and even fifty-year scenarios without too much domestic uncertainty. That strategy manifests in that slow chipping away: they don’t need to do things all at once.
    • chrischen 4y ago
      It also manifests in potentially bad management that keeps itself going such as the current administration’s braindead covid policies.
      • whimsicalism 4y ago
        Braindead from an American perspective, it is also likely those policies have averted upwards of 4 million deaths.
        • d_graeme 4y ago
          Exactly. Tbh its constantly surprising why Americans view the CCPs zero-covid policy as a failure. Even the most pessimistic reports (based on actual facts, not tabloid-driven wishful thinking) acknowledges that China has avoided at least 2 million+ deaths through their zero covid policy. Is the right to life no longer a human right? Or have a lot of us so internalized anti-China propaganda that we're no longer able to think logically?
• mastax 4y ago
  Chinese law should almost never be considered something that constrains the government, and especially not in grandiose cases like this. The government will do as it pleases, regardless of the law. That is more of a strong press release than a binding proposition. However, I am not arguing that China is not serious about retaking Taiwan. They are deathly serious.
  • intrasight 4y ago
    "Chinese law" - an oxymoron ;) They said they will retake Taiwan and they can and few will really care. So of course they will.
    • ericmay 4y ago
      Whether they can or not is highly questionable. "Few will really care" is certainly false. And in terms of nation states caring, that's also incorrect because Taiwan is a linchpin of US Pacific foreign policy and for the US to do nothing or "not care" about Taiwan being invaded would signal to allies in the region that they cannot count on the United States and that they should find their own defense arrangements. It would de facto kick the US out of the Pacific and end global hegemony overnight. Frankly, Taiwan is a big fucking deal w.r.t US, Japanese, and Australian national defense concerns and is a big deal to other nations such as New Zealand.
      • intrasight 4y ago
        I did mean few American voters
        • ericmay 4y ago
          Is that true either? I'm not sure. We'd have to look at various polling results to start with and then go from there. I know in my previous suburban neighborhood and even moreso in my urban neighborhood that there are Ukrainian flags hung outside of doors and windows. I've never seen that before or anything like it. https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/american-support-ukraine-poll https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/american-support-ukraine-po...
• ouid 4y ago
  Nah, fuck it. We're allowed to commit to war too. Xi Jingping is a tyrannical insane dictator and his successor will be worse. He needs to be stood up to, and no one is in a better position to do that than the US.
  • whimsicalism 4y ago
    Why Xi Jinping and not, say, MbS?
    • axus 4y ago
      MBS isn't making claims on his neighbors territory for his own.
      • laverya 4y ago
        I think he's literally in the process of invading and subjugating a neighbor, actually. The Saudis might not call what's going on in Yemen an invasion, but it sure looks like it from here.
        • rnk 4y ago
          Yemen and the treatment of Khashoggi and many others by the Saudi govt could eventually yield a case for helping their neighbors resist them. Yemen is pretty horrible. We are stuck with oil dependence for now.
          • whimsicalism 4y ago
            > We are stuck with oil dependence for now. We produce more oil domestically than we consume.
            • rnk 4y ago
              Yes, but it's a global market and there is not a barrier to oil at our border. SA increasing or decreasing world oil supplies affects the oil prices here. There's a separate discussion about the refineries in the US affecting the price of gas at the pump much more than the price of the oil. But let's focus on the fact that SA can increase or decrease the price of oil form them, it's a world wide commodity, and their actions affect the price people pay for oil in the us, because it's a world wide commodity.
• hackandthink 4y ago
  Does it make sense for PRC to blockade Taiwan and stop TMSC delivering/producing chips? I guess only if PRC is embargoed (US Sanctions TMSC). Maybe next year. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-gives-reprieve-least-two-non-chinese-chipmakers-china-export-curbs-sources-2022-10-12/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-gives-reprieve-least-t...
  • authpor 4y ago
    no it doesn't. that would be equivalent to shooting themselves in the ocean. for now, they are still under the thumb of the american navy. how else would they ship out all the consumer goods? and to whom? USA is their biggest buyer.
    • hackandthink 4y ago
      OK: PRC blockades Taiwan leads to american navy blockading PRC Nobody wants that.
      • Balgair 4y ago
        If the US only put a partial blockade for Chinese bound ships in the Strait of Malacca, that would be enough. China is starved for oil too. They're trying to mitigate the Strait issue with the oil pipelines through Xinjiang and into the Caspian, but those are years away still.
• Maursault 4y ago
  > by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, The irony here is that it is in fact China that seceded from Taiwan.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• lovich 4y ago
  The soviets used this ad a phrase given how many times China doesn’t follow through with a threat.[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning
• elsonrodriguez 4y ago
  The US isn't going to be caught off guard by China. What the west has been doing for Ukraine in the last few months in terms of weapons, the US and other countries have been doing for Taiwan over the last few decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_arms_sales_to_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_arms_sales_to_Taiwa... The latest sale involves adding 60 Harpoon anti-ship missiles to the pile of hundreds they already have. China will not have an easy time of invading such a well-armed country, and they also have to weigh the non-zero possibility of foreign intervention. It will be a costly endeavor by any measure. China's best bet is a cultural/political/economic takeover, which will give other countries time to diversify chip manufacturing, as we are currently doing.
  • thehappypm 4y ago
    It’s not impossible. China moves at a different pace than the West. They might retake Taiwan in 2100, after a couple generations maybe care more about shared culture and language than democracy.
    • yrlihuan 4y ago
      Many mainland Chinese think the best approach for China-Taiwan issue is to just wait. It's not of the best interest of Chinese people (of both China and Taiwan) to change the status quo. On the other side, the US obviously wants to see a war between the two side of the strait. And the US is actually prepareing for it.
  • missedthecue 4y ago
    Taiwan imports 60-70% of it's food and they can't increase domestic production because they import fertilizer and they can't make their own fertilizer because they import natural gas, and they don't have any domestic gas fields. China doesn't need to storm the beaches, they can passively blockade Taiwan until they give in.
    • elsonrodriguez 4y ago
      Taiwan has hundreds of anti ship misiles with a range of over 100km. China doesn’t have to storm beaches to be within shooting range. If Taiwan were an easy conquest it would have been conquered. It’s not impossible that China would attempt some sort of belligerence, but Taiwan is capable responding to any threat with enough firepower to deter such actions.