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Chinese law should almost never be considered something that constrains the government, and especially not in grandiose cases like this. The government will do
by 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 agoWhether 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 agoI did mean few American voters
- ericmay 4y agoIs 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...
- tlear 4y agoThey can't, not even remotely close any time in the next 20 years at least. Can you imagine what a landing beach would look like being pounded by drone spotted artillery? See war in Ukraine. Forget the approach, anti ship missiles, mines, sheer volume of logistics needed. Stepping on the landing beach is a suicide without absolutely astronomical advantage in air power and ability to suffer huge attrition, even then.. 155mm hidden under camo/thermal nets, DJI drone rigged with magazines of small bombs.. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson Childs play, this would make Diep and Galipoli look like walk in the park. I would go as far as to say that US Army + Marines + Navy could not land on Taiwan without suffering multiple brigades of attrition AFTER at least a year long blockade and air campaign. It is that hard. PRC has to surpass US in GDP, then spend 10-20 years of US level military spending, then maybe.
- whimsicalism 4y agoChina can just send cruise missiles to start and ignore beaches. A major power with 1.2 billion people can take an island of 20 million 80 miles away from its shores.
- Apocryphon 4y agoIf they want to make a desert and call it peace, perhaps. Seems like a bad strategy to smash a crown jewel before you annex it.
- intrasight 4y agoThey will take it without a fight
- Apocryphon 4y agoThat simple sentence is doing a lot of heavy dodging to ignore all of the points brought up in the post upthread about the inherent difficulties involved in naval landings. Now, if you're going to say economic pressures will lead to political settlements without conflict, then that's a discussion to be had.
- authpor 4y agothis is applicable to most countries... wriggling around the law needs only an emergency.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoThey are not retaking Taiwan. They never had Taiwan. Taiwain is the last bastion of the democratic government of china.
- kragen 4y agoChiang democratic? Sheesh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek#Mass_deaths_under_Nationalist_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek#Mass_deaths_un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_o...: Following the ROC government's retreat to Taiwan on 7 December 1949, the Temporary Provisions together with martial law made the country an authoritarian one-party state despite the constitution. Democratization began in the 1980s. Martial law was lifted in 1987, and in 1991 the Temporary Provisions were repealed. ROC has been democratic since the 01990s, but it was an authoritarian dictatorship that killed millions of its own people at the time the Communists drove it out of the mainland (only to exceed its atrocities with their own) and for decades afterwards.
- digianarchist 4y agoThe KMT have an awful track record as being horrifically authoritarian. OP isn’t wrong though contemporary Taiwan is a model democracy in a region where there are few.
- whimsicalism 4y agoI think pinning Taiwan as "last bastion" of some democracy that existed before is incorrect as any honest history of the KMT can see.
- kragen 4y agoEven dishonest histories of the KMT are rarely so dishonest as to claim the ROC was democratically governed before 01949, however much they try to whitewash the mass killings. Disinformation has to be plausible to be effective.