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All this talk of China invading Taiwan and attacking other countries in SE Asia is bonkers. Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an inst

All this talk of China invading Taiwan and attacking other countries in SE Asia is bonkers. Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an instant. Their commercial fishing fleets would probably be driven back to port. It would take a matter of days until they had massive internal protests. Hungry people topple governments in hours.

toss1 4y ago
Yes it is bonkers, indeed! Yet, it is EXACTLY what Xi repeatedly said in his new-term-inauguration speech The dictator of China has effectively declared, as publicly as possible, and very specifically, that he intends to invade Taiwan if it does not willingly abandon it's democracy and come under China's rule He obviously thinks he can get away with doing so without consequences, including those you suggest. Yet, leaders make such mistakes all the time. Putin just made one on 24-Feb-2022. It is up to the western world to ensure that Xi sees that such an action would result in bad consequences for him, and deter him from his stated course. But the fact that it is bonkers is no assurance whatsoever that it won't happen.
- cowtools 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning
  - toss1 4y ago
    That's great — China issued over 900 "Final Warnings" about US military presence in the Taiwan Straits, and zero of them had any follow-through. That gives us good reason to hope that China will keep behaving that way. We can keep up the deterrence, China can keep on blustering, and nothing bad actually happens. That would indeed be a great result. Indeed, seems like a most likely scenario.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    Except, PRC "Final Warnings" has preluded actual war or near actual war with every NPT nuclear state, a few times when PRC wasn't (or not meaningfully) a nuclear power herself, on issues much less important than TW, when PRC was much more militarily weak than it is now. This includes USSR skirmishes (hence why the Soviet meme is stupid), US+UN in Korea, threatening UK over HK handover, secretly shelling French in Vietnam, multiple TW strait crisis. To add insult to injury, with respect to source of this meme, PRC "final warnings" throughout this period shot down 5 U2s, that's 3 more than USSR. So not only was PRC following up with warnings, but they managed to do so more successfully than USSR.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an instant. I think you misunderstand deeply the current equilibrium in the world. Most of Africa, a significant part of South East Asia, some countries in Eastern Europe would definitely align with China. A significant part of South America would be neutral. The USA is losing allies nearly as fast as China is making them.
rchaud 4y ago
The same was said about the impact of sanctions on Russia -- the people would revolt. Well, it's been almost a year and they haven't, at least not at levels that the state can't easily suppress. China can get much further than Russia can in that amount of time.

toss1 4y ago

Yes it is bonkers, indeed! Yet, it is EXACTLY what Xi repeatedly said in his new-term-inauguration speech The dictator of China has effectively declared, as publicly as possible, and very specifically, that he intends to invade Taiwan if it does not willingly abandon it's democracy and come under China's rule He obviously thinks he can get away with doing so without consequences, including those you suggest. Yet, leaders make such mistakes all the time. Putin just made one on 24-Feb-2022. It is up to the western world to ensure that Xi sees that such an action would result in bad consequences for him, and deter him from his stated course. But the fact that it is bonkers is no assurance whatsoever that it won't happen.

cowtools 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning
- toss1 4y ago
  That's great — China issued over 900 "Final Warnings" about US military presence in the Taiwan Straits, and zero of them had any follow-through. That gives us good reason to hope that China will keep behaving that way. We can keep up the deterrence, China can keep on blustering, and nothing bad actually happens. That would indeed be a great result. Indeed, seems like a most likely scenario.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Except, PRC "Final Warnings" has preluded actual war or near actual war with every NPT nuclear state, a few times when PRC wasn't (or not meaningfully) a nuclear power herself, on issues much less important than TW, when PRC was much more militarily weak than it is now. This includes USSR skirmishes (hence why the Soviet meme is stupid), US+UN in Korea, threatening UK over HK handover, secretly shelling French in Vietnam, multiple TW strait crisis. To add insult to injury, with respect to source of this meme, PRC "final warnings" throughout this period shot down 5 U2s, that's 3 more than USSR. So not only was PRC following up with warnings, but they managed to do so more successfully than USSR.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

> Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an instant. I think you misunderstand deeply the current equilibrium in the world. Most of Africa, a significant part of South East Asia, some countries in Eastern Europe would definitely align with China. A significant part of South America would be neutral. The USA is losing allies nearly as fast as China is making them.

rchaud 4y ago

The same was said about the impact of sanctions on Russia -- the people would revolt. Well, it's been almost a year and they haven't, at least not at levels that the state can't easily suppress. China can get much further than Russia can in that amount of time.