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Invading Taiwan will never be an economically rational action. If it happens, it will be because of internal politics, personal/national myth-making etc. Taiwa

Invading Taiwan will never be an economically rational action. If it happens, it will be because of internal politics, personal/national myth-making etc. Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory, and the US will be able to play merry hell with China's naval logistics from day 1 (obviously with escalating levels of firepower available over time as more resources move in-theatre). China could secure a more reliable victory by expending most of it's ballistic missile inventory to incapacitate the US bases in Guam and Okinawa, but that would inexorably trigger WWIII.

cookiemonsieur 2y ago
[flagged]
- neuronic 2y ago
  I see you posting anti-Western comments all over the place but amidst your irrational hate you are forgetting history. Originally, the US was the protector of almost all Asian countries from Japanese Imperialism, an axis power allied with Nazi Germany. How are people like you forgetting the rape of Nanjing or the mass killings of civilians by the Japanese across the Philippines and many other places? How are you forgetting Japanese imperial occupation of Taiwan and Korea? How and WHY are you forgetting Japanese Unit 731 [1]? Ironically, the government which fled to Taiwan was ousted by a Communist revolution and chased into exile. How likely do you think is it that this operation, destablilising China, was funded and supported by the communist Soviet Union? Writing that "US is the intruder" in your other comments completely dismisses history and is a ridiculous show of brainwashed anti-Western propaganda spread by Putin, Xi, Trump and such authoritarian dictators. Of course a whole lot more happened after 1945 and American war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere are part of that. As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side. Given all that, I am also glad that Europe is now moving to emanciapte from the dependency on American security infrastructure but that doesn't mean NATO should stop or that the US should stop being allies with European nations. Trump gets his goal of spending less for European security but that comes with the loss of hegemonial influence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
  - defrost 2y ago
    Yes, let's not forget history ( your [1] ) Those captured by the US military were secretly given immunity. The United States helped cover up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The US had co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own warfare program
    - drodgers 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Nobody in the US cared until Pearl Harbor. Was US meddling in South America just protecting them from communism, or was it for US imperialism? Trump isn't that different, he has different allies and is more blatant about it.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      The US denounced Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and refused to recognize that as new Japanese territory. A military response was not then considered, but to say that nobody in the US cared is false. Edit: More so, the fact that America's initial response to Japan's imperialism was diplomatic rather than military undermines the narrative that America was just using Japan as a pretext to cover for America's own imperial ambition. America, far from leaping at an opportunity to invade Asia, was committed to diplomatic resolution of the matter until Japan's imperial ambitions drove them to directly attack the American military, forcing America to respond in kind.
  - trumpvoter 2y ago
    > As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side. Isn't this their main point? There's plenty of examples of killing those not on their side outside of "authoriatarian communists" (hint, Iraq, Gaza). You still believe in them and that's fine, but there is a lot of Western projection that they are right and others are not, which is the sense I get from your comment. It's reasonable for people to be against this and "anti-Western". It's also ok to see the strong development brought in from the West and support them. But this is a point for the locals to work through and not pushing a narrative like this one seems to be just as much pro-Western propaganda ignoring anything against it as the other way around.
- alephnan 2y ago
  You sound word for word like you are regurgitating CCP rhetoric of Victor Gao
- UltraSane 2y ago
  The CCP talks constantly about unifying Taiwan
- throw0101a 2y ago
  > It's extremely unlikely to ever happen. I think westerners are simply projecting their own war mongering tendencies on their rivals. Talk to Xi then: "Xi says no one can stop China's 'reunification' with Taiwan": * https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-chinas-reunification-with-taiwan-2024-12-31/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-...
ekianjo 2y ago
No need to go on the island to win. Just encircle it. A blockade. Always works and this has been the modus operandi to conquer fortresses and castles for millenia.
- nverno 2y ago
  Time wouldn't be on their side though. China would need to effectively complete the invasion before the US navy had time to react. Even if it was considered unlikely the US would react, I doubt China would commit to an invasion they weren't certain they could win.
  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    Why not buy them out? If you give everyone 100k it’s only 2.4 trillion. Or even better, just buy out the militant element.
    - sebzim4500 2y ago
      I think this strategy could possible work with the US taking Greenland (although I think that plan has been abandoned) but there is no way that Taiwan would accept such a small amount.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Would you subject your family to a Cultural Revolution in exchange for 100k? Add several zeros and assurances of safe passage out of the country and maybe you'd be onto something, but that's not going to happen for numerous reasons. The PRC already buys the loyalty of who they can in Taiwan, but Taiwan nevertheless remains resolute.
      - ecshafer 2y ago
        The cultural revolution happened 50-60 years ago. What culture would change in Taiwan? Mainland and Taiwan already share a lot of media.
kelipso 2y ago
I don't think that's accurate. The population is concentrated on the west coast, all that mountainous terrain is unpopulated. Also it's an island that's very close to China.
- tweetle_beetle 2y ago
  I can't comment on their impartiality, but a policy research organisation ran a detailed war gaming simulation of an amphibious invasion by China 24 times in 2023. > In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule. https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargamin...
re-thc 2y ago
> Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory Not true. Just sneakily cut the submarine cables i.e. Internet before the "offical attack". Most of the comments talk about a blockade, but no need. I doubt a lot of things will function without Internet. There were discussions of Satellite but not confirmed.
- abirch 2y ago
  I'm unsure of how many internet services Taiwan relies on outside of Taiwan? If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Unfortunately they won't be able to access Hacker News, but they should be able to bank, buy groceries, etc.
  - re-thc 2y ago
    > If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Taiwan doesn't have a huge data center capacity. A lot of services are in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc... Of the big clouds e.g. AWS is only opening a data center later this year. It's also not so simple. Even local servers / services might have all sorts of "needs" to phone "home" elsewhere e.g. for analytics. A lot of software might not have been tested and will crash. Even the big clouds might not work in isolation. Then there's also things like patches, updates, firmwares etc. A lot of things like kubernetes clusters may be set to auto update and crash. If you need a docker image the local CDN didn't cache then it is gone.
    - lurk2 2y ago
      Why would this have any strategic impact on Taiwan's capacity to defend itself?
      - re-thc 2y ago
        Defending isn't just about outside forces. There are internal 1s too. There have been plenty of polls / surveys and it isn't united. Lots of people living there were originally from China or have some relationship to it. Ukraine put up a mostly unified front and managed to do so for so long. Not every place can or will. Despite what the US media keeps making of it, China isn't all evil nor does >50% of Taiwan think this way.

cookiemonsieur 2y ago

[flagged]

neuronic 2y ago
I see you posting anti-Western comments all over the place but amidst your irrational hate you are forgetting history. Originally, the US was the protector of almost all Asian countries from Japanese Imperialism, an axis power allied with Nazi Germany. How are people like you forgetting the rape of Nanjing or the mass killings of civilians by the Japanese across the Philippines and many other places? How are you forgetting Japanese imperial occupation of Taiwan and Korea? How and WHY are you forgetting Japanese Unit 731 [1]? Ironically, the government which fled to Taiwan was ousted by a Communist revolution and chased into exile. How likely do you think is it that this operation, destablilising China, was funded and supported by the communist Soviet Union? Writing that "US is the intruder" in your other comments completely dismisses history and is a ridiculous show of brainwashed anti-Western propaganda spread by Putin, Xi, Trump and such authoritarian dictators. Of course a whole lot more happened after 1945 and American war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere are part of that. As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side. Given all that, I am also glad that Europe is now moving to emanciapte from the dependency on American security infrastructure but that doesn't mean NATO should stop or that the US should stop being allies with European nations. Trump gets his goal of spending less for European security but that comes with the loss of hegemonial influence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
- defrost 2y ago
  Yes, let's not forget history ( your [1] ) Those captured by the US military were secretly given immunity. The United States helped cover up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The US had co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own warfare program
  - drodgers 2y ago
    [flagged]
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  Nobody in the US cared until Pearl Harbor. Was US meddling in South America just protecting them from communism, or was it for US imperialism? Trump isn't that different, he has different allies and is more blatant about it.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    The US denounced Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and refused to recognize that as new Japanese territory. A military response was not then considered, but to say that nobody in the US cared is false. Edit: More so, the fact that America's initial response to Japan's imperialism was diplomatic rather than military undermines the narrative that America was just using Japan as a pretext to cover for America's own imperial ambition. America, far from leaping at an opportunity to invade Asia, was committed to diplomatic resolution of the matter until Japan's imperial ambitions drove them to directly attack the American military, forcing America to respond in kind.
- trumpvoter 2y ago
  > As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side. Isn't this their main point? There's plenty of examples of killing those not on their side outside of "authoriatarian communists" (hint, Iraq, Gaza). You still believe in them and that's fine, but there is a lot of Western projection that they are right and others are not, which is the sense I get from your comment. It's reasonable for people to be against this and "anti-Western". It's also ok to see the strong development brought in from the West and support them. But this is a point for the locals to work through and not pushing a narrative like this one seems to be just as much pro-Western propaganda ignoring anything against it as the other way around.
alephnan 2y ago
You sound word for word like you are regurgitating CCP rhetoric of Victor Gao
UltraSane 2y ago
The CCP talks constantly about unifying Taiwan
throw0101a 2y ago
> It's extremely unlikely to ever happen. I think westerners are simply projecting their own war mongering tendencies on their rivals. Talk to Xi then: "Xi says no one can stop China's 'reunification' with Taiwan": * https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-chinas-reunification-with-taiwan-2024-12-31/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-...

ekianjo 2y ago

No need to go on the island to win. Just encircle it. A blockade. Always works and this has been the modus operandi to conquer fortresses and castles for millenia.

nverno 2y ago
Time wouldn't be on their side though. China would need to effectively complete the invasion before the US navy had time to react. Even if it was considered unlikely the US would react, I doubt China would commit to an invasion they weren't certain they could win.
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  Why not buy them out? If you give everyone 100k it’s only 2.4 trillion. Or even better, just buy out the militant element.
  - sebzim4500 2y ago
    I think this strategy could possible work with the US taking Greenland (although I think that plan has been abandoned) but there is no way that Taiwan would accept such a small amount.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Would you subject your family to a Cultural Revolution in exchange for 100k? Add several zeros and assurances of safe passage out of the country and maybe you'd be onto something, but that's not going to happen for numerous reasons. The PRC already buys the loyalty of who they can in Taiwan, but Taiwan nevertheless remains resolute.
    - ecshafer 2y ago
      The cultural revolution happened 50-60 years ago. What culture would change in Taiwan? Mainland and Taiwan already share a lot of media.

kelipso 2y ago

I don't think that's accurate. The population is concentrated on the west coast, all that mountainous terrain is unpopulated. Also it's an island that's very close to China.

tweetle_beetle 2y ago
I can't comment on their impartiality, but a policy research organisation ran a detailed war gaming simulation of an amphibious invasion by China 24 times in 2023. > In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule. https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargamin...

re-thc 2y ago

> Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory Not true. Just sneakily cut the submarine cables i.e. Internet before the "offical attack". Most of the comments talk about a blockade, but no need. I doubt a lot of things will function without Internet. There were discussions of Satellite but not confirmed.

abirch 2y ago
I'm unsure of how many internet services Taiwan relies on outside of Taiwan? If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Unfortunately they won't be able to access Hacker News, but they should be able to bank, buy groceries, etc.
- re-thc 2y ago
  > If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Taiwan doesn't have a huge data center capacity. A lot of services are in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc... Of the big clouds e.g. AWS is only opening a data center later this year. It's also not so simple. Even local servers / services might have all sorts of "needs" to phone "home" elsewhere e.g. for analytics. A lot of software might not have been tested and will crash. Even the big clouds might not work in isolation. Then there's also things like patches, updates, firmwares etc. A lot of things like kubernetes clusters may be set to auto update and crash. If you need a docker image the local CDN didn't cache then it is gone.
  - lurk2 2y ago
    Why would this have any strategic impact on Taiwan's capacity to defend itself?
    - re-thc 2y ago
      Defending isn't just about outside forces. There are internal 1s too. There have been plenty of polls / surveys and it isn't united. Lots of people living there were originally from China or have some relationship to it. Ukraine put up a mostly unified front and managed to do so for so long. Not every place can or will. Despite what the US media keeps making of it, China isn't all evil nor does >50% of Taiwan think this way.