It's a bit hard to imagine the domestic opinion in China supporting a hot war with Taiwan. Unless the Taiwanese leadership decides to commit suicide by a cop and declares full independence, I suspect the Chinese public would be very uncomfortable with civilian deaths in Taiwan.
Nationalistic fervor is strong, but the mainland Chinese consider the Taiwanese to be Chinese as well. So bombing Taiwanese targets would feel not very different from bombing Hunan or Sichuan province.
A blockade, on the other hand, would be far more acceptable domestically. And I fear that means a greater likelihood of the US involvement: the US public (and therefore the administration) may not have the stomach to defend Taiwan from an invasion, but they might feel they cannot stand by when American cargo ships are prevented from moving freely in the international waters.
On a side note, it's hard to believe that in the 21 century, when people are on the verge of manned flights to Mars, we still have a truckload of terrorial disputes all over the world (Taiwan and the rest of the mess in the South China Sea, the Northern Territories of Japan, Senkaku islands, the Chinese / Indian border, the Middle East, Crimea, etc.).
PRC-ROC is unfinished civil war with a literal countdown timer (2049). Reality is reunification with Taiwan is the ultimate political get-out-jail-free card for any Chinese leadership. It doesn't matter if PRC is democratic or authoritarian, taking Taiwan will supersede and overshadow any large domestic issue that could undermine legitimacy. And PRC will face many in the coming years. If she successfully negotiates them, then missing the 2049 deadline itself will be overwhelming issue determining legitimacy. PRC moving on Taiwan is inevitable, even the mildest forceful reunion option (quarantine) could lead to total-war because that's just how escalation spirals.
"According to a book published on Tuesday titled "The Chinese Invasion Threat" by Project 2049 think tank fellow Ian Easton, Beijing has finalized a secret plan to invade Taiwan by 2020, according to classified documents from the Chinese military obtained by the author, reported the Washington Free Beacon."
Much as I love Taiwan, let's not pretend this is anything other than propaganda. Only goes to show that bullshit can be produced by pro-Taiwan analysts just as well as by pro-Beijing analysts.
Centennial anniversary of founding of PRC. 2049 has been been implied as the latest deadline in enough official political communications over decades that reunification by then is a matter of legitimacy, especially on subjects like sovereignty that CCP is firm on.
I’ve spent months in China and often rural areas. What you’re saying is definitely not true, I’m not sure how to convince you though. I don’t remember specific stories.
If you offer anecdata you need to actually offer anecdotes because they at least provide additional color and texture to a discussion. Did rural Chinese evince willingness to go to war with Taiwan? Did they say they would be fine with civilian casualties of fellow Han Chinese and others speaking the same languages as them, with the same culture as them? Did they say anything similar about Hong Kong? For all of the depredations happening in the latter, the bodycount is quite low, which would not be the case in a war with Taiwan.
I recall indirect discussions with the locals. Basically job related "Would you ever move to Taiwan or Hong Kong?" and even "Would you move to United States?". This is to fresh graduates (~1-2 years into the job). The answer I got was resounding no, with further explanations involving the progress of China and how amazing the government is at getting rid of corruption and removing obstacles for private enterprises.
You could sense a tremendous amount of optimism and nationalism lurking behind their opinions. I could not open any discussion criticizing CCP, that wouldn't have gone well. Also discussed military strength, fighter pilots (oh they really wanted to be one of those guys) and some discussion around religion or lack thereof.
FWIW, these were outskirts of industrial towns in China. In Sichuan region mostly which is pretty different than Beijing , Shanghai and Shenzhen.
HK is a police action, a difference in degrees with what countries in Europe and the US do from a layperson's perspective. Like "dealing with rioting people who are trying to subvert the system".
Now one could say "_in reality_ it's the same cuz of all the agreements with HK etc." And I'm inclined to agree. But the optics of police arresting rioters vs.... what? dropping bombs on military forces? Images of boat inspections + being turned away?
Even the US, it could barely stomach the idea of a ground invasion of Syria, despite _all_ the sort of things that would make it easy to sell to people (despite the absolute atrocity that it would be).
China has much less experience selling wars to people, and all the "disadvantages" that come with pop culture covering war, and on top of that it's not even the "heathens" halfway around the world!
A key difference is that Taiwan independence is a LOT more important to the US' strategic interests than who runs Syria. Taiwan independence matters to the USA in that it helps contain China. Syria, despite Russia's meddling, has no such importance to the US.
Americans didn't get headlines that read like that when the US send troops to Vietnam, Afganistan etc (maybe they did and the US started those wars anyway).
Since then, reporters have been either banned or restricted in their reporting in the US's recent wars. The Armed Forces don't want people to see their failures, and develop another Anti-War Movement as in the 1970s
Sure. Though one could argue that a Sino-Taiwanese war would be at least different because both sides involved would be largely co-ethnics of the same culture, and a fraternal war is more complex than imperial wars.
That said, the most civil wars end up pretty bloody anyway.
Those were all existential civil wars, though. Those wars threatened core territory and were very much in the face of the people involved. Those wars determined the fates of those nations far more than securing one wayward province. And both the ACW and the Vietnam War had its share of war protesters and resisters who were morally opposed or didn't see a reason to get involved.
An aggressive war on Taiwan would couple the conflicted feelings of a fraternal struggle with the civilian comfort of America's Cold War and War on Terror imperial adventures. Would middle class Chinese in the big coastal cities be completely fine with seeing or at least hearing about people pretty much just like them getting bombed across the Strait? Or would they view it as an unnecessary, gratuitous, extravagant, waste of life and treasure?
You brought up a good point. The Vietnam War (I kept using this example because I'm from Vietnam myself) happened because the North who pushed for it was poor and misled with propaganda.
With China and Taiwan, both are well-off and their citizens would not need to risk their livelihood if not necessary.
However, China seems to be following the path of America who's such a powerful bully that they can start wars left and right without any retaliation on their soil, save for 9/11. If that's the case, this logic won't apply at least to the China side, and again, propaganda.
Yeah, China attacking Taiwan unprompted would have shades of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Throwing around hegemonic weight. I just wonder if the common people will have different opinions of it from the government's. The distance between the two countries is far less than the distance between the U.S. and the Middle East.
It's refreshing to see a take on this conflict that runs counter to the conventional take of a cataclysmic contest over an amphibious invasion of Taiwan and a frankly more realistic scenario of the PRC salami slicing it's way towards increased control of the island while trying to minimize the collateral damage an actual war would bring. The idea of imposing an inspection of all shipping into Taiwan to block military shipments while allowing civilian shipping hints of the Cuban missile crisis.
Still, the US could easily run "inspections" of its own on Chinese oil tankers in the Indian ocean. That's why I'm convinced that the ultimate confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan won't happen anywhere near Taiwan at all. Rather, China will delay until they can fight the US Navy in the Indian ocean.
> China will delay until they can fight the US Navy in the Indian ocean.
Honestly a fight with the us in the Indian ocean is not what they have to worry about. They have to worry about pirates attacking their tankers and stealing oil. They have to worry about iran going to war with saudi arabia (or in the shorter term, iran hijacking chinese flagged tankers coming from saudi arabia or vice versa -- like already happened this year except with south korea). They have to worry about belt and road policies making yellow people (I'm yellow and sadly afraid to visit africa for fear of being mistaken as chinese, e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52805202) resented across africa and all of their middle management exploiters getting murdered by locals with african governments turning a blind eye because they know that debt forgiveness is around the corner.
China is not Japan. China is the 5th largest oil producer in the world, is banking the largest strategic oil reserve, has enough domestic resources and sufficient food security to operate on a self-sustaining war economy, forever. The imports are needed to maintain / grow, but in case of total war footing, there's more than enough production for the war machine even if civilians has to eat rice and ride bikes again. So the question is can PRC break USN blockade or sufficiently prosecute a war until US decide Taiwan is not worth it. If both navies are trading hulls in a shooting war how much loses before USN realizes any victory would be pyrrhic one in which they lose naval hegemony to pursue their global interests. The entirety of Chinese navy which is rapidly closing gap with USN has one goal - to deter / break a USN blockade and secure oil route to ME. All other purposes like Taiwan and SCS is automatically secured if it can do so. And even if China loses, it can still become a giant north korea that's sufficiently close to Taiwan to turn it into Yemen.
There's a lot of analysis out there on Chinese food security, the TLDR is grain production is ~95%, but a lot of it goes towards animal feed. It's around 1000lbs per capita. In terms of crude, China only produces ~4M barrels per day, imports 10M. But the entire US military consumes 300k barrels per day for much broader portfolio. Other resources, only ~30% domestic self sufficiency in iron ore for steel production, but that's still ~300Mt which is ~60x total USN displacement. More or less everything else it stockpiles or can produce enough domestically for military needs, because relative to Chinese production the military doesn't actually use that much resources. All this is to say China is not Japan, it can't be "starved" into impotency, a blockaded China can not only sustain current military, but expand it by multiple folds on her own.
Seriously. This is China. No need for environmental impact studies. They built 2 hospitals in a matter of days. They can probably lay down a few tens of thousands of miles of pipe in a week.
Russian oil is quite a ways West, around Kazakhstan, and China's population density is to the East. The trip would be around 5000km, and take a week on good roads. Perhaps double or triple this depending on the season, and maybe with a "Russia" multiplier.
So multiply that 43,000 by 14 to 42, or more, and you're within a factor of ten of all (~16M according to Google) commercial trucks in the world, of which only some fraction are tanker trucks.
Russia and China compete. What the OP forgets is that there are plenty of countries such Iran that traditionally used to be US aligned but that have been left with no choice to take whathever deal China has to offer. The population isn't particularly happy about it either, but they don't really feel like they have a choice.
Have you not noticed that there is a 1Trillion development contract with Iran and that there isn't a single Muslim country that has a beef with China's Uighur policy? Also Xinjiang is an oil and gas and generally natural resource rich area. Another reason why China won't give it up. Same with Tibet actually.
China has actually been filling up with Oil by bartering without actually processing the customs required. So technically the oil never transferred ownership to China and therefore its not in breach of sanctions but for all practical definitions the Oil is now in Chinese hands as reserves.
There's also that tiny detail that when China started their nuclear weapons program, Taiwan also had one and that the USA used their global influence and the CIA to shut it down. The reason the power balance is in shambles is that the US focused very strongly on keeping its allies weak and now its coming back to bite everyone.
The US shutting down the Taiwanese nuclear program wasn’t them keeping their allies weak, it was them saving them from an invasion and us from a nuclear war.
Nuclear deterrence won’t work at that scale it’s also why Israel is worried about an Iranian bomb.
Deterrence works when both sides are at least somewhat equal in size and population, China can take 100’s of nukes and still survive in some form or another you ain’t going to kill 1.5 billion people, Taiwan on the other hand is an island that can be taken out in a single strike.
The point is that people assume that nuclear deterrence can be achieved by snapping fingers.
China would invade well before Taiwan gets to the point of second strike capability and even a proper first strike.
Taiwan can be essentially evaporated in a first strike, there will be little to no advanced warning and unless they station their nukes off the island they will never be able to build a sufficient deterrence.
It only takes a dozen good megaton nukes to destroy, say, 80% of Chinese industrial potential, which is concentrated in a few large cities. A lot of population is also concentrated in a few major cities, especially the most educated and qualified population. (Same applies to US, Russia, and many other countries.)
That is, yes, Chinese nation won't be obliterated; most people would survive. But the resulting chaos would be nothing like the country before that. It would be up for grabs for the strongest local groups, and whatever international / foreign forces which would inevitably come with humanitarian aid.
Most importantly, the powers that be can't hope to retain the control of the country, to say nothing of their own quality of life (and maybe the life itself).
So now we are jumping to megaton nukes? You do realize that the current Minutemen warheads in the US arsenal are ~300kt each right? Most nations don’t have multi megaton nukes standing at the ready, and Taiwan could never get to that point in the first place.
Getting to one nuke sure maybe, getting to dozens warheads you claim are needed and the 100’s in reality that would be needed, a robust delivery system and a first and second strike capability... are you kidding me?
Nuclear deterrence works well with near peers, it doesn’t work when one side can’t take a single hit and the other can.
It may describe Taiwan as an allied but in reality they are just a piece on the chess board of varying importance.
In the 80es mainland China was a key pawn to be played against the Soviets.
Today containment of China is the big goal. And Taiwan plays an important role in preventing Chinese access to the pacific, and also in the US China tech war.
This time Taiwan is a vulnerability for US that the US would rather not have, but it's still a vulnerability. If China suddenly takes Taiwan, the US may be forced into war or see massive infrastructure and economic disruption.
I suppose a major economic disruption is inevitable in any hot war scenario, at the very least because TSMC is going to be destroyed in this case, by the Taiwanese themselves, or their allies.
To say nothing of not buying the inexpensive goods made in China anymore.
They're going to be sucking their oil through a straw. Pipelines don't have nearly the same capacity as tankers.
But they are pushing their economy towards renewables, and by the 2040s the majority of China might be powered by alternatives to oil, leaving them enough to keep their military going without disrupting manufacturing.
Pipelines also have the added bonus that if the US tries to sabotage them, they've just attacked a bunch of neutral countries. Not a good look.
As someone from Bulgaria I still remember how the Yugoslavian war played out. NATO doesn’t seem to have any qualms in abusing weaker independent nations if their military interests require it.
Granted they just used Bulgaria’s airspace but the feeling was “we don’t give a F*ck what you think, deal with it”. Bulgaria is now _in_ NATO itself, but it wasn’t back then. There was a strong pro Russian (anti Nato) sentiment and I think that war in particular showed a lot of people what a precarious geopolitical position that actually was.
It is only one rail line and some roads... it takes a couple of B2s to destroy the link. The US doesn't have to hit china itself (to avoid any nuclear escalation). It will hit the silk road in the secondary countries where it passes (eg. Kazakhstan).
Siberia is huge and the Russian - China link is very inefficient.
Also, China is in bad terms with almost every other neighbor it has (territory disputes with almost every one).. and they will be glad to see it humbled a notch or two and will not help.
Nobody is blockading China. Nobody would dare. Biden just said he's fine with slavery in China, he won't so much as voice a negative opinion about their human rights atrocities. The Europeans aren't much better. Absolutely nobody is blockading them. The Saudis and Russians will sell China all the oil it cares to buy, and the Russians can deliver it via pipeline trivially.
Besides that, they're not going to need most of that oil in ~20 years.
Quick question: what has happened to China as a result of what they did regarding the pandemic? Millions of people just died, along tens of trillions of dollars in economic destruction. They lied about the pandemic, they hid the outbreak as long as they could, they're still hiding information about its origin and the early days. Barely anyone even cares to dispute that, they all just shrug about it. Where are the sanctions? Where's the blockade? Right. Nobody dares. Barely so much as a squeak in their direction. If I'm China I'm starting to ask: well then, what else can I get away with so easily?
Let's see here. They don't care when I enslave 500,000 people to pick cotton. They don't care when I commit cultural genocide and put millions of people in camps. They don't care when I violate prominent international agreements at will and strip Hong Kong of all of its rights. They don't care when I support a military dictatorship and coup in Myanmar. They don't care when I prop up and enable a crazy nuclear dictatorship in North Korea. They don't care when I destroy Tibet and culturally strip the entire nation. They don't care when I annex territory the size of France - from numerous of my neighbors - in the South China Sea by military force. And so on. (and before anyone bothers, that I pointed out these facts about China doesn't simultaneously imply the US is The Good Guy, I'll save someone that logic failure)
But oh boy, the world is suddenly going to care about Taiwan as China begins their annexation formally. The buck stops there, no doubt about it. Un huh.
Before another 10-15 years goes by they're going to have the world's most powerful military overall (they'll still lag in tech in some areas). It's exceptionally obvious. The US can't afford to continue its global projection, it's rapidly weakening (courtesy of the extraordinarily stupid decisions it has made fiscally over the past 20 years), and China is just beginning its global projection phase; one will contract, one will de facto conquer the world. The pandemic helped tip the US over fiscally into a more rapid downward spiral, it pulled that future forward by a lot.
Have you seen China's export machine during the pandemic? They took market share. They've become far more potent economically while their competitors have been severely weakened. As a future bet, who's taking Boeing versus China at this point? Intel & Co. vs China's future in semiconductors? The US is in a very bad position.
Within that 15 year span of time China will be sailing aircraft carriers past Hawaii and off the Pacific US coast, as a show of force, which the US will be entirely unable to stop.
I've rarely seen anything more obvious geo-politically than what is about to happen regarding China. Asia is theirs, absolutely nothing can stop that outcome. They'll even compete toe-to-toe in Latin America for influence, right in the US backyard (as we have been doing in their backyard for so long). The best the US and its allies can hope for is to hold some political & economic ground in Asia and not be entirely neutralized in the region.
The age of the American superpower is over. Act accordingly. The only thing the US is good for now is resource - wealth - extraction, while it lasts (debased by the minute). Then, afterward, get out while you can. Go somewhere nicer, somewhere sane, somewhere with a functional government, a decent culture, a future of prosperity and reason - that isn't the future of the US.
The tone this comment uses is very good at creating a subjective feeling of correctness without many concrete reasons backing it up. Furiously weaving together a grand story of decline makes it hard for the reader to raise important questions like “in which specific ways is US power projection weakened?” or “hold on, how can the US be only good for wealth extraction, didn’t they invent the iPhone just a decade ago?”
The US is still a very wealthy country. If they handle their role as a declining superpower gracefully, they can maintain that wealth for many decades.
UK did reasonably well mostly because they allied with US the new power, if China really rise as the new power like the article said, it's more like the end of USSC.
How long will it take China to build its navy to the point it can defeat the US fleet?
The PLAN is growing fast. Its size has tripled in the last 20 years, and right now it has more warships than the USN. The average size is smaller, but the goal is 400 ships by 2025. Having a big commercial shipbuilding industry helps. The US no longer has much of one; China has a large one.
China's third aircraft carrier is under construction. The first carrier was a refurbished Russian one. The second one was an improved version of that. The third one is comparable in size to a US carrier but without nuclear power. The next generation may have nuclear power. That's expected later in this decade.
China has a substantial truck-mounted land-based missile capability for sinking ships in areas offshore of China. This is a serious threat to USN carrier groups.
Suppose china shoots a usn carrier. The entire south china sea becomes a hot zone, and commercial shipping stops for months, maybe a year. Then what. The chinese people starve. Not a good plan, if you ask me.
China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited is the largest bulk carrier in the world. China can handle their own food imports in their own hulls. The biggest item is soybeans from Brazil. China buys food from the US but does not have to.
The mere fact that China owns enough merchant ships to import what it needs is far, far from being the pivotal factor if China ever finds itself in a war with the US.
But the land based missiles will only do limited good. What if india with US understanding (india have had several wars with china) decides to intercept oil tankers in the indian ocean that are going to china?
Building a navy that can project power that far is no task that can be done quickly.
China cannot itself sustain a blockade of Taiwan if the US intervenes.
It will be blockaded itself, as the US can within 48hrs blockade all commercial traffic in and out of china. China doesn't have much oil by itself, and it needs imports to properly feed its population.
It will end up like those scenarios, where the sieging forces, get sieged and cut off itself. Its navy is a near-shore force, and just can't project force outside the China sea. They can completely control the part of China sea near about 200-400km near its shore, but it will be unable to go any further than that.
It might end up like a Japan, 1941 scenario. They might be able to score some early surprise wins, but on the long term they are doomed to lose the war.
Ps. While china is experiencing a boom like the 50s and 60s in the USA (lots of infrastructure being built), China's demographic is aging, and we might see a scenario that the current boom will just slow down, and itself end up in a situation like Japan in the 90s, or USA itself in the 70s. It will reach a peak in the next 10 years (economically) and start leveling off to more normal rates of growth.
Predicting that China can control Taiwan if it wants to is a pretty easy one, as predictions go. Predicting that the US can easily dominate China is more in the vein of the ignorance at the start of WWI [0].
The world will not unite against China in the delusional understanding that the US is good and China is bad. China will not roll over and get flattened like an Afghanistan or an Iraq. Nobody knows what will happen, but it will probably be horrific.
Is it realistic to expect the US to have the capability to block its northern borders? I can't imagine Russia siding with the US in the event of a serious conflict, and even ignoring Kazakhstan and Mongolia (which the US will likely find hard to influence), China and Russia have many miles of shared borders. Russia's oil production is in the same order of magnitude as Saudi Arabia and the US and to my understanding is artificially limited to play nice with OPEC.
I think the more interesting scenario is tech embargoes taking away the "building blocks" (e.g. chips) and stalling their tech production. But China is well aware of their deficiency in this area and they've been pushing hard towards what they call "self-reliance" [1].
As for food, I can't imagine the conflict escalating to such a level of hostility and disregard for human life that the world allows the US to blockade China into starvation.
It is only one rail line and some roads... it takes a couple of B2s to destroy the link. The US doesn't have to hit china itself (to avoid any nuclear escalation). It will hit the silk road in the secondary countries where it passes (eg. Kazakhstan).
Siberia is huge and the Russian - China link is very inefficient.
Also, China is in bad terms with almost every other neighbor it has (territory disputes with almost every one).. and they will be glad to see it humbled a notch or two and will not help.
Would USA even blockade China? At this point it really would be mutual destruction. The retail market in USA would suffer, bringing most of the rest likely down with it...
Not really. The us's #1 trading partner is currently mexico, as of 2020. Why do you think all the techies are moving to Texas y aprendiendo español quien es el nuevo mandarín
It always seemed a bit unlikely that a manufacturing superpower gets defeated on its own turf. If WWIII breaks out over Taiwan, it is hard to see how China doesn't get what it wants in the manner the article describes.
There is some evidence between the way the US was handling the middle east and last years notable war [0] that the military future involves drones. It isn't at all obvious from the peanut gallery that China will be at a disadvantage unless the situation gets apocalyptic. Even then, if they just wait or apply slow pressure it seems likely they'll eclipse the US to the point where Americans just can't afford to sustain operations on China's doorstep. China has all this money and America has all those debts. Wars are expensive.
What good is a war on/for Taiwan? The magic of Taiwan is the brains of the scientists and the tribal knowledge of the researchers. Killing them/getting them killed isn’t going to help you acquire them.
Taiwan has symbolic value. The CCP has made "reunification" a major part of its "platform" for decades, and a leader who accomplishes that will go down in history in the pantheon of Chinese leaders alongside Mao. So, a CCP leader seeking glory would attempt unification if he judges that China can win. On the other side, the US is Taiwan's security guarantor, and if the US lets China take Taiwan, the US will lose credibility with its Asian allies. Asian countries wary of China may recalculate the power calculus and feel the need to acquiesce to China. Taiwan is also a symbol of the democratic ideals of China's founding and proof that democracy is compatible with so-called "Asian values." Destroying Taiwan eliminates an ideological threat to the CCP's non-democratic legitimacy.
Strategically, Taiwan is an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" that China wants.
Some of what you're describing has already come to pass with Hong Kong. China is applying the squeeze to Hong Kong that skirts the bounds of definition of the agreement as part of the British handover, ie. one country, two systems[1].
It's fairly easy to see China's future actions with any expanded territories that the rest of the world may allow with eyes downcast.
China will be able to temporarily convert its commercial industrial factory output into wartime use and just spam drones at Taiwan. All of the infrastructure is already there, a switch just needs to be flipped. The US did the same in WW2, though instead of drones back then, it was planes, tanks, and munitions.
MAD does not apply to China. They have a very limited second-strike capability at this point, especially considering the ranges to the US mainland. They have ~50 ICBMs capable of reaching the US mainland, of which half are in silos. The other half are road-mobile, which means they’re relying on being able to move them around quickly and hide them to provide the ability to retaliate.
They have seven SSBNs, one of which is a Xia-class which isn’t capable of launching SLBMs with significant range. The remaining six Jin-class SSBNs are notoriously noisy, which means they are relatively easy to locate and destroy.
What good are nukes if you are not willing to use them and let others take what they want.
By having a very real threat of nuclear escalation you keep others at bay. That's how the US was kept out of cuba, that's how Russia was kept out of western europe.
Here, it's a very real threat of escalation:
- if China invades, US escalates conventionally and wipes out what it can. (conventional US missiles are not that far from tactical nukes, US navy will easily wipe out Chinese navy)
- Then China can escalate further by attacking US forces via land-to-sea missiles, aircrafts, etc, a few sunk aircraft carriers and you'll see the US out for blood.
- tactical nukes will likely be used by any side if it loses too badly.
- US could always do some risky air-strikes against Chinese leadership and close the war that way (or nukes start flying)
- China can't really reach the US mainland that easily and US has quite a few anti-missile forces off japan and on the mainland.
- at this point, it's survive who is best prepared. I'm assuming US will come off a lot better then China.
> there is no China "invades" Taiwan, it's merely reclaiming it
different words, same meaning... In effect, China sending in military is an invasion... They will likely sell it as 'glorious reunification' 1984 style
While US does not recognize Taiwan it does guarantee it de facto. Not recognizing it is due to cold war politics where US needed China against Russia, that's no longer the case.
> On July 14, 1982 the Republican Reagan Administration gave specific assurances to Taiwan that the United States did not accept China's claim to sovereignty over the island (Six Assurances),[37][39]
> Despite friendly relations with China, United States President George W. Bush was asked on 25 April 2001, "if Taiwan were attacked by China, do we (The U.S.) have an obligation to defend the Taiwanese?" He responded, "Yes, we do...and the Chinese must understand that. The United States would do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."[43] He made it understood that "though we (China and the U.S.) have common interests, the Chinese must understand that there will be some areas where we disagree."[43]
Also, you have to be aware that Mao wanted to invade Taiwan but US got in the way then too (ignoring the complete incompetence and inability to launch naval invasion)
> How is that relevant? you claimed things have changed since then, show me the money.
This is what I said:
> US needed China against Russia, that's no longer the case.
US no longer needs China against Russia... There's your money... What's hard to understand about that?
(USSR is gone, communism is gone, Russia is no longer the superpower it was although it still is a major threat)
Now, comment above was with respect to:
> US still haven't established formal diplomatic relation with Taiwan, like all UNSC countries, your argument is simply invalid.
Even though they haven't established formal relations, they still guarantee Taiwan, straight from the horses mouth in some cases -> see Reagan/Bush/Trump
In your opinion, does US need China against Russia?
In my opinion, not since 1989 when USSR crumbled.
Also, it's irrelevant, George Bush is quoted directly that US will intervene to defend Taiwan, same policy was from Reagan well within cold war. So I stand corrected, it does not matter if US needs or not China, it will intervene.
The PLAN has been building up its navy and is expected to handily exceed the USN in the next 5 years. Basically, in a short period of 5-10 years, the PLAN has grown from insignificance into a serious adversary that builds capable ships that can give the USN serious headaches. Most of the PLAN's numbers are in corvettes and attack craft, to US's heavier and larger vessels (PLAN has something like 2 or 3 aircraft carriers to USN's 11 something).
The PRC has also invested heavily in missile technology and is perhaps ahead of the US in anti-ship missiles. It has also built up small positions that can be built up easily on the disputed reefs etc. in the South China Sea in anticipation of getting blockaded.
I say all of this in support of the thesis that drones will play a less decisive role than the navies of the two countries.
Most of what you state about China doesn't mean anything in modern warfare. It's not about who has the bigger gun or most guns, but who can use their guns most effectively. Consider that China has no experience in modern warfare or large scale conflict. How effective do you think China will be against a highly experienced adversary?
Most of what I state does mean a lot. You can't project power without a world-class navy. Both world powers (in fact almost all) have/had the best navies in the world.
The two parts to a world-class navy are the ships and the men. China has already done the first part. I agree with you on the second part: the Chinese have not participated in large-scale armed conflict, so they don't have experience. But it must be borne in mind that the US has also not fought any big naval war in recent times and morale is very low because crews are being worked to the bone. Unless the USN addresses these challenges effectively, they don't hold a huge edge.
>Most of what I state does mean a lot. You can't project power without a world-class navy.
I agree. And China has never fought a major naval war or even a major naval battle.
>The two parts to a world-class navy are the ships and the men.
Part 3 is competent leaders. The US has admirals that have been taught by admirals that have been taught by admirals that have fought a major war in the Pacific. (Japan has them, too.) And China does not. George Friedman says that that is an important factor.
This is insane. The CCP cannot afford a victory over taiwan. Oil exports to china cease, during the invasion, if no other reason that no one wants their tanker to blow up en route (there are safer and more lucrative buyers) and then what? 70% of chinese energy is imported. The country comes to a stop.
Nah, just downed a hard seltzer and having fun. But nice try throwaway. N'y a bocoup dfricains qui defends les chines car leurs accions exploitatifs dont belt and road.
The PRC considers Taiwan part of its patrimony, yes. But both the PRC and ROC are highly developed nations integrated into the global economy. When was the last time such advanced states went to open war with each other? Such a conflict would be unprecedented since the end of World War II. And why would a regime as cautious and calculating as the CPC wish to upset the lucrative status quo with something as destabilizing as open war?
Perhaps the Falklands war? Argentina circa 1982 was stagnating but still about the 20th largest economy in the world. Taiwan is also sitting at about 20 right now.
Of course, a PRC/ROC war is likely to be much much more serious than the relatively minor conflict that was the Falklands war.
I'd think that Argentina of the junta wasn't quite as important economically as Taiwan is now, but I'd have to research to compare that. I would also imagine Taiwan's HDI is quite higher to Argentina's was back then. Another factor of note is that the junta was going through a shaky transitional period while Taiwan's democracy is fairly stable. Not to mention that while mostly diplomatically unrecognized, democratic Taiwan probably isn't a pariah in the same way a military autocracy like Argentina was.
Your argument makes sense when you look at the scenario from the perspective of what countries would do when their leadership acts rationally. That their leadership would act rationally is likely (though not assured) when dealing with democracies.
All bets are off when you're dealing with an autocratic junta. Even worse when dealing with a one man dictatorship with enormous concentration of power in the hands of that person.
That's likely why China before Xi (but post Mao) was less likely to attack Taiwan, and why China post Xi is an entirely different animal.
> That their leadership would act rationally is likely (though not assured) when dealing with democracies.
It would appear the past two decades have really worn at the optimistic sheen of democratic systems. Whether populist anger generating suboptimal decisions or cabals of self-appointed technocrats and bureaucrats using democracy's own procedural motions against itself, they haven't really revealed themselves to be much more rational.
> All bets are off when you're dealing with a dictatorship with enormous concentration of power in the hands of one person.
I'm not convinced that the Chinese Politburo is really comparable to states such as North Korea. For all of their authoritarianism, the government has gotten modern China into a prosperous state. An irrational state can't do that. Not to mention, if one was to argue that China's rise was because of other countries outsourcing production to them, well- those nations are often democracies.
> That's likely why China before Xi was less likely to attack Taiwan, and why China post Xi is an entirely different animal.
Xi is definitely more aggressive than his predecessors and is playing up jingoism. But it remains to be seen if it this isn't just a whole lot of saber-rattling and rhetorical brinksmanship. To prepare for war is one thing, to be ready to actually wage it is quite something else.
If people want to know how/why the USA has a huge embassy in Taipei that is not actually called an Embassy, and military/defense-industrial supplies to Taiwan:
If you can gain air superiority of an island nation, and want to force them to surrender through economic consequences, why bother with a blockade? Just blow up enough of the electrical infrastructure to keep the power off for a good long while. You'll produce similar economic damage without having to hang around.
Wow. TSMC currently consumes 5% of all power in Taiwan, and is predicted to consume up to 10% in the future, apparently because of EUV. Losing that would be catastrophic for the West, but doesn't China use TSMC chips too? Does the mainland even have a fab that could compete?
This, is why Taiwan needs offensive weaponry that can reach a few 1000kms deep into China, instead of their current arsenal of "indigenous" jet fighters using GE engines that don't even have enough range to reach the shore, and short range anti-ship missiles and obsolete SAMs and missile defence. Taiwan needs ballistic missiles and bombers, and perhaps, nukes.
Japan, Germany, South Korea, Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, and Taiwan all could've had their own nuclear arsenals by now. The reason they do not is that the US undertook to protect them.
Do you wish all those countries had nuclear arsenals? If so, I recommend that you read _Command and Control_ by Strasser: it is difficult the make sure the whatever nuclear policy is chosen by a government is actually followed.
This analysis aligns with some of my thinking on the subject, and it's the first time I've read quarantine seriously discussed let alone presented to congress. I've mused about quarantine policy before since it's a historic parallel of ROC closure policy (关闭政策) where ROC navy declared "closure" of ALL Chinese ports and attempted to control PRC shipping between 1949 and 1979. The policy was largely ineffective, suspended after 30 years and not abolished until early 90s. Along with ROC based U2 Black Cat squadron that conducted surveillance over mainland from 60s-70s, there is historic precedence for PRC to rationalize reciprocating similar strategies under a quarantine framework. I would not be surprised salami slicing will eventually encroach past median line as force balance shifts more towards PRC favour, PLAF will aim conduct unfettered flight over Taiwanese proper, PAP coast guard start interdicting shipping into Taiwan, which will setup pieces for escalation into blockade when timing dictates. History rhymes. Potentially prefaced via staged Tonkin style provocation that attributes Taiwan as aggressor, providing everyone opportunity to sit out. Really the fixation with DDAY style invasion needs to die, modernized PLA forces of 2035 has different capabilities as 2000, and greyscale warfare is something China has consistently utilized since reforms.
PRC hasn't blockaded Taiwan due to lack of capability until even 2010s. Taiwan military was credible threat against mainland due US weapons sales in 90s and PLA being broken legacy forces. Emphasis was on peaceful reunion as a matter of impotence and policy until "peaceful" was dropped last year. PLA has modernized sufficiently and developed enough industrial capacity that Taiwan can't deter PRC conventionally could going forward, so I expect increasing pressure.
I thought the interesting point is not that the mainland can overwhelm a small island off its coast, but the likelihood of a messy escalation and stalemate. The logic that defending the island requires taking out integrated air defense radars on the mainland and the implications of that seem pretty sound.
During the Korean war the larger mainland forces took everything except Busan, a port on the south-eastern side, but the US still rolled it back and today we have South Korea. On the ground, the reality of even a few weeks of that kind of urban all-out war are truly horrifying.
The US and Taiwan had an explicit security guarantee treaty for 25 years
which is more ambiguous, its basic idea is maintain the status quo. On the ground, forces are stationed in Okinawa to deter mainland aggression.
In recent years the likelihood the US would in fact jump in to defend Taiwan seems to have increased, eg, reliance of US tech industry on TSMC, and Trump-era anti-China rhetoric. At the same time Hong Kong shows the mainland tolerance of democracy has dwindled.
TSMC is important, but it is opening a single site with 2% of its existing, mainly Taiwan-based capacity in the US. TSMC total capacity in 2019 was 12 million 12-inch wafer starts
Current chip shortage is not caused by not being able to build fab buildings fast enough: it is caused by not being able to buy enough of the lithography machines to put in the buildings. (The machines take years to build.) Where are these litho machines made? Europe, Japan and the US. If mainland China makes any at all, they are decades behind the state of the art.
Point is that China's supply of chips is much more precarious than the US's because all the US has to do at the start of any hostilities with China is to make it clear to the countries that export these litho machines that the US will not tolerate any exports of the machines to China.
Open question, but is it possible that China will become less nationalistic in the next few decades? What with globalization and all.
The result of this being a move towards giving up on their claims to Taiwan.
Certainly Europe has in many ways become less nationalistic with globalization. The idea of war in Western Europe now seems absurd. e.g. imagine the reaction to a UK politician wanting to invade Ireland again to reclaim territory.
For anyone waiting for US to exercise justice on this matter, might want to read that article about Secretary Clinton considering selling Taiwan to China.
Regardless of whether China or Taiwan are right, etc, why does a country in the other side of the Pacific should have any say, much less "a war over", a dispute between two neighbor countries which belong to the same ethnicity and historical past, and it's pretty much a civil war?
Should China or some similar power of the time have meddled in the US civil war? Or maybe the War for Independence?
This is easy to answer, Taiwan exports many resources to the US. TSMC is just one company in Taiwan that not only the US but most other countries in the world depend on. It generates the vast majority of the silicon powering our machines and is sovereign neutral meaning not allied and special treatment to a specific country.
Don’t think the US will sit back quietly while China fucks up their economy
The answer is simple: The US is the Global Hegemon of our times, and furthermore, it is a formal guarantor of Taiwan's security (this is similar in many ways to its allies in NATO). Economically, Taiwan and the US have deep ties: it would make sense for the US to come to Taiwan's aid for this reason alone. Whether the ally is across the Pacific or elsewhere scarcely matters to the US, because it has power projection capability that spans the entire planet. That is doubly so when you consider that it is allied with almost all the major developed countries and almost every single one of China's neighbors (Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and to a lesser extent Vietnam and India).
If China were the hegemon in the 1800s, then of course it would have intervened in the Civil War. Take France, which was a World Power (and traditional rival of Great Britain) during the War for Independence. It did provide support to the US, and was their primary ally.
The way your comment was phrased ("Should China or some similar power of the time have meddled in the US civil war? Or maybe the War for Independence?") implied that other powers didn't in fact meddle in American affairs, so I wanted to point out that other powers did in fact intervene.
In my previous reply, I gave a "realist" explanation for this, that it was merely what great powers do. However, I actually want to step back from my previous explanation because I don't think it properly conveys the moral aspect of the conflict. Taiwan is a democratic nation that is de-facto sovereign, and China is a non-democratic nation. If you believe that democracy is good, that governments derive their legitimacy from consent of the governed, and that all people have inalienable human rights, then you should support the defense of Taiwan. If China tries to annex Taiwan, America should intervene and America would be in the right. In my view, "Why Die for Taiwan?" is the new "Why Die for Danzig?" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Die_for_Danzig%3F)
It's interesting that you mention the American Civil War. The father of the Chinese nation, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founded China upon his Three Principles of the People: nationhood, democracy, and social welfare, which he theorized from a famous line from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Unfortunately, Dr. Sun's vision has not become reality for China, but it is alive on Taiwan. I am an American of the Han ethnicity, and I believe that democracy is how governments derive their legitimacy. My dream is a democratic China, and Taiwan is a symbol of what China could be. If China sets out to annex Taiwan, I hope that Americans are willing to consecrate the ground of Taiwan so that Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People shall not perish from the earth.
Rival Chinese and Taiwanese political factions are squabbling in the Solomon Islands to the extent that the largest island is threatening to secede after the government switched its support from Taiwan to China.
It would appear that both nations themselves have enough agency, economic power, and diplomatic clout to play their own Great Games. None is righteous, no, not one.
the cause of the would-be war is that the two sides could not agree whether or not they are the same country. By calling it a "civil war" you just dismissed the whole point of it.
also ethnicity has nothing to do with sovereign, nor that it exists a single "China" ethnicity, for Taiwanese people (who themselves are not a single ethnicity) to be lumped into. China just like all countries in the world, has many ethnicities.
The simple answer for your question is, because one side asked, and this kind of intervention has countless precedence in geopolitics. I reckon China probably has asked for external help several times in its history.
There's kind of a general principle of the world's human rights respecting democracies standing up to some local dictatorship trying to invade and pick off one of them. See also Israel, Finland, the Falklands etc.
It doesn't make it any better or right, but it does answer the OP's question of "why".
Not to mention, the American Revolution was partially won because similar powers France and Spain backed the revolutionaries. The Confederacy courted both Britain and France and there was a chance that the former could have gotten involved in the Civil War over the Trent Affair. Great powers have been dipping their toes into regional conflicts since time immemorial. It's highly credulous to assume they'd do otherwise.
No, I disagree. The notion that the US is doing anything other than trying to violently hang on to its attempts at a global, dictatorial, murderous empire, that only ever benefits the white west at best, is crazy.
Again, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's the way things are done, and it's no more or less just or unjust than China supporting Ugandan dictator Museveni in pursuit of its regional interests, even as massive electoral fraud is perpetrated against the democratic opposition Bobi Wine.
Not to mention, it's quite presumptuous to claim that the self-determination of the people of Taiwan are simply a tool that benefits the "white west."
Finally, your value judgments don't really contradict anything I stated, which is simply that "great powers will meddle in the affairs of smaller nations."
> Just because someone done something in the past, doesn't make it right necessarily for everyone to do in the future.
I did not say it was right at all. You are the one making moral judgments here. I'm simply stating historical facts. Notice I did not at any time make the claim that just "because everyone does it" makes it excusable or right. But it does make it understandable, as an institutionalized practice or character trait of empires.
> If the the US was not getting economic and political projection in Taiwan, they would dump them in a second and/or create a lot of trouble for them.
You are introducing non sequiturs at this point. At no point did I support nor reject empire. Furthermore, Taiwan, like other U.S. allies or client states, has its own vested interests in being part of an alliance, because they (ostensibly) receive protection. You are denying that Taiwan has agency in seeking out advantageous (in its view) alliances. That is very condescending, and frankly, chauvinist.
can I ask a stupid question: does China really want to invade Taiwan? The Mao Zedong's China did, sure. However, for the current China, it might be better to "invade" Taiwan through cultural and economic means.
As for why the tension, Taiwan is equally guilty for the previous regime (the KMT) tying their identity to a(nother idea of) unified China. Given all the propaganda built up all that time, China could not backtrack now even if they wanted.
Only a credible threat of invasion can prevent Taiwan formally separating and renouncing the one-China policy, making a mockery of half a century of CCP propaganda.
And a credible threat of invasion needs credible plans, credible military power and credible preparation for an invasion, not to speak of propaganda to "otherise" the opponent.
> Only a credible threat of invasion can prevent Taiwan formally separating and renouncing the one-China policy, making a mockery of half a century of CCP propaganda.
I mean, is that actually true once Chinese economic ties with Taiwan are so entrenched that the country finds most of its economy is beholden to China? At that point would claimed independence really matter? Not to mention, given that the PRC is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, I'm not sure if international recognition of an independent Taiwan would really go that far. Kosovo is still unrecognized by the U.N. due to Russia's intransigence.
Nationalistic fervor is strong, but the mainland Chinese consider the Taiwanese to be Chinese as well. So bombing Taiwanese targets would feel not very different from bombing Hunan or Sichuan province.
A blockade, on the other hand, would be far more acceptable domestically. And I fear that means a greater likelihood of the US involvement: the US public (and therefore the administration) may not have the stomach to defend Taiwan from an invasion, but they might feel they cannot stand by when American cargo ships are prevented from moving freely in the international waters.
On a side note, it's hard to believe that in the 21 century, when people are on the verge of manned flights to Mars, we still have a truckload of terrorial disputes all over the world (Taiwan and the rest of the mess in the South China Sea, the Northern Territories of Japan, Senkaku islands, the Chinese / Indian border, the Middle East, Crimea, etc.).