- cross-posted to:
- news@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- news@beehaw.org
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It’s wild how they’re still obsessed with Taiwan, despite CCP being recognized as China for many decades now. I wonder how much of this is elderly people who still consider the civil war unfinished and how much is strategic. It seems like invading would not be in China’s interest. Perhaps they want to do it before their demographic population collapse occurs.
It’s that “saving face” stuff which makes you lose even more face by looking silly.
They want China to be the old Qing borders. Both Chinas still claim it.
It’s a Chinese thing. PRC and ROC (officially) both see “China” as including the “province” of Taiwan.
Part of it is brainwashing on the PRC side - they are taught from elementary school that Taiwan is a part of China. Part of it is ROC stubborness. It’s even a political issue within Taiwan. While the younger generation generally sees Taiwan as an independent country, the KMT and the older generation refuses to let go of mainland China.
Chinese culture also has the famous line that translates roughly to “after having been united for a while, it must split. After having been split for a while, it must unite” that refers to China in general. Taiwan, HK, and “China” have been split for a bit and the PRC wants to see it reunited.
The problem is that any such reunification would presumably be on the PRC’s terms, and that didn’t turn out so well for Hong Kong.
Part of it is brainwashing on the PRC side - they are taught from elementary school that Taiwan is a part of China.
And are they not in the RoC?
Honestly, I think it depends who’s in power at the time.
This is like Kevin Heart warning Mike Tyson. LOL, just funny and stupid.
China actually can challenge US in the Pacific theatre.
Besides, it’s a matter of how far each side is ready to go. Taiwan is important for the US, but vital for China. US will back down and avoid escalation sooner.
Also, when you have nuclear states on each side, situation always gets very precarious.
So do not underestimate the leg China has here.
That’s some dangerous speculation for a country that spent 20 years fighting terrorists in the Middle East whose main demand was, “Yankees go home.”
Sure, but the enemy wasn’t China but rather some militarily weak Middle Eastern countries.
It wasn’t that big of an effort to project power in there.
It was far more of an effort actually. We could only resupply Afghanistan by air and through Pakistan. In comparison we have direct access to many ports in the SE Asia region.
They would almost certainly lose today, though it’d be costly to everyone involved. Provided the Philippines doesn’t elect another Duterte-type government, their nearby position will likely be enough to keep Taiwan supplied with air cover, if nothing else.
They don’t have a lot of carriers, or the long experience of the US Navy with them, and they’re still ramping up production of fifth generation fighters (the J-20). Hypersonic missiles give them an edge, but they’re not the wonder weapons they’re sometimes made out to be.
Ukraine has had two Patriot missile batteries for most of the past year–they just got a third–and they practically shut down Russian missile attacks. Taiwan has seven, and they need to cover a much smaller amount of land.
It’s more a question of where the Chinese military will be in 4 years. However, after 8 years, demographics in the country–long term effects of the One Child policy–are likely to strangle their ability to have a military on equal footing. Too many old people and not enough young people to take care of them. It’s possible this window of opportunity is already closed.
There’s a lot of classic US sandbagging going on. “We’re falling behind, we need a 1,000 ship navy to keep up with China”. Truth is, we only need to lay out the right pieces and the invasion will never happen. We don’t need to fund an even bigger navy and feed all that more money into the military-industrial complex.
The pieces are already there, all around China.
On one thing you’re right - any war in the region will be super costly and will end an awful lot of human lives. There is a reason, thereby, for US holding strategic ambiguity in the matter.
Can they outperform China militarily? Potentially yes, though at that point we’ll get to the nuclear danger. Anyways, even the traditional warfare directly held between two countries will be a disaster - for China, for US, and for the world.
And while US has the option to back down, China - barely so. If they begin, they will put it to end or be destroyed. US has an option to not get involved or retreat - and they will likely use it in order to not have their entire military destroyed over one island.
This is not Vietnam. This is not Korea. This is not yet another proxy war. This is like if Kamchatka separated from USSR during the Cold war and tried to get US protections. It would turn out very, very bad, regardless of who emerges victorious.
If US wanted to go this far to solve Taiwan question to its benefit, they’d simply station nukes in there. But the consequences of provoking severe backlash from China are big enough so that they’ll never do that. US doesn’t need this war, and it will likely back down should severe escalation happen.
How is Taiwan crucial for China? Locality? There’s nothing there of value aside from subjugation and a raw land grab.
The terrain makes it fairly defensible on the west coast. The economy would tank. Businesses of real value would implode.
The people don’t want to be “reunified” and will not tow the line so easily. China has never had to endure longterm modern asymmetrical warfare.
I just don’t see how it would benefit them vs the cost in the short and near term. If they could pull it off over 50 years then maybe but I don’t think it would play out that way.
Taiwan has a big political significance for China; taking it over would mean putting an end to Kuomintang and concluding the war, emerging victorious. No more little neighbor undermining credibility of the Party.
Aside from that, Taiwan is home to the most advanced chipmaking factory in the world, and US has made sure mainland China is cut off from advanced computing technologies, forcing it to lag behind in some of the most important modern industries, as well as military. By capturing Taiwan, China could greatly change the balance of power - either by successfully overtaking TSMC, or by destroying it. Both will work, really.
“Reunify”. Just like Putin tries to reunify Ukraine with Russland… Strange how one is called Invasion and the other Reunifying
This is xi calling it reunification. It’s just your average land grab invasion based off “but 300 years ago we successfully conquered if and had it for almost a century so we have the right to conquer it again!”
But if you’re israel and say GOD gave you that land thousands of years ago, then here’s $100+ billion in addition to the billions already given annually to you to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
bla bla… but everyone still buys shit from china… you use iphones, chrome and everything as long as it is convenient for you… and then do the butthurt cry here. hows that supposed to change anything?
Yeah, voting with your dollar definitely will make the change, just buy something else and struggle a bit harder, that change is right around the corner /s
If trying to invade Taiwan weakens china like it did with Russia invading Ukraine then I’m all for it. Fuck china
I’d wager China is on a different level than Russia. But I hope I am at least partially wrong.
They aren’t. They’re trying to reform their military, and they’re in a better position to do so. But if they invaded today it would be really bad for them.
It would be bad for everyone. Not just in military casualties - from my shit analysis it would bring the world to a halt with chip manufacturing, all the good in the western world are made in China and Asia. Just thinking about what I know makes my head hurt
Eh, manufacturing is moving more into SE Asia and India now. And chip production in the US is coming back online. There would be shortages but not anything unmanageable.
You are not taking into account china can lock down shipping from it’s neighborhood of SE Asia and India, and last I looked into it, Taiwan produced a staggering number of chips compared to every other chip producer combined - last I checked TSMC was still producing over 90% of the worlds chips (and I checked a few weeks ago)
TSMC has factories online in the US.
Also, if China starts going after global shipping then they’re going to very quickly find out what it’s like to fight the entire world.
Throwing other people’s bodies into the meat grinder to spite our global enemies, heck yes!!!
China could just fuck off, leaving them alone and then no one has to die. But people supporting sovereign self defense are the baddies?
Alas, world powers think it’s their business to fuck around with other countries.
Laughs in CIA
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Uhm, you can freely leave China? And unless you’re a secret FBI agent, your family is probably safe.
I’ve heard those stories of “secret Chinese police in the Netherlands”, but they are based on words of like one man without decent confirmation
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in its* population
China is hostage state that nurtures Stockholm Syndrome in it’s population (similar to DPRK and others).
What does this even mean.
You can only “leave” if it’s deemed useful and safe for China (i.e. you have Stockholm Syndrome strongly enough)
You can leave China just as freely as any other country.
And those that leave are still under control, i.e. their (edited) behavior can be coerced by using carrot and stick methods on their family and loved ones.
What? Any country could do this.
This is some serious jingoism
The news media needs to stop using the word “reunify” to refer to the PRC’s threatened imperial conquest of an island they’ve never controlled.
The news media needs to report what is true and verifiable, without adding their own interpretation (except for labelled opinion pieces).
In this case, the true and verifiable fact to report is what Xi told Biden. And without checking primary sources, I’m sure he used a word meaning “reunify”.If they’re using a false term but quoting someone they should use quotes:
Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will “reunify” Taiwan with China
What you’ve written is still editorialising. The way it’s written is also clear who was making the statement, Xi was. In the eyes of China it is reunifying, so no matter one’s opinion, it is their stated opinion, so seems weird to put “reunfiy” in quotations when the rest isn’t.
Iit should always be apparent there is editorialization happening tho. Kinda like [sic] -> that is obviously the author clarifying they are not misquoting or misspelling
report what is true and verifiable
if they did that there wouldnt be much news, a lot fewer journalists, less jobs overall, and much less advertising revenue.
never gonna happen
But it’s a good yardstick to measure the news you’re reading. Always ask yourself:
“Are they reporting on something that happened? If yes, do they say who’s seen it happen?”Way too many “news stories” nowadays boil down to “some no-one posted something on X about something they haven’t themselves witnessed”.
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The nation wasn’t developed by the people who escaped. That’s an ahistorical way of framing the issue
Taiwan was developed by the overthrown proto-fascist military junta who just lost the civil war. After taking the island, they didn’t tell the people of Taiwan that the war had been over and they were no longer China until 1991. The first labor laws outlawing slavery were introduced to the people of Taiwan in 2006. The people of Taiwan still consider themselves China (it is afterall the name they go by, not Taiwan) and full Taiwanese independence is still a minority held belief on the actual island.
Just to be clear, I am a supporter of their independence, but this is a very messy situation in which the political party who comrade the country is the same fascist party who lost the war in the first place and still maintains to the UN that they are the legitimate government of the mainland. Full separation is convenient for the West, but neither side actually wants that, they just don’t want to be ruled by either fascists or communists, and I think that is incredibly fair for all people actually involved to want.
full Taiwanese independence is still a minority held belief on the actual island
Excuse me wut
Unless they can prove otherwise, it would be naked editorializing to not call it a reunification.
of an island they’ve never controlled.
Oh boy this might get me downvoted. Saying the Communist Party never controlled it is a tautology. That’s what happens when there’s a civil war that turns into a stalemate: one side does not control the land of the other side. So of course the Communist side never controlled it. This is ducking the nuance of what the actual situation is, that there was a civil war that never ended.
Even before that Taiwan did not belong to the rest of China.
There were some settlers from the main land, but the indigenous population always controlled most of the island and the Chinese settlers were careful not to antagonize them.
This lasted for hundreds of years, pretty much until a brief period at the end of the 19th century when the Chinese government decided to send troops to brutally subjugate the indigenous population, only to shortly after lose control of Taiwan to the Japanese.
It’s a historical fact but how is it a tautology? Territory can change hands during a civil war as evidenced by the RoC no longer controlling China. Unless I’m misunderstanding something. Either way I don’t think that changes the point, if that’s a tautology then claiming that it can be reunified is a contradiction.
China wants to maintain the status quo and believes (perhaps wrongly) that Taiwan will eventually normalize relations with China due to economic opportunities.
The US wants Taiwan to declare independence to contain the China threat, which is why the US funnels so many resources from government-funded entities like the National Endowment for Democracy to Taiwan’s DPP.
The fact that the US is taking more overt action in Taiwan today is a sign that there’s a perception in Washington that China’s status quo strategy is working.
Horseshit. That status quo has always been a Taiwan free of CCP rule. The PRC has never controlled Taiwan and their stated goal is to make it part of their country by any means necessary; that’s disrupting that status quo. The US, on the other hand, supports the status quo of the ROC existing and the people of Taiwan being allowed to decide what they want for themselves.
Even the most shameless CCP propagandist should realize that trying to convince people of the ridiculous lie that the country promising imperial conquest of land that’s never been theirs “wants to maintain the status quo” is foolish nonsense.
yeah thats like saying hong kong normalized into china
The status quo is Taiwan having de facto independence without seeking de jure independence.
It’s not that complicated.
The ROC was independent and sovereign before the PRC was even a thing. If anything it’s the autonomous mainland provinces which need to seek de jure independence from the ROC. The PRC should be thankful that the ROC by now is, by and large, willing to grant such a request (There’s some Kuomintang who’d bitch and moan but they’d get over it).
So, again, your original assertions are horseshit. The PRC is very explicitly trying to change the status quo of Taiwan having de facto independence. We know this from repeated, unequivocal official and unofficial statements about “reunification”. This article is, in fact, about exactly that.
Your assertion that the US is trying to change the status quo by supporting the DPP might make sense in a world where the PRC wasn’t supporting the KMT to an ever greater extent; either they’re both equally trying to disrupt the status quo through political support or they’re both maintaining the status quo by supporting opposing parties. You can’t paint a “US guilty, PRC innocent” picture out of that no matter how hard you try.
But then, of course, suggesting either major political party in Taiwan actually supports or is proposing a change to the status quo isn’t really true either, is it?
The KMT supports the status quo, the DPP wants to flip it on its head.
Are you even Taiwanese?
Edit: classic Westerners trying to put words in the mouths of the people who actually have to deal with the actions driven by their words
This is the best summary I could come up with:
At last year’s Chinese Communist Party Congress, Xi stated publicly that China would attack Taiwan militarily if it declares independence with foreign support.
Xi, who has set a goal of doubling the size of the Chinese economy by 2035, also said that “we must continue to pursue economic development as our central task.”
Some experts believe it is doubtful that China would attack Taiwan if it does not declare independence because a military conflict would likely prevent Beijing from reaching its economic goals.
During the summit in San Francisco, Xi expressed concerns about the candidates running for president of Taiwan in next month’s election, according to U.S. officials.
Biden’s meeting with Xi, their first in a year, took American officials months to secure after relations between Washington and Beijing reached a low point in February after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon.
CIA Director William Burns said earlier this year that U.S. intelligence shows that Xi has directed his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
The original article contains 770 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
“Re-unify” is dipshit-speak for invade, pillage and crush… for anyone wondering.
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Reunification of Germany was entirely nonviolent.
Were the people saying they were going to reunify dipshits in that case?
Yeah but they actually both wanted it.
Taiwan, judging from the enormous amounts of military material it has invested in, doesn’t really want to be friends with china, let alone be conquered by it
The Kuomintang party supports one China
There is currently one China. It just goes by the name Taiwan. The CCP is as Chinese as my local takeout.
You must be one of those people that can’t accept when civil wars are lost. I’m assuming you’re also waiting for the South to rise again.
Yes Lost Causers are famously aware of world history. That must be it.
If you’re aware of history, then how exactly is China not China? I must’ve missed a century somewhere
And Russia is trying reunification with Ukraine. What’s your point?
No, that’s annexation, ya dingus
Right, you’re saying that in hindsight.
When a tyrannous dictator preaches reunification as a descriptor when outlining their future plans the context changes a bit. Hope that helps :)
That’s pure speculation on your part. Xi specifically stated the goal is peaceful reunification.
Did they say how? Peace would be preferred, but the Taiwanese need to be willing to cooperate.
The Kuomintang party is willing to cooperate, while the Democratic party is not
After what’s happened in Hong Kong, why would Taiwan trust them?
Exactly my point
speculation
Well when all the direct quotes I read don’t match the history I have to speculate on what XI really means.
He said he wants to reunify Taiwan, he didn’t send me a PDF of his specific strategy.
You’re speculating that it will be peaceful with the same logic.
I still remember what was happening in Taiwan just a few days before COVID hit. Do you?
I still remember what was happening in Taiwan just a few days before COVID hit. Do you?
What was happening?
Your answer: no
Well, what was the answer?
?
The entire idea of reunification is that it is supported by the will of the people. I’m not speculating that it will be peaceful, I’m just pointing out what Xi said. You claiming that he’s lying is speculation.
You claiming I’m speculating is also speculation. Take your semantic garbage and share it with someone who can respect your thoughts.
Your speculating that I’m speculating is also speculation! You are the one whomst engages in frantic semantic antics!
Don’t be mad cuz you’re wrong. Xi Jinping stated that he has plans to peacefully reunify Taiwan and China. How you want to interpret that is up to you, but the media wants you to interpret “peaceful reunification” as “violent invasion.” If you want to believe that, that’s on you.
I think China is more than capable of reunification of Taiwan peacefully and invading would be a real dumb idea. Also, according to their own news, only 48.9% of the Taiwanese people support national Independence. So there’s definitely a possibility of China winning the people over.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648
If you believe that then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. In fact it’s 2 for 1, but only if you buy by midnight!
Uhm, isn’t a bridge the means of producing safe travel across a span? You should get the wall for owning means of production.
And you base this on what?
Well London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, AZ now. Why can’t you get a bridge too?
So, based on nothing.
tyrannous dictator
I miss when words had meaning.
Sorry there was no meaning in your statement because I disagree.
I miss when opinions were just opinions.
It could be my opinion that the sky is green and the earth is flat, doesn’t make it any less false.
Is that your opinion though? Feels like a straw man to me.
Actually it’s a fact.
ROC is gonna take back the mainland?
You mean West Taiwan?
Glory to Taiwan and their West Taiwan acquisition project!
Fun fact; actual Taiwanese people fucking loathe this meme.
Depends on the person in question. Some don’t as you’ve said some do.
Source: I’m engaged to a Taiwanese person with family back in Taiwan. Her parents would hate it, her siblings laugh.
Fun fact; actual Taiwanese people fucking loathe this meme.
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It could happen. In China, among many other places, same-sex hand holding isn’t uncommon among friends and doesn’t indicate a romantic attachment. I dont imagine Biden and Xi have that kind of relationship, though.
Someone said after Russia’s military was shown to be a farce, that if they were China they’d be shitting their pants and immediately launch an investigation into how good their military actually is.
China has the advantage of actually having enough people to do the meat for the grinder approach though.
Chinese central command wouldn’t have the power to push such an approach, their army has a very decentralised structure due to its partisan roots.
Not for long. China is on path to have the same demographics crisis as Russia.
They do have a surplus of men, though.
China’s big problem is what they offer internationally is cheap labor and they’re going through a population collapse now, like other countries that ascend economically, people have fewer kids and younger workers want better salaries and conditions, (understandably so!) This combined with the US’s trade war with them has caused international companies to move a lot of production to other impoverished nations like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Mexico, among others instead of to China. China’s economic miracle was because of this large pool of population that is vanishing. Sacrificing soldiers of reproductive age would accelerate this problem.
True but that doesn’t work too well to invade an island.
eventually the bodies will pile-up enough that the next batch can just walk over.
That strategy would need quite a lot of bodies given there is an ocean in the middle there.
the strait isn’t that deep, and it’s only about 100 miles across.
I feel like this would be a hilariously morbid engineering thought exercise…
It would take around 400 million bodies to fill in a one metre wide corridor across the strait based on some napkin math. So yeah I guess it’s actually possible technically
simple extortion from the boss of a criminal mafia
Take the hint Xi, she’s just not into you.
