cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32330798
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“China is supporting Russia’s efforts. China is building up its armed forces, including its navy, at a rapid pace," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters as he wrapped up his visit to the Japanese navy port of Yokosuka. “We cannot be naive, and we really have to work together, assess what is happening.”
Rutte said NATO is worried about China’s military exercises near Taiwan and “we follow them very closely.”
Japan considers China as a threat in the region and has in recent years accelerated military buildup, including preparing to acquire strikeback capability with long-range cruise missiles.
Japan, in addition to the United States, has expanded its defense ties with other friendly nations in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, as well as NATO, saying Russia’s war on Ukraine underscores that security risks in Europe and Asia are inseparable.
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Unfortunately, Trump has pretty much guaranteed that China will attack Taiwan soon. All nations that are affected by tariffs (so all nations) will now turn towards China or at the very least would be very careful not to piss off Pooh as well. It’s the perfect opportunity for China to roll over Taiwan without much of an international response besides some helpless handwringing.
Once China attacks Taiwan, the China/US relationship will lock up. Trump will then immediately attack Greenland to retain access to rare earths. This is a death spiral.
Europe will be the loser of it all.
Europe will be the loser of it all.
Europe is as capable as the US or China to shape the future according to their wishes. We don’t want something to happen? Then we can act accordingly. No need for Europe to remain that passive entity at the mercy of the so called “big players” as it is often portrayed outside and inside the continent.
Spot on. Thanks for calling this out.
It would bankrupt the world and especially China to even try this. My guess is they‘ll attack the next best thing first to see how it goes. It is also essential for Xi to see Putin succeed in his land grab soon. These things are tied together. That being said you can never say for sure what‘s happening next week. The Chinese dictator might lose his mind and actually try this.
The annexation of Tibet and takeover of Hong Kong were their test beds and a huge success.
They may even think now to be the best time with the world busy with Russia.
The truth is they’re not ready to take Tawain for a while and seeing how Putin’s “2 week special operation” has entered it’s 4th year, any invasion could turn sour for them, especially the ones that require them to cross the ocean. A landing is magnitudes more costly than Putin’s little corridor that collapsed spectacularly. Let’s not pretend China is some high tech utopia where things go smoothly. Part of their broken and corrupt system is why the Wuhan breakout escalated to the worst global pandemic of our times. Their military faces no doubt similary issues that are extremely hard to iron out.
@Hotznplotzn
Someone tell NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte his job is to focus on Europe, not Russia, not Israel & certainly nowhere near China.… saying Russia’s war on Ukraine underscores that security risks in Europe and Asia are inseparable.
@Hotznplotzn
I think I know what you’re saying. But nope!
Taiwan is the backbone of semiconductor production, unless you want to go back to dumb rocks instead of guided rockets you need to protect taiwan. Also with the effectiveness of drones in the ukraine war has shown that we need chips whether you like it or not
There was no talk about launching military action though.
China’s policy is pretty clear. They don’t want to “make up”.
What’s the alternative? Try to foster it and hope for the best? Accept when it doesn’t work out, like with Tibet and Hong Kong?
I there is a pretty big difference between safeguarding a nations sovereignty and actively making threats to invade anothers territory. One is basic international decency and another is being an absolute twat. Also NATO is a military alliance, and like 70% of a military is just logistics and sourcing supplies. When something is threating the bottom like of their fighting ability, like idk, no more the chip making plants in taiwan. Then it would be stupid not to protest. If rutte and NATO should stop interfering in that region of the world like you want to , they would first need to build up a chip manufacturing industry here and that is a multi decade , muti trillion euro endeavour. Since so much of our industry here is high tegh stuff ( think cars and such) this would be a massive shake up in the economy, possible destabilising it due to the extremely low chance of return of investment and massive build up costs (chips are damn hard to make). Simply put europe and NATO can not afford to loose taiwan because if we do, we loose our teeth and our economy, the whole house comes crashing down when removing taiwan.
Explain to me how taiwan is a military colony of NATO please. Because if i remember correctly there has never been any NATO mission there, just US based operations to safeguard its borders from china. Which has repeatedly stated its intent to absorb taiwan back into its borders for the past 5 decades.
I’ve understood that Taiwan has many missiles aimed at China. Are they not significant enough in power/number to be enough of a deterrant against China?
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Even if they are, China’s military buildup seems squarely aimed at an invasion of Taiwan. China would just need to ramp up it’s missile defenses to counter that deterrent.
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Nation leaders often miscalculate the risk/reward of going to war. Look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for an obvious example. Even if Taiwanese missiles would heavily impact China, that doesn’t mean they’ll understand that. They may also figure that China will be able to deal with it and still come out on top (and they might be right).
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Almost every war game and analyst predicts the invasion starting with a huge barrage of missiles from China. The first strikes would be designed to cripple Taiwan’s ability to defend itself/retaliate. Many of the missiles aimed at China would be destroyed before being launched.
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In war games, it’s assumed that the US will be at war with China along with a coalition of Pacific nations assisting. Even with all this support, Taiwan is defended, but only barely. The current administration is focused inward to the point of being much less likely to assist Taiwan or, at least assist much less than war games assume. China may feel pressured to strike during the current administration so Taiwan doesn’t have has much help.
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