What-If China attacks Taiwan

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by earth_imperator, Aug 9, 2022.

  1. NoahA

    NoahA

    I think you have a huge error here.

    You claim that both China and Taiwan agree that they want to be together, and if one united country is the most important thing, then they have achieved this. So why all the tension? The system you claim in the second most important thing, which is where they clearly disagree. If this was less important, there wouldn't be this constant threat of invasion. Its the system that is causing so much trouble, rather, the differences in governance, and hence I think this is the most important thing.
     
    #31     Aug 10, 2022
  2. VicBee

    VicBee

    I'm sure glad you all are traders and not intelligence analysts for your respective countries... Civilization would have collapsed!

    A fundamental reality of international relations is that decisions are made by the powerful, regardless of the efforts by some nations and organizations to create a framework and rules that all nations should abide by. The UN, the World Court, international law regulating one thing or another... These and others are meant for nations to abide by consensus rules or face consequences, from benign protest to military intervention. Note, the most powerful nations have the luxury or, rather, the power to disregard consensus rules. From North Korea's repeated threat to anihilate anyone they see as enemy, to China's refusal to abide by the decisions on international law of the seas, to the US refusal to abide by decisions of the World Court, some nations have the power to withstand sanctions that most don't.
    While these constructs were primarily created and enforced by yesterday's colonial powers, local populations sometimes were able to assert their power to preserve their authority. Taiwan, for example, was originally populated by small indigenous tribes, then assimilated with coastal Chinese ethnic groups, then invaded by western powers (Dutch), eventually controlled by Portuguese (Formosa), then Japanese and finally by the retreating armies and supporters of Chiang Kai Chek's Nationalist Party. The point is, Taiwan belonged to whomever managed to assert their authority over the island. That's what Chiang Kai Chek did, creating a dictatorship and calling Taiwan the Republic of China, as opposed to China's communist People's Republic of China.

    Fifty years later, Taiwan becomes a democracy while China remains a communist dictatorship. Taiwan is influenced by 2 political ideals, one from the so called original people who wish it to become independent, and the other from the Chinese diaspora who continues to look towards China and unity without the CCP. It was under the unification party's run that Taiwan based companies established factories in China, hoping that economic prosperity would diminish political differences. But the pro independence party eventually won future elections and triggered China's ire and threats of invasion. The point here is, not all people of Taiwan want independence and a solid minority would probably support an invasion and commit treason should the communists invade. That is probably what keeps military intelligence awake at night in Taipei more so than an invasion.

    China, on the other hand, is at a convergence of many different issues. Its population dramatic decline is real and will be cut in half within 50 years. Its economy is still export dominant despite efforts to focus on domestic consumption. Its military is outsized and, like in the US, the influence of their military industrial complex is now powerful and restless. The population of China is increasingly vocal about abuses of the local and regional coorupt CCP party reps who flee the country with their loot when they can. Finally, Xi made himself president for life and intends to make his mark on Chinese history. He knows his window of opportunity is closing, but he doesn't want to be responsible for the collapse of the Communist party should China finds itself in a Ukraine like war. And the CCP will disappear him as soon as signs of failure threaten the party's control of China. Pressure is racheting up and the real challenge for the world is if China threatens to bomb nations that help protect Taiwan from an invasion. The threat would be mutual but only the US and Japan have missiles capable of inflicting damage to China. Maybe Australia has US covertly supplied missiles installations. The point is that an attack on Taiwan would certainly trigger a response from local US forces and possibly Australia. The next risk is a regional escalation, with Southeast Asian nations contributing their forces to protect Taiwan. The next level escalation is China retaliating against allied forces on land which could trigger a global conflict. But, as stated before, any escalation beyond a relatively quick invasion and control of Taiwan by communist forces would decrease Xi's survival chances. The CCP is much more powerful than Putin's support group and would have no qualm hanging Xi, then apologize to the world for his misdirection and promise to rebuild whatever destruction they're responsible for. Good business, no?
     
    #32     Aug 10, 2022
    Sprout likes this.
  3. Peter8519

    Peter8519

    How would people from western countries feel for losing the number one position in world order? This is reason I used the word "bow". Bigger wars is a result of success in smaller wars. Smaller wars are confidence builder. Big corporations' profit driven objection is source of the problem.
     
    #33     Aug 10, 2022
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  4. wmwmw

    wmwmw

    Why both Taiwan and China want to be tegether yet they did not achieve this?
    Because US did not allow. Check the history.
    When in the domestic war in the 40'-50' last century, the liberty army of communist party defeated cuomingdang, and were preparing the invasion of Taiwan, the US fleet entered Taiwan channel and prevented them from the invasion.
    Otherwise Taiwan would be occupied by mainland China long time ago.
    Both Northern Vietnam and southern Vietnam wanted to be tegether yet US militery action in Vietnam prevented them.It was only after US army left Vietnam that Vietnam achieved an united country.
    Both North Korea and south Korea wanted to be together yet they could not achieve this because of US and China military action in korea.
    Both eastern Germany and western Germany want to be tegether yet US and USSR prevented this. It was only after USSR collapsed that Germany got united.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2022
    #34     Aug 10, 2022
  5. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    With its such vast population, advancement in technology and relatively abundant resources, I doubt it would need to export to sustain its economy. It can easily close its doors like North Korea and just produce enough for its citizens to survive and defend against outside invaders. The only difference is its people will still be relatively well off vs the North Koreans. It just depends on what the country wants. If it just wants a basic and even above-average standard of living, it can achieve that easily with a closed-door policy with no trading, no communication, no interactions with the rest of the world just like it did in the 80's. It's made enough money and technological advancement is at a saturation point anyway in the rest of the world, would China gain further by keeping its doors open; that's a question for China to answer.

    The social unrest is really due to what the CCP believes is the inequitable distribution of wealth between the ultra-rich like Jack Ma and the peasant workers who work in dangerous construction projects that don't get paid at the end of the projects. This is why CCP is cracking down on all those privately owned extremely successful companies like Alibaba and Tencent to force them to cough up more money and to extend more control into those companies' managements. Once all those private companies are under CCP's control and their money is distributed more equitably across all population segments, the social unrest should die down especially that the CCP, unlike the West, is never hesitant to use more "effective" methods to persuade its people to live more peacefully.

    I think ultimately China is preparing to take over Taiwan via military means if it comes down to it and is also prepping its people and the entire country for a closed-door economy at least to the West if that's the ultimate consequence. China is fully aware of the consequences and the percussions that its takeover of Taiwan would bring but does it really care? China is not without friends or partners in the world. There are countries who are prepared to be friends with China due to the alignment of their interests with China. Countries like Russia, North Korea (maybe that's why Trump wanted to be more friendlier with Russia and North Korea), even the Taliban come to mind and each will bring what China needs. Does China really need the West? In other words, what and how much does the West bring to China today? How much is the West worth to China? Can it really afford to lose the West? This is what China is calculating right now. And everything when it comes down to it is just math and we all know what China is good at. China doesn't really have any moral standards when it comes to making friends in the world; all it's interested in is how much benefit vs. cost this country will bring in making friends with that country so as long as this country's reward/risk ratio is high, China will make friends with them. Throughout its history, China's made friends with countries ruled by dictators, fascists, terrorists, hey if it's got what China needs, it's game. Everything else is just internal affairs of that country and China does not interfere with internal affairs of another country as long as the issues in their "internal affairs" don't turn around and affect China in any negative way. That's always been China's policy. Whatever you do within your border is your business as long as you don't affect China's business.

    This is the cold hard reality that I think the West and China need to look at with regards to Taiwan.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2022
    #35     Aug 10, 2022
  6. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    The western countries are in number one position? I never realized that. I thought all the countries exist in co-operation with each other so all the countries around the world are equal and there is never any hierarchy of "number one", "number two". LOL Sure some countries are more socio-economically developed than others but everybody is essentially equal in the world. It's too bad that some people who think there is some kind of "world order".

    Big corporations' profit-driven objective is the source of innovation.
     
    #36     Aug 10, 2022
  7. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    One thing I need to point out. Chiang Kai Shek didn't create a dictatorship in Taiwan. It was the predominant ruling party in Taiwan when it first landed in Taiwan but it never created a dictatorship but created a republic based on western democracy. All regions when occupied by a group of people all started with one predominant political organization at first and Taiwan is no exception.
     
    #37     Aug 10, 2022
  8. Peter8519

    Peter8519

     
    #38     Aug 11, 2022
  9. optaiwan

    optaiwan

     
    #39     Aug 11, 2022
  10. in the last 11 years, the world military expenditures have averaged between $1.81 trillion and $2.76 trillion per year, so using money to buy weapons for security reason is normal thing at the nation level or at the personal level. one wants to buy protection for his family, and his people (one feels safer to own an AR-15 than a pistol. He's afraid of being out-gunned). the same reason why Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea have nuclear weapons. Also, Iran has pursued it. it is a deterrence means to prevent big bully like Russia would think twice about using of nuclear weapon or the threat of using it. For example, Ukraine has to beg other countries for weapons. no country in the Middle East wouldn't dare to mess around with Israel even they're many times wealthier.
    it'd take years of research, resources, and development for a country to develop an ultimate weapon system. though he might end up with inferior weapons, ...
     
    #40     Aug 11, 2022