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Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

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Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#41

Post by IanDrake »

pstrateman wrote: post #24
bigpumpkin wrote: post #4

I'm curious why Pompeo is choosing to do this now, rather than a year ago. Only 11 days until the next administration, or is he still thinking about transitioning to a second Trump term?

It forces the Biden administration to either accept the normalization of relations with Taiwan as an independent nation or explicitly take steps to treat them as a piece of the CCP. He's boxing in the next administration.

I think we'll see more actions like this in the next few days. It's like when Obama set a date to allow transgenders serve in the military after he left office.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#42

Post by someperson »

dirtyid wrote: post #15
bigpumpkin wrote: post #4

I'm curious why Pompeo is choosing to do this now, rather than a year ago. Only 11 days until the next administration, or is he still thinking about transitioning to a second Trump term?

Just Pompeo spiking options for next admin. Taiwan has about 5-10 years of strategic space left due to semiconductor dominance. Think Pompeo hopes to setup enough friction points for hotwar in the 10-15 years, when enough semi divests from Taiwan and before Chinese military fully modernizes. 15-30 years and China will be in a position to take over Taiwan with relatively little US containment options.

I used to believe it was only a matter of time until China is militarily able to take Taiwan. But it's not true: amphibious landings are notoriously difficult. Taiwan only has a few, easily defended beaches that can host an a landing. The rest of the coastline is jagged and rocky, and the Taiwan Strait hosts many typhoons and bad weather.

For what it's worth, even the US would struggle to invade Taiwan militarily.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#43

Post by fat_pikachu »

bigpumpkin wrote: post #4

I'm curious why Pompeo is choosing to do this now, rather than a year ago. Only 11 days until the next administration, or is he still thinking about transitioning to a second Trump term?

Because the Biden administration won't do it if given the choice.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#45

Post by throwitaway1235 »

__sy__ wrote: post #14

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way. That being said, considering the enormously strategic role that Taiwan plays in electronics supply chains (e.g. TSMC, Wistron...etc), it's always been odd to me that t…

75 million Americans don't have the right to self-determination. I could care less what Taiwan wants.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#46

Post by eternalban »

What is the Secret Agreement between the United States and China on Taiwan?

https://allthingsnuclear.org/gkulacki/what-is-the-secret-agr...

Nixon's Trip to China, The National Security Archive, Declassified, 2003:

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB106/

Record of Historic Richard Nixon-Zhou Enlai Talks in February 1972 Now Declassified, ~. [See listed documents linked individually, for ex: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/publications/DOC_readers/kiss...]

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/publications/DOC_readers/kiss...

The One China Policy: What Would Nixon Do? (2017)

https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/the-one-china-policy-what-wo...

Asia After Viet Nam, Richard Nixon, 1967 (pdf)

https://cdn.nixonlibrary.org/01/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1...

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#47

Post by secfirstmd »

dirtyid wrote: post #20
ilaksh wrote: post #10

My concern is that Taiwan is extraordinarily strategic and could be a linchpin. In the past, extreme economic situations have been "improved" by wars. Is there another, better plan? Does anyone on the Biden team or on planet earth have a plan for resolving the severe cultural and political divide between the US and China? Or is the divide not as great as it seems? What happens if they actually take Taiwan? Or try?

There isn't, fact is US can contain China without Taiwan / first island chain for the foreseeable future. China can trivially take Taiwan anytime but not break through US containment until military modernization is complete. Taiwan semi advancements will only serve as security guarantor for so long. Realistically, China will take Taiwan as soon as she is able to mitigate US containment. And US needs war to contain Ch…

China can trivially take Taiwan

I'm not so sure about that.

Yes they have overwhelming assets but assaults via sea are very very complex. No one has done it on a large scale against a powerful adversary on their home turf in 60+ years (I don't include the US into Kuwait or Basra etc).

To do so against an advanced, well trained military (possibly with the US in the background/helping) would result in huge losses for China. The window to cross the straight is probably only three months or so of the year. No doubt they could try smash it from a distance, cut off supplies etc and force concessions but a full on invasion would be dam tricky. Cyber attacks and Spetsnaz style sabotage may also help, especially as Taiwan has had a lot of spy scandals. However the Taiwanese people I've had the pleasure of working with are clever, cunning and courageous - those guys might lose but they are gonna give you a bloody nose trying to get in. Plus then the insurgency that follows would make Iraq look like a school yard bun fight. They have had decades to think purely about how to defend their own soil and a huge amount of people with both military training and advanced technical skills - who knows what tricks they might have up their sleeve or in the basement (Yun Feng missile for example can reach most major Chinese cities and has a fairly small warhead yet they didn't order many of them...Hmmm I wonder why?...Possibly it's older nuke program which was very advanced or the very large "defensive" chemical and biological program etc.)

Ultimately this is about the Communist Party looking for a balance. It doesn't want to lose face by losing Taiwan too much but at the same time but it would get a dam bloody nose trying to cross the straight...and then trying to occupy such a country. The end result likely to be a weakening of the party. Never forget Communists have shown themselves to be more concerned about the survival of the party than the people. Them taking a massive coin-toss strategic risk is unlikely, unless they feel pressured into doing it.

There are lots of people saying China would definitely win, so here is an interesting counter example to that.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi...

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#48

Post by Rapzid »

bigpumpkin wrote: post #4

I'm curious why Pompeo is choosing to do this now, rather than a year ago. Only 11 days until the next administration, or is he still thinking about transitioning to a second Trump term?

This doesn't surprise me coming from Pompeo TBH.. I'm going to offer an alternative perspective than some; this would have happened sooner if Trump hadn't become star-struck by "President for Life" Ping. There were moves to align more closely with Taiwan early on, and Pompeo seems to have been pretty consistent on his position in regards to the CCP and certain matters; like Hong Kong and the Uyghurs..

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#49

Post by throwitaway1235 »

secfirstmd wrote: post #38

This is good. Taiwan, like any place, has the right to self determination. Sigh, it's just such a pity the clown shoes shit show of US politics this week knocked the story of 55 democracy activists in Hong Kong being rounded up.

You mean the state crackdown on normal Trump democracy activists at the capital?

See, this as a Trump voter is why I'm so much more supportive of China than Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Re: Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship

#50

Post by adventured »

__sy__ wrote: post #14

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way. That being said, considering the enormously strategic role that Taiwan plays in electronics supply chains (e.g. TSMC, Wistron...etc), it's always been odd to me that t…

The US placates Beijing to try to delay or avoid Beijing just going ahead and invading and taking it by force (if China ultimately believes there is no other path). The US can't stop China from taking Taiwan. 20 or 30 years ago it would have been very difficult to stop that, today it's impossible. The US isn't even ready yet for that confrontation, it needs to deploy a massive number of ballistic missiles along the island chain off the coast to have a chance to at least make it a costly annexation (targeting their navy, as the US navy won't be able to get close enough).

China's Deng Xiaoping strategy of hide your strength and bide your time, that's a stall tactic to buy time (in that case the time between when something is actual and something is publicly known, a knowledge-time gap). The US placating China is also a stall tactic, hoping to buy time for a better scenario favoring the US and Taiwan more than China (for example a liberalized China, which was still a naive hope as recently as 10 years ago; that was always unlikely but it was better than driving China toward forced annexation sooner).

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