Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by totetsu » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #50

__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 i…

I find it hard to reconcile this prospect of inevitable conflict with how genuinely easy to get along and reach mutual understanding with, all the people from China and Taiwan I have taught, lived/studied/worked with over the years have been. Maybe there's a big domestic base of nationalists that we don't get to interact with in the Anglosphere..

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

#122

Post by perennate » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #108

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.

Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. When the Southern states left the union, the world's oldest democracy went to war to prevent it. So it's a bit hypocritical of the US govt imo.

> Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals.

The HK democracy activists are protesting in support of self determination. Those arrested are not "secessionists", and as far as I know, Hong Kong has not left the PRC, so your comparison doesn't really make any sense.

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

#123

Post by Apocryphon » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #85

secfirstmd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 C…

Your article by Tanner Greer, one of the most ardent supporters of Taiwan military changed his position last year that Taiwan can repel PRC alone. Same with Ian Easton. There aren't any credible experts left there who still thinks Taiwan can stand alone, and both Greer and Easton were holdouts that were far from credible in the subject matter in first place. Regardless, I think there's too much obsession and wank ove…

China couldn’t engineer a Crimea situation as with Ukraine. Taiwan is a stable mature multiparty democracy- unless that goes away in the future, it’s much less plausible to concoct a situation like in post-Maidan Ukraine where China can use a pretext to swoop in and “stabilize” things. Harder so when it’s against an island and not contiguous land.

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

#124

Post by perennate » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

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.

Not to mention China's continued campaign of genocide against the Uighur people in Xinjiang. (And yes, when the CCP employs mass sterilization to prevent Uighurs from having children and interns millions in concentration camps without due process, it is genocide). Amazing that the world can basically ignore an ongoing modern-day Holocaust. If the US, Europe, and their allies purport to believe in universal human rights, they must put economic pressure on the PRC until the CCP ends these horrific actions.

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

#125

Post by perennate » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #50

__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 i…

[flagged]

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

#126

Post by beerandt » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:58 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #86

beerandt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm scared of Chinese military strategy, especially social engineering and psyops, but I still see enough sloppy military execution that I remain confident in overall US superiority. Look at how much trouble they've had building and attempting to operate an aircraft carrier. I think they finally figured out how to manufacture bearings for ballpoint pens in the last couple years. For both of these things, it's b…

Aircraft carriers are very difficult to build, it makes sense they would have a hard time mastering it - only a few nations can even attempt to build them. They'll have four or five operational aircraft carriers this decade. They fully understand how to build them now. Their next step is catching up to the US aircraft carrier standard and being able to field a comprehensive blue-water navy (which is what they're reac…

1) >They fully understand how to build them now.

I was of the impression it was more an operations issue, in that there wasn't insight into many of the design decisions that they were copying.

They're iterating on the design with some experience now, and as you said, they'll have real, useable carriers soon...

But is there reason to believe they've really improved and figured out carrier ops? Let alone tactics, support/logistics, force-projection, or whatever other strategic uses they intend to pursue?

2) I didn't intend to make a political statement, just a hypothetical of "What would an art-of-war destabilizing campaign look like?"

I obviously share many of your concerns, but even if most of that is true, I don't necessarily think a declining society will weaken the country militarily, at least not initially. If anything the US military is good at training and making use of people of all beliefs/ political leanings/ levels of intelligence/ etc. As long as technology is roughly on par, and the money printing presses run, the military will do fine. The political and civilian side of the (non-DOD) government, however, is an entirely different question.

3) >this is how you get so many Republicans supporting $2,000 stimulus checks

Partially and/or maybe. But there's an alternative, conservative-consistent reasoning, in that mandatory shut-downs constitute a government taking (or even expropriation) under the law, and therefore "victims" should be compensated.

In practice, the SBA and PPP programs had this more of that type of structure, while of course the stimulus checks were done as a social welfare program.

But also, yes, there are many "conservatives" that seem to approve of populist social programs now. It'll be interesting to see the ultimate party/policies realignment.

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

#127

Post by nsajko » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 3:05 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #108

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.

Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. When the Southern states left the union, the world's oldest democracy went to war to prevent it. So it's a bit hypocritical of the US govt imo.

This is a nitpick irrelevant to your point, but still: "the world's oldest democracy" is a meaningless title because who it belongs to depends on the definition of "democracy". I'm sure there's at least half a dozen different places where it is customary to claim the title. See here for data points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy

I'd say the right way to define "democracy" is not as a system of governance; but rather as a worldview, as an ideology and as an effort.

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

#128

Post by fuoqi » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

someperson wrote: post #113

magicsmoke wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly not illegal or violates site guidelines if you can put forward a reasonably argued position. I personally think a future where China annexes Taiwan would bring about a more stable and peaceful geopolitical relationship between China and the US because of three reasons. 1. The US is not threatened by China. The Pacific prevents any invasion of the America's, and China cannot blockade the US given its tw…

An annexation of Taiwan would have big implications for the security of US and allies like South Korea, Japan, Thailand, (formerly) the Philippines. Taiwan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier that has immense strategic value. Vietnam and other countries (including Russia) are worried about China's territorial expansionism and annexing the South China Sea. Public policy experts are worried about the failed policy of "ap…

Russia does not care much about Spratly Islands and it will gladly trade recognition of China's sovereignty over them for recognition of Crimea/South Osetia/Abkhazia or even for smaller geopolitical favors. As for Taiwan, Russia's official stance has always been that it's part of the mainland China, so I doubt it will do anything beside raising pointless "concerns" in the event of its military occupation. If anything, from realpolitik point of view it will be beneficial for Russia, since a military conflict over Taiwan would significantly undermine either US', or China's geopolitical positions, or even both of them.

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

#129

Post by strogonoff » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #108

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.

Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. When the Southern states left the union, the world's oldest democracy went to war to prevent it. So it's a bit hypocritical of the US govt imo.

Taiwan doesn’t want to secede, rather their claim is that China is unlawfully occupied.

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

#130

Post by nsajko » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

perennate wrote: post #122

bagacrap wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. When the Southern states left the union, the world's oldest democracy went to war to prevent it. So it's a bit hypocritical of the US govt imo.

> Every place has the right to self determination, but secessionists tend to be treated as criminals. The HK democracy activists are protesting in support of self determination. Those arrested are not "secessionists", and as far as I know, Hong Kong has not left the PRC, so your comparison doesn't really make any sense.

I don't think Bagacrap was discussing Hong Kong at all, but anyway your argument doesn't make much sense, because if someone is "protesting in support of self determination", then they almost surely are really asking for secession.