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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

#171

Post by r00fus »

trynumber9 wrote: post #144
blackrock wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t the Southern States do exactly this? And formed the Confederate States of America. Where did that end up?

They had a civil rights issue (slavery) the remainder of the states could not ignore. It is another false equivalency as the PRC has never ruled over Taiwan. And the CSA did not enfranchise their populace fairly. Any such referendum was not an expression of the will of the people but merely the slave holding classes.

Slavery was the main cause of the civil war, but it wasn’t just human rights. Slaves gave the confederate states a massive manpower and economic advantage in the long run. Not to mention the slave trade made massive cash in itself.

The union was forced as much by economics as it was by human rights, unless all the northern states would also undo their abolitionist views.

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

#172

Post by s1artibartfast »

blackrock wrote: post #139
s1artibartfast wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US can't stop China from taking Taiwan. Can’t or won’t? Certainly the US do a lot of damage to the mainland if they chose to engage in a hot total war. A nuclear barrage of Chinese military facilities and supply lines would shut down an amphibious assault. I imagine that the US can still do tremendous damage with conventional bombing and ballistics as well, though not without cost. Both of these are basically MA…

> A nuclear barrage of Chinese military facilities Do you really want to entertain this ridiculous idea? A nuclear assault on Chinese soil, would invite a nuclear retaliation on American soil. Do you really want to lose Los Angeles or New York City, to a nuclear ICBM? And if it comes that, then both sides should just launch all their nukes, and see who is left afterwards to pick up the pieces. America is now a nuclea…

I’m not sure what you are reacting to. Of course war is not desirable.

The parent post said that America could not stop China from taking Taiwan. I want to know what they mean by this.

What do you think are the US core interests? Is maintaining and defending our allies not one? Would it be different if it was Australia or Canada? What about Alaska? Where would you draw the line?

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

#173

Post by jake_morrison »

adventured wrote: post #69
someperson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I used to think it was inevitable that China will be able to successfully invade Taiwan, but its almost impossible to pull of an amphibious invasion. Taiwan's geography makes this particularly difficult.

China wins in every military confrontation scenario. They don't have to immediately pull off an invasion. Tomorrow they could begin a draconian blockade, while strategically bombing the island and begin an assassination & disruption campaign by inserting special forces. They can do it (rather inexpensively) on an indefinite basis, as long as they care to. Nobody can stop that and they have zero concern for the humani…

I agree. Something that would help would be focusing on dealign with saboteurs and small unit attacks, and making it difficult to hold the island thorough guerrilla warfare. There is no indication that they are doing that.

Even more effective for China is to simply invest a few billion Dollars into bribing politicians. Some would argue that this has already been done with the KMT. They can also put pressure on the owners of the first generation of factories in China, which tend to be related to KMT. They will give up Taiwan in order to keep their business.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] »

adventured wrote: post #69
someperson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I used to think it was inevitable that China will be able to successfully invade Taiwan, but its almost impossible to pull of an amphibious invasion. Taiwan's geography makes this particularly difficult.

China wins in every military confrontation scenario. They don't have to immediately pull off an invasion. Tomorrow they could begin a draconian blockade, while strategically bombing the island and begin an assassination & disruption campaign by inserting special forces. They can do it (rather inexpensively) on an indefinite basis, as long as they care to. Nobody can stop that and they have zero concern for the humani…

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by toast0 »

99_00 wrote: post #159
_cs2017_ wrote: post #140

No American administration ever thought "let's placate Beijing because we are too scared of them getting angry". Every time the decision to compromise with Beijing was made based on a certain trade-off. This is no different today. The US military and civilian experts believe that if Taiwan declares independence, Beijing will use its military to take control of Taiwan, regardless of the US involvement. US presidents d…

>The US military and civilian experts believe that if Taiwan declares independence, Beijing will use its military to take control of Taiwan Taiwan considers its self to be China. What are they going to declare themselves independent from?

Rather than declaring independence, Taiwan could grant independence to mainland China.

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

#176

Post by erichocean »

judgardner wrote: post #31
pm90 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China tries to take Taiwan by force, it would spark WW3. There are US military bases in Taiwan [0] which would automatically ensure that the US military is involved in any such attempt. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Taiwan_Defense_C... US-China relations were OK under the Obama administration. Note that the Trade war and the cultural divide were initiated mostly by the current administration, an…

Linked wiki shows USTDC as inactive for about 40 years. Are there active US bases in Taiwan?

No.

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

#177

Post by disown »

__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…

> I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time.

Are you the guy that keeps spamming blogs about "TSMC, chips and how taiwan is so important to the US" to HN?

> Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination

Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled.

> and our support if they decide to go their own way.

Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place.

> it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry.

Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan.

Every week, there is some bullshit blog spam about how important TSMC is. Why is that? Who is paying for it?

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

#178

Post by puppymaster »

coryrc wrote: post #96
Rapzid wrote: post #39

It's been time for a long time to stop pretending Taiwan is not a critical ally of the USA and that we would ever allow the CCP to absorb them. They deserve our recognition and support on the international stage.

We're only pretending. Saving face is critical when negotiating in the East. If we can let the mainland save face and it costs us little of importance, why act otherwise? Also, Taiwan itself is not unified. Around a third want to unify with the CCP.

and 35% of Chinese doesn't mind Taiwan independence. What is your point?

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

#179

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

disown wrote: post #177
__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…

> I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. Are you the guy that keeps spamming blogs about "TSMC, chips and how taiwan is so important to the US" to HN? > Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled. > and our support if they decide to go their own way.…

The (secretly Freemason) Pope!

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

#180

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

njarboe wrote: post #154
caycep wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I think if China wanted to go all out, it could take Taiwan via massive force but it would be extremely costly for them and I don’t think the calculus of risk vs benefit adds up for them politically or practically. They certainly can maybe sink an American carrier, maybe, if their missiles are as good as they say, but that’s a big If.

I'm not sure how China sinks a US carrier killing thousands of US soldiers and the situation does not escalate to a nuclear exchange. Sometimes I think a whole generation has forgotten that we still live under the threat of global annihilation in under 15 minutes. The schools used to have duck and cover drills to prepare for nuclear attacks. This may have made people too afraid of the word nuclear and thus nuclear po…

Are you really sure about the global annihilation part? I'm not. The larger cities and anything near targets of strategic value will probably be gone. But otherwise? Think of all the atmospheric tests with large devices. And the "enrichment" all the coal fired power plants produce. There are people saying coal power amounts to about 50 Chernobyl EVERY FUCKING YEAR in released radioactivity into the environment! Not to speak of mercury, carbon dioxide and what not else.

On average I feel rather unimpressed by that threat. It seems like a conditioning.

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