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U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

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Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#131

Post by Jeema101 »

I don't think a lot of people in this thread seem to understand the gravity of what this would mean (perhaps because many here didn't live through the Cold War), but this would not be Crimea all over again - it would be a standoff between two nuclear armed powers.

The US at one time (up until 1980) actually had an explicit mutual defense pact with Taiwan, guaranteeing that either would go to war if the other were attacked. The policy since then has been 'deliberate ambiguity' [1] but it's generally understood that there would be some kind of intervention.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_of_deliberate_ambiguity...

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#132

Post by hawk_ »

f6v wrote: post #116
hawk_ wrote: post #7

If you're to follow local media in China, the rhetoric around taking back Taiwan has grown stronger. Winnie the pooh also got a time limit extension on CCP leadership on the platform of a fully unified China. The signs are all there, though I just don't see how anything resembling a conventional warfare can happen there. The potential lives at risk are quite high and if the toll is that high it will be difficult to s…

> Also it's not like Crimea annexation where the aggressor had local support. As a crimean, I find the way you write “Crimea wanted to become part of Russia” extremely funny.

My bad but that's the impression I have had from international media. Russian forces didn't face any significant resitance and the local russian speaking population wasn't too keen on continuing with Ukraine. Happy to hear from a crimean what really went down.

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#133

Post by TheAsprngHacker »

Fricken wrote: post #114
gspr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anti-China rhetoric and propaganda in the USA has been steadily ramping up over the last 3-5 years as well, for better or worse. I don't think this is an accident or happenstance. Yeah, it's really strange that negative rhetoric has been ramping up against a government that is now running full-blown ethnic concentration camps in Xinjiang, is flagrantly stomping on the democratic rights of the people of Hong Kon…

>According to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in December 2019, one-fifth of Hong Kong's population supported Hong Kong independence, while 56% of Hongkongers opposed it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence

Please forgive me if I misunderstand the Hong Kong issue, but I thought that it was just the more extreme people who support Hong Kong independence, and the main purpose of the protest was the "five demands, not one less?" I found this on Wikipedia:

> Reuters conducted polls in December 2019,[617] March 2020,[618] June 2020[619] and August 2020. The last poll showed that an increasing number of Hongkongers support the pro-democracy goals since the national security law was implemented. More than half of the respondents opposed the national security law. 70% wanted an independent commission of inquiry that looked into how the police handled the protests. 63% wanted universal suffrage. The support for amnesty of all arrested protesters rose to 50%. More than half of people still wanted Carrie Lam to resign. The number of people who opposed the pro-democracy demands went down to 19%. The majority (60%) still opposed Hong Kong independence, 20% supported the idea.[620]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong_prot...

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#134

Post by Anon1096 »

scpedicini wrote: post #27
pulse7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many pro-China people living in Taiwan. So there is local support...

Anecdotal, but I lived in Taiwan for several years and never met anyone who was even remotely pro-CCP.

They mostly live in Southern Taiwan, so I wouldn't be surprised if foreigners (and many Taiwanese natives as well) don't regularly see pro-CCP Taiwanese citizens.

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#135

Post by pjc50 »

sthnblllII wrote: post #104
cwwc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry bud, but didn't Taiwan lose China; not the other way around? If anything, Taiwan has a claim on China as sovereign land. This is Stupid, yes, but but it would (very roughly) be like if in 1066 the Normans had lost -- and then they kept claiming "Britain is ours!" Years later. Uhhh... No. Britain would be the Anglo-Saxon's. No question. Call me out if my logic is off -- but this seems more reasonable at a glance…

It would be accurate if the UK today were claiming northern France as an integral part of England.

This claim was made for seven centuries. Claims can be surprisingly durable.

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#136

Post by nradov »

adrianmonk wrote: post #106
aphextron wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"That makes it seem like you want China to take Taiwan uncontested." I, like any sane person, would like to avoid WWIII. It's easy to play armchair general with no skin in the game. But the reality is that there would be no support in the US for sending American soldiers to die for Taiwan. Let alone the nuclear ramifications. If Beijing decides to take it, we will sit here and watch. The same way we do currently as…

> no support in the US for sending American soldiers to die for Taiwan There could also be support in the US for keeping China from expanding its power to the point where it can rival the US. That is, fighting against China rather than for Taiwan. I'm not saying that would necessarily be enough either, but people are more willing to die to protect their own country's interests than to help someone else. EDIT: Not sur…

There are powerful voices working behind the scenes within the US military industrial complex who believe that an eventual conflict with China is inevitable. So they would prefer to provoke that conflict sooner rather than wait for China to grow stronger. (I don't agree with this approach, I'm just pointing out that it is one school of thought.)

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#137

Post by summerlight »

Let's assess its feasibility first. In the point of the China military view, a significant portion of the Taiwan island occupation must be done before the US intervention. And their limited amphibious attack capability complicates the problem. Taiwan has 200k standing army and 250k more reserve forces, thus China probably needs to deploy at least 500k, preferably more than 1M of its army into Taiwan within a week or less. Otherwise, it will need to face the 7th fleet which will make the further amphibious invasion much harder.

And yes, the current China navy is not capable of doing so, and this is perfectly natural because the scale of such amphibious invasion in a such short time frame is non-precedent. They are desperately ramping up the capability of course, but it is not a that easy work. And the associated cost on the failure is pretty clear; they will lose its grip on South China sea. Taiwan re-unification is somehow political idealism-driven, but the control on South China sea is directly connected to China's national interest.

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#138

Post by Sophistifunk »

If the US doesn't respond with massive force, both Japan and S Korea will be forced to "develop" (read, unveil and ramp up) their weapons programs, closely followed by Indonesia because they will assume Australia is doing so secretly. Indonesia could teach the Saudis a thing or two about fundamentalism and intolerance, and they tend not to have strong leadership. Nobody wants them to have a hydrogen bomb.

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#139

Post by hyperion2010 »

magicsmoke wrote: post #124
hyperion2010 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are forgetting that there are nuclear missile submarines within striking distance of every major Chinese city. This is a game of chicken, not a game of "who has better logistics."

I'm sure getting SF and LA nuked because the US lobbed a couple at Beijing and Shanghai first will play great with the electorate. It would also be the third time the US unilaterally used nuclear weapons first which I'm sure has no international political implications.

After reading this I had a sad chuckle when I realized that as described these events would actually play pretty darned well with a large swath of the electorate :/

Re: U.S. fears China attack on Taiwan

#140

Post by neolog »

BingoAhoy wrote: post #115
kelnos wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find even a "bunch" of people in Taiwan who want to be under Beijing's rule, or would even consider that a tolerable compromise position. Certainly the country is far from unified on the idea of independence (though that particular movement has gotten stronger over the past couple decades), but culturally and politically, China and Taiwan are quite different and incompatible.

From my second hand laymen sources, there are in fact pro China advocates in Tiawan. Also surprisingly enough, there was a sizable loyalist group in the American 13 colonies who supported continued British colonialism.

Wonder if they're from Taiwan, or were deployed there by Chinese government.
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