Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

2) If you've seen these type of landings, you know that 'smoke screens' are not an area cover, just some very local cover. They can be accounted for.

Missiles barrages are not particularly useful unless they have some kind of targeting ability that we don't know about. There are not enough missiles, same for artillery. They will be able to hit communications centres and established defences, but as I said, if there is a '2 man team weapon' - and Taiwan can actually deploy them, the landings will be painful.

3) I don't agree with the Crimea Taiwan comparison.

  a) 1/2 of Crimeans were pro-Russian, the rest not necessarily nationalist, or prepared. There was no material military defence of Crimea, Ukraine is poor, corrupt, and uncoordinated. Crimea is fairly sparsely populated, and nobody in the world cares about it, other than the fact it was 'taken'.

  b) Taiwan is a rich, highly populated country, a strong sense of identity even if their a Pro Mainland nationalists, there are millions otherwise. They wealthy, very well prepared, very well organized. They have weapons, training a political cause. Taiwan is a mid-sized economy 'that matters'.

If CCP completely overruns Taiwan in a very heavy-handed way, with visible footprint everywhere (tanks rolling through most areas), then there might be a lack of an uprising.

But if there is any coordinated attempt by Taiwan to prepare for that, and any material ability for fighters to operate, there will be ongoing fighting.

5) I think you're misunderstanding the 'reaction'.

Yes, if CCP did 'Take Taiwan' - then there's probably no way anyone would uproot them directly. Unless there was an ongoing civil uprising etc. - then it's going to belong to China.

But there would be a 1) Geopolitical re-orientation like there never has been and 2) Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved. If China 'sinks a US ship' then 'they will pay' probably a disproportionately heavy price.

'Asian NATO' will form under completely new auspices: India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Korea etc. are now witnessing the China Dragon with a military conflict and so their fear escalates.

To your point about 'Neutrality' - Singapore might be, but not others, like India, Japan, Korea, and Arab countries which the US has incredible power over.

The 'South China Sea' probably becomes the forum for retribution, and I can see a multinational force, led by the US declaring that area 'open seas' and basically attacking any Chinese forces there. That'd be one way for the US to get their 'pound of flesh' to save face.

Pan Pacific Trade v2 would surely happen for the same reasons - it was going to happen, the only reason it did not was Trump, and now that he's killed it, it's just too hard to get going again. But a Taiwan invasion would trigger that. The 'possibly neutral' countries on the military side would more likely join this - their 'neutrality' is mostly based on fear of China, not fear of the West.

A Taiwan invasion might probably mean immediate trade war between the US and China, with the rest of the world dragged in.

And the more global geopolitical repercussions would be a little bit similar to the Cold War. The US/EU/UK/India/Japan/Korea+Others 'side' would put immense pressure on the system to try to isolate China.

Again, yes, I think China would end up keeping Taiwan, but it's the 'realignment' outside China that is the real impact.

Anyhow - direct invasion of Taiwan would be a big deal.

And millions of civilians died during the war itself…

There is absolutely nothing that Japan could do.

Cutting oil from the ME would not be enough. China would ration oil and increase imports from Russia massively as well as reactivate domestic oil production, it would be great for the environment, China would carry on, and the US would make a lot of enemies.

Taiwan is the #1 foreign policy issue of China and maybe a top 3 long term goal - they consider it existential to their existence.

China is an ethnocentric state, they have long memories and they plan for things.

Xi is definitely more aggressive than the others, but China basically will be trying to 'get Taiwan back forever'.

Frankly, the 'long term solution' if Taiwan remains free, may be something like a 'One China' where Taiwan is actually completely independent. Maybe even Tibet and HK. That would probably only happen if China fell apart, there were wars, and we had this Peace Agreement where the world nominally recognized China as 'One Entity' even if they were actually completely different nation states. That is obviously not likely to happen but aside from a Chinese->Taiwan invasion I don't see how union happens.

The 'Taiwan Issue' is totally nonnegotiable to China, any attempt to bring the issue up in foreign policy discussions would have the Chinese Officials walk out in anger. As far as they are concerned 'Taiwan is China and There Is No Discussion' about it.

> I fear Taiwan will soon be conquered by China, not by force but suppression and economic ties.

A majority in Taiwan (two-thirds) are against unification, and that's hardended further after what's happened in HongKong. This is especially so among young people, who mostly also identify as being exclusively Taiwanese. Support for unification mostly comes from KMT, who are older and identify as Taiwanese and Chinese. As that generation fades away, these ratios will tilt even further.

For most young Taiwanese, Mainland China has nothing to offer for them to want unification.