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Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#311

Post by nl »

jollybean wrote: post #291
mLuby wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) A giant smokescreen? Creeping (missile) barrage of the beach? There are plenty of ways to make it hard to target anything on a beach. Air cover and missile defense will be a big deal. 3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attack…

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 i…

I think you are radically underestimating the soft power China has in Asia. Countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are far from Chinese allies, but have little faith in US commitment to the region and have to survive in the region.

There's probably a number of people in leadership positions in the region who accept the realpolitik that is isn't worth fighting China over Taiwan.

> Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved.

Plenty of recent evidence says otherwise.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#312

Post by sudosysgen »

azalemeth wrote: post #185

Genuine, non-inflammatory question: Who's behind this, in China? I know that "Winnie the Pooh" gets the public blame, but this seems to be a very... public, provocative thing to do. Is the person ordering it aware of that, and how provocative it is? Is it Carrie Lam? Their chief of police? Orders from someone higher up in the party, maybe at the ministerial level? Or does the order really from the top? Frankly, I wou…

No one in particular. Many people agreed about a plan years ago, with various factors they set out to trigger various steps, and those determined that today was a suitable day and no one objected specifically, so it went ahead. That's the most likely scenario.

Xi himself probably spent very little time on this in the recent past.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#313

Post by tikwidd »

phantomathkg wrote: post #254
karaterobot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs? We tried a trade war, and it had some economic effect, but no lasting political effect. We probably don't want to get involved in another land war in Asia, if we can avoid it. We could try asking them nicely, but beyond that I feel like it's up to the people of China to decide their own fate.

Ask them nicely?! Appeasement never work, did we forgot what we have learnt from WW2? The only way out is to start a cold/hot war until toppling the CCP.

Why not start with the low hanging fruit? Be an inspiration for Chinese dissidents and topple the Business party (Republican/Democrat).

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#314

Post by _carbyau_ »

selectodude wrote: post #184
pedrosorio wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent case of a CEO losing their job in the American South (HQ: Roswell, Georgia) for supporting the recent Texas abortion law: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-07/video-gam... EDIT: To be clear, this not evidence in favor of the comment you were responding to: "There is a trend of certain dominant power in all of these countries that is quashing all opposing voices". As far as I can tell, supporting…

For the same reason I wouldn't put a Biden/Harris sign on my gun store in rural Missouri, I would probably keep my mouth shut on abortion if I'm the CEO of a video game developer. Your job is to make other people money. If you become a liability you're not going to have a job much longer.

Context and the multiple roles of a person, is why people get upset over this.

I agree with you. As a CEO, estranging any significant section of the market is not a good career move!

But amongst their friends, family, [insert other social circle here] their comments may not be a big deal.

As a non-public persona, I say expletives at work(as an employee) that I wouldn't want my child hearing(as a father). I can get away with it because the two worlds don't collide.

But once you have a public persona - like being a CEO - your worlds are merged into one. You don't get to have a "personal opinion" because your public persona cuts across all boundaries and your comments will be judged in the context of a public majority opinion.

Having a "public" persona is no joke. Take it seriously and expect that non-majority opinions will get public blowback so there better be a good reason for them!

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#315

Post by mLuby »

jollybean wrote: post #291
mLuby wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) A giant smokescreen? Creeping (missile) barrage of the beach? There are plenty of ways to make it hard to target anything on a beach. Air cover and missile defense will be a big deal. 3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attack…

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 i…

Second time you've mentioned this mysterious "2-man team weapon" that can make hostile amphibious landings "nary [sic] impossible" or "painful."

Care to share a link? All I can think of is https://pacificrim.fandom.com/wiki/Jaeger XD

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#316

Post by sudosysgen »

simonh wrote: post #308
sudosysgen wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If China invaded Taiwan, Europe would stand together with the US on any retaliation. It would be the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait all over again, geopolitically. China would be cut off dead from the global economy, no matter the cost. I don’t think it would be practical to liberate Taiwan, but China would be ruined.

China is not Iraq. It's insane to compare the two.

Europe was okay with the first invasion of Iraq because they frankly had very little to lose and a lot to gain.

Meanwhile suiciding the EU economy by cutting off Chinese exports would hurt the EU a lot more than it would hurt China and certainly much more than the invasion of Kuwait.

In any case I'd recommend reading what Chinese generals write on the subject. For the exact same reason as you cited they don't want to invade Taiwan unless "necessary" until the balance of trade shifts far more into the Chinese side.

Yet when confronted on the possibility of doing it now they make a very solid point. China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.

That is to say, in the Chinese calculus, the EU and US cutting themselves off of Chinese trade would hurt the former more in the short term and medium term than it would hurt China, and their arguments for it are compelling.

Beyond that, the truth is that there is a lot more to the economy than the EU and the US. China would still trade with Russia, Africa, South East Asia, almost definitely South Korea, and most of Central and South Asia.

The real thing that is at issue in Chinese military planning is not a voluntary embargo, it's a blockade by the US. But even the ability for the US to execute such a maneuver is already questionable and dwindles every year, and it would assuredly royally piss of the entirety of the world and definitely kill millions outside of China from economic dysfunction.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#317

Post by porknubbins »

nl wrote: post #236
jollybean wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) "Last fall, the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region" These are superfluous conditions (i.e. predicting bioweapons), and of course, and you're not going to hear about the 'real' results. And of course it ignores the after effects. 2) Defenders have considerable advantage in that situation, especially with a water gap. Th…

> If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to…

Those essentially local attempts at occupation and state building are completely different to a potential hypothetical symmetrical war with China that implicates the whole global order.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#318

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sudosysgen wrote: post #295
dforrestwilson wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan would care a lot if China made a move on Taiwan. They recently strengthened defense ties there. Wouldn't just be the U.S. Oh, and two of the above mentioned countries have real blue water navies that can go anywhere to cut supply lines like say, oil from the Middle East. One does not.

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.

The Ryukyus are mostly adjacent to Taiwan, it’s also where most of America’s Japan based military bases are. So in terms of air power brought to bare, China has a huge hill to climb with enemies right next door. The main reason that China has pushed for dominance of the entire South China Sea is simply so that they aren’t easily hemmed in from the rest of the world.

A war between the USA and China would ultimately do no one good, even Chinese wolf warriors should realize that.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#319

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nullc wrote: post #224
nl wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is, the CCP sees Taiwan as theirs when in reality China belongs to Taiwan. What on earth is this supposed to mean? I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but trying to claim it is illegitimate seems a pretty big stretch.

> What on earth is this supposed to mean? The Republic of China was the government of China from 1912 until 1949 when it was overthrown by the CCP and retreated to Taiwan. Until at least 1971 the UN recognized it as the legitimate government of all of China. The poster's comment is outdated, but that's the historical background -- and why it's less crazy than you might have assumed without knowing the history.

There is more relevant history: when the ROC retreated to Taiwan, they killed a lot of the upper crust of the Taiwanese already on the island. Truth is, while Japan treated Korea fairly bad, they treated Taiwan as an almost province, so that fostered a lot of distrust between the KMT and the Taiwanese on the island before they arrived, leading to atrocities. The pre-1949 Taiwanese distrust the mainlanders a lot (represented by both the ROC and PRC).

Most Taiwanese would rather refer to throw off the legacy of the ROC completely, but doing so would be considered an act of war by the PRC.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#320

Post by salawat »

nradov wrote: post #265
Aeolun wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but trying to claim it is illegitimate seems a pretty big stretch. That’s exactly what the Chinese government is doing though. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch too? China claims Taiwan just as Taiwan (more or less seriously, but I doubt with any will to ever try and recover it) claims China. Or more like they both claim to be the legitimate government of greater China.

Possession counts for a lot more than theoretical legal legitimacy. Who is physically in control of the bulk of Chinese territory?

Might does not make right in questions of rule of law.

Unless it's barbarism then. At that point I'm pretty sure the biggest functional nuclear stockpile wins though.

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