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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

#341

Post by rmujica »

baybal2 wrote: post #335
MangoCoffee wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese. Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng X…

> There is no hope for China to turn into a democratic country. With enough ammunition, any country can be made a democracy

turned out alright for Afghanistan

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#342

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #322
stickfigure wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Why not just give Taiwan nukes? MAD seems to be a very effective peace strategy. China already has nukes. Seems the essential missing ingredient is the 'M'.

Both Taiwan and Japan are known to be capable of fielding nukes but do not because it would inflame tensions in the region and the USA has implicitly guaranteed to back them with an existing MAD solution. If the USA withdrew from east Asia, both Taiwan and Japan would probably start producing nuclear weapons within a few months (or before the USA had left if given a head’s up).

[deleted]

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#343

Post by tablespoon »

refenestrator wrote: post #195
dustintrex wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's official doctrine is also that Taiwan is a part of China, and the status of Taiwan is purely an internal affair.

That's true, but if it ends there, then it's not a vital matter of self-defense for us. Honestly, not even that important in terms of balance of power provided we get that TSMC plant up in Arizona first. What it IS, is a grievous insult to our insistence on being the last word in international affairs.

> That's true, but if it ends there, then it's not a vital matter of self-defense for us. Honestly, not even that important in terms of balance of power provided we get that TSMC plant up in Arizona first.

That's not a great look, and will probably eventually end with our allies either defeated or heading for the exits.

Being a reliable ally seems like it'd be pretty important to self-defense. China has a pretty big population, it's unified, and may have the patience to chip away at things and outlast us.

> What it IS, is a grievous insult to our insistence on being the last word in international affairs.

I suppose it's always an option to withdraw and leave our allies become tributaries of the new empire. Maybe we can eventually become one ourselves and our grandkids can gave peace under the emperor.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#344

Post by gscott »

stingrae wrote: post #271
hker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were true, China would not have delayed its Anti-Sanctions Law in Hong Kong [1]. Hong Kong is huge in supporting the Finance of China. > But the Hong Kong government can only welcome the stock listing opportunity to reinforce Hong Kong as the world’s premier IPO destination, especially at a time when the introduction of the national security law has raised concerns about maintaining the city as a global financi…

At a very simple level you can compare the GDP of PRC=$14.72T vs the GDP of HK=$349.5B from 2020.

Capital inflows to China are done through Hong Kong. HK is just a financial center for China. As far as the population goes, China could care less as long as they two the communist line.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-finance...

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#345

Post by tablespoon »

sumedh wrote: post #333
tablespoon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there were sizable numbers of US troops on Taiwan, I don't think they'd attack. They don't want a major confrontation, at least not yet. There's a decent chance at this point that all those troops would do is hold the airport for a rushed evacuation mission.

Taiwan has TSMC so the US needs to protect Taiwan for its strategic needs.

> Taiwan has TSMC so the US needs to protect Taiwan for its strategic needs.

Eh. I think there are plenty of American decision-makers who are motivated to figure out a rationale for swallowing a loss like that.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#346

Post by jollybean »

thenewwazoo wrote: post #211
jollybean wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would not be able to stop it though. By the time it was announced, it would already be done. The only real option China would have would be 'force' and a frontal war with China is a really big deal. That said, US-provided nukes for Taiwan would be a major escelation and fingers would be pointed in the direction of the US for 'blame' etc.. A lot of people would throw a fit over that. It might be better to just pu…

Your presumption of unity is doing a lot of work here. I, for one, would absolutely oppose going to war against China for the sake of Taiwan, instead preferring that that money go to humanitarian causes that would help Taiwanese suffering under a CCP regime. War, especially nuclear war, is abhorrent and I would not stand for it.

It doesn't matter whether you or I would support war, it matters what the population wants, and given a direct assault on US forces and the invasion of an ally, 1/2 the US population would be gunning for war and enough of the rest would be convinced.

Unfortunately 'some money to helping Taiwanese' would basically be futile, as there wouldn't likely be a way for that to be applied. (Donations are not going to help Hong Kong, now and won't help Taiwan in the event of invasion)

It also doesn't matter if we 'abhor war', force is a fundamental part of the equation even in 2021, if you're not prepared to use it in the right context, you'll lose the freedom to have the choice. And by that I don't mean 'You need to carry a gun!' because you don't, I mean we need to be prepared to use the Armed Forces (or force in generally) as is reasonably necessary.

And that would effectively be a pretty much necessary case.

These conflicts have 'knock on effects' - for example, if Saddam was able to simply roll into Kuwait willy-nilly, there's no reason to believe that Qatar or Saudi wouldn't be next. That, and 'because Oil stability' -> War.

It's unlikely the US would respond with an invasion of Taiwan because that would be essentially impossible, but probably there would be a 'war' in the South China sea and a Cold War after that.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#347

Post by howaboutnope »

rmujica wrote: post #341
baybal2 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no hope for China to turn into a democratic country. With enough ammunition, any country can be made a democracy

turned out alright for Afghanistan

Turned out alright for Nazi Germany. As a German, I'm absolutely grateful the Nazis were crushed militarily, rather than, you know, still reigning.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#349

Post by tablespoon »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #334
MangoCoffee wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese. Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng X…

There's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China.

> There's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China.

Isn't Singapore already pretty authoritarian?

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#350

Post by jollybean »

nl wrote: post #311
jollybean wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Your point about Vietnam and Philippines wavering on direct conflict is well taken but I did hint at that.

I didn't say 'they would be going to war over Taiwan' - I would agree with you there there.

In the geopolitical realignment, they'd be in a difficult situation, and though they might not join the Asian NATO, they'd join the new Trade Pact.

Neither Sweden nor Finland nor Austria belong to NATO either, but there's a fair degree of coordination still.

But Japan, S. Korea, India would, and that's the start of a fairly powerful coalition - some of which would probably engage the Chinese Navy in S. China sea, and maybe be involved in blockades.

"Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved Plenty of recent evidence says otherwise. :

I don't know what you mean. 9/11 resulted in two major wars and that was a non-state actor.

China sinking a couple of US ships is definitely an act of war, the only question would be 'how' the US would respond. It would be in blood, not just 'sanctions'.

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