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China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

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Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#41

Post by turndown »

qqtt wrote: post #31
bufferoverflow wrote: post #21

But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead within a week. This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo. And teach them tha…

> But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. There are no simple conclusions about what is happening right now in Ukraine, and it is a fool's errand to declare any kind of conclusion 10 days into an invasion which already displaced millions of people and in which almost every major Ukrainian city is under siege teetering on the edge. R…

>the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion.

So your response to others jumping to conclusions is to do so yourself? Your analogy doesn't make a lot of sense either, Bush was the invader claiming victory, not the local population saying they would resist until death(which seems to be fairly accurate in the case of Ukraine so far.)

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#42

Post by tablespoon »

China's not Russia, and Taiwan is not Ukraine, but there are still some important messages being sent:

1. The West's main tool still seems to be economic sanctions. Even unprecedented sanctions didn't prevent or halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and good luck sanctioning China.

2. The West is too scared to get involved militarily in ways that could actually prevent an invasion from succeeding, even when its adversary is fumbling and vulnerable. So that's something China probably doesn't have to worry about now, if it wants to go to war over Taiwan.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#43

Post by bllguo »

T-A wrote: post #25
bllguo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has no interest in being beholden to TSMC in the long-term. once that dependency is removed the only reason from a realist perspective to support Taiwan is to provoke Chinese violence, which hopefully never happens.

Fixating on TSMC is for myopic tech geeks. Yes, it's important, but not nearly as important in the grand scheme of things as: - A thriving Chinese democracy showing the mainland that no, they are not intrinsically incompatible with freedom. - The credibility of the US as an ally to other Asian countries. - Taiwan's strategic location.

I'd counter with your opinion being exceedingly naive.. "thriving" is quite generous considering their economy and reliance on foreign powers. And culturally they're making the same mistake as Hong Kong in alienating mainlanders.

don't think we have reconcilable opinions on US motivations but hey I'll gladly be wrong as long as there's no war

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#44

Post by yonaguska »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #21

But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead within a week. This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo. And teach them tha…

The "population" hasn't been armed. A small amount of people in some areas were armed. And fighting age men have been conscripted. If the goal of the invasion was to destroy infrastructure, that would have happened last week. Armed population or not.

Taiwan is completely different from Ukraine culturally, and I don't think simply blanket arming people is a solution there either. Big difference being that the Ukrainian standard of living, even under Zelensky has been bad. If you are simply surviving, taking up arms is a much easier sell. If you are comfortable and well off, you have a lot more to lose. If Xi is smart, which he is- he will attempt to take over Taiwan via political means. I don't think he will attempt to repeat the Hong Kong approach with an entire country, when he already has pro Chinese political entities within Taiwan.

> teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian

First you need to convince people that the value of freedom is actually worth the cost. Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United States. They'd rather be comfortable than free. The cost of freedom is often everything for those that actually choose it. The benefits are only realized by the next generation.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#45

Post by ctvo »

temp8964 wrote: post #35

Much of these analyses are useless unless you put domestic politics into calculation. If Xi wants to invade Taiwan, 90% is based on his power fight within the party, not the geopolitics. One crucial part of Xi's ruling is that Xi has not appointed his successor yet. Xi wants to stay. Does invading Taiwan help or hurt him to stay longer? That's his calculation.

> If Xi wants to invade Taiwan, 90% is based on his power fight within the party, not the geopolitics.

Citation? Which part of the communist party does NOT want Taiwan back if it could get it without massive geopolitical consequences?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#47

Post by GoodJokes »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #21

But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead within a week. This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo. And teach them tha…

No post body was provided.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#49

Post by DFHippie »

Russia benefits from disruption and chaos: it causes fuel prices to spike. China benefits from stability: it ensures people can and want to buy all the stuff they manufacture.

Russia asserts the right of strong nations to meddle in any nation that can't resist them. China asserts the right of every nation to territorial integrity and freedom from internal meddling by, e.g., democracy and human rights activists. (To be fair, Putin also hates these people, but clearly thinks Russia itself should be free to meddle in other nations' internal affairs.)

They are drawn together by their opposition to the West and in particular the US, and by their contiguity, but they aren't otherwise natural allies.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#50

Post by jmull »

manachar wrote: post #9
stickfigure wrote: post #5

The invasion of Taiwan would require a massive amphibious assault across a sea full of hostile submarines. You couldn't hide all the ships required from satellites. And China's economy depends heavily on trade with the west-aligned world.

Russia didn't hide their military buildup, they just lied and gaslit the world via their various disinformation channels into believing that Putin would have to be insane to actually invade.

Were there very many people who didn’t think Russia’s buildup was almost certainly a precursor to an invasion?

I hadn’t heard of that before.

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