301–310 of 321 posts
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> Exactly. Russia is able to withstand the sanctions because they are major exporters of food and oil. China is in the opposite position. I think you missed my point: there's synergy between the West's two pariahs. Russia can provide the food and oil China needs, and China can supply manufactured goods to Russia (and Africa and all kinds of other places that won't fall in line behind whatever the West wants them to d…
Ah, I did miss that point. There are some practical difficulties for oil at least. Russia doesn't have pipelines that connect all their oil facilities to China; the facilities that do connect to China are pretty high-tech, have depended on western companies for maintenance, and don't have a lot of spare capacity. To get the oil from other regions, they'd have to rely on ships, either from China and Russia or any othe…
I believe Russia is already working on building new pipelines to fix that. The Chinese also know how to build things fast, so that doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem.
> To get the oil from other regions, they'd have to rely on ships...
Is that a problem or just a small inefficiency? Because it doesn't look like a problem to me, short of an all-out war where you've got submarines attacking commercial shipping.
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Such as?
It is the basis of US-Taiwan relations as a starter.
Only in the context of the PRC. The reality of US-Taiwan relations would be much clearer if it was not PRC policy to sever diplomatic relationship with any country that recognizes Taiwan.
On the topic of Taiwan, it's a mistake to reason about de facto relationships from de jure "official positions." Basically, the "official positions" are lies, and the actual positions are not directly stated. For instance, if the US really considered Taiwan as "part of China," it wouldn't be war-gaming how to militarily repel an invasion from the PRC.
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The legitimate government of China which Taiwan is a province of.
Legitimate is such a funny word. It seeks to make objective what is in origin subjective. Who says which of the two is the "legitimate" government of China? Upon what basis? Being better at killing people in a civil war? Or is the consent of the governed? And if so, I think saying Taiwan belongs to anyone else except the Taiwanese is a big mistake.
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I'll try explaining this in more familiar terms for you. A province is like a state in US, and the central government of China is akin to the federal government in US. I hope that helps clear things up for you.
Ah. So you are saying that mainland China should be governed by the exiled government in Tapei. Got it.
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Sure, and if you look at the map it becomes obvious that US cannot beat China by force in their own backyard. So, all US is accomplishing in the long run is to create conditions that may lead to a direct conflict between two nuclear superpowers because US wants to be able to project its power in Asia.
Perhaps, but my point is, the legal position is almost irrelevant. To flip it around, if ROC was clearly a legally independent entity and PRC didn't like it, this whole debacle would look the same.
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The west has its own problems, but today's China is not yesteryear's China. China is doing and has done plenty of things in other countries. They are installing mass surveillance systems in Africa, building out African infrastructure as a sort of diplomatic capture by dept, literally stealing land from Nepal and others by building Chinese centers for villages on the edge but making sure they annex bits of land each t…
There's so much to debate in your list, it's just not worth it. Do you know where Italian fisheries are all of the time? North African and turkish coasts. African debt? We're kings of it as of stealing every african resource and abusing those people. Spying, really? You even barely aware how far we go with that? The problem with modern geopolitics is that very few lead by the example.
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I read it. I'm quite familiar with the US and UN positions on China. The first link doesn't say what you thing it does, though. It is even written by the de facto ambassador of Taiwan to Japan. But even ignoring all those links, Taiwan is de facto an independent country. The PRC cannot assert any sort of power in the island, and PRC citizens are not considered Taiwanese nationals.
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Edit: You posted 46 comments in this flamewar. That's extremely not what HN is for! If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful.
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> Mining sealanes and destroying airfields = west couldnt run blockade even if they wanted. The Berlin airlift had a similar dynamic. The USSR could have shot down the planes - but they did not as it would have brought them too close to war. If the US/Japan sends an escorted "relief" convoy via air or sea - China is unlikely to intercept without triggering a direct conflict. A direct war between the US/Japan/Australi…
PRC will not allow TW to be resupplied by west simply because legally that means foreign hardware operating on Chinese soil to support separatists during Chinese civil war. Optically that's a none starter. The likely outcome is PRC will mine TW shores and continues to crater TW airfields that TW allies can't supply TW even if they wanted to because no one is going to even attempt to supply under such dangerous condit…
Like direct strikes to mainland china - direct strikes to continental us/ us territories imply a global conflict. Article 5 would be called on, and NATO would be drawn into the conflict. China would struggle against a G7 boycott.
It’s plausible that EU stays neutral in a narrow war, but a broad war with expansive war goals would lead to a broad response. Chinas past behavior towards nuclear powers occurred before they had indigenous weapons and while they had a nuclear protector.
The only limiter to nuclear escalation in a modern global conflict is willingness and alternatives. When alternatives have been removed and civilian targets are targeted nuclear options will be on the table. In a broad conflict this process could occur within days.