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Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#31

Post by pyuser583 »

worstspotgain wrote: post #17

If there ever was a major conflict with a diplomatic alternative, this is it. China's attitude towards Taiwan is mostly petty and dates back to the drunken bar fight with Chiang Kai-shek, who's been dead for 50 years. The key to peace is the general understanding that the two countries will be reunited at some unspecified future point. Historically, this has been the keystone that let the doves carry the day. In the…

Taiwan is a legit democracy. Elections. Rule of law. Freedom.

PRC is not.

I suppose Taiwan could be a “special administrative region.” But that doesn’t offer many guarantees, does it?

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#32

Post by pyuser583 »

worstspotgain wrote: post #25
mdorazio wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious counterpoint to this argument is what happened in Hong Kong. A diplomatic resolution seems unlikely to have a net-positive outcome for Taiwan under the current CCP regime.

Taiwan has obviously been watching the Hong Kong integration closely. Had it gone much better, Taiwan would have probably agreed to something similar. Frankly I think they were actually expecting much worse. An EU-style arrangement seems ideal in the medium term. It lets Taiwan have a positive long-term influence on Chinese politics, while preventing HK-style crackdowns in the other direction.

How does an “EU” style arrangement make sense between two countries, one of which is extremely large the other extremely small?

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#33

Post by hartator »

zarzavat wrote: post #30
Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which makes it critically important to see through to the end that Ukraine wins. Otherwise South Korea, Taiwan, and others would be right in recognizing that a nuclear arsenal is the better option.

This has always been true though. Consider, if the US is a friend worth depending on why do its closest allies UK, Israel and France still maintain nuclear weapons at great expense? In Europe the fact that the US dragged its feet entering WWII is still within living memory. Asian countries perhaps are still to learn this lesson.

Europe dragged their feet in both ww as well. No one wants war.

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#34

Post by skhunted »

keepamovin wrote: post #27
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #10

Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so. A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists. The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.

[flagged]

We have thousands of years of examples of two “blood kin” groups attacking each other. In addition to this is the fact that not all peoples with roots in present day PRC are Chinese. Tibet is a region of PRC that is not Chinese, for example.

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#35

Post by littlecosmic »

ethbr1 wrote: post #26
whoevercares wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Taiwan have time to “pursue”? CCP will see this as deal breaker and with the level of spy infiltration Taiwan can’t keep this a secret. Edit: USA will see this as a huge red flag as well. Remember USA only want to deter but not a real war

The US could also secretly transport tactical nuclear weapons to Taiwanese airbases, then announce that Taiwan was now protected under a similar nuclear guarantee to Europe. Any invasion triggers release of the devices into Taiwanese operational control.

This plan worked out so well last time it was tried in Cuba :)

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#36

Post by defrost »

keepamovin wrote: post #27
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #10

Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so. A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists. The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.

[flagged]

> They are never going to nuke their blood kin.

How do you explain the brother against brother kill kill kill nature of the US Civil War then?

Later, in the Atomic Age, the US military had no real issue with fallout drifting across US citizens during above ground weapons testing, they covered up dropping a live, armed nuke on US soil that only barely failed to detonate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

(There's robust debate about the safety mechanism that either "worked as intended" or "failed in failing", the wikipedia page might link further)

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#37

Post by antognini »

godelmachine wrote: post #11
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #10

Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so. A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists. The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.

Good point. Probably the Americans have dissuaded them from building a nuclear warhead in exchange for guaranteed protection?

The US has pointedly never guaranteed protection for Taiwan. Its policy has been "strategic ambiguity."

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#38

Post by skhunted »

mdorazio wrote: post #23
worstspotgain wrote: post #17

If there ever was a major conflict with a diplomatic alternative, this is it. China's attitude towards Taiwan is mostly petty and dates back to the drunken bar fight with Chiang Kai-shek, who's been dead for 50 years. The key to peace is the general understanding that the two countries will be reunited at some unspecified future point. Historically, this has been the keystone that let the doves carry the day. In the…

The obvious counterpoint to this argument is what happened in Hong Kong. A diplomatic resolution seems unlikely to have a net-positive outcome for Taiwan under the current CCP regime.

I do not understand Xi’s abandonment of Deng’s wise policies. The One China, Two Systems approach was working and had it gone well may have induced Taiwan to similarly integrate with the PRC. Now, I doubt that will ever happen.

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#39

Post by nradov »

keepamovin wrote: post #27
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #10

Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so. A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists. The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.

[flagged]

That might have been true at one point but younger Taiwanese no longer feel much kinship with mainland China. And kinship didn't prevent the long series of revolutions and civil wars that have dominated Chinese history for millennia. I wouldn't be surprised to see another one when a power vacuum appears following the death of Chairman Xi.

Re: Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

#40

Post by worstspotgain »

pyuser583 wrote: post #31
worstspotgain wrote: post #17

If there ever was a major conflict with a diplomatic alternative, this is it. China's attitude towards Taiwan is mostly petty and dates back to the drunken bar fight with Chiang Kai-shek, who's been dead for 50 years. The key to peace is the general understanding that the two countries will be reunited at some unspecified future point. Historically, this has been the keystone that let the doves carry the day. In the…

Taiwan is a legit democracy. Elections. Rule of law. Freedom. PRC is not. I suppose Taiwan could be a “special administrative region.” But that doesn’t offer many guarantees, does it?

What's the endgame with China?

No one wants Global Thermonuclear War.

A renewed Cold War is only possible if China is in Russia's camp. This is not really in China's interest any more than it is in ours. It's only in Russia's interest.

The only good endgame is "China becomes a normal nation."

This was the premise for granting it MNF trading status in the 90s. It included the notion that democracy would rub off automagically, which was obviously wishful thinking. To be fair, democracy's track record hasn't been all that hot in recent years, in no small part because of Russia's worldwide meddling push.

Recently, we've basically given up on pushing for the only good possible endgame outcome. We've largely succumbed to Russia's instigation.

It's very unlikely that the CCP will turn democratic overnight. The path there is one of incremental changes. Instead of demanding free and fair elections, freedom of dissent and freedom of the press from day one, we should get back in the nudging game.

Coincidentally, no one would be in a better position to nudge China along than Taiwan inside of an EU-style framework.

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