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China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

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181–190 of 204 posts

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#181
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give out guns to people who never used them, they won't be as effective. Also I think you're underestimating the logistic difficulty of storing and transporting tens of millions of weapons (and ammunition) before blitzkrieg cuts you off. You could have a storage in each city, but you still need to move the guns to smaller towns and villages, as well as enemy spies could sabotage such transports...

You're trying to rationalize the situation in the US, not looking at it objectively. You can quickly train people to use a firearm, including long before fighting starts. You will need to store a vast amount of military equipment anyways. Storage is highly unlikely to be an issue.

Dude, I don't live in the US and I know little about american problems with guns, so no, your guess is a big miss. I'm not trying to rationalize anything, apparently you're the one being heavily biased here, to rush into such conclusions.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#182
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As it has indeed turned out to be. It is very worrying to me that China tones down the invasion in their media (if that is indeed true, I don't follow Chinese media myself). Better to let people know what war really is. Unless you want it.

What's more worrying still is if they start toning it down in the West's media.

This weekend China has refused to show Premiership Football because of protests at matches against the Russian invasion[1].

Right now the English FA and clubs are just ignoring that but it's a big market. How long will they ignore that revenue stream?

Already the way Disney, Netflix, Apple, NBA and Hollywood cozy up to the CCP is pretty worrying.

1. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/football/china-blocks-broadc...

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#183
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's such a weird situation right now everybody went from virus and vaccine expert to geopolitical expert within 10 min. It took the West like a year of sanctions and aerial bombardment, then 3 weeks of "Shock and awe" to take over an Arab nations. If there is one thing modern day arabs are known for is they cant do modern warfare. Now take Ukraine its like 40% bigger than Iraq so i think its save to say it should ta…

> If there is one thing modern day arabs are known for is they cant do modern warfare. > It's such a weird situation right now everybody went from virus and vaccine expert to geopolitical expert within 10 min.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I legitimately don't understand where all these "Ukraine is obviously winning" takes are coming from. Because it appears to be doing far better than expected. That doesn't mean they'll win, but it at least allows for a sliver of hope. Personally, I'm guessing they'll eventually lose a lot of territory without direct Western military intervention, but maybe there will still be Ukrainian rump state left in the West a…

If, broadly speaking, the western media says that Russia won a Pyrrhic victory will I be right in saying this was an intentional setup or will it be that I simply got lucky?

Depends on the chances of pyrrhic victories in general. You score no points for predicting the most probable outcome. To reverse this, would you be right if you said that Russia won and Russian media agreed?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. Not necessarily. CPC is still waiting to see what the US and NATO do in response to the Russian invasion, and especially Putin's threats of nuclear escalation. If China perceives that all the West will do is sanctions on Russia, but no direct military intervention to p…

We're still buying millions of dollars worth of oil from Russia daily because our government is afraid of blowback from further energy price inflation. Economic sanctions on China would absolutely cripple us. I don't doubt that, if they were committed to the idea, the CPC would likely be willing to ride out whatever we actually cobble together in response. They've been pushing heavily for self reliance in every indus…

It would cripple them too. Being rich is only relative.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#186
I don't need an analysis to know that China already has planned its invasion, but waiting for the right time.

Russia, China (CCP), Iran, Belarus, Venezuela, Cuba...the modern axis of evil. What do they have in common? Communism: the most deadly and hypocritical ideology in human history.

For those unfamiliar with Belarus: the leader Lukashenko is a communist that wishes the revival of the Soviet Union.

For those unfamiliar with communism, it's basically a few power hungry leaders that tell the people they'll build a fair and equitable utopia, but end up with absolute power, and killing or torturing all opposition.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. How can you be so certain? This reminds me of people saying just 14 days ago "I don't think Putin is going to invade." Taiwan is not Ukraine, indeed -- Taiwan would be easier to capture because it is an island. There aren't land borders across which supplies and weapons…

The worst thing, that you don't mention: China has a much stronger economy than Russia. Currently we're cutting Russia from almost everything, but still (as silently as we can) buy its gas - because it would be very hard for us to stop buying it. Cutting off China? That would hurt both sides to the point I doubt it's even possible... But then again I wouldn't expect cutting Russia the way we did was possible. Still,…

Chinese people are more likely to rage at the government if the economy goes bad. I don't know why that is considering the media is much more locked up than Russia's has been until now, but you can see local fury every once in a while where the government is forced to concede because of angry mobs

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're still buying millions of dollars worth of oil from Russia daily because our government is afraid of blowback from further energy price inflation. Economic sanctions on China would absolutely cripple us. I don't doubt that, if they were committed to the idea, the CPC would likely be willing to ride out whatever we actually cobble together in response. They've been pushing heavily for self reliance in every indus…

It would cripple them too. Being rich is only relative.

They haven't had too much of an issue with what Americans would consider insane lockdown measures during COVID.

Given the trade surplus they have been running for years- well over $3 trillion worth total held in their foreign exchange reserves- I suspect they know (or believe) they would weather the sanctions better than we would.

See: Disney, Apple, Nike and dozens of other large corporations all cut off Russia over Ukraine, yet maintain healthy relationships with China despite all of the horrors reportedly committed against the Uyghur Muslims.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#189

One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. The attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia just reminded people that the best war plans don't survive the first contact with the enemy (apparently stated by the Prussian general Moltke), or in the more folksy words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punch…

Right the other way. It would be the perfect timing for China. Do you think the west can afford sanctioning the shit out of China now? They can't even sanction Russia properly. Do you think China prefer to wait that the west figured their shit out to depend less on other countries? Plus now Russia, Belarus, depends so much from China... and I bet many other countries are thinking of getting the fuck away from the wes…

> I would be very surprised that Taiwan is not next.

Just wanna establish some clear understanding on what you mean by "next".

Would you be very surprised if Taiwan is not invaded within 3 months? 6 months? or 12 months?

Or what you mean is that you would be surprised that there can even be another invasion elsewhere after the invasion of Ukraine and before the invasion of Taiwan?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#190

One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. The attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia just reminded people that the best war plans don't survive the first contact with the enemy (apparently stated by the Prussian general Moltke), or in the more folksy words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punch…

One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. How can you be so certain? This reminds me of people saying just 14 days ago "I don't think Putin is going to invade." Taiwan is not Ukraine, indeed -- Taiwan would be easier to capture because it is an island. There aren't land borders across which supplies and weapons…

Taiwan is more difficult to capture exactly because it is difficult to sustain a well supplied continuous attack on an island 250 miles away.

> the worst it would face would be some sanctions CCP lends its legitimacy on economy. That is one thing most vulnerable.

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