Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

[zgx09t]

Seems like many posters are getting overly emotional, painting these stark choices between shooting down Pelosi's plane or face domestic unrest.

It reminds me of the HK riots, when emotions ran equally high. Like the riots have shown though, the Chinese government has a far better handle of the situation than we can imagine.

There are some nuisances to differentiate though.

Hong Kong case was entirely a civil and political unrest where both China and US militaries remain uninvolved.
Never during the entire episode Xi, or PLA, didn't issue such stark strong warnings at the national level.

Shooting down an unarmed plane from the get-go is a bad taste, which I'm sure PLAAF definitely wouldn't do.
But what happens after initial encounter, if she shows up, will be like, as they say, the rest is the history, if it's a hundred planes pile up all armed, ready and pumped, or some of them scared. Shits can happen.

 

[56860]

If this Taiwan crisis doesn’t change CPC thinking, then I don’t know what will.

• 3-5% of GDP in military spending
• Nuclear warhead parity with US
• Abolish no-first-use policy

I think nuclear warhead parity and renouncement of no first use policy are a must. In fact, I think they are perfect responses to Pelosi's visit - particularly the latter.

And yeah, i still think we should do the drug thing.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

This is illogical. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid response to the number of warheads China has. "I don't know, therefore it has a massive secret arsenal" is not a valid inference.

There's also the issue of how many warheads China actually has vs. how many the US thinks it has. The former is unknowable unless you're a very senior Chinese military official or the Chinese president. The latter is a very public number: 350 give or take a few dozen. This is what the US is taking into account in planning a nuclear war against China, so for all intents and purposes this is the number of warheads China has.

Like I said, if China has a secret stockpile of warheads somewhere (and there's no reason to believe it does other than wishful thinking), then it had better announce it soon because they're doing no good staying secret. In addition, even if China has substantially more then it still wouldn't be at parity with the US. There's no way it can do that without creating new fissile material and that would be known very quickly.

You can't wake people pretending to sleep. Satellite images of 250 silos under construction and several dozen finished? "They're all decoys."

China also stopped reporting plutonium production in 2017.

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[ZeEa5KPul]

Yes America is ahead in that regard but as time goes on and platforms become obsolete even at current rates China will overtake America.

Eventually, yes. The problem is "eventually" on 1.4% is too slow.

Disclosing that you have a lot more nuclear weapons would likely lead to that changing, or America/Russia leaving START.

That might have been a consideration in better times, but it isn't one when tensions are high enough that killing the 3rd person in the US government's line of succession is a real possibility. In fact, I would argue that it's beneficial for the START treaty to collapse. Russia has a mountain of fissile material it couldn't possibly go through and China has a lot of industrial capacity to manufacture warheads - match made in Heaven if you ask me.

 

[BlackWindMnt]

If this Taiwan crisis doesn’t change CPC thinking, then I don’t know what will.

• 3-5% of GDP in military spending
• Nuclear warhead parity with US
• Abolish no-first-use policy

This will only shock China's partners it will only increase tension with bordering nations.
Nukes should be your death man switch and stop escalation card.

The other points i can agree with.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Satellite images of 250 silos under construction and several dozen finished? "They're all decoys."

"Under construction" being the operative term. Let me know when a single missile enters them.

China also stopped reporting plutonium production in 2017.

Still don't see the Jiuquan graphite moderated light water plutonium production reactor puffing steam clouds.

 

[erikh]

Forgot the quote

 

[styx]

china must engage USA with a military showdown. Plain and simple

 

[Kalec]

Can everyone just stop the meaningless nuclear warheads count for the sake of discussion?

Warheads didn't mean s**t but more target for enemy's first strike if you don't have enough launchers.

And nuclear weapon ain't solution to anything, you won't launch them out. The only purpose they serve is to keep enemy away from a first strike.

At the end of day, China must have the capability to defeat US in westpac in conventional fight and deter them from nuclear escalation by an arsenal in parity. I doubt US have 50% confidence that they can win a conventional war with China in a conventional way over Taiwan.

 

[Bob Smith]

Can everyone just stop the meaningless nuclear warheads count for the sake of discussion?

Warheads didn't mean s**t but more target for enemy's first strike if you don't have enough launchers.

And nuclear weapon ain't solution to anything, you won't launch them out. The only purpose they serve is to keep enemy away from a first strike.

At the end of day, China must have the capability to defeat US in westpac in conventional fight and deter them from nuclear escalation by an arsenal in parity. I doubt US have 50% confidence that they can win a conventional war with China in a conventional way over Taiwan.

Unironically dumbest post so far. Even dumber than the shoot Pelosi's planes down takes.