Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

[Overbom]

Strange measure. Can anyone analyse this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1554620597119770626

 

[Abominable]

Have you all considered that the CCP may never have had any real intention to perform armed reunification at all. Not since the 20th century. All threats on performing AR is to keep Taiwan from crossing red lines for as long as possible until it's revealed that there are no real intentions behind threats.

The US may have figured that out prior to and wanted to begin testing. Yes, no red lines are crossed yet but perhaps the US didn't care to risk it or they know for a fact that PRC does not wish to perform AR.

Peaceful reunification should be the goal. Prior to yesterday it appeared very convincing that the armed reunification route is there and certainly needs to be constantly reminded of just so it has effect for as long as possible.

If we think of this as a warring kingdoms dynamic then ccp being the ruler of the mainland ought to be incentivised to destroy its main political opponent in Taiwan. But perhaps something doctrinal changed in 1990s and ccp swore off armed reunification unless they are several steps ahead militarily as to not get bogged down into an unwinnable to extremely difficult win in an occupation war.

Doing it now risks making china a global pariah state and thwart its progress. After yesterday I suspect ccp never really was set on using any military force.

Personally this is a bit of a relief... Provided they won't cross red lines to test this theory but hoping no Chinese on Chinese war. Downside is ccp will now have to deal with increased western aggression and potential declaration of independence from Taiwan.

If that was the case it would make no sense to object to Pelosi's visit. Just accept it as an unofficial visit and carry on as normal.

Issuing threats beforehand and then doing nothing except token gestures afterwards is the worst of both worlds.

 

[watdahek]

Finally got off work and I'll share a bit of my thoughts on this matter.

First, I'm glad things did not go kinetic, a war over Taiwan is not something anyone can afford right now.

Before I begin, I just want to say that I see a lot of folks here use schemas and heuristics that make sense in interpersonal relationships and project them on geopolitical strategies, and I do not believe that is a valid method of approaching the subject. Although personal decisions and geopolitical decisions are both about interests, a key distinction is that people actually value feelings and emotions as a part of their core interests, whereas nations have no feelings, memories, or experiences - only tangible benefits. Using principles of interpersonal interaction to analyze geopolitical events inevitably leads to incorrect predictions about how nations interact with each other because the two are fundamentally different. For example, you cannot change your memories on demand, what you remember/felt and took place cannot be changed, but nations can change the history they teach to their people and within 1 generation people will have completely different idea of what their history is and how the world works (think about how US - China and China - Russia relationships changed in the past 10 years - would similar changes occur to your interposal relationships?). Furthermore, people can be extremely capable at justifying things and turn bad decisions into okay decisions, whereas for nations, a war lost is a war lost - if you cannot do something, you cannot do something - there is no use of fooling yourself unless that helps to create political stability. Anyways....Let get back to Pelosi.

First, what is China's ultimate goal for Taiwan? My opinion is that Taiwan marks a key pillar in US force projection in West Pacific. China's goal for Taiwan is to use the reunification of Taiwan to push US influence away from East and South East Asia, and the bigger Western Pacific region, and establish dominance here. If that is the ultimate goal here, the Pelosi visit represents no fundamental changes to the status quo: China is not the dominant power in West Pacific before her visit, nor after her visit, shooting down her plane, intercepting her plane will not change this any bit. You can pull all political stunts all you want, but reality cares little about people's feelings - shooting down Pelosi's plane will not change the fundamental power dynamic within West Pacific - which is why it was never really an option. Even intercepting is kind of useless unless you truly intend to shoot it down if a certain threshold is breached. If China's focus is on projecting a powerful imagine to the world, then it is necessary to put up a show for Pelosi's visit. But if China's focus is on diminishing US influence in Western Pacific, I don't see how deterring Pelosi's visit fundamentally adds to that - to achieve this goal, China still need to develop its military and economical capabilities further.

Now some may argue that not responding forcefully this time run the risk of delegitimizing China's influence and power, which not only emboldens Western politicians to play the Taiwan card but also run the risk of damaging One Belt One Road and such. This argument may have merit but is too simple. Reputation may impact a person's career and life, but nations are much more complex - so this relationship does not apply identically. In psychological research, it is found that general attitudes do not predict specific behaviors - your general attitude towards the Apple brand does not predict your purchasing behavior for iPhone 11 - because attitudes and decisions are fundamentally different things, with the latter being much more complex and situational dependent than the former. Playing the Taiwan card, quitting Belt and Road initiative, building alliances/dissolving alliances with China are complex decisions made based on many practical factors, Pelosi's visit can influence the decision but it is far from a deciding factor (most US gun owners hate China but will gladly buy a Holosun red dot even though they know it's made in China, that's how complex decisions can be...)

If you look at PRC's history you'll see that China has always been conservative when it comes to war, even under Mao, who many considered as much more daunting and powerful. The decision to intervene in the Korean War was literally made weeks prior to PVA's crossing of Yalu - by then the US has bombed many Chinese cities/towns on the Korean border and is pushing towards Yalu closer by the day. The 1962 offensive against the Indians took place after many Indian incursions and aggression which killed many PLAs, and Mao waited for quite a long time until the Cuban Missile Crisis to initiate the operation. 1969 Zhen Bao Dao is a similar deal, the Soviet had displayed violent and aggressive behavior for months if not years prior to the skirmish killing and injuring many Chinese civilians and border troops. If you look into the fine prints of these wars and history, you will find that China has always been careful about starting wars, and would usually endure what most modern internet folks would consider as extremely humiliating taunts before acting. But you all know the outcomes these war has on our modern history, so it begs this question: did China get to where it is today by responding forcefully to each taunt by its adversaries and projecting a strong and powerful image? (Let's take the US for another example, if it did not get into Afghanistan for 9/11 and instead, focused on China, would China be where it is at today? For Americans here in the forum who wishes for the destruction of CPC, don't you wish your leaders would handled 9/11 a bit more cautiously and focused more on China then?)

So far I am not seeing any major reactions to PLA's newly planned exercises around Taiwan, which is quite a few more magnitude higher in terms of intensity compared to the ones in 1996 - which were the real deal before they got canceled by US intervention. Honestly I see this as an absolute win. If the Wests thinks the Pelosi visit is a huge victory over China, it absolutely is from many perspectives. But I think PLA also got what they want - the ability to become more openly hostile and confrontational over Taiwan without raising the stakes. I love that most people in the West and China thinks China is so humiliated right now and is not taking the exercises seriously. Imagine if this exercise was announced 4 weeks ago? Everyone would have lost their minds, now people are literally laughing at it. Appear weak when you are strong type of stuff no? If this becomes the new normal I'm absolutely okay with this.

China usually do not fall short on its promises, I think China will deliver on what it promised, but only with regards to its strategic goals. When you are the underdog you do not have the privilege to have both 面子 and 里子，I'm glad to see that the CPC and PLA higher up is rational and calculated as usual - a trait rarely seen in political leaders these days.

I'll end with 3 Chinese quotes - understanding Chinese war philosophy is key in understanding CPC and PLA's decisions, these folks are surprisingly traditional when it comes to this, it is a shame that most modern Chinese never fully appreciate such wisdom anymore
兵者 国之大事 死生之地 存亡之道 不可不察也
其疾如风，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不动如山，难知如阴，动如雷震
你打你的，我打我的

Again, please feel free to debate my on my random thoughts - always love a good discussion

Well said. What you said just gave me an idea, the tougher than usual warnings from China raises the expectations people have of what the Chinese response should be. This could have been planned since the beginning to make military exercises in taiwan territorial/inland waters appear less aggressive than normal. The price to pay is domestic morale, but it could turn out to be completely worth it if exercises in Taiwan territorial waters become a new norm.

 

[Overbom]

Official statement by Wang Yi. Don't see anything strange except the arouse fury of the people and opposed by international community stuff. Might be indications that China is building up a narrative (to leverage it where...)

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Wang Yi issues statement on U.S. infringement of China's sovereignty

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi openly ignores China's stern opposition to visiting Taiwan. This move seriously violates the one-China principle and seriously harms China's sovereignty. The open political provocation has aroused the fury of the Chinese people, and is opposed by the whole international community. This again proves that some U.S. politicians have become the "troublemakers" of China-U.S. relations and the U.S. has become the No. 1 "saboteur" of the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.

The U.S. must stop arbitrarily confusing right and wrong. The U.S. claims China is escalating the situation, but the most basic fact is that the U.S. provoked China regarding the Taiwan question, openly trespassing on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The U.S. claims there was precedence for the speaker of the House to visit Taiwan, but the most basic truth is that past mistakes cannot become today's excuses for repeating them. The U.S. claims its tripartite separation of powers doesn’t allow it to restrain the behavior of Congress, but the most basic norm of international law is that the U.S. must fulfill its international obligations. Major political figures in particular should not act recklessly.

 

[supersnoop]

Strange measure. Can anyone analyse this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1554620597119770626

Semiconductors

 

[Biscuits]

The PLA won't take any of those islands, because once they do, Taipei would just as surely accuse Beijing of commencing forced reunification and then declare Taiwan's independence.

If the PLA takes any ROC-administered island, they're taking Taiwan whole.

Where do you get the idea that this is true?

If Taipei wants to claim independence they can do so now, or in a couple of hours when the first government ships arrive in their forbidden entry zones.

They could have done it when China flew planes over them, just by shooting them and then declaring independence. The closest they came was shooting flares at a drone.

Clearly, Taiwan greatly fears restarting open civil war, because they know the power balance is horrible. Under such conditions, China can claim a few cities/islands and then deescalate, especially since people on Kinmen are more pro government than pro separatist/rebel.

Thanks to US loudly counting chickens before they hatch and running several victory laps before the race even starts, world opinion will now look on a 3 day blockade and PLA incursion on ground rebels have controlled for 50 years as "a weak response", is it such a stretch then that absorbing a few island then would be considered "a normal response"?

It's too late for US to walk back all the hype they've made about China's supposed weakness. If Kinmen and Penghu falls, all US can say is, "They were not worth as much as Pelosi visiting"

 

[TheFoozyOne]

Finally got off work and I'll share a bit of my thoughts on this matter.

First, I'm glad things did not go kinetic, a war over Taiwan is not something anyone can afford right now.

Before I begin, I just want to say that I see a lot of folks here use schemas and heuristics that make sense in interpersonal relationships and project them on geopolitical strategies, and I do not believe that is a valid method of approaching the subject. Although personal decisions and geopolitical decisions are both about interests, a key distinction is that people actually value feelings and emotions as a part of their core interests, whereas nations have no feelings, memories, or experiences - only tangible benefits. Using principles of interpersonal interaction to analyze geopolitical events inevitably leads to incorrect predictions about how nations interact with each other because the two are fundamentally different. For example, you cannot change your memories on demand, what you remember/felt and took place cannot be changed, but nations can change the history they teach to their people and within 1 generation people will have completely different idea of what their history is and how the world works (think about how US - China and China - Russia relationships changed in the past 10 years - would similar changes occur to your interposal relationships?). Furthermore, people can be extremely capable at justifying things and turn bad decisions into okay decisions, whereas for nations, a war lost is a war lost - if you cannot do something, you cannot do something - there is no use of fooling yourself unless that helps to create political stability. Anyways....Let get back to Pelosi.

First, what is China's ultimate goal for Taiwan? My opinion is that Taiwan marks a key pillar in US force projection in West Pacific. China's goal for Taiwan is to use the reunification of Taiwan to push US influence away from East and South East Asia, and the bigger Western Pacific region, and establish dominance here. If that is the ultimate goal here, the Pelosi visit represents no fundamental changes to the status quo: China is not the dominant power in West Pacific before her visit, nor after her visit, shooting down her plane, intercepting her plane will not change this any bit. You can pull all political stunts all you want, but reality cares little about people's feelings - shooting down Pelosi's plane will not change the fundamental power dynamic within West Pacific - which is why it was never really an option. Even intercepting is kind of useless unless you truly intend to shoot it down if a certain threshold is breached. If China's focus is on projecting a powerful imagine to the world, then it is necessary to put up a show for Pelosi's visit. But if China's focus is on diminishing US influence in Western Pacific, I don't see how deterring Pelosi's visit fundamentally adds to that - to achieve this goal, China still need to develop its military and economical capabilities further.

Now some may argue that not responding forcefully this time run the risk of delegitimizing China's influence and power, which not only emboldens Western politicians to play the Taiwan card but also run the risk of damaging One Belt One Road and such. This argument may have merit but is too simple. Reputation may impact a person's career and life, but nations are much more complex - so this relationship does not apply identically. In psychological research, it is found that general attitudes do not predict specific behaviors - your general attitude towards the Apple brand does not predict your purchasing behavior for iPhone 11 - because attitudes and decisions are fundamentally different things, with the latter being much more complex and situational dependent than the former. Playing the Taiwan card, quitting Belt and Road initiative, building alliances/dissolving alliances with China are complex decisions made based on many practical factors, Pelosi's visit can influence the decision but it is far from a deciding factor (most US gun owners hate China but will gladly buy a Holosun red dot even though they know it's made in China, that's how complex decisions can be...)

If you look at PRC's history you'll see that China has always been conservative when it comes to war, even under Mao, who many considered as much more daunting and powerful. The decision to intervene in the Korean War was literally made weeks prior to PVA's crossing of Yalu - by then the US has bombed many Chinese cities/towns on the Korean border and is pushing towards Yalu closer by the day. The 1962 offensive against the Indians took place after many Indian incursions and aggression which killed many PLAs, and Mao waited for quite a long time until the Cuban Missile Crisis to initiate the operation. 1969 Zhen Bao Dao is a similar deal, the Soviet had displayed violent and aggressive behavior for months if not years prior to the skirmish killing and injuring many Chinese civilians and border troops. If you look into the fine prints of these wars and history, you will find that China has always been careful about starting wars, and would usually endure what most modern internet folks would consider as extremely humiliating taunts before acting. But you all know the outcomes these war has on our modern history, so it begs this question: did China get to where it is today by responding forcefully to each taunt by its adversaries and projecting a strong and powerful image? (Let's take the US for another example, if it did not get into Afghanistan for 9/11 and instead, focused on China, would China be where it is at today? For Americans here in the forum who wishes for the destruction of CPC, don't you wish your leaders would handled 9/11 a bit more cautiously and focused more on China then?)

So far I am not seeing any major reactions to PLA's newly planned exercises around Taiwan, which is quite a few more magnitude higher in terms of intensity compared to the ones in 1996 - which were the real deal before they got canceled by US intervention. Honestly I see this as an absolute win. If the Wests thinks the Pelosi visit is a huge victory over China, it absolutely is from many perspectives. But I think PLA also got what they want - the ability to become more openly hostile and confrontational over Taiwan without raising the stakes. I love that most people in the West and China thinks China is so humiliated right now and is not taking the exercises seriously. Imagine if this exercise was announced 4 weeks ago? Everyone would have lost their minds, now people are literally laughing at it. Appear weak when you are strong type of stuff no? If this becomes the new normal I'm absolutely okay with this.

China usually do not fall short on its promises, I think China will deliver on what it promised, but only with regards to its strategic goals. When you are the underdog you do not have the privilege to have both 面子 and 里子，I'm glad to see that the CPC and PLA higher up is rational and calculated as usual - a trait rarely seen in political leaders these days.

I'll end with 3 Chinese quotes - understanding Chinese war philosophy is key in understanding CPC and PLA's decisions, these folks are surprisingly traditional when it comes to this, it is a shame that most modern Chinese never fully appreciate such wisdom anymore
兵者 国之大事 死生之地 存亡之道 不可不察也
其疾如风，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不动如山，难知如阴，动如雷震
你打你的，我打我的

Again, please feel free to debate my on my random thoughts - always love a good discussion

Basically the expectations were so high that a huge military exercise that surrounds Taiwan now seems mild. Alright I found my copium.

BJP CCP masterstroke.

 

[Abominable]

Taking a few islands is probably the worst decision than can be made. All it will do is signal that China is no longer interested in peaceful reunification yet leaves the bigger problem untouched.

It is like Russia and Crimea, except in that case Russia needed time to modernise and prepare for sanctions. China does not have that problem.

 

[Overbom]

Strange times when everyone here is gloomy but then you look at western propaganda and you see that instead of doing their usual propaganda stuff they are quite grim as well lol

I stay resolute in my opinion that as long as these military exercises become normalised, then China have won big time here. Pelosi can come and visit a second time if it means we can gain similar kinds of benefits

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Finally got off work and I'll share a bit of my thoughts on this matter.

First, I'm glad things did not go kinetic, a war over Taiwan is not something anyone can afford right now.

Before I begin, I just want to say that I see a lot of folks here use schemas and heuristics that make sense in interpersonal relationships and project them on geopolitical strategies, and I do not believe that is a valid method of approaching the subject. Although personal decisions and geopolitical decisions are both about interests, a key distinction is that people actually value feelings and emotions as a part of their core interests, whereas nations have no feelings, memories, or experiences - only tangible benefits. Using principles of interpersonal interaction to analyze geopolitical events inevitably leads to incorrect predictions about how nations interact with each other because the two are fundamentally different. For example, you cannot change your memories on demand, what you remember/felt and took place cannot be changed, but nations can change the history they teach to their people and within 1 generation people will have completely different idea of what their history is and how the world works (think about how US - China and China - Russia relationships changed in the past 10 years - would similar changes occur to your interposal relationships?). Furthermore, people can be extremely capable at justifying things and turn bad decisions into okay decisions, whereas for nations, a war lost is a war lost - if you cannot do something, you cannot do something - there is no use of fooling yourself unless that helps to create political stability. Anyways....Let get back to Pelosi.

First, what is China's ultimate goal for Taiwan? My opinion is that Taiwan marks a key pillar in US force projection in West Pacific. China's goal for Taiwan is to use the reunification of Taiwan to push US influence away from East and South East Asia, and the bigger Western Pacific region, and establish dominance here. If that is the ultimate goal here, the Pelosi visit represents no fundamental changes to the status quo: China is not the dominant power in West Pacific before her visit, nor after her visit, shooting down her plane, intercepting her plane will not change this any bit. You can pull all political stunts all you want, but reality cares little about people's feelings - shooting down Pelosi's plane will not change the fundamental power dynamic within West Pacific - which is why it was never really an option. Even intercepting is kind of useless unless you truly intend to shoot it down if a certain threshold is breached. If China's focus is on projecting a powerful imagine to the world, then it is necessary to put up a show for Pelosi's visit. But if China's focus is on diminishing US influence in Western Pacific, I don't see how deterring Pelosi's visit fundamentally adds to that - to achieve this goal, China still need to develop its military and economical capabilities further.

Now some may argue that not responding forcefully this time run the risk of delegitimizing China's influence and power, which not only emboldens Western politicians to play the Taiwan card but also run the risk of damaging One Belt One Road and such. This argument may have merit but is too simple. Reputation may impact a person's career and life, but nations are much more complex - so this relationship does not apply identically. In psychological research, it is found that general attitudes do not predict specific behaviors - your general attitude towards the Apple brand does not predict your purchasing behavior for iPhone 11 - because attitudes and decisions are fundamentally different things, with the latter being much more complex and situational dependent than the former. Playing the Taiwan card, quitting Belt and Road initiative, building alliances/dissolving alliances with China are complex decisions made based on many practical factors, Pelosi's visit can influence the decision but it is far from a deciding factor (most US gun owners hate China but will gladly buy a Holosun red dot even though they know it's made in China, that's how complex decisions can be...)

If you look at PRC's history you'll see that China has always been conservative when it comes to war, even under Mao, who many considered as much more daunting and powerful. The decision to intervene in the Korean War was literally made weeks prior to PVA's crossing of Yalu - by then the US has bombed many Chinese cities/towns on the Korean border and is pushing towards Yalu closer by the day. The 1962 offensive against the Indians took place after many Indian incursions and aggression which killed many PLAs, and Mao waited for quite a long time until the Cuban Missile Crisis to initiate the operation. 1969 Zhen Bao Dao is a similar deal, the Soviet had displayed violent and aggressive behavior for months if not years prior to the skirmish killing and injuring many Chinese civilians and border troops. If you look into the fine prints of these wars and history, you will find that China has always been careful about starting wars, and would usually endure what most modern internet folks would consider as extremely humiliating taunts before acting. But you all know the outcomes these war has on our modern history, so it begs this question: did China get to where it is today by responding forcefully to each taunt by its adversaries and projecting a strong and powerful image? (Let's take the US for another example, if it did not get into Afghanistan for 9/11 and instead, focused on China, would China be where it is at today? For Americans here in the forum who wishes for the destruction of CPC, don't you wish your leaders would handled 9/11 a bit more cautiously and focused more on China then?)

So far I am not seeing any major reactions to PLA's newly planned exercises around Taiwan, which is quite a few more magnitude higher in terms of intensity compared to the ones in 1996 - which were the real deal before they got canceled by US intervention. Honestly I see this as an absolute win. If the Wests thinks the Pelosi visit is a huge victory over China, it absolutely is from many perspectives. But I think PLA also got what they want - the ability to become more openly hostile and confrontational over Taiwan without raising the stakes. I love that most people in the West and China thinks China is so humiliated right now and is not taking the exercises seriously. Imagine if this exercise was announced 4 weeks ago? Everyone would have lost their minds, now people are literally laughing at it. Appear weak when you are strong type of stuff no? If this becomes the new normal I'm absolutely okay with this.

China usually do not fall short on its promises, I think China will deliver on what it promised, but only with regards to its strategic goals. When you are the underdog you do not have the privilege to have both 面子 and 里子，I'm glad to see that the CPC and PLA higher up is rational and calculated as usual - a trait rarely seen in political leaders these days.

I'll end with 3 Chinese quotes - understanding Chinese war philosophy is key in understanding CPC and PLA's decisions, these folks are surprisingly traditional when it comes to this, it is a shame that most modern Chinese never fully appreciate such wisdom anymore
兵者 国之大事 死生之地 存亡之道 不可不察也
其疾如风，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不动如山，难知如阴，动如雷震
你打你的，我打我的

Again, please feel free to debate my on my random thoughts - always love a good discussion

this is a good point.

a few weeks ago, kinetic military exercises imposed over Taiwan's claimed territorial waters and airspace would've been at least as outrageous/escalation as Russia liberating Crimea, if not halfway up to the current Ukrainian-Russian War. there would've been sanctions and very harsh diplomatic escalation at least.

but now, these exact same kinetic military exercises are viewed as a weak paper tiger cope. Very, very interesting.