Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

[ZeEa5KPul]

I imagine you're starting to catch my drift as to why I was more concerned by the lack of an imprudent, but emotionally-quenching, and politically flashy outcome now lol.

Oh, I've caught it from the beginning. What I find surprising is that talking heads are tethered enough to reality to see it - that I admit I did not foresee.

 

[ericlfh]

If I have my own country and army, I would request to joint this drill..

 

[zgx09t]

China should sanction her and her investment funds once things die down a little bit. Hit her hard where it hurts most, her corrupt money. No way in 300 years, her years in public office wouldn't make her over 100 millions rich had she lived and worked as an honest public servant, on public office salary. Better returns than Buffet? Once sanctioned, half of Wall Street as her benefactors would ditch this old hag like a diseased rat.

 

[jwnz]

Effect of the air blockade.

 

[MortyandRick]

I’d say it’s better to take the win with flyovers pushing the boundaries and leave it as that.
What would China be willing to escalate to if the drone landed and got captured or the act of landing pushed someone on the ROC side to shoot it down?
It’s along the lines of why intercept SPAR19 if you are not willing to escalate to forcing it aside or shooting it down?


I get it that in the face of US salami slicing the One-China policy, China is doing it’s own salami slicing of asserting that Taiwan as a province of China has no sovereign space/rights.
But the narrative and who controls it is all important … easy to spin it as USA action as peace/democracy and China’s action as warmongering. As many have mentioned, it is likely that the self-titled “Rest of the World” will soon start taking turns to poke the Dragon by sending their own diplomats to visit Taiwan. Repeat the Pelosi scenario again ad infinitum.


Where does China go from there then?
The current scenario comes at no cost whatsoever to the actual trouble makers. Very easy for any 2 bit country thereafter to do me too visits (cue Lithuania) since if China reacts similarly, it’ll be no cost to them too.
Keep allowing those diplomats to land = tacitly enforcing the opinion that Taiwan is a sovereign state.

Keep repeatedly conducting wargames and flyovers will be spun as “harassment” and give support to outright push for Taiwan to be protected and to be an independent state in the UN sometime this year or next?
Will China go into a shooting war then (in the next 1 to 2 years) if it doesn’t want to now?


Ultimately, the One-China stance from the west is really an unabashedly two-faced admission that $$$ is more important than Taiwan and “Democracy”.
Why only punish Taiwan for a belligerent action by the US?
Why not punish the US in the one thing that draws them into the One China policy to start with?


China has been remarkably calm in the face of the last few years of trade war from the US.
Isn’t it time to weaponise their trade and supply and hit the US in that arena as a warning to anyone thinking of doing a me-too? That way, any nation thinking of jumping on the poke the Dragon bandwagon will have to think twice about the cost in sanctions and trade. A short few months disruption in supply of iPhones, amongst other things, will quickly have industry lobbyist and consumers storming Capitol hill again?
Sure, it’ll lend credence to the “decouple from China” camp but I’d say that ship has already sailed. If not, it will literally fly out of the port the moment China does a hostile takeover of Taiwan. A shooting war of any kind will immediately decouple China ... so why the reticence to get the toe wet on the economic war?


The only endgame that is win-win for China is a peaceful assimilation of Taiwan … but the current scenario doesn’t promote that at all.

I am not sure that I would share your views.

First, while the conflict is between the US and China, Taiwan sent out the invitation. If china can make the military exercises painful for Taiwan, they will think twice before sending out the invitation again. If I were a Taiwan citizen and every time a high level foreign dignitary comes by to say nice words but provides no substance, I then have to endure 4 days of decreased port supply and bombing off my coast, I’d be pretty pissed. Maybe die hard DPP supporters won’t mind but I am sure many others would. China does not want to fight the US right now but they can make it very painful for Taiwan to send the invitation. if Taiwan invites another high level dignitary again, they will like want something concrete instead of just a photo op. That means the cost of visiting Taiwan has gone higher.

Second, just because China didn’t punish the US doesn’t mean China won’t punish another country, ie Lithuania. Which other countries will follow suit? There is only one USA, which other country and match China when it comes to an armed conflict? the UK? The EU? They rely on US power projection. Will the US fight a war for them, if they provoke China? Doubtful. it remains to be seen if the UK will follow suit but I can assure you, the cost of doing so has gone up considerably for Taiwan and the UK. I don’t think China would treat the UK with the same… laxity as they do with the US. If a country like Australia tried to do it, I don’t think China would hesitate to send out fighter jets to intercept. What the Fu*k can Australia do about it? Cry top the US? That’s why I think the only country that can do this is the US. Even then they indicate that they weren’t 100% supportive of this endeavour and we’re concerned about the consequences. So let’s see which other countries have the balls to do it in the future.

Thirdly economic sanctions are a double edged sword. they always have a self harm component. That’s why china uses it so sparingly. Those are my thought only though. I’m sure others will have better reasons.

 

[NeutralWarrior]

I doubt anybody really knows right now. Its not like they live stream military exercises. We'll probably get some news of it tomorrow.

LIVE streams of the exercises from the Taiwanese side via YouTube:

1. Live view from Taiwan Military Heliport:

2. Live view (with commentary) from Ryukyu Islands: Update: This cam will move out to open sea from Ryukyu Island from better footage

Please have patience and enjoy

 

[9dashline]

Oh, you're one of those types of people. Fixated on concepts. I don't mean this in a rude, or a mean way, but I just don't think we're going to get very far with any further discussion on the topic. You seem to have some fairly set-in-stone conceptualizations of how the government works, how people ascend the promotion system, and how much our past glory days are relevant. I was actually one of "those types" of people when I was younger. It took me a long time to break out of that rigid, "infinitive"-driven mindset, and to start trying to approach things more flexibly, and see them for what they really are, rather than as the "concept" I perceived them as. I doubt that'll mean much to you, but I want to at least have said it.

Vis a vis 5th Generation Warfare... I have, embarrassingly, been pretty heavily invested in that kind of thinking as well, back when I was younger lol. In my instance, it was William S. Lind's theory of 4th Generation Warfare. Eventually though, you notice. You notice that these aren't things. They're not real. All they are, are re-packaged, re-branded amalgamations of already existing and matured concepts. Nothing about 4th Generation Warfare, from it's decentralization fetish, to it's focus on infrastructure destruction by stay-behind or infiltrating forces, is new. Similarly, nothing about attempting to influence a nation through social media, infiltrating cultural institutions, creating engaging software (video games especially) that seeks to slowly shift user thought patterns and to pavlov them into certain mindsets is new. These are all fundamentally just basic concepts which have been going on since the cold war, updated and operationalized - as they always have been and always will be - to reflect the modern day's most relevant employment vectors. At its heart, it's nothing more than the same style of PsyOps/Influence Ops that we've been studying for a long long time. The whole "5th Gen Warfare" circlejerk is just people fitting a new interior, a new paint-job, and giving a new name to the old set of wheels. You seem like a smart dude, so I just want you to at least try to think about that.

I see what you are saying, somewhat... in the end its a much of analytics overlays of "categorical perceptions"...

My final 2 cents on this is that this Pelosi thing isnt about Pelosi its not even about Tiawan... its not even about US vs China in terms of hegemonistic adversarial competition in the context of a zero (negative) sum game of ever shrinking pies (diminishing resources) in a global post peak energy world...

The underlining root problem underpining it all (including peak oil, diminishing EROEI, etc) is that of global overshoot... and ultimately the only solution is dieoff.... either humanity volunteers in a controlled demolition and orderly shutdown/lockdown of society (" by the end of the decade you will have nothing and be happy") or mother nature of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and mathematical concept of exponential growth against a finite environment will take care of it for us....

There may or may not be an illuminati elite or tptb at highest levels, but emergence means functionally it doesnt matter, the same way anthills dont need blueprints or autocad drawings... and power superstructures evolved to protect itself at the expense of those on the lower rungs of the stratem...

In America's case, CIA substitutes for the so called divine providence thats the invisible guiding hand that makes sure even as we collectively on global scale slide down the slope of Olduvia Gorge and regress back to a Stone Age Mad Max Easter Island style that its American power structures that sit on the top of this tropic pyramid as the plantation master harvesting the rest of the enslaved colonized world... the theme will be scale invariant canabalization, the big fish eating the small... we see Europe already being sacrificed (demand destruction) with the Ukraine pretext to prop up the USA

Personally I dont see a good outcome for humanity no matter what... what energy giveth, energy taketh away ...

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

When I was a bit heated before, I proposed overflights of Taipei and (on the nutty side) a demonstration nuclear blast near Taiwan. While these ideas have their merits, it's best not to play everything you have at once. Put the "capital" overflight and 650 kiloton firework in a box labelled "Good Ideas" and put it on the shelf. There's no need for them now and it's best to have them in reserve as the decade grinds on because Pelosi's provocation will certainly not be the last of its kind.

Having exclusion zones take small pieces of "territorial" waters is a good start. The next step would be taking more waters, then having them cover a bit of dry land, and so on and so forth, until we reach the box on the shelf. Damn it, I'm almost looking forward to more visits like Pelosi's!

 

[jwnz]

I am not sure that I would share your views.

First, while the conflict is between the US and China, Taiwan sent out the invitation. If china can make the military exercises painful for Taiwan, they will think twice before sending out the invitation again. If I were a Taiwan citizen and every time a high level foreign dignitary comes by to say nice words but provides no substance, I then have to endure 4 days of decreased port supply and bombing off my coast, I’d be pretty pissed. Maybe die hard DPP supporters won’t mind but I am sure many others would. China does not want to fight the US right now but they can make it very painful for Taiwan to send the invitation. if Taiwan invites another high level dignitary again, they will like want something concrete instead of just a photo op. That means the cost of visiting Taiwan has gone higher.

Second, just because China didn’t punish the US doesn’t mean China won’t punish another country, ie Lithuania. Which other countries will follow suit? There is only one USA, which other China when it comes to an armed conflict? the UK? The EU? They rely on US power projection. Will the US fight a war for them, if they provoke China? Doubtful. it remains to be seen if the UK will follow suit but I can assure you, the cost of doing so has gone up considerably for Taiwan and the UK. I don’t think China would treat the UK with the same… laxity as they do with the US. If a country like Australia tried to do it, I don’t think China would hesitate to send out fighter jets to intercept. What the Fu*k can Australia do about it? Cry top the US? That’s why I think the only country that can do this is the US. Even then they indicate that they weren’t 100% supportive of this endeavour and we’re concerned about the consequences. So let’s see which other countries have the balls to do it in the future.

Thirdly economic sanctions are a double edged sword. they always have a self harm component. That’s why china uses it so sparingly. Those are my thought only though. I’m sure others will have better reasons.

For UK and certain EU countries, NATO article 5 would apply right?

 

[2=GT]

I'm somewhat surprised by the media reaction to Pelosi's visit. I expected a lot of Jai Democracy, but there's actually been quite a bit of criticism and questioning whether it was a good idea or served any useful purpose. Has this increased my respect for Western media by a single iota? Not even remotely. However, it does bear mentioning.

Hard to defend someone who is as corrupt and domestically hated as Pelosi.