Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis
- Thread starter sndef888
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All true. The real challenge to China has always been America. The same reason why Russia is having a hard time subduing Ukraine. Will these exercises deter Congress from supplying additional arms, intelligence, political support to Taiwan. Thats the status quo.
Yeah, just looked at that.
"Japan's exclusive economic zone" was the quote.
Someone suggested it might the "zone" where that cove is where they "exclusively" slaughter the dolphins for "economic" reasons
It changes the status quo because they are much closer and larger scale. A prelude to real thing.
I feel like the narrative of the US being a declining power is way overblown in this thread, the most terrifying thing about the American empire is not its front facing presidents and unending list of problems that people think would sink it, it is the army of cold, calculating strategists behind the scene that sets out the overall geopolitical strokes of the country to dominate both its allies and foes alike. Playing its allies off against its enemy and never having to suffer too high a cost to achieve its aims.
Despite all the efforts of its rivals for the past 200+ years, it has not only endured and prospered, but also remain the most powerful military force for 70 years and counting. We may never get another geopolitical chess master like Eisenhower, but rest assured their foreign department is as shrewd as back in the yesteryears when the US would roll over central America to get cheaper fruit. Now only more subtle in its methods so that they can call on their allies that they will stab in the back, all while they enjoy more popularity than ever in terms of soft power. Nothing the US is currently facing is an existential threat to its existence, neither is any problems that are facing China at the moment.
The chess board is never and will never be fair for China, to become No.1 China will need both hard and soft power, so far in terms of soft power China is heavily dependent on transactions with no lasting allegiance from its clients, its non-interference policy stopping the transfer of culture that makes the US soft power so powerful, ask any Chinese person and they could probably name 100 things from pop-culture that is of American origin, the inverse on the other hand, you'll struggle to get more than Chinese takeaway and Pandas. To replace America China must reform its propaganda arm to spread it's culture around the world, there are a million things that are way more interesting about Chinese art and history that would put the fake qigong and unscientific traditional Chinese medicine cashcow to shame.
If China can convince the peoples of the second and third world that Chinese culture and by extension its government is superior to the Western narrative, it would go a long way towards the aim of displacing the US, no amount of chest thumping and wolf warrior diplomacy is going to achieve that goal any faster.
Despite all the efforts of its rivals for the past 200+ years, it has not only endured and prospered, but also remain the most powerful military force for 70 years and counting. We may never get another geopolitical chess master like Eisenhower, but rest assured their foreign department is as shrewd as back in the yesteryears when the US would roll over central America to get cheaper fruit. Now only more subtle in its methods so that they can call on their allies that they will stab in the back, all while they enjoy more popularity than ever in terms of soft power. Nothing the US is currently facing is an existential threat to its existence, neither is any problems that are facing China at the moment.
The chess board is never and will never be fair for China, to become No.1 China will need both hard and soft power, so far in terms of soft power China is heavily dependent on transactions with no lasting allegiance from its clients, its non-interference policy stopping the transfer of culture that makes the US soft power so powerful, ask any Chinese person and they could probably name 100 things from pop-culture that is of American origin, the inverse on the other hand, you'll struggle to get more than Chinese takeaway and Pandas. To replace America China must reform its propaganda arm to spread it's culture around the world, there are a million things that are way more interesting about Chinese art and history that would put the fake qigong and unscientific traditional Chinese medicine cashcow to shame.
If China can convince the peoples of the second and third world that Chinese culture and by extension its government is superior to the Western narrative, it would go a long way towards the aim of displacing the US, no amount of chest thumping and wolf warrior diplomacy is going to achieve that goal any faster.
Russia has a finite timetable to invade ukraine. Unlike Russia, China's industry is developing and outpacing pretty much everyone else. Russia too has a limit in utilizing the oil and gas resources that they have as a form of leverage, given how in the coming decades such power would be greatly reduced given the expansion of renewable energy, which again China has the most growth and even current capacity.
At the same time, while taiwan is a global leader in a few techs, most importantly the semis, their military industry is very backward, unlike Ukraine who has a lot of legacy from the Soviet's military industry. I don't see taiwan being able to 'fortify' itself militarily akin to Ukraine, as even if that's the case, the growth of China's military each year would comfortably outpace their efforts.
I am impressed with S. Korean reaction. They can see who the bigger ecenomic partner is. lol.
The absolute power of the US remains the same, but the relative power between the US and China decreases every year, so yes, technically, the US is a "declining" power. Not only does the relative power between the US and China decrease, but the relative power even in the Middle East where since 1991, the US until then had a geopolitical hegemony they also lost to other regional actors, whether to Iran or Turkey.
It's not that easy, Taiwan advantage and disadventage lies in the same thing. The fact that they are island make it easy to defend against ground force landing but also make it hard to get supplied. It's not the same as Ukraine where they share border with a client state of US like Poland that help get steady flow of supply.
PLA could declare no fly zone and send PLAN to set up blockade to prevent intervention by US, Japan while PLARF, PLAAF can keep salvo until Taiwan defense network are suppressed. After that PLAGF can start landing operation.
But again, Ukraine surprise the world with their determination. So, PLA should be prepare for that too.
I respectfully disagree.
Their "army" was never behind the scene. On contrary, they like to be in Hollywood. Every army is cold, calculating strategists, up until they are not.
As for last 200 years, last 200 years were spent for rest of the world to rebuild from all colonization & war. It was never because of falling behind in a race. US barely has been alive for century not because of some grand strategy, but for it's geography. And despite that, it has been constantly facing the threat of another civil war.
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