Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

escobar said:

It is not the US are really good in PR but that CN is so bad in PR

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Says the person with the worst PR here posting either just the news or thoughtless regurgiated one-liners... well, that's after I beat you a few times by debate so you learned to play it safe. Never seen someone glorify the art of running one's mouth so much over making actual progress like China.

Bellum_Romanum said:

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And this line of thinking becomes more mainstream in Taiwan, the peaceful transfer of power between China would become very difficult and challenging to say the least as the old guard (those who longed for unification) in Taiwan dies off and replaced by the new patriots of Taiwan. It's not hard to foresee a possibility that by the time China is ready to reunify the island it would have lost the people of that island to the sort of thinking illuminated, pushed forth by America without the necessity of bloodshed and or extermination of these separatist ideology that's become a sense identity to the young people in Taiwan.

Is time really China's side when it comes to Taiwan? Or that place is a lost cause when it comes to it's inhabitants that even if and when the island is reunified firmly back to China that it may have permanently lost the people completely to a separate Taiwanese independence spirit.

I am of the belief the longer this Taiwan issue is delayed then the sooner the island is lost because what's the point of having a land back when the very people that lives on the land hate and despises you?

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True, the current youth tends to be overwhelmingly pro-independence or pro-status quo.

However, how many of the youth believes advocate independence due to them _actually_ fiercely believing in the cause? I reckon quite many of them say it because it's the "political correct" thing to say due to decades of brainwashing of the merits of democracy and the historic backwardness of the mainland. Given a decade or two, I'd say the future youth of Taiwan (and HK) will have a completely different view of the mainland as compared to the youth today.

As the mainland develops while Taiwan regresses, it becomes more attractive for the Taiwan youth to settle in the mainland. Plenty of them already do. And Taiwan's long-term demographics isn't in their favour either.

All I see is a whole lot high expectations on both sides begging for disappointment. If Nancy Pelosi doesn't go to Taiwan, the West looks weak. If Pelosi does go to Taiwan and China doesn't act matching their words, China looks weak.

The West is trying to cancel China at a pace where it doesn't hurt them. They are in fact trying punish China for an invasion that hasn't happened and they don't know if it will ever happen. They want to punish China today for a future crime. It's like Hilary Clinton saying she doesn't want her granddaughter living in a world controlled by China. She doesn't know that will happen but you better believe if she were President she would be punishing China for a crime that hasn't happened.

Why would Nancy Pelosi have to sneak into Taiwan? Shouldn't there be plans how to punish the US in a macro level and not at a micro level like shooting her plane that does nothing but force the US to militarily act? It's because someone in China mentions a no-fly zone. They drew a line in the sand that can be easily crossed and dared the US to cross it. That's why sneaking into Taiwan is going to be interpreted as a huge victory that China just gave to the US. Like I've posted before in this thread, if Pelosi goes to Taiwan then why not supply Russia with arms in their fight against Ukraine? They're already punishing China slowly for not directly supporting Russia in Ukraine or an invasion of Taiwan that hasn't happened. Or how about something as simple as closing off rare earths to the West and their allies and calling it a threat to China's national security like how they use that to ban chips to China? Is that too much? Does the US have the right to militarily attack China for that? How about banning Christianity in China? That's the game China should be playing. Are they going to do that?

HereToSeePics said:

Unless the PLAAF gets shot at first, all the talk about shooting down Pelosi’s plane or bombing the runway is a bit outrageous in my opinion. If not only for the sake that it’s just not Pelosi on the flight, but dozens of crew and staff who will also die on the flight. This will also lead to an instant market melt down across both US, Asian and European stock markets as well as sever economic consequences to multiple economics in both short and long term.

Just as people in the US have called her trip to Taiwan high risk, low reward - killing her and dozens of other people onboard is an even higher risk with arguably even lower rewards for China. There are countless ways China can respond to Pelosi’s potential visit with force and resolve without shooting anyone down such as giving China opening it needs to conduct fly overs of Taiwan and establish permanent air presence over the island. Unification is bound to happen, but it would be more preferable for China to set
the time and terms of when that happens, rather than be forced to play it’s hand now

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There's really nothing China can do. They would not do flyovers over Taiwan for the same reason they don't do them now. Their planes will get shot down. Any other retaliation they commit against Taiwan such as a one-off airstrike against a base or something will also lead to punitive measures by the US. The US now has all the cards. China probably has three trillion dollars in US bank accounts (or its allies; all hard currencies belong to the US and its allies), so the US is just waiting for an excuse to start salami slicing away at their account. Even a Taiwan war that the US might lose would not all be bad from the US perspective as they would be able to eliminate all debt owed to both China and Taiwan (Taiwan itself has half a trillion in foreign reserves).

nixdorf said:

There's really nothing China can do. They would not do flyovers over Taiwan for the same reason they don't do them now. Their planes will get shot down. Any other retaliation they commit against Taiwan such as a one-off airstrike against a base or something will also lead to punitive measures by the US. The US now has all the cards. China probably has three trillion dollars in US bank accounts (or its allies; all hard currencies belong to the US and its allies), so the US is just waiting for an excuse to start salami slicing away at their account. Even a Taiwan war that the US might lose would not all be bad from the US perspective as they would be able to eliminate all debt owed to both China and Taiwan (Taiwan itself has half a trillion in foreign reserves).

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You cannot think beyond that point, can you? US and allies do all that and then what? Crickets?

People who don't think China would do some military responses after putting out all that signalling and messaging are delusional.

At the very lowest/weakest we should see overflights of drones (possible manned planes) as well as missiles overflying Taiwan.

This is by the way, the minimum bar of what will happen.

The chances of the PLAAF trying to actually intercept Pelosi's plane and force her away/to not land isn't low either, with the possibility of ROC fighters being shot down being high along with US military planes if they dare enter within 12 km of Taiwan.

I don’t know why it is so hard to believe that PLAAF will attempt an intercept. They’ve done that with foreign planes, including fighter aircraft, numerous times in the East China Sea and SCS which recently culminated with the chaff incident. Why would Pelosi’s plane be any different?

manqiangrexue said:

Is it 1.4%?

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The people who calculate this sort of thing put it at 1.7%. Whatever the actual number is, 1.4% is close enough that it's a passable story, which means the actual number is nowhere near what it needs to be.

manqiangrexue said:

Does the CCP announce its real spending or just a number to be transparent? Is the number flexible? In the middle of June, if a large sum could bring great benefit, can the "budget" accomodate?

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I don't expect or want the CPC to trumpet its intentions about raising military spending and make announcements all over the place, but I do want the number to go up. I don't care if it goes up officially, or in supplementary budgets or whatever other mechanism, I just care that it goes up.

manqiangrexue said:

Your argument could have been made in 1996 and China would have a huge number of obsolete war machines to maintain.

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That's incorrect. In 1996 the PLA was limited by technology, today it is limited by funding. Type 055, J-20, DF-41, Type 09-V, H-20, etc. China already has or will in a matter of a few years have the most cutting edge weapons on Earth. They won't be obsolete for decades to come.

manqiangrexue said:

Do you know how capable they are?

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112 of the largest VLS cells on any ship, dual band AESA radars, cutting edge electronic warfare systems, CeC, first rate command facilities, stupid strong power plant, etc. I know for damn sure they're the most capable destroyers sailing the world's oceans.

manqiangrexue said:

Do you know what's in the making or how soon the next iteration will be ready? The CCP knows.

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No, but you could argue for a zero build rate with that since something better will always be available in the future.

manqiangrexue said:

the US and Soviets could destroy each other several times over at any time but they provoked each other all the time. Did they not have enough nukes for deterrence?

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The US and USSR provoked each other on ultimately peripheral issues. The US wasn't challenging the USSR's sovereignty over one of its core territories.

manqiangrexue said:

Sounds emotional.

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There's a difference between emotional and psychological. Yes, I'm well aware that China can deter the US with a smaller arsenal (although one still much larger than what it has now), but the psychological benefits of parity shouldn't be discounted. China is looked down on for exactly this reason - you have to be a specialist to understand the nuances of nuclear deterrence, but any moron off the street can understand that if China has the same number of nuclear weapons as the US, any exchange will result in the US being annihilated.

The idea that a war with Russia is unthinkable is precisely because this idea of nuclear parity (distinct from MAD) has been drilled into Americans' skulls for generations.

manqiangrexue said:

Of course everyone including the CCP has much to learn, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that I can teach them.

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I don't presume to teach them, I hope this situation teaches them.

nixdorf said:

There's really nothing China can do. They would not do flyovers over Taiwan for the same reason they don't do them now. Their planes will get shot down. Any other retaliation they commit against Taiwan such as a one-off airstrike against a base or something will also lead to punitive measures by the US. The US now has all the cards. China probably has three trillion dollars in US bank accounts (or its allies; all hard currencies belong to the US and its allies), so the US is just waiting for an excuse to start salami slicing away at their account. Even a Taiwan war that the US might lose would not all be bad from the US perspective as they would be able to eliminate all debt owed to both China and Taiwan (Taiwan itself has half a trillion in foreign reserves).

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Taiwan doesn't have the capability to shoot down Chinese planes. They can't even shoot down simple targets.

siegecrossbow said:

I don’t know why it is so hard to believe that PLAAF will attempt an intercept. They’ve done that with foreign planes, including fighter aircraft, numerous times in the East China Sea and SCS which recently culminated with the chaff incident. Why would Pelosi’s plane be any different?

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Normalcy Bias.