Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
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All because a few wanted power, money and fame. I would be grateful if there's any semblance of civilization left after 2030s.
So I think it's important to try to understand why America cares about Taiwan. Keep in mind that while I do watch this show, the conservative host is a China hawk and the guest they brought on the show is clearly a national security hawk.
I think we can all acknowledge this is not about Taiwan itself and the guest they brought on clearly admits that. Now, I think I would speak for most people on this forum that having Taiwan in China's orbit itself is the most important price. Listen to the part starting from 8:30 minute mark and then 12:45 mark.
I think we can all acknowledge this is not about Taiwan itself and the guest they brought on clearly admits that. Now, I think I would speak for most people on this forum that having Taiwan in China's orbit itself is the most important price. Listen to the part starting from 8:30 minute mark and then 12:45 mark.
AssassinsMace
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Back when the US was preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan their logic was it was the window of opportunity for China to invade Taiwan. Now the goal posts have changed to fit the new narrative especially since the old narrative didn't happen as predicted.
One thing that we should've learned from the Ukraine war is that morale matters. How did Ukraine, which went from basically refusing to fight Russian troops in 2014 and people in Donbass and Crimea seeing them as liberators from a bigger and richer brother country, go to fighting to the death against Russian troops against literally hopeless odds i.e. Mariupol?
Nationalist radicalization.
A bit of history: US has always flirted with ethnic nationalists, fascists and right wing dictators, especially in small countries. Meanwhile they hate socialists and more authoritarian large, multiethnic empires. Whether that be Spanish fascism and , to being soft on German Nazis and Imperial Japanese fascists after WW2 to the degree where and , the US has always had a soft spot for the Nazis. For those a little bit below fascism, like mere nationalist authoritarian dictators such as Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai Shek, etc. the examples are almost too numerous to list. The US antipathy towards socialism, on the other hand, has never been a secret, and it is common knowledge.
But why? What's in it for them to support fascist dictators while opposing socialism and pure authoritarians?
You see, the US recognizes one simple fact that was even declared in the Project for a New American Century: if a single country or alliance controls Europe or Southeast Asia, they'll have the resources to push the US back to the western hemisphere and become irrelevant.
So why nationalism? Why is nationalism not a real threat for the US? A right wing nationalist government has 0 foreign attraction. Everyone asks, what's in it for me? And a right wing nationalist government really has nothing to offer. Their ideology holds 0 attractiveness for anyone outside the country, this has been proven over and over again. German Nazi's allies all turned on them. Imperial Japan could never stop rebellions. Thus, it is unlikely to be capable of making the necessary alliances, and can be checked by US own alliances. Thus, a right wing nationalist government is no threat diplomatically.
Note this: they keep saying how nobody in China's neighborhood actually likes China, and point to the examples of India, Japan and Vietnam. But even ignoring that being objectively untrue (China has North Korea, Russia, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Laos, etc) guess what? actually that's far more true for India, Japan or Vietnam. Japan - surrounded by enemies (China, Russia, North/South Korea). India - surrounded by enemies (China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar). Vietnam - surrounded by enemies (China, Laos, Cambodia). Can India, Japan or Vietnam ever gather a large enough alliance to consolidate the resources of Afro-Eurasia? No.
What about right wing nationalist governments in major countries? Also no threat. In democracies like India, they can be kept perpetually destabilized by arming the opposition with a constant stream of negative news to keep them on their toes. India today is actually weaker than it was in 2014 when Modi became PM. India has declined relative to China, from 1/4 Chinese GDP per capita to 1/6 Chinese GDP per capita. In autocracies, they can pull the democracy card, ethnic oppression card, and they'd actually be right. See India, again.
What is the ideal world for them? A world where every major country is broken up into its ethnic constituents, each being weak, easily played off against each other. Failing that, a world where all the small countries are radicalized and major countries are wrecked by instability and ethnic violence while they sit above it all, mediating and controlling everything. Divide and conquer on a global scale. British Imperialism applied to the entire world in perpetuity.
How does this relate to Ukraine? Nationalist radicalization is their playbook over and over again. We've seen it in South Vietnam and South Korea with right wing dictators killing their own people by the millions, we've seen it in Latin America with support for the Brazilian and Argentine military juntas, we've seen it in Iraq with support of balkanizing them between Kurd/Sunni/Shia, we've seen it in Yugoslavia by breaking up the federation and putting Bosnians vs. Serbs vs. Croats vs. Albanians vs. Kosovans, we've seen it in Hong Kong calling Chinese people locusts and radicalizing the students... today we see the result in Ukraine, where Ukrainians hate Russians more than they love themselves. In fact, Ukrainians became so radicalized, they even sent Azov to Hong Kong. If Russians paid attention they would not have underestimated Ukrainian resolve - if Ukrainians are so radicalized that they would send extremists to a far flung country they had little to do with, just to virtue signal, what are they gonna do in a defensive war?
So in the event that the Taiwan situation becomes urgent, expect massive waves of right wing, racist propaganda pumped everywhere. Expect Taiwanese to become extremely radicalized and in fact I'd argue that they are actually extremely radicalized, just like Ukraine in 2015 onwards.
Past doesn't mean future, Ukraine in 2014 is not Ukraine in 2022. When Putin said denazification was necessary, this is what he means by denazification.
Nationalist radicalization.
A bit of history: US has always flirted with ethnic nationalists, fascists and right wing dictators, especially in small countries. Meanwhile they hate socialists and more authoritarian large, multiethnic empires. Whether that be Spanish fascism and , to being soft on German Nazis and Imperial Japanese fascists after WW2 to the degree where and , the US has always had a soft spot for the Nazis. For those a little bit below fascism, like mere nationalist authoritarian dictators such as Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai Shek, etc. the examples are almost too numerous to list. The US antipathy towards socialism, on the other hand, has never been a secret, and it is common knowledge.
But why? What's in it for them to support fascist dictators while opposing socialism and pure authoritarians?
You see, the US recognizes one simple fact that was even declared in the Project for a New American Century: if a single country or alliance controls Europe or Southeast Asia, they'll have the resources to push the US back to the western hemisphere and become irrelevant.
So why nationalism? Why is nationalism not a real threat for the US? A right wing nationalist government has 0 foreign attraction. Everyone asks, what's in it for me? And a right wing nationalist government really has nothing to offer. Their ideology holds 0 attractiveness for anyone outside the country, this has been proven over and over again. German Nazi's allies all turned on them. Imperial Japan could never stop rebellions. Thus, it is unlikely to be capable of making the necessary alliances, and can be checked by US own alliances. Thus, a right wing nationalist government is no threat diplomatically.
Note this: they keep saying how nobody in China's neighborhood actually likes China, and point to the examples of India, Japan and Vietnam. But even ignoring that being objectively untrue (China has North Korea, Russia, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Laos, etc) guess what? actually that's far more true for India, Japan or Vietnam. Japan - surrounded by enemies (China, Russia, North/South Korea). India - surrounded by enemies (China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar). Vietnam - surrounded by enemies (China, Laos, Cambodia). Can India, Japan or Vietnam ever gather a large enough alliance to consolidate the resources of Afro-Eurasia? No.
What about right wing nationalist governments in major countries? Also no threat. In democracies like India, they can be kept perpetually destabilized by arming the opposition with a constant stream of negative news to keep them on their toes. India today is actually weaker than it was in 2014 when Modi became PM. India has declined relative to China, from 1/4 Chinese GDP per capita to 1/6 Chinese GDP per capita. In autocracies, they can pull the democracy card, ethnic oppression card, and they'd actually be right. See India, again.
What is the ideal world for them? A world where every major country is broken up into its ethnic constituents, each being weak, easily played off against each other. Failing that, a world where all the small countries are radicalized and major countries are wrecked by instability and ethnic violence while they sit above it all, mediating and controlling everything. Divide and conquer on a global scale. British Imperialism applied to the entire world in perpetuity.
How does this relate to Ukraine? Nationalist radicalization is their playbook over and over again. We've seen it in South Vietnam and South Korea with right wing dictators killing their own people by the millions, we've seen it in Latin America with support for the Brazilian and Argentine military juntas, we've seen it in Iraq with support of balkanizing them between Kurd/Sunni/Shia, we've seen it in Yugoslavia by breaking up the federation and putting Bosnians vs. Serbs vs. Croats vs. Albanians vs. Kosovans, we've seen it in Hong Kong calling Chinese people locusts and radicalizing the students... today we see the result in Ukraine, where Ukrainians hate Russians more than they love themselves. In fact, Ukrainians became so radicalized, they even sent Azov to Hong Kong. If Russians paid attention they would not have underestimated Ukrainian resolve - if Ukrainians are so radicalized that they would send extremists to a far flung country they had little to do with, just to virtue signal, what are they gonna do in a defensive war?
So in the event that the Taiwan situation becomes urgent, expect massive waves of right wing, racist propaganda pumped everywhere. Expect Taiwanese to become extremely radicalized and in fact I'd argue that they are actually extremely radicalized, just like Ukraine in 2015 onwards.
Past doesn't mean future, Ukraine in 2014 is not Ukraine in 2022. When Putin said denazification was necessary, this is what he means by denazification.
The PLA/CPC isn't under some grand delusion or illusion that a war for Taiwan in Taiwan isn't going to be merciless bloody fight. The easiest to defeat the enemy is to be merciless otherwise if you allow yourselves to second guess, underestimate the adversaries resolve/morale and will to fight then it'll bring about undue struggle for the PLA and the innocent lives in Taiwan.
To be victorious is to be merciless. No half-ass measures required. The CPC/PLA owe it to it's military personnel and people.
But just to be absolutely clear, merciless doesn't equate cruelty or to commit war crimes.
I often heard that people say that we need to be careful about Taiwanese compatriots properties and lives before 2014-2016 or so.
But one good thing, I think they played their nationalist radicalization card too early.
1. all the calls questioning One China Policy by Trump woke Chinese officials up while having 0 physical effect on the ground
2. all the insulting tweets by Taiwanese minister "Joseph" (lol) Wu and the whole banning mask export to mainland fiasco during COVID beginning, also had little physical effect on the ground while provoking the mainland public opinion.
3. Sunflower movement radicalized Taiwan at the cost of Taiwanese economic security by increasing their consumption of imported fossil fuels.
All their moves have been counterproductive in that even though they promoted radicalization they also provoked China into investing more money into the PLA and hardened Chinese public opinion against Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the Russian public was not paying much attention to Donbass because they'd "already won" so to speak, so did not care that Ukrainian Army was still shelling Donbass and 100k+ Ukrainian-Russian refugees fled to Russia. This constrained the government of Russia's options regarding i.e. mobilization and declaration of war.
There should be no worries about the PLA taking Taiwan, we just need to worry about US response (whether militarily or economic).
Although, the radicalization will end up costing more taiwanese lives as well as lives of PLA soldiers, which is not good, but ultimately a cost and burden that have to be born.
As for what to do after taking Taiwan, people shouldn't fear either, there's PAP and we have in fact already seen how China was able to handle islamic extremism in Xinjiang, and even Hongkong is currently on the right track to integrate with the mainland.
Taiwan will be the same (there will be hardships and problems to be faced, and no doubt western media is gonna repeat their Xinjiang lies about Taiwan as well).
Also here's a very good breakdown of the recently 'leaked' xinjiang police files as well
Why the f did he have to do such insidious, careless action? His politics and political ideology has truly taken over their humanity/Chineseness or whatever is left of that dumb dumb person.
that is an example of brain damage from fascist propaganda. they are no longer behaving like humans.
looking at Russia, what happened? the situation was, Ukraine was getting armed and ever more radicalized. they were already shelling Donbass and already cut the water supply to Crimea. What would've happened if Russia did not move?
Well, Ukraine would continue to build up, and eventually, start an offensive into Donbass and Crimea when it was fully prepared. Russia would've been forced to fight a much more difficult war, or surrender. End result: an invasion of Russia using Ukrainian lives and foreign arms.
The same is happening for Taiwan - radicalization and military buildup - but with a crucial difference. China is growing faster than they are, from a much higher base than Russia. So time is on China's side.
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