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By late
#15193416
"The prevailing mood in Washington among officials and opinion leaders is to fight if China attempts to conquer Taiwan by force. In a speech at the Center for Strategic Studies last Friday, the deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks, said that if Beijing invades Taiwan, “we have a significant amount of capability forward in the region to tamp down any such potential”.

As I have previously detailed, there is no rational scenario in which the United States could end up in a better, more secure place after a war with China. The best that could be hoped for would be a pyrrhic victory in which we are saddled with becoming the permanent defense force for Taiwan (costing us hundreds of billions a year and the equally permanent requirement to be ready for the inevitable Chinese counter-attack).

The most likely outcome would be a conventional defeat of our forces in which China ultimately succeeds, despite our intervention – at the cost of large numbers of our jets being shot down, ships being sunk, and thousands of our service personnel killed. But the worst case is a conventional war spirals out of control and escalates into a nuclear exchange.

That leaves as the best option something most Americans find unsatisfying: refuse to engage in direct combat against China on behalf of Taiwan. Doing so will allow the United States to emerge on the other side of a China/Taiwan war with our global military and economic power intact.

Publicly, Washington should continue to embrace strategic ambiguity but privately convey to Taiwanese leaders that we will not fight a war with China."

That ambiguity has been policy for a very long time. Bill Clinton committed a major faux pas when he said in a speech we would not go to war over Taiwan. Everyone knew that, but it was something we were not supposed to say... ever.

I think Biden is smart enough to avoid a war with China. And Xi is smart enough to know he would be damaging his own economy severely by invading.

But still, war drums make me nervous, we have a long track record of making dumb foreign affairs mistakes, a track record that goes back to the war of 1812. So when I say long, yeah, I mean centuries.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/05/the-us-must-avoid-war-with-china-over-taiwan-at-all-costs
#15193450
China just does not want to leave Taiwan alone.

It seems like a curse to have some Chinese ancestry in me. People are wary of the mainland Chinese for good reason. The Chinese can be fierce and stubborn. I do not want Taiwan to be like Hong Kong. China needs to take a chill pill.
#15193456
Hong Kong is Czechoslovakia, Taiwan would be Poland. I would rather go the Churchill approach than Neville Chamberlain.

Defend countries from warmongering fascists with every last dying breath.

What should be done upon Chinese invasion of Taiwan is to invoke the UN (it was created in response to WWII) and every free country worth its salt go all-in. India would probably be on our side, so we'd have boots. China can't defeat the world, that's the whole point of the UN. What's the point of the UN if its essential premise ain't worth a damn? The US has no need to go it alone and it should stop talking like they need to. This is not a US issue, it's an international issue of basic human rights, sovereignty, and self-determination.

Abandoning a longtime democratic ally in Taiwan would be pretty weak. Actually abhorrent.

Trump was right in that their allies should bump up their military spending a bit, hit NATO commitments and such. Not sure China would invade Taiwan, it would decimate their economy since the sanctions and boycotts would come swift if we had any balls whatsoever.
By late
#15193462
Unthinking Majority wrote:


Defend countries from warmongering fascists with every last dying breath.




That could easily be prophetic.

This has been our position for half a century for good reason. It's the only sane choice:

"The most likely outcome would be a conventional defeat of our forces in which China ultimately succeeds, despite our intervention – at the cost of large numbers of our jets being shot down, ships being sunk, and thousands of our service personnel killed. But the worst case is a conventional war spirals out of control and escalates into a nuclear exchange."
#15193464
late wrote:That could easily be prophetic.

This has been our position for half a century for good reason. It's the only sane choice:

"The most likely outcome would be a conventional defeat of our forces in which China ultimately succeeds, despite our intervention – at the cost of large numbers of our jets being shot down, ships being sunk, and thousands of our service personnel killed. But the worst case is a conventional war spirals out of control and escalates into a nuclear exchange."


Worst case would be the CCP not stopping at Taiwan and eventually doing its best Nazi Germany impression, but with the help of modern IT too and we're all trapped in the Chinese Matrix while they take over our cities lol.
#15193465
Would be fun for sergeants to bark their orders over Chinese phones and Chinese networks so they know when we're coming. Bahaha.

In 10 years wars will be fought by robots anyways. It will be like Transformers, which would be pretty sweet minus the millions of deaths.
#15193498
Unthinking Majority wrote:Hong Kong is Czechoslovakia, Taiwan would be Poland. I would rather go the Churchill approach than Neville Chamberlain.

I sympathise with your sentiments, but its important to recognise that the CCP's behaviour has been far far worse than the behaviour of the Nazis in the 1930s. The peoples of the Saar, the Sudetenland and Danzig wanted to reunite with Germany / Austria. Neville Chamberlain was totally correct not to go to war with Germany over the Sudetenland. I used to be of the view that Britain and France should have gone to war in March 1939, but I now think that even in March 1939 Chamberlain made the right decision. Czechoslovakia was a land locked country surrounded by hostile neighbours. Chamberlain was the greatest man of the twentieth century, who led Britain and France into war, a bare two decades after the guns fell silent on the western front, while the cowards / Nazi sympathisers / fellow travellers in the United States, Sweden, Belgium and Holland stood by and did nothing.

Chamberlain's noble and courageous leadership should not be equated with our craven cowardice in the face of over three quarters of a century of murderous aggression by the Chinese communist Party. Britain had lost nearly a million dead in the recent WWI, France had suffered over a million and a half dead, where as the United States suffered less than sixty thousand deaths in Vietnam, yet they're still whining on about it half a century later.
Last edited by Rich on 06 Oct 2021 19:36, edited 1 time in total.
By late
#15193501
Unthinking Majority wrote:
Worst case would be the CCP not stopping at Taiwan and eventually doing its best Nazi Germany impression, but with the help of modern IT too and we're all trapped in the Chinese Matrix while they take over our cities lol.



Worst case is nuclear, by far.

China doesn't have the ability to conquer much past it's border.
#15193578
I'm not sure if what some people expect in this case. Do they expect China to bypass Taiwan somehow while expanding their influence on the rest of the world and reclaiming it? When both the Chinese and US military strategists and planners see China could take back Taiwan by military means, the West will back down, which is just a matter of time anyway because time works for China in that regard as well. I wonder if where China could be stopped, but it's not Taiwan for sure.
By late
#15193582
Beren wrote:
I'm not sure if what some people expect in this case. Do they expect China to bypass Taiwan somehow while expanding their influence on the rest of the world and reclaiming it? When both the Chinese and US military strategists and planners see China could take back Taiwan by military means, the West will back down, which is just a matter of time anyway because time works for China in that regard as well. I wonder if where China could be stopped, but it's not Taiwan for sure.



In 10 or 20 years, China can blockade Taiwan, and win without firing a shot.

They are patient..
#15193586
late wrote:Worst case is nuclear, by far.

China doesn't have the ability to conquer much past it's border.


It borders Korea, Mongolia, Russia, and many other states. If we said Germany doesn't have the ability to conquer much past its border, it still invaded France, USSR, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc.

China has 1.4 billion of population-suffocating cities, maybe they also feel they need more "living space" for the Han.

Thus far their "invasions" have been voluntary trojan horses. They have allowed many millions to leave, now they have a diaspora in foreign countries all around the world, quite a few still loyal to them, some working in foreign governments, many who can still be controlled from the metropole by doing things like threatening/intimidating family back home. Some working in foreign companies stealing IP.

We don't want McCarthyism, but then if in the 1960's you hired Soviet people in your government in sensitive areas would that be a logical thing to do for national security?

Then you have IT trojan horses. Buy your Hauwei or OnePlus phone today. Buy a TCL or Hisense TV today. Buy your Lenovo laptop today. We will surveille you, we will control you. This is 21st century imperialism. The US is busy fighting wars, that's so 30 years ago. The US gov is stupid and outdated and filled with old people. The POTUS is going senile and the military doesn't realize they'll all be replaced with robots within the next 15 years.
#15193587
late wrote:In 10 or 20 years, China can blockade Taiwan, and win without firing a shot.


China could take Taiwan now, although Taiwan says by 2025 China will basically be unstoppable in any case...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/china-capable-of-mounting-full-scale-invasion-by-2025-taiwan-says-12427018

And Xi and Biden have just agreed to keep the arrangement as it is. Which then goes to what you are expecting when posting this thread.

The truth is it makes no sense for China to invade Taiwan if unification is their ultimate goal. They cannot win the hearts and minds of people if they just invade. And if just going in and taking Taiwan was their goal then there is no reason to wait actually. The US will have to accept they can't do anything to protect Taiwan given their geographical handicap and the realisation of that won't be understood until China mobilze. So I expect whilst both sides keep to the one China policy and don't break the terms of that, I do see China just waiting for reunification to occur when Taiwan is ready to do so actually. There is no pyrrhic war, no lost of military hardware, control and agreement by doing that whilst the alternative is and eternal war with insurgents.
#15193589
Any contemplation of war with China is complete insanity. It's going to be nuclear, if not nuclear then a massive blood bath. We don't need such a war and we must avoid it at all costs. The last time American troops engaged the Chinese so close to their borders was in Korea and they were very nearly defeated. American over-confidence in their military capabilities is very dangerous. The US has not won a single war since WWII. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Korea have either resulted in complete defeats or stalemates. Why should her allies follow her into another adventure, this time to a bordering island of the second most powerful country in the world? The Chinese know exactly what they are doing and I'm not sure the Americans understand exactly who they are dealing with.

Unthinking Majority wrote:Hong Kong is Czechoslovakia, Taiwan would be Poland. I would rather go the Churchill approach than Neville Chamberlain.

Defend countries from warmongering fascists with every last dying breath.


No, China is not Nazi Germany. Taiwan is not Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Unthinking Majority wrote:India would probably be on our side, so we'd have boots.


India won't side with anyone, they would remain neutral until one side is almost guaranteed victory. The Indians have always remained essentially neutral, leaning more in pro-Soviet and pro-American directions depending on the particular circumstances of their domestic politics and global situation. They want good relations with the Chinese minus the territorial issues, but they won't commit to Taiwan.

Unthinking Majority wrote:Trump was right in that their allies should bump up their military spending a bit, hit NATO commitments and such. Not sure China would invade Taiwan, it would decimate their economy since the sanctions and boycotts would come swift if we had any balls whatsoever.


Would you as an American prepared to be drafted for war with Taiwan?

It's a serious issue with massive implications.

The Taiwanese political class should stop trying to provoke Beijing under the guise of American protection. Not saying we should just abandon Taiwan, but at the same time they need to work for a more amenable relationship with the mainland. We should make it very clear to Taipei that we will not be offering them a military commitment in the event of war.
#15193601
Rugoz wrote:Let Taiwan have nukes. Problem solved.



I don't think that would solve the problem, but fuck it, I'm for it!
#15193602
Rancid wrote:I don't think that would solve the problem, but fuck it, I'm for it!

It depends on if what the problem is, but it's a good way of trolling anyway, isn't it? :lol:

There's a connection between nukes and trolling, by the way, as they both can be a last resort. :D

However, in my opinion Taiwan's nukes would go into China's possession with Taiwan itself at the end if they didn't refuse to have them at all.
#15193607
Unthinking Majority wrote:Defend countries from warmongering fascists with every last dying breath.

Couldn't agree more. Long live the People's Liberation Army and may it succeed in its decades long struggle against the fascist running dogs of the Kuomintang!
#15193632
Unthinking Majority wrote:Let the US give Taiwan nukes. Reverse Cuban missile crisis.


That's the crux isn't it. I doubt China would allow it the same way America wouldn't allow it and the project would be futile given that would be certain war.

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