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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Taiwan has a relatively strong military and while China would easily win any war, it would be crazy to fight it’s military.

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It had a military advantage. It doesn’t anymore.[0] Taiwan has not been sold modern equipment, while China has increased military spending and operational capability.

Being an island, Taiwan always had to rely on holding off an invading force for as long as possible. This historically meant until the US Navy could reinforce its defenses. Now with China’s anti access area denial strategy, this is becoming a less certain strategy.[1]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/world/asia/china-taiwan-m...

[1] https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/chinas-a2ad-challenge-in-the...

China has nuclear weapons, so in terms of total war the direct outcome is not in question.

The issue is Taiwan is capable of putting up enough of a fight to make it loud internationally and painful domestically. The population does not want to join a poorly run country with 1/4th it’s per capita GDP. It would be able to retaliate and hit major Chinease cities making it an extremely expensive war etc etc. And after they won they would not have an prosperous nation just a huge and angry mess.

PS: Most interestingly the people on the ground in Taiwan with the most information are scaling back military spending. So, presumably they believe the threat of war is minimal.

Honestly. I don’t know where you’re getting your information. Given your out of date information, and a cavalier toss about using nuclear weapons, I don’t think you’re nearly as well informed as you think you are.

FYI: China has a no-first use policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...

Chinese policies (or laws, or contracts etc.) don’t mean anything

As the past 60 years of US Military action have made abundantly clear, even for the best military on the planet by quite a margin no war is “easy” to win. Now, granted, China won’t agonize about collateral damage the way we do, but even then it’s not “easy”, especially if you plan to take permanent control of the territory afterwards. For that to happen, the overwhelming majority of the country has to _want_ such control, and the remaining people have to not be too heavily invested in the idea of independence. It’s pretty much the opposite of what you see in Taiwan.

> Now, granted, China won’t agonize about collateral damage the way we do

Please qualify this statement.

What’s there to qualify? You think they’ll worry as much about civilian casualties or use precision weapons?

It's funny because the situation you speak of with China is purely hypothetical while there are plenty (too many to count, really) modern day examples of the US military striking civilians all around the world.

But hey, at least America has the decency to agonise over it, right? Very civilised indeed.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...

5% collateral casualty rate, while regrettable, is very, very low, comparatively speaking. And yes, I was discussing this in context of a purely theoretical invasion of Taiwan. That's the whole point.

Comparatively speaking to what? The 20% non-military fatality rate in the decade of bombing that preceded that particular year? Vietnam? Korea?

To make a hand-wavy statement such as "China won’t agonize about collateral damage the way we do" makes it sound as though you think the collective American morality is somehow superior to that of the Chinese? I'm curious how one could come to such a conclusion while taking into account both recent and less recent history.

I wonder if China would treat the Tawainese civilians as gently as it treats its own? I suppose Tibet, Tianemnen, forced abortions, political prisoners, and the rest are just "hand-wavy" issues. Actually I do recall watching that one guy wave his hands a bit as he was run over by a tank in Tianemenn... or maybe it was twitching... can't recall.

Well, I suppose they are since you just hand-waved over them. I could hand-wave over any number of quantifiable, internal American social/geo-political issues also. Gun laws (Aurora, Sandy-hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Mandalay Bay, Stoneman Douglas), mass for-profit incarceration of blacks/latinos for non-violent offences, forced births and closing of abortion clinics, Flint Michigan, response (or lack thereof) to hurricanes Katrina, Irma, Maria, just to name a few.

While we're at it, let me go ahead and hand-wave over the multitude of overseas abuses in a similar fashion. Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Argentina, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Iran, Libya, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria.

Now tell me, which of these points to any form of 'agonising' about human rights?

> Actually I do recall watching that one guy wave his hands a bit as he was run over by a tank in Tianemenn... or maybe it was twitching... can't recall.

Not to worry, it is a well known stereotype that Americans have very long memories of atrocities carried out by countries other than their own.

The US is hardly an ideal state, but they have policies in place to limit civilian casualties and actually practice them in warfare. The process of estimating civilian casualties from each bombing run is not just as a paperwork but actually delays the use of force on a regular basis. This is a direct outgrowth of past blowback from indiscriminate total war in the past.

So, while it’s possible that China would use similar restraint you actually need to support that argument, because the American military does actually Agonize about this stuff.

Ex: http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/training/jt...

You misunderstand the argument. You think the argument is about the justness or unjustness of killed/wounded innocent bystanders, and other collateral damage. Rightly you argue that the US behaves far better than any of it's enemies, or for that matter allies.

When compared to Venezuela, China, Russia and the other states these people keep defending, one might rightfully point out that the US not only behaves better but it's ridiculous to claim any comparison : clearly the US is morally superior to these guys. There can be no real argument about that. And about terrorists or Palestina, well, those states don't even claim their victims have anything to do with their "war", so if they have 95% collateral damage and innocents killed, they probably consider that a mistake.

In reality the point of complaining about America's use of force is a political point meant to change the politics of the US, change the balance of social power within the US.

Therefore arguments about what does and does not happen, or what is and isn't just given people's various positions ... are beside the point.

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