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Comment by thoughtstheseus | Hacker News Reader

Purposely and repeatedly flying military aircraft to generate a military response is my main point. Thank you for clarifying where they have been flying.

In my discussions with Taiwanese people they’ve cited these provocations as a cost, problem, threat, etc.

Would they be shot down? That remains to be seen. The U.S. is not in a great position to support Taiwan. The overwhelming majority of U.S. military tech is for projecting power, not cost effectively defending.

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The is not much a difference in this case. Boots on the ground are required to hold on to anything. Any transport of troops and materials between the mainland and Taiwan exist in a very large shooting gallery. It is not clear that China could maintain long term air superiority in the area. They have a very small (but growing) Navy. The US sub fleet would sink most of it quite quickly. The US fleet is very vulnerable to ground based missiles and would take a pounding but longer term the US has the force projection to win. In order for China to win this Taiwan has to fall in 5 days, after that it becomes a war of attrition and technology and the US is better equipped today to fight that. It is not clear that will stay the same long term. In the Korean War the US planes would not chase Chinese planes over the border. That policy would not fly here as all the military fields close to Taiwan would be hit quickly no matter what because the material threat to the US Navy requires it. Chinese pride and feeling of years of rage at how the western powers treated them in the past is the only issue here. There is no reason beyond that for China to press on this as the status quo has been fine for 50 years however for the US it would mean the fall of our position in the world and the fall of the dollar which would bankrupt the US. The west has no choice but to defend Taiwan or see an end to our very way of life.

I don't think the west will defend taiwan, but it won't matter. If china invades, their economy collapses, because no one will want to send cargo ships or oil tankers into a war zone, and industrial and ag production in china proper stops for the six months-1year of the conflict, and the population starves or riots. Probably the most the us will do punitively is to embargo china with a naval blockade. That's just as bad if not worse.

It's hard to imagine chinese leadership doesn't know this.

In 25 years, the west will forget about it. And resume trade as normal.

After all, it was the west that wanted “Free Trade” with China, so that they could shove opium down their throats.

But for some strange reason, the West is upset that the Chinese got upset, and kicked them out. And they had to turn to an alternative political model, in order to survive, so they can remove all western influence on them.

> And resume trade as normal.

In 25 years what does china's demography look like? And who is making their food (the bulk of the youth lives in the city)? It's possible that china will force it's citizens to labor as agriculturists, but that guts your export productivity.

> They have a very small (but growing) Navy.

They have the world's largest navy, and it's still growing rapidly:

https://www.dw.com/en/china-navy-vs-us-navy/a-55347120

> However, defense analysts point out that the US remains far ahead in the key metric of tonnage, meaning the US Navy operates much larger warships than China.

It looks like China only has "largest" if you go by raw ship count, which is probably misleading.

Correct. River patrol boat are counted in this.

> River patrol boat are counted in this

Really? I would expect those to be operated by the People's Armed Police, which also runs the coast guard:

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

Note that neither coast guard nor maritime militia are part of the navy, yet both have armed vessels and personnel. The coast guard in particular has larger ships than any other coast guard.

Anyway, it was hardly river patrol boats that led to this conclusion already back in 2019:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-army-navy-specialre...

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