US-China War over Taiwan: All Measures Short of a Cross Straits Invasion
scholars-stage.blogspot.com
scholars-stage.blogspot.com
Nationalistic fervor is strong, but the mainland Chinese consider the Taiwanese to be Chinese as well. So bombing Taiwanese targets would feel not very different from bombing Hunan or Sichuan province.
A blockade, on the other hand, would be far more acceptable domestically. And I fear that means a greater likelihood of the US involvement: the US public (and therefore the administration) may not have the stomach to defend Taiwan from an invasion, but they might feel they cannot stand by when American cargo ships are prevented from moving freely in the international waters.
On a side note, it's hard to believe that in the 21 century, when people are on the verge of manned flights to Mars, we still have a truckload of terrorial disputes all over the world (Taiwan and the rest of the mess in the South China Sea, the Northern Territories of Japan, Senkaku islands, the Chinese / Indian border, the Middle East, Crimea, etc.).
That we could rise above our very programming is exceptional (like the Mars lander), not the norm.
Have you talked to any Chinese people who are not from Shanghai/Beijing and are not educated in an American university?
And the "common person" understands who will be on the frontlines in any war, and who will be completely out of danger.
Nationalism is helluva drug.
Just look at the HK situation.
You could sense a tremendous amount of optimism and nationalism lurking behind their opinions. I could not open any discussion criticizing CCP, that wouldn't have gone well. Also discussed military strength, fighter pilots (oh they really wanted to be one of those guys) and some discussion around religion or lack thereof.
FWIW, these were outskirts of industrial towns in China. In Sichuan region mostly which is pretty different than Beijing , Shanghai and Shenzhen.
HK is a police action, a difference in degrees with what countries in Europe and the US do from a layperson's perspective. Like "dealing with rioting people who are trying to subvert the system".
Now one could say "_in reality_ it's the same cuz of all the agreements with HK etc." And I'm inclined to agree. But the optics of police arresting rioters vs.... what? dropping bombs on military forces? Images of boat inspections + being turned away?
Even the US, it could barely stomach the idea of a ground invasion of Syria, despite _all_ the sort of things that would make it easy to sell to people (despite the absolute atrocity that it would be).
China has much less experience selling wars to people, and all the "disadvantages" that come with pop culture covering war, and on top of that it's not even the "heathens" halfway around the world!
And Chinese press is much more censored.
That said, the most civil wars end up pretty bloody anyway.
That's the Vietnam War, it's pretty similar, just instead of the North Vietnam alliance (with USSR and PRC), now it's just PRC
An aggressive war on Taiwan would couple the conflicted feelings of a fraternal struggle with the civilian comfort of America's Cold War and War on Terror imperial adventures. Would middle class Chinese in the big coastal cities be completely fine with seeing or at least hearing about people pretty much just like them getting bombed across the Strait? Or would they view it as an unnecessary, gratuitous, extravagant, waste of life and treasure?
With China and Taiwan, both are well-off and their citizens would not need to risk their livelihood if not necessary.
However, China seems to be following the path of America who's such a powerful bully that they can start wars left and right without any retaliation on their soil, save for 9/11. If that's the case, this logic won't apply at least to the China side, and again, propaganda.
It ended in a mad rush to get out of the US Embassy using helicopters landing on the Embassy rooftop. https://www.itourvn.com/blog/the-last-helicopter-out-of-saig...
Since then, reporters have been either banned or restricted in their reporting in the US's recent wars. The Armed Forces don't want people to see their failures, and develop another Anti-War Movement as in the 1970s
Second country may be equivalent to second 'corporation'.
I'm not sure what the ISS model is, but at least that has been working well for a while.
also is it hard to imagine a government doing something against its people's will?
"According to a book published on Tuesday titled "The Chinese Invasion Threat" by Project 2049 think tank fellow Ian Easton, Beijing has finalized a secret plan to invade Taiwan by 2020, according to classified documents from the Chinese military obtained by the author, reported the Washington Free Beacon."
Much as I love Taiwan, let's not pretend this is anything other than propaganda. Only goes to show that bullshit can be produced by pro-Taiwan analysts just as well as by pro-Beijing analysts.
Suicide by cop is pretending to draw a weapon.
Your example is closer to, in America, refusing to be breathalyzed and demanding to be tested at the station.
Still, the US could easily run "inspections" of its own on Chinese oil tankers in the Indian ocean. That's why I'm convinced that the ultimate confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan won't happen anywhere near Taiwan at all. Rather, China will delay until they can fight the US Navy in the Indian ocean.
They don't have much oil, and their economy will be crippled to a standstill.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/China_Oi...
But they are pushing their economy towards renewables, and by the 2040s the majority of China might be powered by alternatives to oil, leaving them enough to keep their military going without disrupting manufacturing.
Pipelines also have the added bonus that if the US tries to sabotage them, they've just attacked a bunch of neutral countries. Not a good look.
Granted they just used Bulgaria’s airspace but the feeling was “we don’t give a F*ck what you think, deal with it”. Bulgaria is now _in_ NATO itself, but it wasn’t back then. There was a strong pro Russian (anti Nato) sentiment and I think that war in particular showed a lot of people what a precarious geopolitical position that actually was.
Also, China is in bad terms with almost every other neighbor it has (territory disputes with almost every one).. and they will be glad to see it humbled a notch or two and will not help.
In a naval embargo scenario, why wouldn't China simply get its oil from Russia? Delivered over land.
Sure it is more expensive than getting it by oil tankers. But possible. And it would be cheaper than the US cost of doing a naval embargo.
Russians? IDK. It won't be their war. And the oil wells of Russia are rather far from China border, in pretty inhospitable Siberia.
Have you not noticed that there is a 1Trillion development contract with Iran and that there isn't a single Muslim country that has a beef with China's Uighur policy? Also Xinjiang is an oil and gas and generally natural resource rich area. Another reason why China won't give it up. Same with Tibet actually.
China has actually been filling up with Oil by bartering without actually processing the customs required. So technically the oil never transferred ownership to China and therefore its not in breach of sanctions but for all practical definitions the Oil is now in Chinese hands as reserves.
There's also that tiny detail that when China started their nuclear weapons program, Taiwan also had one and that the USA used their global influence and the CIA to shut it down. The reason the power balance is in shambles is that the US focused very strongly on keeping its allies weak and now its coming back to bite everyone.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39252502
EDIT:
Analysis: Iran slips record volume of oil into China, reaches out to Asian clients for trade resumption
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-iran-asia-analysis-id...
Nuclear deterrence won’t work at that scale it’s also why Israel is worried about an Iranian bomb.
Deterrence works when both sides are at least somewhat equal in size and population, China can take 100’s of nukes and still survive in some form or another you ain’t going to kill 1.5 billion people, Taiwan on the other hand is an island that can be taken out in a single strike.
I suspect the Chinese leadership aren't that crazy, and if Taiwan had nukes, China would not invade.
China would invade well before Taiwan gets to the point of second strike capability and even a proper first strike.
Taiwan can be essentially evaporated in a first strike, there will be little to no advanced warning and unless they station their nukes off the island they will never be able to build a sufficient deterrence.
That is, yes, Chinese nation won't be obliterated; most people would survive. But the resulting chaos would be nothing like the country before that. It would be up for grabs for the strongest local groups, and whatever international / foreign forces which would inevitably come with humanitarian aid.
Most importantly, the powers that be can't hope to retain the control of the country, to say nothing of their own quality of life (and maybe the life itself).
This is why nuclear deterrence works.
Getting to one nuke sure maybe, getting to dozens warheads you claim are needed and the 100’s in reality that would be needed, a robust delivery system and a first and second strike capability... are you kidding me?
Nuclear deterrence works well with near peers, it doesn’t work when one side can’t take a single hit and the other can.
It may describe Taiwan as an allied but in reality they are just a piece on the chess board of varying importance.
In the 80es mainland China was a key pawn to be played against the Soviets.
Today containment of China is the big goal. And Taiwan plays an important role in preventing Chinese access to the pacific, and also in the US China tech war.
But ultimately it may be sacrificed (again).
To say nothing of not buying the inexpensive goods made in China anymore.
Besides that, they're not going to need most of that oil in ~20 years.
Quick question: what has happened to China as a result of what they did regarding the pandemic? Millions of people just died, along tens of trillions of dollars in economic destruction. They lied about the pandemic, they hid the outbreak as long as they could, they're still hiding information about its origin and the early days. Barely anyone even cares to dispute that, they all just shrug about it. Where are the sanctions? Where's the blockade? Right. Nobody dares. Barely so much as a squeak in their direction. If I'm China I'm starting to ask: well then, what else can I get away with so easily?
Let's see here. They don't care when I enslave 500,000 people to pick cotton. They don't care when I commit cultural genocide and put millions of people in camps. They don't care when I violate prominent international agreements at will and strip Hong Kong of all of its rights. They don't care when I support a military dictatorship and coup in Myanmar. They don't care when I prop up and enable a crazy nuclear dictatorship in North Korea. They don't care when I destroy Tibet and culturally strip the entire nation. They don't care when I annex territory the size of France - from numerous of my neighbors - in the South China Sea by military force. And so on. (and before anyone bothers, that I pointed out these facts about China doesn't simultaneously imply the US is The Good Guy, I'll save someone that logic failure)
But oh boy, the world is suddenly going to care about Taiwan as China begins their annexation formally. The buck stops there, no doubt about it. Un huh.
Before another 10-15 years goes by they're going to have the world's most powerful military overall (they'll still lag in tech in some areas). It's exceptionally obvious. The US can't afford to continue its global projection, it's rapidly weakening (courtesy of the extraordinarily stupid decisions it has made fiscally over the past 20 years), and China is just beginning its global projection phase; one will contract, one will de facto conquer the world. The pandemic helped tip the US over fiscally into a more rapid downward spiral, it pulled that future forward by a lot.
Have you seen China's export machine during the pandemic? They took market share. They've become far more potent economically while their competitors have been severely weakened. As a future bet, who's taking Boeing versus China at this point? Intel & Co. vs China's future in semiconductors? The US is in a very bad position.
Within that 15 year span of time China will be sailing aircraft carriers past Hawaii and off the Pacific US coast, as a show of force, which the US will be entirely unable to stop.
I've rarely seen anything more obvious geo-politically than what is about to happen regarding China. Asia is theirs, absolutely nothing can stop that outcome. They'll even compete toe-to-toe in Latin America for influence, right in the US backyard (as we have been doing in their backyard for so long). The best the US and its allies can hope for is to hold some political & economic ground in Asia and not be entirely neutralized in the region.
The age of the American superpower is over. Act accordingly. The only thing the US is good for now is resource - wealth - extraction, while it lasts (debased by the minute). Then, afterward, get out while you can. Go somewhere nicer, somewhere sane, somewhere with a functional government, a decent culture, a future of prosperity and reason - that isn't the future of the US.
- China exercise an EPIC lockdown to counter the pandemic.
- The West: This is anti-human!
- China actually contained the pandemic.
- The West: They're hiding the real numbers!
- China: Have you considered the possibility that the lockdown really worked?
Any sources?
There's a lot of analysis out there on Chinese food security, the TLDR is grain production is ~95%, but a lot of it goes towards animal feed. It's around 1000lbs per capita. In terms of crude, China only produces ~4M barrels per day, imports 10M. But the entire US military consumes 300k barrels per day for much broader portfolio. Other resources, only ~30% domestic self sufficiency in iron ore for steel production, but that's still ~300Mt which is ~60x total USN displacement. More or less everything else it stockpiles or can produce enough domestically for military needs, because relative to Chinese production the military doesn't actually use that much resources. All this is to say China is not Japan, it can't be "starved" into impotency, a blockaded China can not only sustain current military, but expand it by multiple folds on her own.
This seems like the sane approach for China.
How long will it take China to build its navy to the point it can defeat the US fleet?
What are the chances that a provocation by either side will lead to confrontation before this point?
Will the US and its allies attempt to make war before China takes the lead?
The PLAN is growing fast. Its size has tripled in the last 20 years, and right now it has more warships than the USN. The average size is smaller, but the goal is 400 ships by 2025. Having a big commercial shipbuilding industry helps. The US no longer has much of one; China has a large one.
China's third aircraft carrier is under construction. The first carrier was a refurbished Russian one. The second one was an improved version of that. The third one is comparable in size to a US carrier but without nuclear power. The next generation may have nuclear power. That's expected later in this decade.
China has a substantial truck-mounted land-based missile capability for sinking ships in areas offshore of China. This is a serious threat to USN carrier groups.
Building a navy that can project power that far is no task that can be done quickly.
Remember that there are two other large navies in the area that are hostile to china (india and japan, both who have significant blue water navies)
Anyway, if WW3 really happens, hard to say which side they'll choose.
Honestly a fight with the us in the Indian ocean is not what they have to worry about. They have to worry about pirates attacking their tankers and stealing oil. They have to worry about iran going to war with saudi arabia (or in the shorter term, iran hijacking chinese flagged tankers coming from saudi arabia or vice versa -- like already happened this year except with south korea). They have to worry about belt and road policies making yellow people (I'm yellow and sadly afraid to visit africa for fear of being mistaken as chinese, e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52805202) resented across africa and all of their middle management exploiters getting murdered by locals with african governments turning a blind eye because they know that debt forgiveness is around the corner.
It will be blockaded itself, as the US can within 48hrs blockade all commercial traffic in and out of china. China doesn't have much oil by itself, and it needs imports to properly feed its population.
It will end up like those scenarios, where the sieging forces, get sieged and cut off itself. Its navy is a near-shore force, and just can't project force outside the China sea. They can completely control the part of China sea near about 200-400km near its shore, but it will be unable to go any further than that.
It might end up like a Japan, 1941 scenario. They might be able to score some early surprise wins, but on the long term they are doomed to lose the war.
Ps. While china is experiencing a boom like the 50s and 60s in the USA (lots of infrastructure being built), China's demographic is aging, and we might see a scenario that the current boom will just slow down, and itself end up in a situation like Japan in the 90s, or USA itself in the 70s. It will reach a peak in the next 10 years (economically) and start leveling off to more normal rates of growth.
Joke aside, the real question is: will US wage war on China for Taiwan.
I think it's highly unlikely.
On the other hand, given current US political status, they might actually want a war despite the risk.
"Negative sentiment" is not cause, it's propaganda for the possible declaration of war.
If China invades Taiwan, US will defend it*
You would need to ask China if it's worth the trouble.
* that is if China doesn't fail as miserably as it did with Vietnam where it declared victory after retreating
US and Europe align within a few % when it comes to anti-China sentiments. US is 7th after Japan, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, UK and South Korea.
I think the more interesting scenario is tech embargoes taking away the "building blocks" (e.g. chips) and stalling their tech production. But China is well aware of their deficiency in this area and they've been pushing hard towards what they call "self-reliance" [1].
As for food, I can't imagine the conflict escalating to such a level of hostility and disregard for human life that the world allows the US to blockade China into starvation.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-10-31/bloomb...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3012888/ch...
Also, China is in bad terms with almost every other neighbor it has (territory disputes with almost every one).. and they will be glad to see it humbled a notch or two and will not help.
China would be more than happy to help those countries with better "air defence".
The world will not unite against China in the delusional understanding that the US is good and China is bad. China will not roll over and get flattened like an Afghanistan or an Iraq. Nobody knows what will happen, but it will probably be horrific.
[0] https://www.uniassignment.com/essay-samples/history/attitude...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts...
The us also is generally less dependent on foreign trade than most other countries. Huge domestic market.
There is some evidence between the way the US was handling the middle east and last years notable war [0] that the military future involves drones. It isn't at all obvious from the peanut gallery that China will be at a disadvantage unless the situation gets apocalyptic. Even then, if they just wait or apply slow pressure it seems likely they'll eclipse the US to the point where Americans just can't afford to sustain operations on China's doorstep. China has all this money and America has all those debts. Wars are expensive.
China also has nuke you know, there is even a term for it: "mutually assured destruction".
per,
> convert its commercial industrial factory output into wartime use and just spam drones at Taiwan.
I also assume they'd use tactical nukes or munitions.
What good are nukes if you are not willing to use them and let others take what they want.
By having a very real threat of nuclear escalation you keep others at bay. That's how the US was kept out of cuba, that's how Russia was kept out of western europe.
Here, it's a very real threat of escalation:
- if China invades, US escalates conventionally and wipes out what it can. (conventional US missiles are not that far from tactical nukes, US navy will easily wipe out Chinese navy)
- Then China can escalate further by attacking US forces via land-to-sea missiles, aircrafts, etc, a few sunk aircraft carriers and you'll see the US out for blood.
- tactical nukes will likely be used by any side if it loses too badly.
- US could always do some risky air-strikes against Chinese leadership and close the war that way (or nukes start flying)
- China can't really reach the US mainland that easily and US has quite a few anti-missile forces off japan and on the mainland.
- at this point, it's survive who is best prepared. I'm assuming US will come off a lot better then China.
Taiwan doesn't have nukes, and China would not use nuke against them.
Once US intervenes, game changes.
different words, same meaning... In effect, China sending in military is an invasion... They will likely sell it as 'glorious reunification' 1984 style
While US does not recognize Taiwan it does guarantee it de facto. Not recognizing it is due to cold war politics where US needed China against Russia, that's no longer the case.
US still haven't established formal diplomatic relation with Taiwan, like all UNSC countries, your argument is simply invalid.
Here's the result of an invasion by people that have looked into this more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs1ahNtj498
Here's info on US relationship with taiwan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan%E2%80%93United_States_r...
> On July 14, 1982 the Republican Reagan Administration gave specific assurances to Taiwan that the United States did not accept China's claim to sovereignty over the island (Six Assurances),[37][39]
> Despite friendly relations with China, United States President George W. Bush was asked on 25 April 2001, "if Taiwan were attacked by China, do we (The U.S.) have an obligation to defend the Taiwanese?" He responded, "Yes, we do...and the Chinese must understand that. The United States would do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."[43] He made it understood that "though we (China and the U.S.) have common interests, the Chinese must understand that there will be some areas where we disagree."[43]
Also, you have to be aware that Mao wanted to invade Taiwan but US got in the way then too (ignoring the complete incompetence and inability to launch naval invasion)
This is what I said:
> US needed China against Russia, that's no longer the case.
US no longer needs China against Russia... There's your money... What's hard to understand about that?
(USSR is gone, communism is gone, Russia is no longer the superpower it was although it still is a major threat)
Now, comment above was with respect to:
> US still haven't established formal diplomatic relation with Taiwan, like all UNSC countries, your argument is simply invalid.
Even though they haven't established formal relations, they still guarantee Taiwan, straight from the horses mouth in some cases -> see Reagan/Bush/Trump
When do you draw the line "US no longer needs China against Russia"?
In my opinion, not since 1989 when USSR crumbled.
Also, it's irrelevant, George Bush is quoted directly that US will intervene to defend Taiwan, same policy was from Reagan well within cold war. So I stand corrected, it does not matter if US needs or not China, it will intervene.
It's similar to cuba had the US invaded nukes would have been flying.
In this case you would see chinese invasion force wiped out and blockade, after which nukes will definitely be flying.
They have seven SSBNs, one of which is a Xia-class which isn’t capable of launching SLBMs with significant range. The remaining six Jin-class SSBNs are notoriously noisy, which means they are relatively easy to locate and destroy.
As if China has not?
The war is already lost.
And for every year that China outgrows the US it just becomes more obvious.
Sow discontent in the periphery of China (HK, Xinjiang, Tibet). Tech war.
Strategically, Taiwan is an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" that China wants.
It's fairly easy to see China's future actions with any expanded territories that the rest of the world may allow with eyes downcast.
[1]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems
The PRC has also invested heavily in missile technology and is perhaps ahead of the US in anti-ship missiles. It has also built up small positions that can be built up easily on the disputed reefs etc. in the South China Sea in anticipation of getting blockaded.
I say all of this in support of the thesis that drones will play a less decisive role than the navies of the two countries.
The two parts to a world-class navy are the ships and the men. China has already done the first part. I agree with you on the second part: the Chinese have not participated in large-scale armed conflict, so they don't have experience. But it must be borne in mind that the US has also not fought any big naval war in recent times and morale is very low because crews are being worked to the bone. Unless the USN addresses these challenges effectively, they don't hold a huge edge.
I agree. And China has never fought a major naval war or even a major naval battle.
>The two parts to a world-class navy are the ships and the men.
Part 3 is competent leaders. The US has admirals that have been taught by admirals that have been taught by admirals that have fought a major war in the Pacific. (Japan has them, too.) And China does not. George Friedman says that that is an important factor.
Only if the the Chinese navy doesn't sink those.
And 90% of that imported energy is used for export manufacturing.
All bets are off when you're dealing with an autocratic junta. Even worse when dealing with a one man dictatorship with enormous concentration of power in the hands of that person.
That's likely why China before Xi (but post Mao) was less likely to attack Taiwan, and why China post Xi is an entirely different animal.
It would appear the past two decades have really worn at the optimistic sheen of democratic systems. Whether populist anger generating suboptimal decisions or cabals of self-appointed technocrats and bureaucrats using democracy's own procedural motions against itself, they haven't really revealed themselves to be much more rational.
> All bets are off when you're dealing with a dictatorship with enormous concentration of power in the hands of one person.
I'm not convinced that the Chinese Politburo is really comparable to states such as North Korea. For all of their authoritarianism, the government has gotten modern China into a prosperous state. An irrational state can't do that. Not to mention, if one was to argue that China's rise was because of other countries outsourcing production to them, well- those nations are often democracies.
> That's likely why China before Xi was less likely to attack Taiwan, and why China post Xi is an entirely different animal.
Xi is definitely more aggressive than his predecessors and is playing up jingoism. But it remains to be seen if it this isn't just a whole lot of saber-rattling and rhetorical brinksmanship. To prepare for war is one thing, to be ready to actually wage it is quite something else.
Of course, a PRC/ROC war is likely to be much much more serious than the relatively minor conflict that was the Falklands war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act
Here's the website of the "totally not an Embassy": https://www.ait.org.tw/
See: https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=2766
China had alternative, slower but 100% domestic produced chips. See https://www.anandtech.com/show/15493/hygon-dhyana-reviewed-c...
Also SMIC directly competes with TSMC and was engineered by the basically the same team of TSMC people.
Do you wish all those countries had nuclear arsenals? If so, I recommend that you read _Command and Control_ by Strasser: it is difficult the make sure the whatever nuclear policy is chosen by a government is actually followed.
- Much of the wealth of Chinas elites are inside the US
- Chinas military needs oil
- Chinas citizens food
- Chinas industry needs markets for goods
No, China wouldn’t survive an invasion of Taiwan. The US wouldn’t need to fire a shot.
3 minutes with a search engine didn't yield an example.
During the Korean war the larger mainland forces took everything except Busan, a port on the south-eastern side, but the US still rolled it back and today we have South Korea. On the ground, the reality of even a few weeks of that kind of urban all-out war are truly horrifying.
The US and Taiwan had an explicit security guarantee treaty for 25 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Mutual_Defense_T...
...with the rise of China that mutated into the TRA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act
which is more ambiguous, its basic idea is maintain the status quo. On the ground, forces are stationed in Okinawa to deter mainland aggression.
In recent years the likelihood the US would in fact jump in to defend Taiwan seems to have increased, eg, reliance of US tech industry on TSMC, and Trump-era anti-China rhetoric. At the same time Hong Kong shows the mainland tolerance of democracy has dwindled.
https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/manufacturing/...
The new fab in Austin only has capacity for 240K (presumably 12 inch) wafers/yr, or 2% of TSMC total capacity.
https://technews.tw/2021/03/01/tsma-expand-its-new-lab-plans...
Point is that China's supply of chips is much more precarious than the US's because all the US has to do at the start of any hostilities with China is to make it clear to the countries that export these litho machines that the US will not tolerate any exports of the machines to China.
Certainly Europe has in many ways become less nationalistic with globalization. The idea of war in Western Europe now seems absurd. e.g. imagine the reaction to a UK politician wanting to invade Ireland again to reclaim territory.
That's the actual reality my friend.
Should China or some similar power of the time have meddled in the US civil war? Or maybe the War for Independence?
The Cold War dies hard.
Not to mention, the American Revolution was partially won because similar powers France and Spain backed the revolutionaries. The Confederacy courted both Britain and France and there was a chance that the former could have gotten involved in the Civil War over the Trent Affair. Great powers have been dipping their toes into regional conflicts since time immemorial. It's highly credulous to assume they'd do otherwise.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3122668/ch...
Not to mention, it's quite presumptuous to claim that the self-determination of the people of Taiwan are simply a tool that benefits the "white west."
Finally, your value judgments don't really contradict anything I stated, which is simply that "great powers will meddle in the affairs of smaller nations."
Just because someone done something in the past, doesn't make it right necessarily for everyone to do in the future.
If the the US was not getting economic and political projection in Taiwan, they would dump them in a second and/or create a lot of trouble for them.
I did not say it was right at all. You are the one making moral judgments here. I'm simply stating historical facts. Notice I did not at any time make the claim that just "because everyone does it" makes it excusable or right. But it does make it understandable, as an institutionalized practice or character trait of empires.
> If the the US was not getting economic and political projection in Taiwan, they would dump them in a second and/or create a lot of trouble for them.
You are introducing non sequiturs at this point. At no point did I support nor reject empire. Furthermore, Taiwan, like other U.S. allies or client states, has its own vested interests in being part of an alliance, because they (ostensibly) receive protection. You are denying that Taiwan has agency in seeking out advantageous (in its view) alliances. That is very condescending, and frankly, chauvinist.
Don’t think the US will sit back quietly while China fucks up their economy
I personally hope we help our friends in Taiwan.
You mean like France, Netherlands and Spain supported the insurgents against the UK?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/solomon-island...
It would appear that both nations themselves have enough agency, economic power, and diplomatic clout to play their own Great Games. None is righteous, no, not one.
In my previous reply, I gave a "realist" explanation for this, that it was merely what great powers do. However, I actually want to step back from my previous explanation because I don't think it properly conveys the moral aspect of the conflict. Taiwan is a democratic nation that is de-facto sovereign, and China is a non-democratic nation. If you believe that democracy is good, that governments derive their legitimacy from consent of the governed, and that all people have inalienable human rights, then you should support the defense of Taiwan. If China tries to annex Taiwan, America should intervene and America would be in the right. In my view, "Why Die for Taiwan?" is the new "Why Die for Danzig?" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Die_for_Danzig%3F)
It's interesting that you mention the American Civil War. The father of the Chinese nation, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founded China upon his Three Principles of the People: nationhood, democracy, and social welfare, which he theorized from a famous line from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Unfortunately, Dr. Sun's vision has not become reality for China, but it is alive on Taiwan. I am an American of the Han ethnicity, and I believe that democracy is how governments derive their legitimacy. My dream is a democratic China, and Taiwan is a symbol of what China could be. If China sets out to annex Taiwan, I hope that Americans are willing to consecrate the ground of Taiwan so that Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People shall not perish from the earth.
France, a country from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, played a decisive role in the War of independence.
also ethnicity has nothing to do with sovereign, nor that it exists a single "China" ethnicity, for Taiwanese people (who themselves are not a single ethnicity) to be lumped into. China just like all countries in the world, has many ethnicities.
The simple answer for your question is, because one side asked, and this kind of intervention has countless precedence in geopolitics. I reckon China probably has asked for external help several times in its history.
If China were the hegemon in the 1800s, then of course it would have intervened in the Civil War. Take France, which was a World Power (and traditional rival of Great Britain) during the War for Independence. It did provide support to the US, and was their primary ally.
As for why the tension, Taiwan is equally guilty for the previous regime (the KMT) tying their identity to a(nother idea of) unified China. Given all the propaganda built up all that time, China could not backtrack now even if they wanted.
And a credible threat of invasion needs credible plans, credible military power and credible preparation for an invasion, not to speak of propaganda to "otherise" the opponent.
I mean, is that actually true once Chinese economic ties with Taiwan are so entrenched that the country finds most of its economy is beholden to China? At that point would claimed independence really matter? Not to mention, given that the PRC is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, I'm not sure if international recognition of an independent Taiwan would really go that far. Kosovo is still unrecognized by the U.N. due to Russia's intransigence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_K...