> It's a bit hard to imagine the domestic opinion in China supporting a hot war with Taiwan.
Have you talked to any Chinese people who are not from Shanghai/Beijing and are not educated in an American university?
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