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Comment by hawk_ | Hacker News Reader

If you're to follow local media in China, the rhetoric around taking back Taiwan has grown stronger. Winnie the pooh also got a time limit extension on CCP leadership on the platform of a fully unified China. The signs are all there, though I just don't see how anything resembling a conventional warfare can happen there. The potential lives at risk are quite high and if the toll is that high it will be difficult to stop other countries from getting involved on various grounds. Also it's not like Crimea annexation where the aggressor had local support.

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> Also it's not like Crimea annexation where the aggressor had local support.

As a crimean, I find the way you write “Crimea wanted to become part of Russia” extremely funny.

My bad but that's the impression I have had from international media. Russian forces didn't face any significant resitance and the local russian speaking population wasn't too keen on continuing with Ukraine. Happy to hear from a crimean what really went down.

The news we got could have had more to do with the international community trying to save face and spreading a narrative, rather than a large number of actual locals wanting to be part of Russia.

There were also opinion polls done by Western polling firms that showed majority support for joining Russia. And Ukraine responded by cutting off the region's electricity supply, so presumably support for them fell after that.

I meant that you can hardly call Russia an “aggressor” when the locals have been dreaming of becoming part of Russia since 1991. Also aggressor doesn’t invest into education, healthcare and overall quality of life.

Western news outlets had local attitudes split by ethnicity: Tatar, historically Ukrainian, and Soviet-era Russian immigrants. Was this off the mark?

I don't think they had or needed substantial local support in Crimea. A bunch of zealots will do.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find even a "bunch" of people in Taiwan who want to be under Beijing's rule, or would even consider that a tolerable compromise position. Certainly the country is far from unified on the idea of independence (though that particular movement has gotten stronger over the past couple decades), but culturally and politically, China and Taiwan are quite different and incompatible.

From my second hand laymen sources, there are in fact pro China advocates in Tiawan. Also surprisingly enough, there was a sizable loyalist group in the American 13 colonies who supported continued British colonialism.

Wonder if they're from Taiwan, or were deployed there by Chinese government.

Sure, you're not going to find everyone having the same opinion on something, but it's hard to compare Crimea, which has a sizeable pro-Russia population, possibly even a majority, with Taiwan, with only some smaller fringe groups wanting to reunify with China on Beijing's terms.

And that's also a point to consider: there are some people in Taiwan who want to reunify, but not anywhere near under the terms Beijing would impose. You could call those people "pro unification", but they're very very different from people who would accept Chinese rule as it is now.

One obvious reason to support the British is that the British don't have slavery. Sure enough, those slaves who fought for the British and were evacuated with British troops became free men.

Fighting for the colonists genuinely could mean you won, and then they said that's great, now back to the fields 'cos you won freedom for us not for you. Your great grandchildren might see freedom (after the Civil War) but you would not.

I'm not sure what history books you are reading, but Britain did, in fact, have slavery, and traded in slaves during the American Revolution. Trade of slaves was not outlawed in Britain until 1807 and ownership of slaves was not outlawed in Britain until 1833.

History books about things that happened rather than, say, squinting hard to rationalise unhappy truths?

Britain didn't have slavery†. The 1833 act abolishes slavery in the Colonies, not in Britain itself. The existence of slavery in the colonies is why there were slaves in America to seek freedom by fighting for the British there.

So like I said, the British freed those on their side, while the colonists unsurprisingly did not do likewise. This is a recorded motivation for the thing we're talking about, fighting for the British in the revolutionary war.

†Britain didn't have chattel slavery, which is what we're talking about here, but it did have serfdom - which today we would consider a type of slavery - until the late middle ages or so when it ceased to make economic sense.

Another fun fact (I'm full of them today): while chattel slavery has never existed at a meaningful level in Britain, the specific act of holding someone in slavery wasn't technically made illegal here until 2009: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coroners_and_Justice_Act_200...

So Britain didn't exist until 1833? It wouldn't have been in the US if Britain didn't bring it.

No? Britain didn't have slavery, it didn't have it before that 1833 Act, and it still didn't have it afterward. The Act's title begins: "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies" because it's about abolishing slavery in the colonies. By this time of course Americans - who still want slavery - have successfully rebelled and are independent and so this law does not affect the millions of slaves in the United States of America.

The Colonies weren't Britain. Their people weren't (on the whole) British citizens, if you knew a bit more history that year might stand out more. 1833 is just after Great Reform, the country has become more small-D democratic, expanding the franchise (the right to vote) to more men and eliminating "Rotten boroughs" which were often in practice controlled by rich people, including slaveowner colonists abroad.

When Foxxconn uses slave labor to produce iphones, are they Apple's iPhones?

Crimean population is overwhelmingly Russian, and most of them were for joining Russia.

A minority of zealots are usually all that's required.

>Also it's not like Crimea annexation where the aggressor had local support.

Although very much like Crimea, there will be practically zero popular appetite for igniting an open war between two nuclear armed nation states. We can only hope for a diplomatic resolution, but I would strongly doubt that military action will be responded to in kind by the west. A much more likely scenario is what we've seen play out in Hong Kong for the last 30 years.

> We can only hope for a diplomatic resolution

That makes it seem like you want China to take Taiwan uncontested.

I hope for either no conflict at all, or for Taiwan's allies to help defend it.

Nuclear powers don't really have kinetic wars. I think the only one that happened was a small skirmish between India and Pakistan in 1999. The Kargil War.

Proxy wars are more likely.

And even more likely than that, would be severe economic sanctions.

Which in this instance would hit home to many more Americans than an actual war.

If the invasion of Taiwan set in motion a series of escalating sanctions and freezes in trade, well that could get much worse than people think.

A chain reaction of unseen consequences.

>"That makes it seem like you want China to take Taiwan uncontested."

I, like any sane person, would like to avoid WWIII.

It's easy to play armchair general with no skin in the game. But the reality is that there would be no support in the US for sending American soldiers to die for Taiwan. Let alone the nuclear ramifications. If Beijing decides to take it, we will sit here and watch. The same way we do currently as they commit massive genocide in their own country.

> no support in the US for sending American soldiers to die for Taiwan

There could also be support in the US for keeping China from expanding its power to the point where it can rival the US. That is, fighting against China rather than for Taiwan.

I'm not saying that would necessarily be enough either, but people are more willing to die to protect their own country's interests than to help someone else.

EDIT: Not sure of the reason for downvotes. I'm not advocating for this. I'm just saying it is something that could happen. To the extent that American soldiers went to Korea and Vietnam willingly, it wasn't because they wanted to help the people there. It was because they wanted to stop the USSR.

I’ve noticed the downvotes too, it’s happened anytime I’ve said anything critical of China, even if it was constructive.

There are powerful voices working behind the scenes within the US military industrial complex who believe that an eventual conflict with China is inevitable. So they would prefer to provoke that conflict sooner rather than wait for China to grow stronger. (I don't agree with this approach, I'm just pointing out that it is one school of thought.)

Source? Where can I read more about these "powerful voices"?

Regardless of US public opinion, if an invasion starts then the US Navy will likely get involved. It might be very limited to start, but inevitably there will be an incident with significant US casualties. And then we'll retaliate and the conflict will escalate.

And while we've been asleep focusing on tearing ourselves apart with political divides, China's been preparing for exactly that. The reason war is likely is because they're ready for it. They think like Go players, not like Chess players.

> we will sit here and watch

I think there will be very significant economic escalation. US + EU and probably some local countries (India, Vietnam Indonesia) will just ban all Chinese trade, maybe force Japan and SK do the same. China may get some Taiwanese fabs, but it's only single cell in supply chain, and may be rendered useless without integration into global economy.

> will just ban all Chinese trade

This can’t be done without triggering a depression and causing massive shortages. The economies are too connected. We could add more sanctions, increase tariffs look at better trade deals to encourage buying non China. But the idea of just banning Chinese trade is fantasy.

> The economies are too connected

US export to China represents only 6% of total (100B out of 1.5T) and import is 18% (439B out of 2.38T). Most of import is likely not critical and can easily be substituted by domestic manufacturers, or manufacturers from other countries.

Source of data: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/usa

> can easily be substituted by domestic manufacturers, or manufacturers from other countries.

How can anyone take this seriously after early 2020’s hysteria around mask and ventilator construction

Gonna need a citation on that easily substituted. Ending trade with China would kill Apple for instance.

https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/made-in-india-i...

I believe there would be strong domestic support in the US for committing the full strength of the US military to Taiwan’s defense. It’s not sending American soldiers to die for for Taiwan, its sending American soldiers to fight for western values and allies that America is legally obligated to defend.

There is no legal obligation to defend Taiwan. And all obligations are as good as nothing until there is an enforcement present. Good luck trying to enforce US.

>"fight for western values" - you mean risking WWIII to make sure that few fat cats do not loose their investments? How's that protection of western values went in places like Yemen?

So at what point should the West get involved? Do you think that China is going to stop after it takes Taiwan?

This seems like a snide, evasive response. I prefer honest and direct.

I think the United States could mobilize gamers to go to war for TSMC and Taiwan

Well, to take TW, Mainland must send navy, which is easily intercepted by US. The island isn’t actually that close to the mainland. This is different from the human rights issues in China where the PLA is already there.

Call me optimistic, but the mere risk of US involvement is enough to deter a military takeover.

> Well, to take TW, Mainland must send navy, which is easily intercepted by US. The island isn’t actually that close to the mainland.

Taiwan is a little over 100km off the coast of mainland China. That's nothing, and the Chinese navy could easily get there without any interference from anyone.

They wouldn't even have to; if they just wanted to cause damage, they could start firing missiles from the mainland without sending any ships or planes.

Russia took Crimea even though it was recognized as territory of Ukraine.

No large power recognizes Taiwan as sovereign country, not even US. The largest country that recognizes Taiwan is Guatemala.

I don't see how it is out of the question that China just sails to Taiwan and takes it while everybody else stands and watches.

No one may formally recognize Taiwan, but lots of major countries have done a lot more to arm and prepare to protect Taiwan from China than anyone ever did Ukraine from Russia pre-Crimea.

Recognition isn't nothing, but concrete support without recognition is more valuable than the reverse.

The US sells military equipment to Taiwan on par with what is sold to Europe.

Hint: the sales are probably not to make money.

Words.

https://www.voanews.com/europe/eve-russia-invasion-anniversa...

Very different situation. Just analyze them from a realpolitik perspective and not the “international law” one:

- Crimeans are predominately Russian speakers and so the annexation was somewhat popular. Very little bloodshed or ongoing resistance. An invasion of Taiwan would not be popular among the Taiwanese.

- Crimea and Ukraine are geopolitically not very useful. Taiwan is extremely useful, especially if it allows defense access to e.g. American warships.

- Crimea is mostly a resort economy. Taiwan is the center of chip production.

>Crimea and Ukraine are geopolitically not very useful. Taiwan is extremely useful, especially if it allows defense access to e.g. American warships.

A large reason for the annexation of Ukraine was the question of control of Russia's only warm-water seaport at Sevastopol. I doubt Russia would have bothered (given the international consequences, i.e. sanctions and potential military intervention) if their access to the Black Sea wasn't threatened by Ukraine's increasing ties with the West.

I think the point is that Taiwan being free of Beijing has a lot of strategic importance to other countries (basically all of the West). Crimea is really only important to Russia and Ukraine.

But Russia was already leasing it from Ukraine.

Ultimately Crimea is of limited strategic value for anyone other than Russia. The same cannot be said for Taiwan.

Yes but if you were Russia and Ukraine was signaling that it wishes to join the EU and NATO at that point how long would you be able to rely on that lease?

This is the same reason why Russia got involved in Syria, it has only a handful of warm water ports and essentially all of them are at a precarious position where they ship need to traverse potentially hostile choke points.

Yes I’m just saying that from a realpolitik perspective, nothing really changed for the rest of the world when Russia annexed Crimea. Russia leased the port before, now they own it. Hence the lack of real response other than some sanctions.

It’s more that no one will go to war over Ukraine but they might go over T(aiwan)SMC.

Also US political ties to Taiwan are far stronger than to Ukraine these date back to WW2 and even earlier technically.

There's recognizing and "recognizing". Everyone knows Taiwan is a separate country. But for political reasons (helping China save face, keep making money from China) they don't openly acknowledge it. It's totally different from Crimea situation.

Not recognizing Taiwan doesn't make any sense unless you fear retaliation from China, which is exactly the point.

People say US will save Taiwan from China? I call bullshit. If that was true US should have no trouble recognizing Taiwan which would be hopefully be start of the process of getting legitimacy Taiwan needs.

I fully expect US to do nothing if China invades Taiwan.

Mark my words.

Not recognizing Taiwan makes a lot of sense when you wish not to cause an escalation that could lead to an invasion of Taiwan, this is why Taiwan itself has never declared independence, something most people forget.

There are people in Taiwan who agree with the "one China" policy, and claim that the government of Taiwan is the ruler of that one China. Declaring independence means renouncing their claim on the rest of China.

Now, in the real world, that claim plus six bucks will get you a latte at Starbucks. But politically, letting go of it might cost more than any political party is willing to pay. Thus both sides of the straights cling to the "one China" fiction.

I think your information is a bit out of date; the party currently in power in Taiwan (the DPP, which has controlled the presidency and legislative branch since 2016) is pro-independence, and the people are strongly not in favor of reunification.

A quick look at Wikipedia suggests that (as of 2019), about 49% of citizens supported independence (though 21% believes that now is not the time due to the political climate), with 31% supporting the status quo. Only 10.3% outright support reunification.

In 2020, support for independence increased, to 54%, though support for reunification also increased to 12.5%.

I think it's pretty safe to say that an overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan do not actively want reunification with China. The DPP has never held that position, and the KMT dropping it would surely splinter their supporters[0], though possibly not a majority of them. Obviously on the PRC side of the equation, allowing Taiwan its independence is a non-starter.

[0] Anecdotally, it does seem that KMT support skews older, so I expect new and future generations to continue to lean more toward independence.

Yes there are, however even if there weren’t any and today the majority would likely support independence the reality is that the threat from China due to such a declaration is a far greater factor in why Taiwan still maintains the one China policy.

If the US "fears" retaliation from red china, why are they selling weapons to the republic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Army#Equipme...

Heavily armed Taiwan can make China think twice before launching full scale attack. The US also makes money on those arms sales. And Taiwan can keep producing chips. And sell some of those chips to China for mutual benefit. Win win so far.

However if for whatever reasons China would go full scale on Taiwan I doubt the US would respond in kind. There is just too much risk of conflict turning into WWIII. The West may try to isolate China instead.

I think your guess is pretty likely. It would be very hard for the US to get into a direct shooting war with China, especially over an island that is 100km off the coast of mainland China. Strategically it just seems like an impossible task to keep Taiwan out of China's hands if that's what China decided to do.

More likely the US (and West) would attempt to punish China economically for its behavior, though I have a hard time believing that would work either. Even if an agreement is later reached and sanctions lifted, I doubt Taiwanese independence would be a part of that.

Unless there is a huge shift in sentiment toward Taiwan in China's leadership, I am really afraid that it's inevitable that Taiwan ends up being taken by force at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Do you really think those outdated weapons can do them any harm? They are just used to show an attitude.

Taiwan is far more strategically important than Crimea. I'd hope at a minimum we'd raze TSMC facilities and get key personnel out of the country.

I guess that's the point. Whether some people get help depends on whether they are of strategic import to US.

Friendships made this way are very weak.

The anti-China rhetoric and propaganda in the USA has been steadily ramping up over the last 3-5 years as well, for better or worse. I don't think this is an accident or happenstance.

If China decided to take Taiwan in a small and local (and, let's be honest: extremely quick) action, there would be broad domestic support in the US for the US interfering.

> The anti-China rhetoric and propaganda in the USA has been steadily ramping up over the last 3-5 years as well, for better or worse. I don't think this is an accident or happenstance.

Yeah, it's really strange that negative rhetoric has been ramping up against a government that is now running full-blown ethnic concentration camps in Xinjiang, is flagrantly stomping on the democratic rights of the people of Hong Kong, and is of course still completely ignoring its own citizens' human rights. Really strange.

It appears to have worked well for its intended purpose.

For the record, the US imprisons its ethnic minorities in inhumane conditions (including labor camps and forced sterilization, just like China) at a per-capita rate 17x higher than China does.

I think the disparity in public perception (in the US; I can't speak to China as I'm not there) of the two superpowers is telling.

The disparity is ridiculously large as someone who reads zhihu for Chinese practice. It's like looking at two alien worlds.

The biggest difference at least to me is that US social media really drinks the coolaid on how human rights and liberal ideas are the main drivers behind America's political decisions, that America should be a force for good that has a responsibility to vanquish evil around the world, and that everyone naturally wants to live under America's image for the world. Chinese social media leans towards the world as a place where might makes right and ideals are just a cover for power games. The most popular posts I've seen are ones that point out American hypocrisy in their words and deeds. But more interestingly, every charitable action the US has taken towards China is portrayed as something that is ultimately self serving, and China's portrayed as a country that's been forced to accept the rules the US has imposed because of its historical weakness and is only now gaining the strength to push back against a global hegemon.

Of course, the ultimate decisions for war and peace lie with their leaders, but if you brought the populations of China and the US into the same room there would probably be a brawl in 15 minutes.

I feel like these stories of inevitable civilizational conflict have to be weighed against the reality that the US has millions of Chinese-born immigrants who get along just fine. Immigrants are of course not a randomly selected population, but the idea that China is civilizationally incapable of believing in universal ideals or getting along with Americans seems like a CCP self-defense mechanism more than a truly defensible thesis.

That's great - now go to China and start publicly posting on the Internet about China's human rights violations (or better yet, actively campaigning against them) and see how long you last.

> For the record, the US imprisons its ethnic minorities in inhumane conditions (including labor camps and forced sterilization, just like China) at a per-capita rate 17x higher than China does.

LOL!!!! We imprison people of ANY ethnicity who commit crimes. Some prisons have ways where the people there can earn wages through work, though most don't. You can maybe stretch the definition of what "labor camp" means to include that, but I wouldn't. And we DEFINITELY do not do forced sterilization rofl.

If you're going to go around spreading fake propaganda, invent some better stuff next time.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news:

https://talkpoverty.org/2017/08/23/u-s-still-forcibly-steril...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93578d/staggering-number-of-...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/not-just-ice-a-california-pris...

Those wages you are thinking of? Frequently they are well under one dollar per hour, sometimes as low as two cents per hour, and pay of any kind is not legally required:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-...

> We imprison people of ANY ethnicity who commit crimes.

Police and prosecutorial discretion means that this isn't true, statistically. As I mentioned, the US imprisons ethnic minorities at a rate of 17x higher than China per capita, despite the farcical claim that all citizens have equal protection under the law. If they did, the number of people of different ethnicities imprisoned would roughly match the distribution of ethnicities in US society. They do not.

"If they did, the number of people of different ethnicities imprisoned would roughly match the distribution of ethnicities in US society. They do not."

So all ethnicities are the same, especially in terms of aggression and compliance, and it's law enforcement that makes all the difference?

Taken in aggregate, yes.

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

> And we DEFINITELY do not do forced sterilization rofl.

No? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Caro... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

I used current tense. Not past tense. There was all sorts of weird stuff that happened around the time of Nazism in Germany, including strong proponents of Nazism in the US at that time. Lest we not forget the internment of Americans of Japanese descent civilians during WW2. Again, these are unfortunate things that happened in the past.

None of that justifies any other country doing anything in modern day. It's like saying "Oh Germany had Nazis during WW2 so having Nazis today is okay."

There have been accusations that ICE has performed forced sterilizations, but for now it remains at the level of conspiracy theory. It's easy to talk about how "unfortunate" US atrocities were and insist they're "in the past" after the cover-up campaigns have successfully concluded. But why would these institutions change when they succeeded at their aims and no one was ever held accountable? Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are not in the distant past.

I'm not even gonna pick up this insane digression. First of all, the US doing something isn't an excuse. Second, at least injustices in the US are considered injustices. People speak out. There is debate and protests. In China? Yeah try holding a ULM (Uighur Lives Matter) protest in China and get back to me.

>According to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in December 2019, one-fifth of Hong Kong's population supported Hong Kong independence, while 56% of Hongkongers opposed it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence

Please forgive me if I misunderstand the Hong Kong issue, but I thought that it was just the more extreme people who support Hong Kong independence, and the main purpose of the protest was the "five demands, not one less?" I found this on Wikipedia:

> Reuters conducted polls in December 2019,[617] March 2020,[618] June 2020[619] and August 2020. The last poll showed that an increasing number of Hongkongers support the pro-democracy goals since the national security law was implemented. More than half of the respondents opposed the national security law. 70% wanted an independent commission of inquiry that looked into how the police handled the protests. 63% wanted universal suffrage. The support for amnesty of all arrested protesters rose to 50%. More than half of people still wanted Carrie Lam to resign. The number of people who opposed the pro-democracy demands went down to 19%. The majority (60%) still opposed Hong Kong independence, 20% supported the idea.[620]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong_prot...

Did I mention independence?

Anyway: All Chinese citizens are being denied their democratic natural rights. That's a battle that's not gonna be won anytime sokn, I recognize that. But the citizens of HK are now being denied their agreed upon, on-paper, legal democratic rights by the CCP pigs.

Will Americans perceive that or will they see it as more foreign adventurism a la the Middle East to defend people that aren’t Americans in a hopeless forever war quagmire?

And do Americans take that threat seriously enough to put actual lives on the line in a conflict that would incur serious costs to the US? We spent a lot of money in the Middle East, but in terms of lives lost it hasn’t been significant.

And in terms of economic impact, it would be devastating. I don’t know if Americans are prepared to go for years without electronics, or really anything else, to enable a protracted war. The stakes would be far greater for the US. And the cost to China is coming down with their emphasis on internal consumption and building a stable self-reliant economy.

Americans don’t like China, but not enough to not use TikTok, not enough to not buy Chinese, and certainly not enough to send their friends and family to die while they live through a massive economic recession and product shortages that make covid look like a joke. And that’s assuming Americans fully understand the politics in the region and why they should even care about China invading Taiwan, which feels like a big assumption considering (the more hawkish) half of the population will tell you our election was stolen by the party currently in power.

Possibly. It would take a strong economic interest for the US government to do anything. Losing TSMC to China might be enough. We live in interesting times.

TSMC would not be lost "to China", it would merely be lost from the world.

China would not end up with TSMC following a takeover of Taiwan.

Geography alone rules out an extremely quick invasion.

This is why Taiwan should have nuclear weapons.

There are many pro-China people living in Taiwan. So there is local support...

Anecdotal, but I lived in Taiwan for several years and never met anyone who was even remotely pro-CCP.

They mostly live in Southern Taiwan, so I wouldn't be surprised if foreigners (and many Taiwanese natives as well) don't regularly see pro-CCP Taiwanese citizens.

There are a lot of pro-CCP and pro-reunification organizations in Taiwan. Such as Patriot Alliance Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Alliance_Association and Chinese Unification Promotion Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Unification_Promotion_.... Both of them have headquarters in capital Taipei. They often hold rallies around Ximen area.

Just like you won't see any trump supporters, pun intended, right?

What's the pun here?

Electoral results speak conclusively to their relatively small numbers.

Didn't get that feeling on my travels there pre 2015. Not sure why that could have changed drastically since.

I thought Chiang Kai-shek took care of them during the period of White Terror.

What do you mean by "pro-China"?

If it means that Taiwan is indeed a province of 'China' then probably. If it means supporting the People's Republic of China and Communist Party then I'm very doubtful.

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