You see what has happened in Hong Kong. This is a bit more nuanced than an issue of pay.
It says Chinese fighters flew inside Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Here's a map which shows Taiwan's ADIZ: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_an...
You can make your own judgement as to whether that action constitutes an escalation of threat. As far as I'm aware, China's stance on what actions would trigger a military response regarding Taiwan has not changed in decades.
Top brass in the U.S. military is saying an invasion is likely within the decade: https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-in...
Edit: I fail to see how China invading Taiwan could be considered a "military response", rather than a blatantly illegal land grab according to international law.
Edit 2: The international law in question is the one forbidding annexation: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-...
Until very recently this was Taiwan's stance on China.
What exactly would China gain from invading Taiwan? My understanding is that their main goal is preventing the expansion of US military presence and bases in the region, which Taiwan's pro-independence party supports.
Response to your edit: China invading Taiwan would not be an annexation according to international law. A small minority of nations recognize Taiwan's sovereignty, and historically it is not a sovereign nation. Taiwan represents the losing side of a Chinese civil war that recently decided it wants to be a sovereign nation as its hopes of retaking the mainland have evaporated.
Second: They eliminate a very important forward operating base for any future containment of China by Five Eyes & Co.
Third: It's 23 million people who have built an advanced economy. Being able to siphon that wealth will be a massive boon for the CCP and other parts of China.
The rationale for invasion is clear. Particularly if they have calculated they can't or won't be stopped. I know more than a few mainlanders and they all strongly believe that Taiwan and China will be "reunified" within their lifetime.
Edit: Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China? Yes, they are the "losing side" of a civil war from almost a century ago. That's completely irrelevant given how long they have had sovereignty at this point. That they are not more widely recognized in the international community is a tragedy. The U.S. is correct to continue to support their independence.
Ah yes, the filthy lucre of siphoning an economy with 4% of their own GDP.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-taiw...
"In its annual work report this year, the Chinese government removed the word "peaceful" from long-standing references to "reunification" with Taiwan."
"We fill fight a war if we need to fight a war, and if we need to defend ourselves to the very last day, then we will defend ourselves to the very last day"
https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-warns-fight-to-end-co...
So it was geopolitical aggression for the 40+ years Taiwan couldn't even pretend to be a free democracy? I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.
Yes, it was still aggression. The US opposed it then under the grounds of "containing Communism" rather than "defending democracy".
> I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.
If you invade somewhere to take it over against the wishes of the locals, that's aggressive. How is that hard to understand?
I have no idea what part of my post made it seem like I wouldn't find an invasion aggressive, it clearly would be. I wasn't discussing an invasion at all.
> I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.
Would you explain what you meant by it?
(And, my apologies for the yelling. I in fact thought that you were saying that an invasion would not be aggression, which... yeah. We both agree that such an idea is wrong.
Yes, it riles up the empire. They don't like it. They certainly regard it as a hostile, aggressive act.
But you're not providing enough military support for the smaller nation to invade and conquer the empire. It makes it more expensive (perhaps prohibitively so) for the empire to conquer the other country. That's only "aggressive" if the empire was intending to conquer the other country, and only because it removed from them an option that they really wanted to use. They don't lose a foot of ground. All they lose is the option of themselves invading.
The fear isn't that the border country tried to invade, the fear is that the country providing the arms will use them as a stockpile to invade. A buildup of arms along the border has been seen as an aggressive provocation for millennia.
It began in ~1950, when it had been less than a decade since the latest of the several times the US has invaded China. It's not unreasonable to worry that the US would lead a new Eight Nation Alliance to return the Kuomintang to power.
It's less likely now, but it could still be used in some kind of proxy war somewhere like Korea. Arming the border does far more than just prevent China from invading.
*edit: 1986 was a long time ago, but the point is that the KMT was a corrupt and unpopular government which lost to the Communists, but the US held its nose and propped it up for 30+ years until Nixon needed a counterweight to the USSR and opened relations with China.
This is a naïve view of geopolitics. Check out where Kurds ended up by counting on the US.
Some of those interests are economic, and Taiwan knows not to give them up.
Others are geographic, and won't go away unless china finds another way to the ocean
So they stayed in Syria just for fun? Middle East invasion is about pressuring Iran, as much as Taiwan is about Mainland China.
It would probably help if Taiwan had nuclear weapons. China wouldn't risk an invasion. That or maybe I don't know enough about Asia.
Right, who's going to buy from China-occupied Taiwan? In this scenario, there's going to be a massive disruption of Taiwanese economy. By the time it's over, someone else will outcompete them. It's not 17th century, capturing land doesn't guarantee any advantages.
> Edit: Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China?
I get you. Crimeans don't want to be a part of Ukraine either, yet the "international community" pretends they do. Life isn't fair, and Taiwanese not wanting something isn't going to change anything.
I don't think the international community pretends any such thing. It just doesn't oppose it strongly enough to start a shooting war with Russia.
We've been buying from China-occupied China, including Xinjiang. Color me skeptical that international trade with China will fundamentally change in response to an invasion, ahem, "reunification". Taiwan's largest trading partner right now is mainland China. That will only accelerate with annexation and can offset export losses elsewhere.
> I get you. Crimeans don't want to be a part of Ukraine either, yet the "international community" pretends they do.
The U.S. is also correct to oppose the annexation of Crimea and further destabilization of the Donbass.
Who cares what they want? The confederacy succeeded from the Union and the Union invaded it.
Right now, America owns China's coast, with the aim of making sure China has to get America's permission to get to ocean shipping routes.
A PRC Taiwan gives china a free access point to the Pacific.
Laws always have loopholes. It's clear that the CCP would be doing something evil by attacking a peaceful island nation. They want control.
> They want control.
Does not add up. Who're they going to control if they kill millions? I mean, why do they even have to start a military offensive when they can eventually outcompete Taiwan? Just think how many top-rated universities China has.
Their citizens on the mainland. The CCP believes that if they don't look good, their days are numbered and revolution will be inevitable.
Is the US government's abysmal approval rating by comparison a sign of our free thinking and freedom, or do you think we'll have a revolution here soon?
Edit: I usually don't call out blatant CCP astroturfing on this site. But I want to draw everyone's attention to the video that u/xtian just shared in the comment below. It's clearly Chinese Communist Party propaganda. It's tagged #serpentza and #laowhy86 because those are the two most famous Western streamers who have lived in China for decades. The CCP specifically targets people who watch their videos for counter programming. I'm done interacting with this "person", but will respond to comments from others.
Check out serpentza's youtube for the truth about China:
Edit: chitowneats, if you don't believe I'm a real person message me on Keybase. We can discuss whatever you'd like. Or just keep believing it's impossible for any real person to have political views that fall outside the boundaries set by NATO propaganda.
Edit: Response to the comment below. Being rate limited.
The West is past the point of naively believing that the CCP does not have multi-decade information ops being conducted against their governments and citizenry.
Also, that was exactly your assertion. What would be the point of bringing up your irrelevant keybase account if it was not an attempt to mislead me and others on this site?
It’s your word against someone else’s. I only know about China from personal anecdotes. And you know what, whenever I ask my Chinese colleague if these things are true she tells me it’s bs. So what do I believe?
And when you resort dehumanizing your opponent is when you start loosing the argument. When you say that guy is on CCP payroll, you basically claim it’s impossible for a person to have an opinion that differs from yours. Which is ironic since you’re bashing China for being an evil dictatorship.
Taiwan claims that they're not separate from China. Their disagreement is over who should be in charge, not whether they're the same country currently engaged in a power struggle between regions.
The Taiwan populace doesn't want to take over the mainland.
There's literally no way you can spin this that makes sense besides the CCP wants control of a physical island to push out the US/Japan.
The law is only as good as there is an entity capable and willing to impartially enforce it. Meanwhile as it stands now any reasonably capable country can show big fat middle finger to that concept which makes it but a mockery.
So you're saying if China/Russia/Iran did not have any plans whatsoever, the US generals would just say "Alrighty, you can now defund us!". Those guys will cry wolf any day to get those sweet $billions.
If China can drastically weaken the semi industry in Taiwan by hiring away their top talent to sit around and do nothing, it would be a stunningly inexpensive way to help achieve this long term strategic objective. They would be foolish not to try, and it's understandable and correct Taiwan would see it in this light.