Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

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It depends what you mean by long term objectives. The supreme objective of the CCP is to stay in power in China. All and every other objective is subsidiary to this.

The CCP decided many decades ago that economic growth was absolutely necessary for them to stay in power because it is required in order to maintain social stability. An economy with hundreds of millions of unemployed peasants in the countryside, and feeble industries was not sustainable. This is why they purged a bunch of ideological marxists and embraced communism with Chinese characteristics, AKA Capitalism.

For a long time the CCP maintained that 7%+ economic growth was necessary in order to absorb the unused labour pool and maintain social stability.

Needless to say a war with Taiwan and the US, plus blockades by the rest of the world would be a somewhat risky situation from a social stability point of view. It would be a complete throw of the dice, and for all Chinese people love gambling with money, that's not the CCP way with politics.

Would the world respond extremely negatively to a Taiwan scenario? Or much more negatively than a Hong Kong scenario? (Which literally just happened, and not much seems to have changed as far as I can tell)

We know the USA would respond militarily. But how many other countries would be pulled into the conflict? Germany still trades with Russia despite the Crimea annexation, right? Clearly USA / UK / Australia are making plans but is there anyone else who'd join in the fight?

Like, realistically, what would happen under a Taiwan scenario? Do you think McDonalds and Apple will just leave China? Will Tencent games be banned in the USA? Will USA really make League of Legends and Genshin Impact illegal during the war?

Or, would the world continue as usual? Would US Video Gamers continue playing their games, McDonalds continue China operations / Apple continue making their iPhones while the whole military stuff happens? Frankly, I see this as the more realistic scenario.

We can already see how video gamers reacted to Hong Kong: with a bunch of companies capitulating to Chinese demands.

Hing Kong is a completely different situation, it's always been mainland Chinese territory as Britain only leased it. Full mainland control was always the plan, it was just a matter of time. Also the political administration, elected under a system implemented under British rule, supported the recent changes.

I'm in no way justifying what the CCP did to Hong Kong, but frankly it was inevitable. That is not the case with Taiwan, which has a population and democratically legitimate government completely committed to independence.

An invasion of Taiwan would be much more similar historically speaking to the German invasion of Poland, or the Korean war. It's utterly and completely unacceptable, and would be legitimate grounds for total war. Should China succeed in conquering the island it would not be possible to counter-invade, but an indefinite blockade of transport into and out of China and total interdiction of it's air and sea traffic both civilian and military would be entirely proportionate and the minimum I would expect. See the blockade of North Korea for an example. We'd buy our phones and video games elsewhere.

> but an indefinite blockade of transport into and out of China and total interdiction of it's air and sea traffic both civilian and military would be entirely proportionate and the minimum I would expect

And China outnumbers the US warships ship-for-ship currently, and China is outbuilding more warships ton-for-ton than even the USA.

China also has a larger (though inferior) air force, as well as a huge number of (untested) missiles. But the USA won't have many bases to stage our Air Force from (Taiwan is so close to China, and so far away from Japan / South Korea). So really, its China's Airforce + China's Missile-force + China's Navy vs the US Navy + US Marines + maaaayyyyybe a very stretched thin US Air Force.

If the USA wants to enforce a naval blockade, they'd have to win a war against China. That's a lot of advantages to China frankly.

I'm certain the US could beat China in a "fair fight" for Antarctica. But the issue with the Taiwan scenario is that the Chinese military is growing ever stronger, and its conceivable that China could beat the USA in that region. If China does happen to win militarily, then a US-sponsored blockade would be impossible.

The blockade would mostly operate in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. Interdicting all Chinese sea traffic, and all over-ocean air traffic globally is entirely doable. The Chinese military has zero practical operational experience, while the US has an extensive network of global bases and experience up to the eyeballs.

There is simply no way China is going to contend with the US globally. Zero trade with the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia is a given. A sea blockade of trade with Africa, South and Central America, and Australia is fine. That leaves land and air trade only with Asia. How are they going to get oil? China's not going to establish military domination over the Middle East any time soon.

As a Brit I don't see us staying neutral, or Australia. Hence the nuclear subs Australia is buying. In a conflict like this, they would use them.

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