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Comment by BrazzVuvuzela | Hacker News Reader

China could accuse Taiwan of developing nuclear weapons today, saying their spies uncovered the plot. Would you, I or anybody else be able to refute it? Would our doubt matter? And if Taiwan really did start manufacturing nuclear bombs and China was telling the truth about it, would you, I or others in the West believe them? The 'actual validity' of a casus belli has never really counted for much.

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The difference is that, if they actually did start manufacturing the bomb, China would almost certainly be able to provide incontrovertible evidence.

If they didn't provide evidence, yes, we coule refute it.

The West will pretend that Taiwan wasn't doing that anyways. That's why I said 80%.

> Not capable of being denied, challenged, or disputed; closed to questioning.

There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence.

Of course there is. Of course the West would still try to dispute it, but just like how the world saw through WMDs in Iraq if present with adequate evidence they would see through a thin denial.

> Of course the West would still try to dispute it

Yeah, that's what I just said.

> the world saw through WMDs in Iraq

And Iraq got bombed anyway, it's a great example of how the actual validity of a casus belli doesn't matter.

>Yeah, that's what I just said. In that case I don't see how we disagree.

Of course it does matter. The invalidity is why the entire world was opposed to the US doing so. If the US wasn't in such a dominant economic and strategic position at the time it would have had to pay a much larger price.

My sub-point is America would deny the validity of China's invasion of Taiwan regardless of whether China's accusations against Taiwan were accurate or not, meaning the accuracy of such accusations isn't relevant. The outcome is the same. People in the EU might roll their eyes and say "ackshully china is right and taiwan really is making nuclear weapons", just as they once rolled their eyes at America's bogus claims about Iraq, but what would/did that change? A fat lot of nothing.

But my main point is that if Taiwan wants nuclear weapons they can make their own, so there is no sense in America giving nuclear weapons to Taiwan. And if America did, that would provide China with 'valid' casus belli anyway. I think PRC spies would be no less aware of plans to import nuclear weapons than plans to make them.

Well it's not about what they would to America, it's that they wouldn't help America economically or otherwise.

The USA and Japan alone against China in a Taiwan situation may simply lose.

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