Losing Taiwan Means Losing Japan (2020)
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Greer's most recent Taiwan essay is here:
https://scholars-stage.org/we-can-only-kick-taiwan-down-the-...
Edit: I don't mean to dismiss your argument that things with regard to Japan have not changed since then. Reasonable people can disagree on if that's true or not (I think you're mostly right).
US naval strategy is based on Taiwan. With Taiwan in the fold, China's trade can be effectively blockaded should the situation deteriorate to war. It's a last ditch measure, for sure, but a valuable card to hold nonetheless. China is building more pipeline and rail to de-risk this, but ultimately they want full access to the Pacific. Taiwan and South China Sea militarization give them this.
Taiwan going to China turns the tides of Western influence in Asia. Many nations friendly to the West would "switch sides", including close Western allies like Japan and South Korea. This would have tremendous impact to the West's economy, jobs, cost of goods, cost of energy, etc.
Taiwan is perhaps one of the most important subjects that will define this century. There's a reason all eyes are on it.
Can we apply the same logic for China's influence in Africa, for example? Does geographic location matter more than, say, trade volume? Given that there isn't anything between the US and China (or Taiwan) except the ocean does that not give credence to the US being a partner in that area since it's a Pacific nation?
If we're talking about the west, US, Japan, South Korea are either close or exceed Taiwan's trade with China, and that only includes western nations that are part of the Pacific Ocean directly (and doesn't include Canada, Australia, or New Zealand either).
41% of Taiwan’s exports by dollar value went to China + Hong Kong in 2020 versus 25.4% for US + Japan + RoK.
But let’s assume the numbers you listed are correct (I’m sure trade varies by year and breakdown and I assume good faith). What does it matter? Does China get 41% influence over Taiwan and the US, Japan, and South Korea get 25.4% influence?
The whole line of reasoning that started this was nonsense from the start and it doesn’t even include The Jungle [2] that is relations between nation states.
[1] https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/taiwan-marke...
[2] In international relations might largely makes right. Powerful countries are able to impose their will and influence on other countries. For example, the US imposes its will on China w.r.t Taiwan regardless of the amount of trade that occurs between nations.
How's Russia doing, given their "hypersonic missiles?"
So much for the wise mandarins.
I think “Donfeng 6” is the IRBM that easily destroys a George Washington class carrier from beyond the effective range of an F18 and costs like 5 million bucks, which is why the PLA has a zillion of them.
Sailing a carrier battle group into the Strait with violence on the table would be a very bad call…
There’s a reason everyone puts the most powerful weapons on submarines, or so all the squids in my hometown of San Diego tell me.
My Navy buddies seem pretty confident the Virginia class fast attack boat is the one that goes home after a scrap.
In any case, either might makes right, and China can invade Taiwan and run all the genocides they do because they are big - but them it is also fine for US to naval blockade China into collapse and famine, if it so pleases because might makes right.
Or there are universal values and human rights, and the West would be evil for destroying China and causing untold suffering, but then China is also evil for attacking their neighbours and for running bunch of genocides.
You can't have it both ways!
Now it is very much our business what is going on in Asia, particularly since the risk is the subjugation of our allies by a totalitarian regime. It is better to have a strong and independent Taiwan, a strong Japan and strong Korea and even strong Philippines and Vietnam to counteract a strengthening PLA Navy, but we also want them to not be hostile to the USA, and we also want it to cost the PRC to even think nukes are the easy way to check the ambitions of their immediate neighbors. That does mean keeping our military promises to Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Simply put, there is no World from where we stand today where unchecked-by-us PRC ambition is an acceptable path forward.
War costs a lot of lives, but a hot war between adversaries means making the adversarial position suffer more for having taken up arms in the first place. A defensive war over Taiwan and keeping our promise doesn’t need a number on the table in advance to make it worth doing. It’s crass to even ask. How many American lives will it take to sink every boat belonging to or commandeered by the PLA in the Taiwan Strait, shoot down every jet that flies above and mow down every pair of PLA boots that lands on Taiwan’s beaches, and destroy every military shipyard on their coastline? Let’s assume this isn’t purely an American fight, you know, for the sake of argument.
If you can figure that one out, you’ll have something close to your answer.
How many people do you think the CCP will sacrifice to take Taiwan?
For instance, just recently the likely next DPP/pan-green presidential candidate is declaring that Taiwan is already de facto sovereign and independent, and so there is no need to formally declare independence:
https://twitter.com/brianhioe/status/1615638156367507456
Odds are, this entire discourse in this HN thread is just a lot of fulminating hot air by people who don't even live in Asia, grognarding hypothetical wargames and war toys, while the actual people in China and Taiwan will peaceably and gradually figure it out over time.
I'd prefer no Americans die in the course of this, similar to Ukraine. But certainly the number of Americans worth dying to heroically save a country of nearly 25 Million from genocide and slavery isn't 0.
Somehow Russia gets to play "great power politics" (although I think, personally, they must've lost their great power license by now lol). But when the US even helps the country being attacked, it's immoral and we have to stay neutral on moral grounds? Wtf, pick a standard. If Russia gets to play great power politics, so do we.
So, Why should the West have more influence?
Because any person or group of people who want to live a self-determined life and with a self-determined government, must always be better armed, better prepared, and have better alliances than the abusers and autocrats who will steal from them and rule over them the instant they are given the chance.
If you don't stop the neighborhood bully, he'll steal your lunch every day and keep you from walking where he likes to walk.
At this point in history, all the "...-ism"s are irrelevant, and we can see what it is - a deadly serious conflict between autocracies and democracies. It is now a hot war with Russia waging a genocidal war of aggression in Ukraine and threatening the Baltics, Poland, Germany, etc.. Zero of those countries want to live under Russia's rule, even though you think Russia should have the right because it is the largest and nearest player.
China is openly threatening the entire south China Sea, none of which, again want to live under CCP rule.
If it is not stopped, Russia, China, Iran, and other authoritarians will not stop. If you would rather live under the rule of Putin or the CCP, I suggest you move there, rather than attempt other free people to not defend themselves.
I see this reasoning a lot and it feels like an artifact of cold-war MAD thinking. The scenario in which I feel nukes are likely from China is the one from fallout where on the losing end of a global war, the last remnants of the CCP launch an attack as a last ditch effort, I think it is unlikely an nation state (excepting Israel) would use strategic nuclear weapons except as a last ditch resort. Tactically maybe, but not strategically, because everyone wants something, the reasoning in the Cold war was "there are only two powers so you must make sure you are as big and scary as the other guy so they don't try anything". In contrast China seems to simply want to become a world superpower and rule the world not destroy it, in the coldwar we had two diametrically oppossed ideologies competing in a battle for survival that both insisted the other could not be allowed to exist. Now things are very different.
That's the thing is that China doesn't want to rule over a wasteland. If another war goes hot it will take a long time before it goes strategically nuclear because everyone knows that once that genies out of the bottle it allows your enemies to retaliate in kind. Even Putin who most people think is insane, and completely unhinged hasn't even used nuclear weapons despite suffering significant losses, being at a technological disadvantage and giving up ground every day. He might use them tactically but unless he's hiding in a bunker in Moscow as the Ukrainian armed forces are bearing down on him I think he is unlikely to decide to drop the nukes on Kyiv.
So now our military and intelligence apparatuses are to paraphrase an old quote "perfectly prepared to fight the last war", without taking into account the multi-polar nature of the world.
Japan was trying to wipe China off the map 80 years ago. China is upset still.
China is almost entirely dependent on energy imports. On paper they’re also self sufficient in food, but that food production depends on massive fertiliser imports, and inputs of hydrocarbons to make fertilisers. If China was subject to the same sanctions as Russia, they’d be on their knees in a few months due to energy shortages. A year of it would tear China apart as food production would collapse. They have no stable subsistence level they can safely degrade to absent massive imports of survival commodities. The Chinese know this.
* His perspective on the internal politics of zero covid isn’t anything I’ve seen reported anywhere so I can’t corroborate it in any way, but it’s jaw dropping. Basically his position is that the extreme swings in policy implementation by the regions is a deliberate attempt to discredit Hu. Since Hu has deeply identified covid policy with himself personally, and all the regional party factions absolutely hate his guts (which I know is true), they’re deliberately blowing it large style on covid policy. One clue this might be correct is national news now doesn’t mention Hu in relation to covid any more, but regional news often still does.
There's no really good research on decoding the mind of modern human specie' yet and even there was one, there would be little impact because the result will be consumed by human mind so if there were bugs then they won't be fixed because the bugs are in human mind.
The conflicts in the world are caused by those bugs, in AI's opinion(in future)
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/16/asia/china-navy-fleet-siz...
It's only the largest if you count the number of ships, counting every ship equally. Counting a small coastal patrol boat the same as an aircraft carrier is manifestly absurd. China currently has 3 aircraft carriers, only one of which is a "supercarrier" on par with American carriers. The US has 11 supercarriers. One could make similar comparisons with nuclear-powered submarines and many other types of ships.
Overall tonnage is a better metric: the Chinese navy weighs about 1.3 tons, while the US navy weighs about 4.5 million tons. Of course, there are many other factors beyond this one-dimensional metric, but this nevertheless gives you an idea of the large gap between the US and Chinese navies.
China is catching up with the US quickly, because of China's growing industrial might, but it will still take decades to reach full parity.
Furthermore, the imagined might of the US navy in the age of drones is as obsolete as the fleets of World War One in the age of aircraft carriers.
Drones are too slow and too short range to be anything more than a near coastal threat. China’s sea lane supply routes stretch from south China all the way to the Persian gulf, Suez and round Africa. Only a real global navy can secure shipping across that sort of territory, and only the USA has a real global navy on that scale these days.
Also where are all the Chinese naval bases to support such operations? The US and its allies have naval bases peppered over that whole area. China has one in Djibouti. It’s their only overseas naval base.
Is this the "Chinese aggression" I’ve been hearing so much about?
They're major political problems for sure and they lead to strong economic rivalry for geopolitical reasons, but take away the political dimension and they'd be natural allies, IMHO. It's the same way that Japan and the USA went from being direct competitors to natural allies after WW2. Before WW2 that would have been unimaginable, after WW2 it became obvious. I think it's the same with China.
Also Russia actually, it's why the Ukraine invasion caught the USA completely by surprise. They just don't see what Russia could possibly gain from it because they view the world in commercial terms. If Russia was a liberal democracy them and the USA would be best friends ever, but authoritarian regimes must have enemies in order to justify their repression.
What defines China specifically as a malign actor from the US perspective is that it is offering countries outside the West a second choice for how to finance and pursue development. The mere presence of this competition is a mortal threat to the entire established order.
In terms of sanctions, which energy producer is going to sanction PRC? We already see with RU war that bulk cargo will just get transshipped through various middle men. Or that PRC can always double down on coal conversion to make fertilizer - was previously curtailed to reduce emissions, but coal is making way back on the menu in the last few years. Projection of the PRC blockade scenario has PRC stretching out reserves and rationing for multiple years. Which TBH is longer than modern war will last, and by that time, in terms of attrition, US homefront would be as dire as PRC. Zeihan stans keep wanking about virtues of USN blue water projection and energy security as if PRC needs to match like for like to be able to challenge the US. PRC doesn't need to spend 30 years building 11 carriers to secure trade, it needs 5 years to build enough conventional global strike backed by ongoing nuke expansion to deter anyone from messing with her SLOCs in the first place.
As we see in the reversal over zero COVID, even the Chinese government has to listen to the sentiments of its well-to-do urbanized population created by Dengist reforms, regardless of how objectionable it might find them. Can you not imagine those coastal elites and middle classes complaining about wartime austerity, the blow to the quality of life they're used to?
At some point devising so many elaborate hypothetical war plans is just technothriller novelizing. Which is just fine with me, Tom Clancy left us no true heirs.
This isn’t anything new, IIRC PRC was converting ~50 million tons of fertilizer using coal gasification, which it has curtailed significantly under Xi to focus on emission goals by relying more on imports. But now that great power competition is back, security > environment. Combined with moving to better ag practices where net fertilizer use is decreasing while output increasing (PRC previously used a stupid amount of fertilizer / unit). Peak PRC fertilizer production was like 100M tons, current consumption is ~50M, down from high 60M. Circling back to ops point = PRC can indigenously supply their own fertilizer with domestic inputs which is enough for food security in terms of calories.
>elaborate hypothetical war plans
If by elaborate hypothetical war plans you mean establishing deterrence to mitigate world war levels of destruction by establishing more rungs of escalation than homeland strikes straight to nukes, I call that responsible planning. PRC pursuing a prompt global strike is part of the PLA's 2020 Science of Military Strategy, and acknowledged by the 2022 DoD report on PRC military. It’s no different than various US blob/warplanners plotting interventions on a TW scenario, replete with mainland strikes. If the US expects to escalate that far, of course the PRC is willing (and most importantly, increasingly able) to reciprocate.
Ultimately, this is merely the flip side of US efforts of "integrated deterrence", US wants to deter PRC reclaiming TW, and PRC wants to deter US from "blundering" into greater conflict by showing existential cost is now mutual. Then it circles back to the question of who wants it more. I imagine US polity wondering if intervening in TW is worth it if war follows to the US homeland. Not just revolutionary skirmishes but existential destruction that the US has so far been isolated against. I can imagine that impacts actual US decision making regardless of propaganda layer. What I can also imagine is CCP telling coastal elites, as it has consistently, that peaceful reunification is preferable but military force is not out of the question, and in the event of military force, mutual vulnerability to deter homeland strikes means their QoL will not spiral out of control. If the US is deterred from intervening, PRC can prosecute TW like US conducted wars in the Middle East, with little impact on domestic affairs, even less with strict media controls.
> mutual vulnerability to deter homeland strikes means their QoL will not spiral out of control
We are talking about a situation where the sheer disruption to world trade, never mind sanctions and the like, would drop quality of life. The sheer economic shocks and supply chain disruptions would be massive. You expect normal shipping to take place near a war zone, sanctions or no sanctions? The government can make all of the promises they'd like, things have a tendency to spiral out of control in war.
> PRC can prosecute TW like US conducted wars in the Middle East, with little impact on domestic affairs, even less with strict media controls.
On this I am of two minds. On one hand, it seems that inevitably, the Chinese public will lose the stomach for a protracted conflict that hurts their fellow Han people, especially those who they consider as fellow Chinese nationals, especially people whom they have not been at actual war with in seven decades, who they have shared plenty of trade, cultural, tourist ties with. On the other, I have read that often the contemporary popular sentiment is actually more raring for war than the actual current government is; perhaps in a way not dissimilar to U.S. public sentiment towards war in the Middle East after 9/11. So your guess is as good as mine as how the general population reacts to war. But I still believe that as modern China sees itself as a developed, advanced, optimistic society, there would be no shortage of people not wanting to commit to a brothers' war, at the very least because they consider it to be beneath the conduct of a civilized, stability-obsessed society.
> not all innovations work out in war
PRC tests 100s of advanced missiles every year for more advanced targets, more than the rest of the world combined and has a sophisticated space program. At the end of the day, hitting large fixed targets like a refinery or power plant or data warehouse, all you need is sub 100m CEP - basically 80s technology. It’s maybe rocket science but not hard or innovative rocket science like hitting a moving ship at sea with all of the countermeasures and no way comparable to WW2 tier midget subs and unguided balloon bombs. Even Tom Clancy wouldn't make that comparison.
>expect normal shipping
Depending on scenario, if no outside intervention, then likely yes, TW ability to disrupt has relatively little window to counter strike PRC ports or ability threaten PRC shipping after being defanged. Probably just Xiamen has to be redirected, otherwise it's hard to overstate levels of force overmatch between PRC and TW. Like even the most ardent TW porcupine advocates don’t expect TW to put up a fight outside the island. Bay of Pigs disrupted the US minimally / not at all, because the US could simply prevent Cuba from hitting back.
>would drop quality of life
Question is by how much and who bears what cost? PRC exports to the west whose most likely to sanction is like >10% of GDP and decreasing, assuming all trade ceases, which it likely won't because supply chains at that scale aren't as fungible as energy. Also keep in mind PRC trade:GDP is lowish (35% trending down from 65% high), not US low (25% down from 30% high), but low enough that trade disruptions don't impact it as much as actual trade dependent actors (over 60%). Host of western countries fit that bill and would hurt more sanctioning PRC. It’s one reason why US can fuck around the world with relatively little domestic impact. Will QoL drop, sure, but the goal is to prevent scenarios where QoL will spiral, which assuming broader war is deterred, is possible. There’s also considerations that breaking TW will cause others QoL to drop more, i.e. west is going to suffer much more without high end TW semis where they get disproportionate value capture that’s already being denied to PRC.
While reality is complicated, half the reason people worry about TW scenarios AND trying to build up costs/deterrence is because conceivably, PRC can eat the cost. Like if Xi is offered to prosecute TW without US intervention in exchange for cutting off all trade with the west, he’d probably take it.
E: Over post limit, leaving this thread now.
>how the general population reacts to war
See how PRC gen pop reacted to HK protests / riots. Narcissism of small differences / manufacturing consent against related peoples is much easier than one thinks. In the end IMO a battle over TW is conditional based, not capability based, IMO PRC wouldn’t move against TW even if she has ability to, at least not for another 20 years. Trigger will be either TW moves towards independence in which case narrative writes itself, or US intervenes in which case protracted conflict is even easier to justify. After all, US intervention was why the civil war remains unresolved all these years. I think gen pop anywhere doesn't want war, but cross strait dynamic has always been averting resumption of war that could (and have) popped off several times in the last 70 years. Anyone over 50 in PRC knows the history, that includes anyone in senior leadership in the foreseeable future.
Taiwan needn’t even attack mainland ports for there to be a slowdown in trade. No insurance company in the world is going to underwrite shipping through an active war zone, so routes that are near a blockade, let alone naval warfare, would be affected.
From the article:
> In truth, it is an argument to retreat from East Asia. That argument can be made, but I would prefer to see it made openly.
I guess the points basically include RoK.
If we (the "west") loses Japan, we've essentially waived our claims to South Korea as well. We'll have lost legitimacy and lost our word to protect (Taiwan) what is a epicenter of global technological development (semiconductors). Japan and South Korea (and to a lesser, but significant extent, AUS&NZ) will look at the west's inability to protect Taiwan, and say "well, looks like we'd better buddy up to China, because they're the big dogs now". And that will be that.
We'd better fucking help Taiwan.
If your hangup is that this is yet another instance of Westerners attempting to decide the fate of a people on the otherside of the planet from them, I think we can grant that there isn't a stellar track record there. Still, ideal scenarios of perfect sovereignty don't exist in the real world and I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect e.g. Japan to ask for continued American involvement.
Those of us who believe in liberal democracy will need to stand up for it. We can no longer take it for granted, even at home.
Many people today seem to feel that Taiwan and Ukraine are interests worth using military force to defend. I do wonder how well that support would hold up if either of those potential wars becomes reality.
Yet here we are....
"Thousands" buried in "Metro":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/10/27/thou...
"A headline in some editions of the Oct. 27 Metro section incorrectly stated that Saturday's antiwar demonstration in the District was the largest since the 1960s. The rally, according to police and estimates of the organizer, was the largest antiwar demonstration in the District since the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975."
< ! >
Honestly, if this demo -- it was huge -- happened in say Cairo, wouldn't it be splashed all over front pages for days?
-- ps --
"Demonstrations in other cities, including Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, Denmark, Tokyo and Mexico City, were held to coincide with the Washington march, and in San Francisco, thousands marched through downtown."
Do they teach this at Columbia's School of Journalism?
- There were demonstrations in lots of major capitals all over the world. Put it in 'international' section?
- Sister cities. Metro.
The protests against the Iraq war were international in scope and generally regarded as the largest political demonstrations in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
While "widespread" might be accurate generally speaking, it is also accurate to say that it was the least popular war in my life time by a giant margin.
The protests were huge. The House vote for Iraq was extremely one-sided politically. Obama ran, and won, on having voted against it. It was really dependent on your political scene whether Iraq II was normalized or not.
Iraq is not really comparable because you can’t separate support for the war there in its early days from 9/11 and the desire to “do something.”
But this is also not a Vietnam situation in which the US is propping up a relatively unpopular government and fighting personally in the conflict at great cost of American lives (maybe Taiwan could go down like that, but I think that makes the prospect of actual conflict unlikely, because neither the US nor China wants to nuke the other).
Ukraine was a bit different because they were not as US-aligned before the conflict. But especially with regards to Taiwan, I’d consider an attack against them the same as an attack against any European or ANZAC ally.
Ukraine has to be won because a Russian victory means they’re emboldened, and the Kremlin preys on weakness. Eventually Poland is hit, Russia will be crushed by NATO, and then the US and Russia exchange nukes. We can’t allow that. Any financial cost and life lost in Ukraine is worth it. We’re not nearly doing enough for Ukraine. It’s vital to world security.
For China, it’s unclear other than nationalism why they want Taiwan. They think they’ll control the world with it, and theoretically that’s true. They just don’t have the expertise to keep TSMC running on their own. And they’re incredibly vulnerable, China is the world’s #1 importer of energy and food. They got excited with all of the foreign investment, but there’s no possible future where China challenges the west. Their peaceful rise and integration was the only way forward, unfortunately, Xi is a madman.
Putin’s war makes at least some sense, on multiple levels. China’s war will be fought as well, but it’s entirely in vain. The CCP will do as much good for Taiwan as Hong Kong.
Both Ukraine and Taiwan represent the life that the Russians and Chinese could have, and ultimately that’s why they’re targets even when it makes little sense otherwise.
NATO and the Quad have no choice but to fight these respective wars. I’m personally willing to fight and die in either conflict because I know what’s at stake.
We all sing to the tune of China, and we fully enabled that. We want cheap garbage without difficult questions about human rights and the environment. This very movement has eroded western society.
The center for technological advancements have already shifted to that region too. The west still holds as a cultural powerhouse but as the technology enables cheap production and distribution of media, that is also bound to vanish.
Overall a fairer world where westerners work as hard as the asians is the most likely scenario IMHO. Flipping burgers in NYC should end up with similar compensation as flipping burgers in Shanghai.
Could be painful but at the end it can be beneficial for the west too. Since a while we live in a world where engineers who deal with atoms are poorly compensated in the west because everything is made in China and our best and brightest spend their lives in the advertisement and gambling business disguised as tech and finance. That part of the world becoming an equal power to the west can be beneficial on the long run.
As long as China is aggressive with its neighbors (e.g. Vietnam), they automatically fall into being friendly with the west and in to the west's sphere of influence. But if Taiwan is conquered by the mainland, all bets are off. There would basically be no counter-balance to China in Asia.
In an ideal world, it would be worth about the same everywhere, but it will take many years until the GDP per capita is uniform everywhere. Especially now that China’s population and its workforce has started to decline.
My concern is that the western burger flippers might have been overcompensated due to artificially inflated productivity in some sectors and once that's over the west might find that they can't match the productivity in China due to destruction of some industries leading undercompensation and as a result, severe lack of talent and know how in those.
The CCP has been preparing for a long time. They know the real battle is one of public opinion and policy making in the US. The big resounding lesson from Ukraine is that an invasion must be swift and overwheling with careful logistical planning as well as PR and anti-sanction measures.
The worst possible thing China can do is attack a US target like a ship or a plane. It will be like pearl harbor, losing all that precious intel network capacity in the US along with US voter's opinions.
All of Europe and Asia can combine forced and will still likely lose against the US military in any conflict. But even the smallest nation can win if they manage to change americans' opinions.
The US couldn't beat Vietnam or Afghanistan.
"Losing" a war, in this context, means you surrender to the enemy, or at least quit and sign some kind of treaty to end hostilities formally. The US has never done that. The US has never lost on the battlefield. With Vietnam, it was too unpopular and was fighting with one hand tied behind its back anyway. With Afghanistan, it won military, but gave up on trying to prop up the Afghani government and pulled out.
Giving up and going home is a loss where Taiwan is concerned as it was in Korea.
The more astute observers understand this war is already over. More Chinese people are willing to die to maintain their country's integrity than Americans willing to do the same for an island on the otherside of the planet.
The US will lose twice if it continues down this path. It will secondly earn the hate of the vast majority of Asian countries as an outsider bringing yet another uneccessary war to their neighborhoods over what the majority of Asians consider a settled topic.
You also completely sidestepped the issue of India, whose current government dislikes that of China.
There's a lesson about wars of occupation with ill-defined objectives in there.
The US and Europe aren't "the world," and the actual world has plenty of theocracies.
Compare to Pakistan or Iran if you want.
I don't see anyone having that long of a timeline wanting to do it. The US did it for 20-ish years, and clearly that wasn't long enough.
FTFY.
Taiwan will be in a defensive conflict if they are attacked. Who has said that the US will attack China??
Chinese policy is that Taiwan is part of China and has a separatist faction of rulers. Talking about the US attacking China, which isn't going to happen, does nobody any favors.
The Chinese are very unlikely to attempt a landing in force as the first line of attack. They are most likely to try to blockade Taiwan using air assets, naval mines, and submarines. Therefore the most likely US scenario is going to be breaking a siege, which is an offensive action.
If the siege doesn't work China will have to land forces in Taiwan, but even if we are assuming they can't get a beachhead despite holding a siege, they can still deploy and supply an estimated 300,000 troops from the air. This ought to be enough to establish a beachhead from the ground, or at least secure/improvise airfields.
For the US to be able to defend Taiwan, being able to attack and destroy Chinese naval assets is absolutely necessary. It is not possible to defend Taiwan otherwise.
There are no examples of this ever happening, but multiple examples of the US retreating in shame, creating opportunities for very dramatic photography as we leave our allies to die.
When at first you don't succeed, redefine success?
And for the people talking about Vietnam.. a lot has changed in 50 years. America got stronger while most other nations, except China, got much weaker. China is the single plausible refutation to my claim above.
No army is perfect, can you list the retreats? We left Afghanistan after a decade? We didn’t outlast the NVA? We lost the Philippines for a few years. That’s it?
> What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values
The Soviets didn't have to do it. They were acting in support of an existing Afghan state which was fighting a war against Pakistan and US funded Mujahideen which wanted to overthrow them. Plenty of people in Afghanistan were open to modern values. The issue with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is that the USSR fell, and the issue with the American invasion is that there was no pre-existing state and that the US didn't have a compelling value proposition for Afghans to die in defence of after they pulled out.
Afghanistan is not some kind of bizarre land where everyone hates the concept of modernity. The Americans just didn't figure out how to organize an Afghan state, and didn't figure out how to win militarily either. The Soviets figured out the former, but they collapsed. Though their state survived the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan until the collapse of the USSR and the end of economic aid.
Again, conventional warfare. Keeping countries occupied or forcing a certain regime in you favor? Totally different ball game. You can not force other people to adopt your values, even if you think they are THE GOOD VALUES(TM).
When David has the popular support and stands against your oppression, they can even beat the US Goliath.
The US got distracted from Afghanistan for a war in Iraq.
But both of those demonstrate the limitations of outside military superiority in establishing stable rule against domestic resistance, especially (as in Vietnam) with strong outside military support.
Which, in a PRC-invasion of Taiwan, doesn't cut against the US.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/us-loses-half-its-f...
In the scenarios, the success of the ground battle in Taiwan depends almost entirely on Taiwan’s forces.
Doesn't sound too discouraging in a world where plucky Ukraine is winning against its big bad neighbour. But, as will become clear to everyone later this year, that is not the world we live in.
You seem awfully confident. Not sure what analysis you are reading to give you this impression.
> Cancian explained that the Chinese missile force is devastating to the U.S. and its allies for as long as their inventory of missiles lasts.
> Cancian said submarines and bombers that can launch long-range missiles are “particularly important” for the success of the U.S. side
I don't contest that the US would have casualty but the fact that they know this alone tells you it is unlikely for the US to attack head on with fighter jets and carriers. The bases around china and inter-continental targeting capabilities are crucial in disabling their defenses. Both sides would lose millions but the US military industrial comples is unrivaled. It will basically replace important ammunition, missiles,etc... at a decent pace once it is mobilized. It will take 4weeks+ before a ground invasion in the mean time there is no scenario where China's navy won't get wiped out before a ground invasion. So it would be a matter of who can maintain their supply chain the longest without running out of soldiers and airmen.
Keep in mind, the US military practices an invasion every generation. The PLA has less battle experience and much like the US and it's voters the CCP must maintain internal support despite their economy getting decimated. On the other hand, Americans will be more squeamish about things like civilian targets which is a major weakness in the short term but the possibility of actual economic recovery if a US friendly regime takes over leadership in China will be a huge advantage in winning the war without going nuclear.
> I don't contest that the US would have casualty but the fact that they know this alone tells you it is unlikely for the US to attack head on with fighter jets and carriers. The bases around china and inter-continental targeting capabilities are crucial in disabling their defenses.
The person quoted in the article claims this is not possible:
> Cancian said part of the reason for the heavy U.S. losses is that the U.S. cannot take down China’s defenses without first moving in close and putting themselves at risk.
Also, though this article reads a bit like HoI4 analysis. I think you need to more carefully consider all of the nations agency and motivation rather than consider them victory points to be won or lost.
> I am sure someone in Japan must have calculated the likely economic costs of rerouting Japan-bound traffic this way (or in a more extreme circumstance, replacing Middle Eastern energy supplies with North American ones) but I have not yet seen any actual numbers. But given alternate sea lane possibilities, I doubt clearing Japanese shipping out of Taiwanese waters entirely would be enough to threaten Japan with “famine.”
The TLDR is currently US/JP military has capability to ward off an maritime invasion, but no capability to actually "defend" TW, or JP, or SKR from existing as developed economies. Ergo best avoid the fight, because if JP has to politically pick between preventing a TW invasion by hosting US forces, or become Yemen (let's face it PRC still has grudges), then that's likely how US/JP security alliance may fracture. Alternatively, US loses so much hardware it can no longer support JP long term even if wanted to. It isn't so much losing TW means losing JP as merely fighting large war over TW could lose JP.
If the US is intervening in the TW scenario from JP, then it's already all out war and there's every reason to hit JP targets. Historically CCP/PRC has fought with the US, USSR and threatened the UK, all nuclear powers over redline issues much less important than TW, sometimes while PRC not nuclear power herself. IMO there is no astronomically deterring PRC when it comes to TW. PLA TW war planning for the last few years (post Xi's PLA modernization) pretty much assumes US and JP will be involved, she's already on the hit list, as are most US military infra in the 1st and 2nd island chain. Would not be surprised if US infra in AU as well.
Final consideration is as the balance of backyard war swings increasingly in PRC favour, an all out war might be in PRC strategic interests. Ultimately that's what it takes to kick the US out of East Asia - destroy so much US hardware that she can't project even if she wanted to, and target an US security partner (JP) and kick her face in so hard that the region would not even consider hosting US forces after. The biggest reason why the region is not signing up for PRC containment is no one wants to be missile sinks for the TW scenario, the second TW card is off the table, the region is free to pivot and go all in on US security hedging. This is bad for the PRC in the long term. There are so many other geopolitical benefits of elimnating JP as a regional power as well.
China's military is rated as weaker than Russia's.
It is modeled after Russias.
It has much less combat experience.
An invasion of Taiwan is much more difficult than an invasion of Ukraine.
Economically, the world needs to continue to decouple from China. Unfortunately they aren't our friends.
On the other hand you're right that if they invade Taiwan it won't just be a one sided war where they waltz in.
A big difference though is that many people suspect Russia had very bad pre-war intel, driven by corruption, that led them to believe they had a lot more support and local allies on the ground than they did. I do not think that China will make a similar mistake - they will invade when they think they can win.
The best thing the west can do is make sure they never think they can win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan
Curiously, Clausewitz (drink!) knew better and yet it still didn't stop Germany from their love of plans and order.
Even with a world of techno-gadgetry, I don't see the Taiwan Plan will go any different than Schlieffen's. Friction always wins
And while I hope if they try they fail, I hope more they never try. It would be a disastrous loss of life for nothing but the pride of the CCP.
I could see China's army perhaps being weaker, but even then I doubt it given how piss poor Russia's army has turned out to be. But both China's Navy and Air Force are far larger, better equipped, and more capable than Russia's. And those are the primary forces involved in attacking Taiwan.
So who has the funding and the manufaturing capabilities and stockpiles of those current generation western arms? Not a lot of countries, not a lot of manufaturing capabilities, not a lot of stock around.
I'm surprised how a attack by what is supposed to be an "half-assed", "crazy person" with "incompetent and low-tech army" can strain current generation western arms supply chains as is.
PRC needs this strategic economic partner, they won't bring the devastating effects of war on the same industries that they work with.
The Chinese government's top priority is the supremacy of the party. They will invade Taiwan no matter what kind of economic damage it would do, if they believe it will strengthen Xi and the party in the long run.
No country would be stupid enough to bring all that crashing down because some stupid nationalist dispute in the Balkans, that would be idiotic and stupid. Clearly people are to rational for that.
If you’re betting on human rationality over time in the hands of people with a lot of centralized power, you’re making the losing bet. There’s a reason people were genuinely afraid of nuclear war (and still should continue to be): if it happens, it will involve very few people and there will be nothing any one of the billion’s of others can do about it.
There is a solution: the dispersal of power tends to work well; but the risk you run up against is charismatic individuals acting as a locus for a majority’s power, so you also need anti-majoritarian institutions and a culture that values them. Hard to get all three.
Futher the Ottomans were the ones who attacked Russia first, after the war had already gone on several months.
Russian involvement with Germany had almost nothing to do with Eastern European political ambitions and everything to do with the treaty between Russia and France guarenteeing Russia's protection of France in the event of conflict with Germany. Russia only got involved, not out of a desire to beat down Austria-Hungry but to protect Serbia, which had an implicit promise of protection from Russia, against the Austro-Hungarians.
Russia's only major gain from the great war was ever going to be the squashing of German power before it could challenge Russia in the East, and turned out to be the biggest mistake in Russian history.
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/35758/why-did-ru...
World leaders are generally logical within the bounds of their incentives -- and China's incentives are probably such that an invasion of Taiwan makes more sense to them than it does to outside observers.
But even if it did... did Putin think that there would be no sanctions? Did he think that Finland and Sweden would not see this as their cue to join NATO? Did he think that the rest of the world would just sit there and ignore it?
That is what makes it a bad idea. Almost everyone expected Russia to win quickly. But even if they did win, all the things you mentioned would offset whatever they would gain from their victory.
Putin was probably hoping that the EU would not be willing to go without Russian gas after the war had ended -- and maybe that would have been true, but there would still be other sanctions, other countries joining NATO, etc.
From what I read the crackdown was temporary and is now coming to an end. I guess they've achieved whatever goals were pursued and it is back to business as usual.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/economy/china-economy-guo-shu...
Xi cracked down on SV-type of tech. Which isn't useful tech. It's ad and addiction tech that is a net negative to society. It makes a few people filthy rich but does nothing for the productive basis of your country.
People also thought that Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine because the economic consequences would be devastating, especially for Russia. Seems dictators don't really care about their own countries. Now with Xi grabbing more and more power in China he may also lose grounding in reality.
For the average Russian during the 1990s life was worse after economic liberalisation.
What can a vast country like Russia, China or the USA not produce domestically, keep people employed and keep profits at home?
How much is wasted on advertising and market casinos?
On the one hand globalisation expands the labor pool and access to capital. On the other the more labor there is the lower its unit value.
So under autarky prices would rise but so would wages (labor would be more scarce).
So for a big country it is not clear that people are worse off in the long run going alone.
So called comparative advantages are more a function of structure of the economy than long term inherit capabilities.
When people are scarcer their price goes up.
Yeah, except that Russia wants raw natural resources from the Ukraine territories it wants to annex. They can kill all Ukrainians and destroy all of their cities and still be able to extract what they want. Now do that in Taiwan. Are you going to mine semiconductors from under a rock? Do that while an army of Taiwan partisans keeps fighting for decades?
It turns out that economic interdependence didn't stop the Germans from marching on France when the Russians declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and once it started it turns out the economics weren't powerful enough to stop a way in progress.
Economic realities only are in play so long as no one feels they are fighting for their survival as the world geo-political maps continues to change, Russia facing a complete collapse, the coming Chinese demographic problems combined with their food supply issues, etc, many nations will see their only future being through conquest.
Then Russia invaded anyways and is apparently now in the process of doubling down by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of fresh recruits.
Now do that in Taiwan. Are you going to mine semiconductors from under a rock? Do that while an army of Taiwan partisans keeps fighting for decades?
True, but with less revenue in the future and higher inflation. Also, they are killing off lots of the men needed in their workforce. Higher revenue is just being burned in $100MM missile strikes.
Also, the world is exponentially more economically interdependent than it was a century ago. Was the trade between the Central Powers and the Entente really comparable to that between the PRC and the rest of the world today? Or even between modern Russia's trade with the world and China's trade with the world? I suspect these are all different cases that need to be examined in full, not brushed away with rhetorical flourishes.
An immense amount of consumer electronics are manufactured in China. But also, most of China's energy is imported by sea. Don't think their Belt and Road projects have managed to substitute those naval routes yet. So in the case of war, both China and its trading partners are at the risk of slitting each others' throats in a jiffy. Is that comparable to Russia, an energy exporter?
The almost dictator of Brazil, Bolsonaro, brags that his biggest achievement when in power was to bring the colors of the flag back to people’s lives
Like, wtf, how is this important?
But that’s not the point, the point is people in power will do whatever they want and have their reasoning for it
Ask Putin. Symbolism might seem weak sauce, unless you're a totalitarian state whose choices are more symbolism (aka distraction) or collapse, because Door #3, liberalizing reform, is not a permissible option.
Dictators do what I would call "irrational" things, though one could have a long, pointless, define-your-word fight about what "rational" means here. Over time, they become surrounded by yes-men and more and more insulated from the real world. Many of them also have very selective readings of history (e.g. Putin seems to think Ukraine should be part of Russia based on a slanted reading of history; he seems to have ignored the parts of history in which failed invasions lead to the dictator's head being separated from his body).
The "economies are so strictly intertwined" argument which finds that war isn't going to happen, particularly when applied to dictators, doesn't stand up to casual scrutiny.
One major virtue of democracies is that they never or almost never (again, fights about definitions here) go to war against each other.
What we, living in democratic societies, fail to appreciate is that autocrats don't mind destroying their economies in order to pursue their personal ambition. Putin has no qualms about sacrificing tens (hundreds?) of thousands of ordinary Russian men to secure his status as a great historical figure. The Russian standard of living will decline as it descends into a totalitarian state, but Putin and those around him have no elections to face. Even if the disastrous Ukraine invasion had been successful it would not have improved the lives of ordinary Russians, but it would have secured Putin's legacy.
The same goes for Xi Jinping. The Chinese Communist Party is no longer "Communist" in any Marxist sense, except in their rejection of democracy. As economic growth stalls, Xi is turning to xenophobic nationalism to bolster his legitimacy. The Chinese people will in no way benefit from an invasion of Taiwan. But Xi and the CCP aren't looking out for the benefit of the Chinese people, they are looking out for themselves.
I think this conflict can still be stopped with non-physical violence though.
Ukraine controlling the supply of neon gas needed for lasers and Taiwan controlling the knowledge and talent pool used for innovation?
The parent is giving me somewhat similar vibes...
Have you seen a map of Denmark and where it sits in Europe with regards to Germany?
/s
E.g., losing a friend to a drunk driver.
Not ownership of the district, but definitely a decrease of the party's (owned) influence and power due to that districts allegiance.
Another more mundane analogy, a sports team can lose a player in the say way.
It is immaterial what Taiwan was born as. It is a self-governing, free country, and the only thing that matters should be the wishes of the people who live there. And that overwhelmingly is to not be a part of communist China.
That doesn't stop me (or anyone else) from believing that the Taiwanese should be entitled to self-determination. Or the Hawaiians, Indigenous peoples, or Puerto Ricans for that matter. If support for that aim happens to come from the US then that's fine by me. Moral consistency from a national government is not something I require or expect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_re...
Should they be asked again? Maybe. But it’s impossible to do fairly at the present time.
I'm part of The West :)
Probably a coincidence.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/26/1139270577/taiwan-election-pr...
edit: What the US is doing with Taiwan is not being done based on consultation with the Taiwanese people. It is not for the Taiwanese.
Polls indicate that the Taiwanese overwhelmingly want to either "maintain the status quo" or "maintain the status quo with incremental movement toward independence" (https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963), which is entirely what the US policy is intended to support! Like the Taiwanese people, we also don't want an apocalyptic conflict with China when the status quo is already de facto independence, regardless of what we call it to appease nationalist factions in Chinese domestic politics.
It's almost as if this is NPR's editorial opinion, rather than a fact about Taiwan. I intentionally linked a hostile article.
"If Not Cross-strait Issues, What Are The 2022 Elections About?"
> CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS are not the dominant frame of this election cycle. Namely, nine-in-one elections, which serve as midterms between presidential elections, are primarily about local issues rather than cross-strait issues. Cross-strait relations are for Taiwanese, after all, largely a matter of foreign policy.
> As such, it would not surprise if the KMT performed well in this set of elections. The KMT has always had a stronger grip over local politics, seeing as its local clientelist and patronage networks date back to the authoritarian period. As the party that rose out of Taiwan’s democracy movement in past decades–and which may have had two presidents but never controlled the Taiwanese legislature until the first term of the Tsai administration–the DPP is still unable to break the stranglehold of the KMT over local politics.
> However, the key domestic election issues that voters will be voting on return to Taiwan’s economic outlook and its demographic challenges. Taiwan’s economy has seen growth, particularly with regards to exports, due to the minimized effects of COVID-19 after going for more than a year without any lockdowns as the rest of the world saw, and outbreaks that were contained with relative speed when COVID-19 did finally enter Taiwan. But such growth has not trickled down to the population writ large. As such, the issue of stagnant wages is a major issue up for contention.
https://newbloommag.net/2022/11/24/cross-domestic-issues-202...
There's been no actual discussion about the self-determination of the Taiwanese, because the Taiwanese have not been asked whether they want to be separated from China, and any indication that they don't has been scrupulously ignored.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Taiwanese_i...
Taiwan as many people mentioned here is a democracy. It has freedom of speech. So it's easy to get the information from the source inside Taiwan.
Long story short: It's very mixed. There are people want to re-unit with China and even expect the mainland using military means. Pro-independence group is much larger but majority like to keep the existing status while tend to independence.
Here are some media that show views against Western perception which seems originated from MSM .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t6ep7auypk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvACcb9qrt4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UEz3CyD1ME
There are much more. But again as I mention they are minority
(Claim: I'm not saying that MSM is trusted by Western audience. On the contrary a lot of people especially young generation don't trust or even disdain MSM. However the Taiwan issue is an exception.）
It recognizes the CCP's claim to Taiwan as part of China.
Recognizing that Taiwan is part of China is not part of the act, and was deliberately written as such.
There's a vast difference between diplomatically saying "this land is yours" versus "we understand that you claim that this land is yours".
Night and day. The deliberate vagueness was the whole point of the language used in the act.
However the majority opinion of western world which is shaped by MSM has another view that "(A) This land is not yours and (B)it's not debatable". They only mention the issue is "debatable" when the position of US official position is against their opinion. Underneath they still believe there's no controversy that Taiwan is not part of China due to their hidden ideology.
Decoding hidden part of people's mind based on their output is more interesting than the original topic and also itself is quite controversial.
Fair point. The wording is intentionally vague and up for interpretation - because as you say, we all know US's opinion is that China is China, and Taiwan is Taiwan, but in order to avoid pissing off China, we keep things as ambiguous and vague as we can.
Strategic obfuscation, if you will.
However, there is some speculation that the CCP observed from the 1989 Tienneman massacre that the West takes roughly 20yrs to forget stuff like that, so the CCP actually wants to reunify Taiwan by 2030, so it will be forgotten by 2050. Hence the rapid military buildup happening now.
There's a vid on youtube about this I can't find atm, an interview with a Navy vet Congresswoman concerned about the "missile gap", when the US Navy is at its smallest fleet size and deployed missile quantity over the next few years. China may assess their best chance at retaking Taiwan is during that gap, before US shipbuilding ramps up to close it. She's trying to convince the DoD to extend the Burkes service life until the new destroyers start coming off the production lines.
If you are actually hoping that the CCP can rule over Taiwan in your lifetime, I have some unprintable words for you, and suggest you rethink your life.
China would never succeed in invading Japan.
I'm European and I still have to meet someone ready to sacrifice something for Ukraine. People are extremely worried about the state of our economy, much more so than they are about what's happening in Ukraine.
I keep hearing members of the elite like Stoltenberg talking about being ready to make sacrifices for Ukraine, but Stoltenber won't actually have to sacrifice anything. A 50% rise in the cost of living won't affect his lifestyle in the slightest, while it will destroy the livelihood of many families.
In any case, we've all been subjected to unprecedented levels of propaganda. It's not a surprise that many feel more concerned about what's happening in Ukraine than in Yemen.
You asked
> how do you explain the European people supporting their governments assisting Ukrainians, when continuing the conflict is causing themselves direct discomfort and expense?
I replied
> we've all been subjected to unprecedented levels of propaganda. It's not a surprise that many feel more concerned about what's happening in Ukraine than in Yemen.
Everything else I wrote is what I think about the concept of "sacrifice" that the elites fill their mouths with knowing it won't really affect them.
Whether my argument is dubious or not to you, it is still an argument and a valid answer to your question.
You might want to explain why my answer doesn't convince you, rather than simply dismissing it as "beside the point" when it isn't.
I find that wholly unconvincing.
You seem to think that the only reason people care is due to media coverage that you deem as pure propaganda.
Might it be that the media coverage is in fact more than for instance coverage of Yemen, because people care more (however unfair that may be to the Yemeni)?
I can tell you nobody cared at all (most people outright ignored the situation) about Ukraine in the 2014-2022 period, even though Ukrainians were dying for all those years. When Russia took Crimea, that was minor news in my country.
People are used to conflicts happening in the world and we've grown cynical about it, which is why nobody really cares about the Yemenis, for example.
The reason we now care (even though trust me, from a personal point of view nobody really "cares") is that there is a daily stream of Ukraine related news, reporting exclusively the point of view of Ukraine and the statements from their government, often without double checks.
"News just came from Ukrainian officials that the Russians raped 50 children". Even without any evidence, when a statement is repeated ad nauseam by every news source it becomes reality. In the meantime Ukrainians artillery killed several civilians in Russia-occupied Donetsk, but there is no mention of it. This is how propaganda works.
Artillery killed several Ukrainian civilians in Russia-occupied Donetsk because Russia occupied Donetsk.
And the context of geopolitics is much closer to friendship than ownership.
As far as I am aware Japan doesn't have a particularly large standing military, and isn't that far away. Meanwhile the Chinese could, and probably would, be willing to drown the entire island in human wave tactics.
The problem is that it isn't enough for amphibious invasion of Japan or Taiwan. They don't have enough amphibious ships. And the ships would be very vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Truck-mounted anti-ship missiles, which Japan has a bunch and Taiwan should be buying, have changed things. The other thing that has made amphibious invasion infeasible are multiple rocket launchers, like HIMARS given to Ukraine, which can wipe out an entire beachhead.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33248946
> Can you imagine what a landing beach would look like being pounded by drone spotted artillery? See war in Ukraine. Forget the approach, anti ship missiles, mines, sheer volume of logistics needed. Stepping on the landing beach is a suicide without absolutely astronomical advantage in air power and ability to suffer huge attrition, even then.. 155mm hidden under camo/thermal nets, DJI drone rigged with magazines of small bombs.. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson Childs play, this would make Diep and Galipoli look like walk in the park.
> I would go as far as to say that US Army + Marines + Navy could not land on Taiwan without suffering multiple brigades of attrition AFTER at least a year long blockade and air campaign. It is that hard.
> PRC has to surpass US in GDP, then spend 10-20 years of US level military spending, then maybe.
[0]https://www.army-technology.com/features/japan-as-the-third-...
Related, never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Maybe hours.