The Taiwan War is being pushed precisely because China has been doing exactly that and the US wants China to stop and do what Japan did in 1985 by signing the Plaza Accords. China will never do that. Hence, the war...
China is strong enough that they don't have to listen. It doesn't really show you are strong to threaten to invade another country to demonstrate strength.
China has to invade Taiwan only if the US starts arming Taiwan to use it as a pawn against China like how the US openly declared that it intends doing. China will not make the mistake of waiting 8 years like Russia.
> China is strong enough that they don't have to listen.
Any sane observer of geopolitics who doesnt have a 6-figure paycheck that depends depend on saying what his employers want said, would say that China has been silent for way too long and the US would immediately start a war if anyone did so much as to threaten doing what the US has been doing to other countries. Then again, China has only recently reached the military power that could fight the US on even grounds without having to resort to a nuclear war.
BTW, China should be clear that they might be able to invade Taiwan. But couldn’t defeat the US Navy beyond range of aircraft and missiles.
After Nixon and the relations being restored in between China and the US, a detente was reached on this. The US avoided arming Taiwan in a way that it could be a threat to China, and China did not press the issue. The US broke that detente.
> Taiwan is rich enough that can build own weapons
No non-superpower country is capable of building their own weapons that could allow them to stand against a superpower.
> In particular, Taiwan could make nuclear weapons
Having a few missiles that can mount nuclear warheads and travel a thousand km is not having 'nuclear weapons'. Every major superpower has the air defense systems that can shoot down such missiles from up to 500-600 km and dozens of kilometers altitude. You must have a legion of such missiles with multiple warheads to be able to saturate the defenses.
> But couldn’t defeat the US Navy beyond range of aircraft and missiles.
That's decade old thinking. China has hypersonic anti ship missiles that can reach over 1k km now, and a lot of submarines. Gone are the days of the aircraft carrier...
And that’s what they’re doing?
This isn’t a Chinese outlet writing about how the sides are “preparing for war”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/11/china-renews-threat...
> A spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Wednesday that Beijing was recommitted in the new year to “safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity” and “smashing plots for Taiwan independence”.
That quote links to another Al J article where the keywords “plot” and “smash” are not present.
These nation states talk all the time about how “X will not go unpunished”. But most times that’s interpreted as things like sanctions or other supposedly non-violent means.
The US is still not going to attack them.
China can't claim the same with the amount of censorship and information control they have. If a main news channel in China is pushing some type of information, it is very likely such information was explicitly approved by the Chinese government.
— Chomsky, Turning the Tide postscript, Sec. 2.3
My emphasis.
In fact, Fox News is so biased it is literally being sued right now and you can be sure Biden administration won't lift a single finger to help it. The current govt actually condemns almost everything Fox News say.
That is why no single news source in the US speaks for the US govt. Unless all of them agrees with each other, they are just speaking for themselves.
I have the freedom to be unemployed.
> That is why no single news source in the US speaks for the US govt. Unless all of them agrees with each other, they are just speaking for themselves.
This is more or less true. The Media has to be aligned with the Establishment, not necessarily with the sitting government (one out of the duopoly).
> It is funny that option is never suggested as possibility.