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Comment by throwaway2990 | Hacker News Reader

So it can do what it wants. Like control the South China Sea. Invade Taiwan. Reroute all rivers flowing into India for itself. Steal natural resources from countries. Control foreign governments. Basically everything it does now but without having to worry about everyone rallying against them.

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China won't invade Taiwan. Xi isn't going to oversee the massacre of fellow Han people. There is very little appetite within the CCP for openly invading Taiwan.

Looking at the diplomatic wins China has racked up recently, it's entirely possible Taiwan willingly folds itself into China within a decade.

Doubtful. People in Taiwan don’t consider themselves Chinese. They don’t want anything to do with China. A lot of Taiwanese believe they have more in common with japan than they do with China.

After what happened with HK they do not believe China can be trusted at any capacity.

China is banking on KMT winning next year so they can try and invade from the inside. But Taiwan won’t go peacefully.

Exactly. You know which country is most willing to see a war around China's border? The US. That's the most effective way it can form an anti-China aliance and hit its biggest rival.

China absolutely will take Taiwan by force. Xi recently stated it as an objective at the start of his 3rd term.

Taiwan absolutely wont go willingly.

What do you think all the military exercises (by both sides) are for if China and Taiwan think it’s going to be resolved peacefully?

South China Sea, Taiwan, India. Which of them is located in "Western"?

> Basically everything it does now but without having to worry about everyone rallying against them.

Which part do you not understand?

Ask the Roman Catholic Pope? Wasn't a decision made centuries ago?

So, imperialism. Which is what Western powers also did openly until the 1960s TBH, and less openly until today. Let's hope that Xi is less deluded than Putin and realizes that cooperation is better than confrontation. And the West has to try to remove some of the eggs from the Chinese basket and put them somewhere else...

> Which is what Western powers also did openly until the 1960s TBH

Sure. I wasn’t born then. But I would like to think society and governments have grown up since then and we can agree that invasion is wrong. Abuse of power is wrong.

Britain has given up a lot of what it took. It has no control or say in australia or New Zealand. It gave HK back. Left Singapore, Myanmar, India. Etc.

Obviously we can’t change what happened. None of us on HN or our families etc had any say in what happened for generations before we were born.

But in 2023 we should be at a point where we can acknowledge it’s wrong and stop it from happening.

Russia and China haven’t got that memo yet.

> Britain has given up a lot of what it took. It has no control or say in australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor-General_of_Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...

https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/14/australian-governor-who-...

In 1999 australia also voted to maintain its ties with Britain. But because of 1975 Britain has less powers in australia. When was the last time Britain interfered with Australia to a large extent?

I must admit to largely preferring the less open version.

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