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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately for China, they successfully pissed off every single neighbor in the pacific, making it exponentially harder for them to attack Taiwan since all those neighbors went to the US for protection.

The US basically has a barrier of military bases along the entire Chinese coast. The US also besties with Singapore, sharing a navel base there, where it could easily cut off China from middle eastern oil via The Straight of Malacca.

China should just take the L on Taiwan. In a war they wouldn't get any of the chip fabs or tech. Everything would be destroyed. It would be purely to fulfill their ego at an extreme cost.

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> making it exponentially harder for them to attack Taiwan

I fail to see how the sentiments of Vietnam or the Philippines have any bearing on the capacity of China to capture Taiwan. Talk is cheap, and neither country has taken any substantive steps toward a deterrence capability, let alone an improved one.

> The US basically has a barrier of military bases along the entire Chinese coast.

This sounds like something a PRC defense pundit would claim as justification for China's belligerency in the South China Sea. The few US bases in the region are north of the South China Sea, in Japan and North Korea. Take a quick glance at a map.

> The US also besties with Singapore, sharing a navel base there, where it could easily cut off China from middle eastern oil via The Straight of Malacca.

Singapore also has close ties with China, including joint military training: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-says-will-c...

The "bases" the US has in Singapore are merely for logistics and training. India also has similar agreements for use of Singapore's naval bases, and India is not a defense ally of the U.S. Singapore has a few bases in the U.S., but they're likewise for training and nobody would claim they're a potential military staging ground.

Singapore isn't a defense ally of the U.S., notwithstanding their defense ties. As a vulnerable city-state Singapore desires to be besties with everybody, especially those who can exert pressure on Malaysia and Indonesia.

>India is not a defense ally of the U.S.

India is not a defense ally of any country. However, at this time, India is the only country that is in a state of active war with China.

India has a pretty strict neutrality policy. But you can bet if China waged an expansionist war they would be on the same side as those fighting China.

Chingi Naval Base is an American naval base shared with the Singapore Navy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changi_Naval_Base

Here is a map of US military bases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:American_bases_worldwide....

You can see the US has bases in South korea, Japan, Philipines, and Singapore. As well as outer laying bases in Guam and Northern Australia.

China doesn't have any breathing room in the pacific. But when you shit all over your neighbors, that's what happens. They back North Korea. Have centuries long conflict with Japan. And ignore the Philippines South China Sea territory.

The U.S. doesn't have any bases in the Philippines. Under EDCA the U.S. has been able to place logistics personnel at some Philippine bases. There's no U.S. war fighting capability there, at least not yet--rehabilitation of some old U.S. naval and air facilities for future use has only recently begun, AFAIU.

The U.S. also has signals facilities in many places. Some might count these as military bases, but that's a stretch.

Singapore does not have any bases in the US. Not sure what you’re talking about.

For some reason I thought they had a fully leased facility in the US, but perhaps I was thinking about the 425th squadron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/425th_Fighter_Squadron That's a permanent squadron dedicated to training RSAF pilots. Singapore keeps their own planes and equipment there. The RSAF also has two other detachments in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Singapore_Air_Forc...

Also, "Singapore has the second largest permanent foreign military training presence in the continental United States, with almost 1,000 Singapore Armed Forces personnel training at any one time." https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-singapor...

>The US basically has a barrier of military bases along the entire Chinese coast

Yes, that's right! It's called the "Island chain strategy".

China is better off pursue peace and forgoing their Communist zealots

China may nominally be a Communist country, but in practice, they've been more an authoritarian capitalist state for a generation or two now.

Are there examples where communism did not turn into authoritarian?

Is that pertinent to whether or not China is currently communist in anything but name only? No.

I'm genuinely curious because all we hear about are the bad examples

I’ve been wondering the same but maybe we only have these examples because the only successful attempts to forcefully take power away from the capitalists has been by authoritarians.

or maaaybe communism is just not working.

Cuba isn't doing too badly even though it's authoritarian. It's no soviet union, DDR or North Korea. The biggest problems they have are due to US sanctions.

But I think extremes never work. Neither strict communism nor all-out capitalism.

The state owns most if not all industry. The only thing that individuals can invest in is property. How is that capitalism?

State capitalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

Can you differentiate state capitalism from Communism? Sounds like a No True Scotsman argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

It's pretty simple - communism is "real communism" when it works, and it's not when it doesn't. It's similar to how it's not "real capitalism" when things go wrong in a capitalist system.

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