Annexation of Taiwan: A Defeat from Which the US and Allies Could Not Retreat

The most useful quality in this analysis is to the consequences side of risk:consequences.

The risk of loss of TSMC is being worked on far too slowly. Nothing the west can do will stop China seeking better VLSI production capabilities and blocking access to ASML is only encouraging them to scale up.

The loss of "face" and effective geopolitical influence would be a persisting problem. Regional alliances have some role here, but honestly? Nobody wants a shooting war.

The economic consequences I think might be capable of being offset, and in many ways are shared by China. It's a story of two sides. War is only partially ameliorative to a moribund domestic economy and continuing isolation of China risks much of the reward to their citizens for ongoing passivity.

Risk:consequence stories always have the third leg of the triad - likelihood. You plan for even unlikely eventualities because that's risk management.

I personally think an invasive takeover of Taiwan is highly unlikely in the short to medium term because of the rivers of blood from a defended invasion attempt: China has low experience of this, and I tend to think has a low tolerance for failure and a defended beachhead in modern warfare is going to play out differently to day, bloody Omaha was the exception and this time would be the norm, not to mention losses at sea.

Which leaves the other, non invasion led mechanistic approaches to reunion. I'm unsure how likely they are.

> and fulfilling the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) promise to reclaim all major territories historically associated with China in some form, of which Taiwan is the crown jewel.

I still don't really understand how they justify this.

Of course if Britain or Spain would suddenly decide they wanted to reclaim any territory or colony they've every possessed in history (note, this includes the US for Britain and most of latin America for Spain) nobody would stand by them. Why do we act like this is acceptable or justifiable when it comes to China? I was kinda hoping that we'd be past this as Humanity. And owned territory does not equate power anyway. The US has been very powerful without owning half the world.