Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion | Hacker News Reader

Taiwan is behind schedule in preparations to fend off Chinese invasion

washingtonpost.com

66 pointshoward941119 comments

Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so.

A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists.

The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.

Good point. Probably the Americans have dissuaded them from building a nuclear warhead in exchange for guaranteed protection?

Which makes it critically important to see through to the end that Ukraine wins. Otherwise South Korea, Taiwan, and others would be right in recognizing that a nuclear arsenal is the better option.

This has always been true though. Consider, if the US is a friend worth depending on why do its closest allies UK, Israel and France still maintain nuclear weapons at great expense?

In Europe the fact that the US dragged its feet entering WWII is still within living memory. Asian countries perhaps are still to learn this lesson.

Europe dragged their feet in both ww as well. No one wants war.

Actually UK (where a civil war seems just started) ruling class desperate need a war to remain in power, USA are in a far better position, but their ruling class still need a war to avoid a civil one. Israel ruling class desperately need to keep the war up or they'll go to jail so... At least three powers desperately look for war.

Of course, the people do not want wars, but so far most people in the world have forgot the old way of unite to makes rulers obey so they obey instead.

Which UK civil war?

Likely talking about Southport riots: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots

Exactly, so far the press say that's are just a bunch of fascist, and I've no doubt those are the organizers and some most thugs in action, but most of the participating mass I bet are just impoverished people, like https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/30/my-student... or https://news.sky.com/story/food-bank-users-refusing-potatoes... and also https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4165370/national-scandal-... etc.

UK economy failed due to excess cleptocracy from very few, UK people start to be tired enough to riot. Perhaps they stop, perhaps they grow to the point of a full scale action against the government, I do not know, but that's to me an evident start/harbinger of a civil war.

The vast majority of impoverished people manage to get through their day without attacking a mosque. These people aren’t rioting because they’re poor, they’re rioting because they are racists.

If there’s a correlation between being a racist thug and being impoverished, the causation is likely low intelligence.

There is no end to the war in which Ukraine wins. If Ukraine is winning and Russia gives up, America will be worried and find a way to keep the war going. If Russia wins while Ukrainians are still alive, America will be filled with regret that they did not support Ukraine well enough.

Ukraine is like Afghanistan 2.0 ; the imminent fall/break of Russia.

The US has pointedly never guaranteed protection for Taiwan. Its policy has been "strategic ambiguity."

“Guarantee” has always meant ambiguity. The other word is promise. Or commitment.

Ukraine gave up its nukes to the russians after the fall of the soviets in exchange for such “guarantee”.

That’s what they say to the public. My suspicion is they have an ironclad diplomatic agreement behind the scenes

It can't be binding unless it's a treaty. A presidential administration could tell Taiwan that they would definitely come to their aid, but a new president could establish a different policy.

US will do whatever is convenient for them at that moment.

Budapest memorandum-esque?

I feel like the only country that has guaranteed protection by the US would be Japan. Past that, rest of the top 5 would probably be South Korea, Philippines, Canada and Israel.

If anyone should get one it's SK given NK is basically a lost cause but that's probably an even more volatile gambit than Taiwan

NK is not stupid enough to launch a land war on SK, they know they'd get their asses handed to them. This is unfortunately not necessarily true for PRC vs Taiwan.

North Korea also probably wouldn’t nuke Seoul because it is 40km from the border and so they’d also probably not be doing themselves any favors. They’d probably nuke Tokyo or Okinawa though.

I don’t think that PRC would nuke Taiwan mostly because nuking does not mean they’ve actually secured it, and now they have to deal with the pain of a beach invasion into irradiated territory.

Would Taiwan have time to “pursue”? CCP will see this as deal breaker and with the level of spy infiltration Taiwan can’t keep this a secret.

Edit: USA will see this as a huge red flag as well. Remember USA only want to deter but not a real war

The US could also secretly transport tactical nuclear weapons to Taiwanese airbases, then announce that Taiwan was now protected under a similar nuclear guarantee to Europe.

Any invasion triggers release of the devices into Taiwanese operational control.

This plan worked out so well last time it was tried in Cuba :)

US nuclear MRBMs were withdrawn from Italy and Turkey, and the US publicly committed to not invading Cuba.

That's a decent deal.

Taiwan did have secret nuclear weapons program in the 70s or 80s, with cover from their nascent nuclear power facilities. When the US caught wind they forced Taiwan to shut the program down. I'm not sure if China knew about it at the time, but I imagine these days it would be impossible to keep it secret from China--too many spies.

Yes PRC knew, hence TW nuclearizing is non starter.

TW/ROC was/is still thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence, if there's credible hint they're moving from nuclear latency/threshold to actual nuclearization (PRC redline), the relevant facilities would be destroyed - no need for PLA boots on ground or telescoped build up, every inch of TW is within 10 minute strike of mainland based ordnances. TW nuclear turnkey potential isn't as fast as PLA rockets/bunker busters.

Unmentioned aspect of US axing TW nuclear program in late 80s, was CSIST / INER (Taiwan nuclear program) was already monitored by PRC intelligence and post Nixon normalization US intel cooperated with PRC intel to shut the program down.

Unwritten between the line is PRC, having closely monitored TW program would have probably nuked TW first if US didn't compel TW to end the program. US Inspection / IAEA went in the dismantle the program, no doubt verified by PRC intelligence, it's unlikely TW can rebuild to nuclear turnkey faster than PRC can mount an invasion. And realistically TW can't fend off a PRC invasion without US involvement, and if US involves to assist TW nuclearizing then TW going to get nuked, and US + PRC will stare down MAD.

Also note PRC fought as in actually shed blood with USSR, India (both borderm skirmishes), US+NATO in Korea, armed Viet against FR, threatened UK over HK... aka every NPT nuclear state over sovereignty/security issues much less important than TW. A few of them when PRC had no/barely any nukes herself. Nuclear simply has never been a credible threat against PRC soverignty issues.

I don’t believe PRC would drop a nuke on TW if they pursued a nuclear weapon. They want to unify with TW, not make a crater of it.

Invasion maybe.

I think if I was in charge of strategic policy at TW I would get as close to a nuke as I could without raising suspicions in the PRC and then once the PRC gets involved in a war or domestic turmoil I would rush to nukes as fast as possible.

PRC want to pacify TW as security risk foremost, reunifying with irradiated but harmless crater of island is not ideal, but preferrable consolation prize to nuclearized TW. Cross strait camaraderie is nice for propaganda, but ultimately really about the soil, not the people, and even radioactive land with no people will suffice. Conventional invasion difficult, might be tried first, but wouldn't rule out radioactive exclusion zone and then airdropping soldiers on one way mission to destroy nuclear program. Secessionist getting nukes (remember TW lack of status as UN) is boots on ground situation, PRC has political carte blanche to do what they want on basically ISIS trying to sprint for nukes, pretty much no one wants proliferation under these circumstances, and PRC will be going gloves off for gaza tier and worse response.

If TW could nuclearize without PRC (or US) knowing, they would have already. But I don't think they can, and despite the occasional US hawks thinks it's neat idea to put TW under US nuclear umbrella, sane planners they know PRC will attribute TW nuclearizing to US negligence (really participation) since unlikely TW can do so without PRC notice unless US help obfuscate. Trying to hide being near threshold while waiting for PRC collapse and assume PRC won't/can't find out even less likely. In which case that's a Cuban crisis PRC won't flinch from, and TW nuclear use will be equivicated with US nuclear use. It's not the galaxy brain one simple trick people think it is. As PRC builds up nuke parity with US, this idea going to be extra bad.

Somewhat related, domestic politics aside, one has to wonder if other forces behind why TW is decommissioning her nuclear plants and becoming even more energy dependant, and less nuclear latent.

I totally disagree with the last paragraph. Shedding blood != waging war. China has never dared until now, and will never dare in the future, to engage in a heads-on conflict against the USA. It has skirmishes and conflicts with almost every neighbour. The PRC defence forces do not have the worldwide fighting experience which the US has. Nuclear deterrence acts strongly against the PRC, and they won’t do anything stupid against Taiwan as long as US Navy is positioned in their backyard.

PRC fought US+UN (Nato typo) in full scale war in 50s, to stalemate, while PLA was dramatically inferior vs gap now, and when PRC didn't have nukes, while US did. So not only did they dare to fight US on much worse odds, they did so not deterred by nukes, which US planners mused about using. Shedding blood with several nuclear powers isn't nothing, there's simply no country more willing to challenge other nuclear powers / be less deterred by nukes than PRC on security issues.

IMO US global war experience doesn't amount to much relevant in peer war, in peers backyard, against peer whos spend last 20 years soley fixated on countering US. IMO most don't realize how meagre current USN (and general US posture) is in IndoPac relative to current PRC size and what PRC has in threatre (everything), and how extra meagre 7th fleet in indopac is, CVN76 (carrier group) + desron15 (destroyer squadron) is like 10-20 ships depending on deployment. Last few years PRC coast guard messing around in Senkakus, dozens of incidents every year that should on paper trigger US defense obligation, but nothing from US. USN hasn't been credible deterrent for a while. US not sending carriers through TW straight for years, current US planning has carriers operate out of PRC backyard during shooting war to hopefully figure out way to do standoff strikes. Assuming they're not sunk before that. Or assuming they can operate more than a few days since PRC missiles can hit most replenishment sites/fleets. For reference invading 90s Iraq took 5 carriers group + regional basing + french selling out Iraqi air defense. Eisenhower carrier / CVN69+DDGs aren't exactly defeating houthis right now. Current PRC is like 80x larger than Iraq then by population, 100x larger by gdp, and 100x+ more industrial output. Current one year PRC ship building is outputting cumulative US 5 year WW2 which is proxy indicator for other domains (like munitions). USN formidable against PLA 10-15 years ago, but that's also how long PRC took to close gap which they are likely to extend.

You failed to take into account US allies like Japan, Phillipines, South Korea and India which are more than ready to help us bring down PLA.

It's factored in, it's 101 default assumption.

Ask how much can PRC arm Mexico, Caribbeans etc to prevent US from destroying Cuba if US really wanted to. The reasonable answer is no amount, the proposition is borderline stupid because the force balance size between US vs rest is just that lopsided. Same force balance trend in PRC vs US+co in IndoPac now. PLA growing/modernizing faster than everyone else combined, US containment partners who can't comtain are now liabilities - US still obligated to defend in PRC unfavourable ground of PRC backyard.

Trend of geopolitics indicate US allies are less than ready, and outside of theatrics, has signalled _zero_ actual formal commitment. SKR opposition drafting legistlation to prevent SKR from assisting US in TW scenario a few weeks ago. JP avoid openning up main islands for expanded US basing despite US asking for ~10 years now. All those "war games" propaganda that US can win in variety of scenarios against PRC... depends on those expanded basing (and a bunch of PLA hardware not working). Current US posture (again without expanded basing) is not sufficient. PH is more or less irrelevant. What can India do on other side of Himalayas?

Hence current US military posture (which includes allies) is not sufficient, because allies have repeatedly demonstrated through action & inaction that they are extremely unwilling to seriously help US for TW, because as import dependant islands they don't want to be PRC missile sinks, and regress into developing countries if PRC decides to do their own "operation starvation". And when PLA occasionally do leaks like cruise missile gigafactory that makes 1000 components a day i.e. a few days production will satuate all US interceptors in 1IC, every year it becomes increasingly obvious US can't prepoposition enough hardware to shift balance vs PRC, not just TW in scenario, questionable if US even able defend JP, SKR, PH etc.

They did in Korea

Is there a good book on this history?

Here's a recent English report.

isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/TaiwansFormerNuclearWeaponsProgram_POD_color_withCover.pdf

Looks like there are some old archived articles on TW wiki of their nuclear program. Coverage stirried up in early 2000s when US/PRC relations warming up and TW felt threatened about their security started seeding more info about nuclear program, hinting they can restart. I read some of the books that started popping up a few years later, they were in Chinese, I can't recall them anymore.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E8%8F%AF%E6%B0%91%E5...

ISIS report interesting in that on the box on page 123, note 14, acknowledges US+PRC intelligence cooperation (from interview by authors with former CIA/US ambassador to PRC). This is something I've seen mentioned in Chinese writing years ago, getting confirmed. Hence there's something to PRC's narrative that they had foreknowledge of TW program and had hand in compelling US to dismantle TW nuclear program to avert crisis.

If there ever was a major conflict with a diplomatic alternative, this is it. China's attitude towards Taiwan is mostly petty and dates back to the drunken bar fight with Chiang Kai-shek, who's been dead for 50 years.

The key to peace is the general understanding that the two countries will be reunited at some unspecified future point. Historically, this has been the keystone that let the doves carry the day. In the 2000s the Taiwanese were floating the idea of an EU-style arrangement, which could be the bridge there.

We keep letting Putin's stooges egg us on against China, which he needs to do to keep it firmly in his camp. I wouldn't be surprised if confrontational fervors in Taiwan were being stoked by outside sources.

The one thing that's changed the most in recent years is that China's military might has been increasing steadily. This both increases the risk of war and is motivated by the antagonism. De-escalating the Taiwan Strait with diplomatic means can pay off handsomely.

The obvious counterpoint to this argument is what happened in Hong Kong. A diplomatic resolution seems unlikely to have a net-positive outcome for Taiwan under the current CCP regime.

Taiwan has obviously been watching the Hong Kong integration closely. Had it gone much better, Taiwan would have probably agreed to something similar. Frankly I think they were actually expecting much worse.

An EU-style arrangement seems ideal in the medium term. It lets Taiwan have a positive long-term influence on Chinese politics, while preventing HK-style crackdowns in the other direction.

How does an “EU” style arrangement make sense between two countries, one of which is extremely large the other extremely small?

It makes sense because it functions as a bridge to eventual reunification. And the EU includes e.g. Luxembourg and Germany. The arrangement transfers some matters to unified control while retaining country sovereignty.

The thing is that in EU they are two of 27.

Being 1 of 4 is not so good, particularly when 1 is so big and the other two (Macau, HK) are defanged, and a federal devolution to the provinces of China is not in the cards.

Well no one is doubting that the federal portion of the framework would be mainland-dominated, just like Germany has way more seats in the EU parliament than Luxembourg. But Taiwanese democracy (and military control) would be unaffected.

1. There is no scenario in which the PRC would relinquish military control

2. Germany makes up 18% of the EU’s population. The PRC makes up 98% of the combined populations of Taiwan, PRC, HK and Macau. That is quite the difference in lopsided power balance.

The PRC wouldn't have to relinquish military control, or really any control for that matter. The "Union" is basically the portion of control that Taiwan has already ceded to China. The key is that Taiwan retains the rest for the time being.

From PRC perspective, HK integration went poorly for PRC interests because HK failed to implement national security law on their own (which btw they were suppose to pre 50 year handover) - they simply never took the One Country part of One Country Two Systems seriously. And TBH neither will TW with how much culture diverged over generations, hence the sweeter 1C2S deal PRC offered TW where they got to keep political system and even their own military got taken off the table a few years ago. Political reality is PRC T1 is pretty comfy now, mainlanders don't see TW/HK as "betters" like in 80s/90s, there's no appetite for PRC domestic audience to give concessions to TW or HK to have disproportionate influence over mainland with less than 1% of the population, especially when their system isn't viewed as particularly functional. Apart from baizuos, the amount of PRC who looks at TW politics and think "I want that" is smaller than than most democracygud crowd thinks.

I don't think this has to be necessarily sold as the PRC giving concessions to TW. It's basically a linear combination, where alpha is being ramped from 0 to 1:

   current_state = alpha * one_country + (1 - alpha) * two_countries

Neither the PRC nor TW benefits from war if it can be avoided. This is a much better alternative.

That's potentially something for next gen TWers to decide, too much anti PRC sentiment on TW right now. Need a multiple more election cycles before TW get jaded with (still relatively nascent) democracy, already seeing that this election cycle. But will ultimately take next gen, assuming there's enough numbers with TWs bad demographics for new voting cohorts going through TW economic stagnation (assuming it continues) and look at next gen HKers who are basically fine post NSL, and doing well integrating with mainland, and see perhaps option not so bad to war. Even then it's a stretch, and that's decades out, with soft 2049 deadline.

The problem is as PRC military modernizes and regional force balances shift more in PRC favour, I see them benefitting massively from war, especially broader one with US+co. PRC can live with taking TW (by whichever means), but what PRC really wants is US out of backyard, and TW is prime casus belli for participating in one, or rather not avoiding one if US intervenes. Longer US tries to contain, dance away from strategic ambiguity, the more perverse PRC incentives get.

Nothing would do more to get the US out of the PRC's backyard than if the TW crisis is resolved amicably with an EU-style arrangement.

I think the PRC is aware that if there is a PRC-TW war, there is nothing that will stop Japan from ramping up their military and acquiring a nuclear deterrent. The situation on the Korean peninsula is even easier to destabilize.

I'm reassured by the fact that the PRC has not taken steps to convert its economy to internal demand. It's still in export-led growth mode (not coincidentally the same industrialization model used by TW and HK.)

Except for TW, no one would lose more economically than the PRC if there is war.

E: accidentally posted empty reply

US won't leave JP/SKR/PH irrespective of TW, where they have token presence, and not integral to US east asia security architecture. That's really the broader security consideration, PRC doesn't want US in her backyard, PRC wants her own Munroe, and historically that involves forcing hegemon out / demonstrating their presense cannot be sustained.

JP/SKR nuclearizing more complex topic, e.g. it's against US interest since it erodes US control, forces PRC to build up ABM which is net bad for US strategic posture etc and imo makes PRC more likely to start pressing against US presence in region to turn up temperature knowing JP/SKR has higher chance to reduce US partnership if they feel comfortable with own nukes. Dynamics complicated, but I will just say nuclear powers like RU, and NKR, and eventually IR can still have their existence degraded via conventional means without raising to nuclear, and both those countries being import dependent islands (SKR functionally) are much more suspectible to conventional disruptions.

>convert economy

PRC exports to gdp 20%, about half to west, it's not _as_ domestic driven as US, but on export:gdp spectrum it's one of the least export led major economies. Export led is like >50%, TW/HK is like 60% and HK is like 200%. Most growth comes from internal consumption, exports help in geoeconomics, but numbers also go up stupid amounts in war economy.

>Except for TW, no one would lose more economically than the PRC if there is war.

Really depends on scale/scope of war. Taking out 95% leading edge TW semi effect on western tech hard to quantify in $$$ and capability terms, but it's not minor. Get JP/SKR involved, PRC's largest export competitor (electronics/cars etc) / regional influencer (JP FDI), and all of a sudden 1trillion+ per year in regional spoils open up. Open up mainland strikes = openning CONUS for retaliation, and PRC pursuing conventional global strike. And US by virtue of being reigning hegemon with most, also has most to lose. A lot of US hegemonic structures depend on CONUS serenity, which ended/ending with advanced rocketry. Think of what happens when US/PRC start trading energy infra, data warehouses, aviation plants, who has more global footprint to lose. Who has more people/excess capacity to reconstitute faster? Who really has most to lose, and what can be gained. Even phyric victory has a relative victor, and not all wounds heal the same. I think that's what missing from strategic thinking about TW scenarios involving US+co. For PRC, TW is most emotionally/politically important piece of US containment architecture. But JP/SKR/PH more strategically important. As long as US contains with forward posture, PRC will try to break containment. And I don't think US leaving without a fight.

It's not that Japan and South Korea going nuclear erodes US control, it's just that all proliferation is inherently destabilizing. Believe it or not, the US is not "in it for the imperialism" like, say, Russia is in Africa.

Personally I think that it's pretty much unavoidable for both. The only tricky part is not tipping the North Koreans over the edge. It's not as destabilizing as proliferation in other regions would be just because there isn't a long list of other countries that might domino afterwards.

As for the Chinese trade-to-GDP ratio, it doesn't really capture how the economy is structured, particularly how far it leans into its comparative advantage. Many EU economies have higher ratios but are not imbalanced in this fashion. Italy buys French wine and France buys Italian wine. But if the world stops driving cars tomorrow, Germany (which is more like China in this respect) is going to hurt bad.

I would also caution you against thinking that there's such a thing as "spoils" anymore - certainly not post-WW2. Just look at how expensive the fields of Ukrainian rubble are turning out to be for Russia. Obviously Russia is looking at a bigger picture, or it would be regretting the war.

In today's world, denying GDP is easy, capturing it is very hard.

I didn't characterize US control as imperialist, I characterize it as hegemonic. Much of the post WW2 treatsies in region were specifically setup to enable US security presence to uphold military hegemony via forward basing and keeping basing partners denuclearized to make them dependant on US security commitments. Nuclear domino "afterwards" is also matter of time frames and geography. If JP/SKR nuclearizes, PRC will work towards south american nuclearization in US backyard when conditions enables it, including selling all the missile and launch hardware (see Saudi). That's what US has to worry about about loosening proliferation.

Export:GDP does capture sense of limits of damage. Having only 20% (PRC), vs 50% (Germany) matters. @20%, 10% of which is trade to west, PRC is simply not export dependant, it doesn't have same exposure profile, i.e. for all the talk of PRC auto excess capacity, ~10% of production went towards export, meanwhile DE is 60%+. The difference is between a mild sprain vs spine snapping.

I think post WW3, can be like post WW2, where huge consolidation of spoils under US control after every other industrial powers was crippled. Yes, capturing GDP in peacetime against incumbent is _HARD_, especially in strategic sectors with large moats (geopolitical not just technical). So hard that what ends up being easier might be to _destroy_ concentration of GDP. PRC hitting Boeing, F35 plants, mastercard / payment processors, seven sisters data centres, severing fiber optic cables... all the stuff where US has built up disproportionate control/share via various post war momentum mechanisms opens up huge global spoils for grab. It might not be PRC doing the grabbing, as PRC will be reconstituting as well, but but sometimes it's important to not just deny, but destroy, make net negative. A builder in a 100k house and a banker in a 200k house burn each others houses down, the banker loses more, while the builder has capacity to rebuild their house faster. Everyone in neighbourhood use to goto parties at bankers house, will they go to the builder's house parties after? Maybe if the builder recovers fast enough, maybe neighbours will do their own thing. Either banker likely to lose most. Which is not to suggest destroying GDP is an "easy" decision, but it is naturally "easy" escalation once the hard decision of going to war is made.

> An EU-style arrangement seems ideal in the medium term. It lets Taiwan have a positive long-term influence on Chinese politics, while preventing HK-style crackdowns in the other direction.

That's a total nonstarter though. The CCP is not going to subordinate itself and cede power to some EU-like supranational authority that it doesn't utterly dominate, and it has also demonstrated how much its own guarantees are worth (with the HK crackdown).

Obviously China would utterly dominate the super-national authority due to proportional representation. The point is to move towards unification while Taiwan remains a sovereign country in the interim. Taiwan becomes more of a part of China over time, while hopefully China's politics become more like Taiwan's.

> ...while hopefully China's politics become more like Taiwan's.

That's an utter fantasy, especially by the mechanism you propose.

To be absolutely blunt: your proposal strikes me as the kind of thing a no-nothing outsider would propose, someone who has no skin in the game and would suffer none of the consequences, and whose ignorance makes a solution seem easy.

I mean, FFS, (assuming your an American) would you propose a supra-national union between the US and China with "proportional representation" (meaning China dominates the US) and a mere hope that China's politics become "more like" democracy?

Uh, no. As I said up top, I didn't come up with the idea:

   In the 2000 presidential election, independent candidate James Soon
   proposed a European Union-style relation with mainland China (this
   was echoed by Hsu Hsin-liang in 2004) along with a non-aggression pact.
   In the 2004 presidential election, Lien Chan proposed a
   confederation-style relationship. [1]

It seems to me that maybe your dismissal of the CCP making concessions towards unification in general fits the notion of a "know-nothing outsider" much more than what I wrote. Both China and Taiwan have long held that there is only "One China" and that they eventually belong together.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_unification

We thought bringing more capitalism would open up the CCP to more progressive government and attitude towards their citizens. None of that happened, and it’s probably worse now than in the 70s when Nixon gave it a shot. It was a complete failure.

No it won't, China will eventually impose its policies on Taiwan. It is just a matter of time.

What China did to HK was blatantly breaking a treaty with the UK. Do you think for the minute Taiwan does this EU thing the same will not eventually happen ?

In the union-style arrangements, Taiwan retains its military and thus its negotiating power.

It's basically a big de-escalation from the crisis we have now and a major step towards their future together in "One China." Unlike HK, it's done gradually and at arm's length.

I do not understand Xi’s abandonment of Deng’s wise policies. The One China, Two Systems approach was working and had it gone well may have induced Taiwan to similarly integrate with the PRC. Now, I doubt that will ever happen.

Can't say I understand it either, but I'm not Chinese and I think there are some cultural differences here. Politically, I think there's a tendency to overestimate and overreact (e.g. Tiananmen Square) and a tendency to get irritated easily. Again, fertile ground for diplomacy.

Communism is a hellavea ideological drug.

Xi seems your standard dictator who wants to control everything - HK, Taiwan, south china sea, overseas critics and so on. It's a shame we don't still have Deng.

There are different shades of net negative from Being HK, who are now happily partying in Shenzhen, or being Gaza.

Right, CCP will never let democracy flourish “inside its borders” it’s much too dangerous to them, even in a territory, or even a large metro area. Liberty is in diametric contrast to them controlling every aspect of their citizens’ lives

Taiwan is a legit democracy. Elections. Rule of law. Freedom.

PRC is not.

I suppose Taiwan could be a “special administrative region.” But that doesn’t offer many guarantees, does it?

What's the endgame with China?

No one wants Global Thermonuclear War.

A renewed Cold War is only possible if China is in Russia's camp. This is not really in China's interest any more than it is in ours. It's only in Russia's interest.

The only good endgame is "China becomes a normal nation."

This was the premise for granting it MNF trading status in the 90s. It included the notion that democracy would rub off automagically, which was obviously wishful thinking. To be fair, democracy's track record hasn't been all that hot in recent years, in no small part because of Russia's worldwide meddling push.

Recently, we've basically given up on pushing for the only good possible endgame outcome. We've largely succumbed to Russia's instigation.

It's very unlikely that the CCP will turn democratic overnight. The path there is one of incremental changes. Instead of demanding free and fair elections, freedom of dissent and freedom of the press from day one, we should get back in the nudging game.

Coincidentally, no one would be in a better position to nudge China along than Taiwan inside of an EU-style framework.

Short of a coup or rebellion, China isn’t turning “democratic” in the next hundred years. 50 years of favored trading status with various countries has done nothing but cause CCP to dig in harder and it’s a bigger dictatorship than even Mao imagined.

I'm not sure where you're getting your 100-year crystal ball. Instead of hating on them (which coincidentally is exactly what Putin wants us to do,) why don't we try to break the problem down?

The biggest difference between the Chinese system and ours is not the selection of leaders, which is a lot more "democratic" there than in many of our allies like Saudi Arabia. It's tolerance for dissent.

The trick is that the CCP (which at this point is about as communist as Quaker Oats is Quaker) don't have to shed their power base to do it. They just have to have more than one, without horribly repressing the others.

In practice, countries can end up having a dominant party while being actually democratic, like Mexico and South Africa did for a long time (or Oklahoma and California for that matter.) Often, the dominant party meddles with the media and stacks the deck in their favor. The rest of the world grumbles but keeps playing along.

I think ruling elites find it hard to even entertain the notion of dismantling a conformist monoculture. It is a mixed bag from their perspective, and they're technically not wrong: they'll have to deal with e.g. populist morons, foreign-backed candidates, and political disruption. But it's for the best for their country and the planet.

A coup or rebellion isn't needed. It's much more likely to play out as a set of reforms pushed by "visionary leaders," like Perestroika in the mid-80s. This is what we should be pushing for, in front of and behind the scenes.

There are no legitimate democracies. There is the west, those who align with it, and the rest of the world who dont, and the rest of the world who are against the west.

Taiwan is with the west. China is the rest. That’s your guarantee

> The key to peace is the general understanding that the two countries will be reunited at some unspecified future point.

One side surrendering usually is a key to peace.

But realistically, can you imagine the CCP submitting to the will of Taiwanese voters?

IMO, Taiwan has proven that democracy can eventually work in China too. The question is: how do they get there? And more importantly: why are we antagonizing and warmongering instead of taking actions that further that goal?

It’s China who is bullying Taiwan. Taiwan could never have dealings with China ever again and be fine.

I know nothing of the history, but I always imagined part of this was wanting control over the chip factories.

If I were China, I'd be infuriated watching all the best tech get made just offshore and having it all under pretty much western control.

My guess is that the fabs would turn to rubble pretty quickly in a conflict (and we might not even find out who did it.)

That could also be a positive outcome for China.

I'm not sure fighting a ground war would make much sense for Taiwan. If they can stop a Chinese invasion it would be by taking out approaching ships and aircraft with missiles. If China can land troops they'd probably be better off surrendering and being another Hong Kong.

This seems like the kind of article that US intelligence agencies would seed in the media.

Prep the voters for mass support of Taiwan from the US.

Dont leave us hanging. Give us the details why you think so. I haven’t read the article yet.

"In a 17-minute trailer released last week, the public responds"

It begs the question why it was written.

What's new? Not much and that's apparent based on regurgitating information we already know.

According to the author, it's a trailer for a drama being released next year.

Just to clear some facts:

- China (Popular Republic of) have NO NEED to invade Taiwan (or Republic of China, that's what they call themselves) because an aero-maritime blockade would suffice to starve Taiwan to death;

- they do not do so simply because they want Taiwan semiconductor industry, witch is still ahead of their own domestic one, otherwise Taiwan is damn easy to erase;

- being a small HYPER-dense island Taiwan can't be ready for a war at all, there is no measure they can act to stop an invasion, they can only deter it stating "if someone invade we blown up our factories, the sole reason for anyone to invade, because or we rule ourselves or we die".

I'm not sure in this last case how many people will comply anyway, since while they hate each others they do call themselves Chinese on both sides and they are not democracy on both sides. For some from Taiwan living in Shenzen makes no difference in quality of life, OR it's even better in Shenzen than in Taipei.

China would have problems with an aero-maritime blockade if the US opposed it.

As the USA would have problems confronting China: https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html or a journalistic summary of the same report https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/07/us-might-lose-war...

Consider a thing: last real war between modern powers was the Korean wars, those with experience there are not on duty anymore. Modern war in the west thereafter was only against far inferior enemies and most of them was lost anyway. Meanwhile PRC have reasons from their citizens perspective to attack Taiwan, USA citizens to not feel much about Taiwan since most do not understand it's semiconductor superpower, so on one side you get motivated soldiers, on the other not so much.

State that China internally it's a dire state LIKE USA, so both do not want a war, but while China do not want it for real USA need it to keep the dollar as a global reserve or they'll face a civil war due to rising inequalities and poverty, something that's essentially started in the UK even if formally they state they are only some fascist rioting for a recent stabbing, I've no doubt those who push/start the riots are fascist, but I pretty sure most participants are just impoverished people also made angry by recent conscription attempt. USA are in a far less bad situation, but not so far https://asiatimes.com/2024/07/one-inch-from-a-potential-civi...

Beside that we in the west feel no reason nor desire for a war, knowing it's something needed by the ruling class against the people, most do not even know/believe resources are scarce enough to demand a war to grab them in quantity to keep our living conditions at the expense of someone else. While in many other countries people feel the need for a war for themselves, so no matter much their armaments, tech level, and so on, they are mostly young, motivated and desperate enough.

Taiwan has enough cruise missles to blow any shipping blockade to smithereens in such a scenario and sink most of the Chinese navy’s large ships.

Reading between the lines it seems to me that Taiwanese political leadership may have forgotten to ask themselves this rather simple question;

What, exactly, would the average taiwanese benefit from risking their lives in behest of the political leadership?

You don't get second chances in life. You don't get a new body after you've been mangled. Or starved to death, as would be the likely scenario in a armed confrontation between China and Taiwan. Politicians would be fine as usual in their ivory towers.

Seems a few China shills here, I will bite.

> What, exactly, would the average taiwanese benefit from risking their lives in behest of the political leadership?

So here is an answer: Knowing what is really happening in the rest of the world by reading news articles from many Countries. They will not have to worry about a Social Score System. In Taiwan one can criticize the Gov and people. People in Taiwan will not have to worry about what the say. I am sure there are many more things.

Social score:

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

Well, I guess I will never get a Visa to visit China due to this post since I heard they can deny a visa based upon your social media posts.

They are an imperial shill.

[flagged]

> The war in Ukraine is over.

What do you mean by that

To be fair “defending two sovereign states from invasion” isn’t really war mongering. No comments on Lebanon tho… fingers crossed the bluster dies out before more innocents are killed. Not looking good.

Morally right or not, even the US and allies have a limit to how many military resources exist and at what rate they can produce more. Fighting on three fronts at the same time, especially when one of them involves a country that supplies much of your industrial capacity, just isn't viable.

You underestimate the US military industrial complex.

Today it’s less an industrial complex and more a graft and lobbying complex.

Look at the amount of equipment US has lost in Vietnam - 10,000 aircraft, including strategic bombers! incomparably more ammunition. Those losses were considered sustainable!

Now it can’t produce enough dumb artillery shells!

US military doctrine doesn't _use_ dumb artillery shells, because it assumes total air superiority.

That’s a questionable assumption, but fine - look at production capacity of air to ground missiles, or whatever it is that you think is relevant.

You will find that US can only produce a fraction of what it could in 1970’s.

No further production is necessary. Simply loan out a few fully stocked Ohio-class subs and watch how quickly the bullies back off.

This is true, but there's an objectively worse middle ground (that we're in now) where the US deterrent lacks credibility so random semi-functional states are starting shit and the US drains capacity by half-heartedly responding to them (aka Houthis, Russia, Hamas, etc).

If there was a firm belief "The US will respond in force to aggression" it would prevent the attempts, and the US would stop wasting ordinance responding in a halfassed way.

Alternately, the US could just do nothing outside of the 1-2 regions it cares about (ie, the pacific). But the current status isn't great.

Depleted stores from fighting in Ukraine plus a hot war in the Middle East probably would make the defense of Taiwan impossible. If I'm Taiwan, I really don't want things in the Middle East to get out of control.

The weapons need for Ukraine and Taiwan are mostly different. For the US, Ukraine is mostly ground combat and strike. Taiwan would be all naval and warplanes. There are a few overlaps, like anti-tank missiles and Patriot missiles.

The money is different with Taiwan being able to buy or build weapons. Taiwan does need to increase their defense spending. They should license build weapons, and then sell the excess to Ukraine.

We were never at war with Eurasia. We’ve always been at war with east asia.

We were always at war with those who dont align with us. Russia. China. Middle east nationalism.

you forgot to add Latin America, Africa, South East Asia. Basically 90% of the world.

One of the geographical trick question is "Which country has the US NOT bombed?" and not many people can answer this.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I suppose I should add that this is not a response to your political views, whatever they may be. It's a response to your account's pattern of posting low-quality and flamebait comments, especially on divisive topics. We don't need you to change your views but we do need you to stop posting like that.

The whole post is low quality simping for war in one more geography pushed by the thin veneer of drum beats of the US military media.

It's the same "Iraq has wmd" Bs all over again pushed by these trash rags.

Of course it will be "low quality and flamebait" for y'all

You may be right about the article but I was talking about your HN comments.

Pushing for diplomacy and peace for better economy is heresy now as it always was. It's your forum so I will stop commenting. Peace out

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