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Comment by Antibabelic | Hacker News Reader

I feel like China invading Taiwan isn't happening in our lifetimes. Yes, they stand to benefit from it, but I doubt any of the people in charge of decision making are that interested in rocking the boat. There's nobody forcing their hand and the country is doing great without needing to invade anyone.

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"They stand to benefit from it" how!? The only thing they'll get is immediate geopolitical scorn which could very well escalate to mass military action considering how much TSMC now means for the world's economy. A single temporary shutdown of the fabs would mean a global economic apocalypse. They'd be inviting all powers of the world to attack them for no upside whatsoever, because it will all be over by the time they figure out how to leverage the fabs themselves.

> Yes, they stand to benefit from it

They would benefit in what way?

Because their government seems to benefit a lot from Taiwan existing and being an enemy.

That depends on a certain administration, and it isn't looking good, "if they can, we also can".

Let's hope China doesn't get a leader like Donald Trump in our lifetimes, then I think your prediction will apply. Despite the political tensions, China and Taiwan are so deeply integrated economically that an invasion would hurt not only Taiwan and the global economy, but also China (directly and indirectly). The EU and the US are making efforts to re-shore some semiconductor manufacturing, but TSMC and others will probably still keep a sizable amount of manufacturing in Taiwan, so I don't think this interconnectedness will change anytime soon...

It seems that their leaders are and have been planning to take over Taiwan for decades. At least according to most of what I’ve read on the topic from all the various sources.

If or when China’s economic and/or demographics issues become problematic is exactly when the CCP likely would want to strike. At least seems to me like it’d be a good time to foment national pride.

Of course hopefully I’m wrong and you’re right.

Many of these larger geopolitical things are decades in the making. Even Trump’s Venezuela action has been a long time brewing. So much so that “US troops in Venezuela” has become a trope in military sci-fi. The primary change with Trump is how he presents and/or justifies it, or rather doesn’t.

I mean who would have put 'US talks about invading Greenland' on the list of bullshit we have to deal with.

2027 is the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party and they have publicly disclosed they want Taiwan re-united by then.

They are 100% going to force the issue.

It will likely be a naval plus air blockade to force a political solution to avoid the messiness of an invasion, but time is on China's side there.

Is time on their side?

Long term: demographics are worsening for China relative to now or 5 years ago.

Short term: China doesn’t yet have viable homegrown replacements for ASML, TSMC, etc.

Really short term: China blockading Taiwan and suffering the economic fallout would be much more painful than US blockading Cuba/Venezuela/etc.

A decisive kinetic action or a very soft political action, rather than a blockade seems more viable in the current state.

There's some intersection point between long term decreasing in China's ability (demographic collapse) and long term increase in China's ability (their current build up of military hardware in air, land, and sea that is currently outpacing America's). Maybe somewhere in 10-20 years where their regional military power is much higher than America can project across the Atlantic but they still have a lot of military aged men.

Atlantic? IDK if China even has aspirations to play World Police like the US. Military protection of things like their interests and the stability of Belt and Road, sure, but I don’t see China trying something like the Gulf War or OEF.

It’s very possible that they will be able to dominate South China Sea and their zone of the Pacific, even now, given the proximity advantages and ship/missile production; and I think that would be satisfactory to them.

20 years from now, China’s sphere and America’s sphere are separate, with China having a lead in competing for Africa, and Europe in a very weird place socially, economically, demographically, and WRT Russia/US competition.

My point is that China can sustain a naval blockade of Taiwan nearly indefinitely, and at some point Taiwan will have to decide whether they want to live under siege forever (poor, cold, getting everything via scarce and expensive air freight), or give up come to a political solution.

I'm not like, rooting for this, I'm just trying to be realistic.

That's exactly what the USA has been doing to Cuba since 1959 and they're still (barely) hanging around. If we go by that example, it'll only end with with an actual invasion (which is what will happen to Cuba within one to two years).

It's not even slightly the same?

The US has an embargo that doesn't impact other countries that want to trade with Cuba. China is going to put an actual cordon around Taiwan.

Also, the US has no historical reason for claiming Cuba and has no real domestic pressure to do so (nobody in either party is asking for it). China has been very clear they see Taiwan as a part of China and will reunite with it not for economic or strategic reasons, but for nationalistic ones.

The leader of China literally publicly told his military to have “all options for reunification of Taiwan ready by 2027”

What options do you suppose the military might be working on? Training to surround, and blockade? (Check) Information warfare? (Check) Building high numbers of landing craft? (Check) Building high numbers of modular weapon systems that can rapidly increase the number of offensive ships? (Check) Building numerous high volume drone warfare ships and airborne launchers? (Check)

Keep in mind that there are public language cues that preceded invasion such as declarations of the invalidity of the other country’s sovereignty, declarations that the other country is already part of the invading country. Have you seen any signs of that?

Your persistent doubts require ignorance of strong evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_final_warning

Wow, I knew China were full of it but 900 final warnings?!

This retarded meme gets posted about PRC bluffing but context behind it illustrates the opposite. The warnings were against US/TW based U2s overflights, which PRC was both warning and doing - actively attempting to shoot down despite having inferior capabilities. The chefs kiss that this is an USSR meme is that PRC shot down more U2s using modified soviet hardware than USSR herself. Even more so when consider PRC issued actual final warning to USSR that ended up in border skirmishes. PRC's actual final warning is "don't say we didn't warn you" which historically predicts PRC kinetic action with high certainty. USSR, India border skirmishes. Korean war against UN. PRC also has directly supported North Vietnam against the French, and threatened UK when they hinted at granting HK independence under Thatcher. That's every NPT nuclear state over territorial / security issues less important than TW. It doesn't always lead to immediate action, but has consistently been prelude to it.

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