Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

delta115 said:

To be fair, while the respond of PLA last night is pathetic.

The possible long term strategic gain trade by CPC humiliation is kinda interesting. The position of PLAN around Taiwan in respond exercise look like a blockade or prepare for invasion. If this can be pushed as norm then it will be major lost in long term for Taiwan.

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gadgetcool5 said:

In my view it's inevitable that Taiwan will be bound to China in the long run. The only question is how long it takes and how much pain, death, and suffering it will take. Just look at the map. You have a tiny island of 24 million (and dropping) not far off the coast of a massive country of 1.4 billion. And with Taiwan's present birth rates, it will have a population similar to that of Hong Kong within a couple of generations. And Taiwanese have the same race, same ethnic group, same language and much of the same culture and history as mainland China. So like I said it's only a matter of time.

Right now US hawks are trying to goad China into a war so they can tell their European and other Asian countries that they should join the anti-China alliance, that China is dangerous, that China is going mad with power and will soon attack everyone. Also it would be their excuse to ban Chinese exports and cripple China's economy as much as they can. Some US hawks even want to take the US to war against China so they can use nukes and relive their WWII fantasies. The PRC right now is correct not to take the bait. Time is on its side. Heck, I will go so far as to say even if Taiwan does get temporary independence, it will not change the end result. Look at how Germany controls the EU now through the euro even though it lost WWII. The larger country will always control the fate of smaller neighbors.

P.S. the US knows this which is why it just passed a $280 billion bill to try and take semiconductor production away from Taiwan. It knows Taiwan is Chinese in the end. They don't trust or like Taiwan in reality. They are just exploiting this Chinese vs. Chinese conflict for their own purposes, hoping it goes hot.

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Petrolicious88 said:

If one were to play devils advocate, then you could also argue for the opposite. In a few decades, Chinese demographics would have changed, and China will need to divert more resources towards social security and other domestic issues. There would be less appetite for adventurism. So the Taiwan issue could be now or never.

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Petrolicious88 said:

If one were to play devils advocate, then you could also argue for the opposite. In a few decades, Chinese demographics would have changed, and China will need to divert more resources towards social security and other domestic issues. There would be less appetite for adventurism. So the Taiwan issue could be now or never.

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Suetham said:

Taiwan will only declare independence when it fails to give China any easy excuse for military intervention against the island.
An example of this would be precisely if the PLA capitulates the small islands of Taiwan, this would be a great asset for Taipei and it would be the ideal moment to make the declaration of independence so dreamed of. Taiwan needs a very strong argument to declare independence and gain recognition in the international community, capturing the small islands would only give Taipei that advantage. This is just one example that an overreaction by China's political and military leadership can trigger something far beyond anyone's control.

So I don't believe in any attempt by the PLA to capture these small pieces of rock between mainland China and Taiwan, because that would mean that the PLA would have to be dragged into a conflict where it would have to react, here it would be a shame not to act and not because of an old witch from the USA that half of Americans hate her takes an unofficial tour of Taiwan.

People are too emotional here. How much crying. You need to calm down and analyze things seriously, there are people saying that Xi can be compared to a Yeltsin, this is pure bullshit. You are talking about the political leadership that really militarized the islands in the South China Sea, fought head-on a trade war with the US, kept a growing economy even in the midst of the Covid pandemic and the overreaction in blaming China for the serious world health crisis, maintained a diplomatic neutrality around Ukraine avoiding being sanctioned.

They may be talking about "China's final warning" or "paper tiger" or whatever else they come up with, I'm sure the Chinese political leadership doesn't give a damn about what the western media says about them and even less about citizens' comments common people other than the Chinese. Here they report that Pelosi in Taiwan would harm the 20th Congress and Xi's guaranteed election because it would be demoralized, I don't believe that, I see just the opposite, Xi faces several problems internally, Pelosi's visit was a gift to Xi, this diverts internal problems such as modest growth in the second quarter, city lockdowns due to Covid, real estate crisis, banking crisis and more. I believe just the opposite, this may have been a gift to Xi and in the indefinite extension of his term that will take place this fall, I do not expect any eventual breakthrough in Taiwan before the 20th Congress. China will advance to Taiwan under the US schedule, but on its own schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if nothing happens this year and next year as well.

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gadgetcool5 said:

Yes but no matter China's demographics issues, Taiwan's are worse. So time is on China's side here.

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9dashline said:

I buy natural sand on amazon for my Campbell Dwarf Hamster and it says its Made in China... ships to Dallas etc... seriously how much sand does one need to make IC chips compared to construction or even sandbags lol

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EdgeOfEcho said:

Finally got off work and I'll share a bit of my thoughts on this matter.

First, I'm glad things did not go kinetic, a war over Taiwan is not something anyone can afford right now.

Before I begin, I just want to say that I see a lot of folks here use schemas and heuristics that make sense in interpersonal relationships and project them on geopolitical strategies, and I do not believe that is a valid method of approaching the subject. Although personal decisions and geopolitical decisions are both about interests, a key distinction is that people actually value feelings and emotions as a part of their core interests, whereas nations have no feelings, memories, or experiences - only tangible benefits. Using principles of interpersonal interaction to analyze geopolitical events inevitably leads to incorrect predictions about how nations interact with each other because the two are fundamentally different. For example, you cannot change your memories on demand, what you remember/felt and took place cannot be changed, but nations can change the history they teach to their people and within 1 generation people will have completely different idea of what their history is and how the world works (think about how US - China and China - Russia relationships changed in the past 10 years - would similar changes occur to your interposal relationships?). Furthermore, people can be extremely capable at justifying things and turn bad decisions into okay decisions, whereas for nations, a war lost is a war lost - if you cannot do something, you cannot do something - there is no use of fooling yourself unless that helps to create political stability. Anyways....Let get back to Pelosi.

First, what is China's ultimate goal for Taiwan? My opinion is that Taiwan marks a key pillar in US force projection in West Pacific. China's goal for Taiwan is to use the reunification of Taiwan to push US influence away from East and South East Asia, and the bigger Western Pacific region, and establish dominance here. If that is the ultimate goal here, the Pelosi visit represents no fundamental changes to the status quo: China is not the dominant power in West Pacific before her visit, nor after her visit, shooting down her plane, intercepting her plane will not change this any bit. You can pull all political stunts all you want, but reality cares little about people's feelings - shooting down Pelosi's plane will not change the fundamental power dynamic within West Pacific - which is why it was never really an option. Even intercepting is kind of useless unless you truly intend to shoot it down if a certain threshold is breached. If China's focus is on projecting a powerful imagine to the world, then it is necessary to put up a show for Pelosi's visit. But if China's focus is on diminishing US influence in Western Pacific, I don't see how deterring Pelosi's visit fundamentally adds to that - to achieve this goal, China still need to develop its military and economical capabilities further.

Now some may argue that not responding forcefully this time run the risk of delegitimizing China's influence and power, which not only emboldens Western politicians to play the Taiwan card but also run the risk of damaging One Belt One Road and such. This argument may have merit but is too simple. Reputation may impact a person's career and life, but nations are much more complex - so this relationship does not apply identically. In psychological research, it is found that general attitudes do not predict specific behaviors - your general attitude towards the Apple brand does not predict your purchasing behavior for iPhone 11 - because attitudes and decisions are fundamentally different things, with the latter being much more complex and situational dependent than the former. Playing the Taiwan card, quitting Belt and Road initiative, building alliances/dissolving alliances with China are complex decisions made based on many practical factors, Pelosi's visit can influence the decision but it is far from a deciding factor (most US gun owners hate China but will gladly buy a Holosun red dot even though they know it's made in China, that's how complex decisions can be...)

If you look at PRC's history you'll see that China has always been conservative when it comes to war, even under Mao, who many considered as much more daunting and powerful. The decision to intervene in the Korean War was literally made weeks prior to PVA's crossing of Yalu - by then the US has bombed many Chinese cities/towns on the Korean border and is pushing towards Yalu closer by the day. The 1962 offensive against the Indians took place after many Indian incursions and aggression which killed many PLAs, and Mao waited for quite a long time until the Cuban Missile Crisis to initiate the operation. 1969 Zhen Bao Dao is a similar deal, the Soviet had displayed violent and aggressive behavior for months if not years prior to the skirmish killing and injuring many Chinese civilians and border troops. If you look into the fine prints of these wars and history, you will find that China has always been careful about starting wars, and would usually endure what most modern internet folks would consider as extremely humiliating taunts before acting. But you all know the outcomes these war has on our modern history, so it begs this question: did China get to where it is today by responding forcefully to each taunt by its adversaries and projecting a strong and powerful image? (Let's take the US for another example, if it did not get into Afghanistan for 9/11 and instead, focused on China, would China be where it is at today? For Americans here in the forum who wishes for the destruction of CPC, don't you wish your leaders would handled 9/11 a bit more cautiously and focused more on China then?)

So far I am not seeing any major reactions to PLA's newly planned exercises around Taiwan, which is quite a few more magnitude higher in terms of intensity compared to the ones in 1996 - which were the real deal before they got canceled by US intervention. Honestly I see this as an absolute win. If the Wests thinks the Pelosi visit is a huge victory over China, it absolutely is from many perspectives. But I think PLA also got what they want - the ability to become more openly hostile and confrontational over Taiwan without raising the stakes. I love that most people in the West and China thinks China is so humiliated right now and is not taking the exercises seriously. Imagine if this exercise was announced 4 weeks ago? Everyone would have lost their minds, now people are literally laughing at it. Appear weak when you are strong type of stuff no? If this becomes the new normal I'm absolutely okay with this.

China usually do not fall short on its promises, I think China will deliver on what it promised, but only with regards to its strategic goals. When you are the underdog you do not have the privilege to have both 面子 and 里子，I'm glad to see that the CPC and PLA higher up is rational and calculated as usual - a trait rarely seen in political leaders these days.

I'll end with 3 Chinese quotes - understanding Chinese war philosophy is key in understanding CPC and PLA's decisions, these folks are surprisingly traditional when it comes to this, it is a shame that most modern Chinese never fully appreciate such wisdom anymore
兵者 国之大事 死生之地 存亡之道 不可不察也
其疾如风，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不动如山，难知如阴，动如雷震
你打你的，我打我的

Again, please feel free to debate my on my random thoughts - always love a good discussion

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