Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

W20 said:

Well, I'm beginning to see a little light in this mess.

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The "Taiwanese Gambit" means sacrificing a pawn, Taiwan, to damage China, watch from a distance as the Chinese kill each other, and further consolidate the club of European vassals.

But I think the devilish Gambit has a solution: Blockade Taiwan.

Washington wants to see the Chinese kill each other. The solution is to invite the Americans to the party and let them kick off the party if they want to.

What do you think ?

Click to expand...

Taiwan is no pawn, when Beijing sets up bases there, they'll overlook Japan and the Philippines directly, the result being that Japan will come under the same degree of encirclement which South Korea is already in, and US navy will be under threat pretty much in the whole west Pacific.

As I wrote above I think there's only 2 choices for America and both are about equally likely since neither is especially appealing.

1. Don't join the civil war officially, which means ROC will be crushed in weeks but there will be some period of fallout for China and US largely maintains its control over the states they already control.

2. Begin a special military operation and join the civil war on the side of ROC. In other words, passing the current act being discussed. If they lose, they'll lose everything except a handful of complete dependents like UK, Canada and the Pacific islets. If they win, they'll gain Taiwan under US military occupation.

Honestly, regarding long term planning, it is the 1st option which is more appealing. Even if US wins its invasion, China will scorched earth Taiwan province before leaving. The mainland has never depended on Taiwan for anything, so even if US occupies it, the trajectory of the mainland will not fundamentally change. And an all out attack on Mainland China is impossible due to nukes, so even if Taiwan can become US' most powerful military base, so what? Such a base is only useful if there's an actual enemy to be fought.

When Taiwan is occupied, it will be burnt down to cinders to prevent the invader from looting Chinese land. Meanwhile, the Mainland has already begun its path towards leading semiconductor development, and with Taipei knocked out by force, it'll be the leader even if the island is occupied.

So even a succesful invasion doesn't really solve the fundamental problems facing USA. That's not even considering how much losses they will take attacking one of the most if not the most well defended areas in the world.

However, USA doesn't often view things in long term, usually they prefer going for a short term victory, and the idea of taking over Taiwan is appealing to the US govt.

W20 said:

Well, I'm beginning to see a little light in this mess.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The "Taiwanese Gambit" means sacrificing a pawn, Taiwan, to damage China, watch from a distance as the Chinese kill each other, and further consolidate the club of European vassals.

But I think the devilish Gambit has a solution: Blockade Taiwan.

Washington wants to see the Chinese kill each other. The solution is to invite the Americans to the party and let them kick off the party if they want to.

What do you think ?

Click to expand...

@W20 yup and create an economic situation for a Colored revolution happening in Taipei from now until 2024.

Biscuits said:

Taiwan is no pawn, when Beijing sets up bases there, they'll overlook Japan and the Philippines directly, the result being that Japan will come under the same degree of encirclement which South Korea is already in, and US navy will be under threat pretty much in the whole west Pacific.

As I wrote above I think there's only 2 choices for America and both are about equally likely since neither is especially appealing.

1. Don't join the civil war officially, which means ROC will be crushed in weeks but there will be some period of fallout for China and US largely maintains its control over the states they already control.

2. Begin a special military operation and join the civil war on the side of ROC. In other words, passing the current act being discussed. If they lose, they'll lose everything except a handful of complete dependents like UK, Canada and the Pacific islets. If they win, they'll gain Taiwan under US military occupation.

Honestly, regarding long term planning, it is the 1st option which is more appealing. Even if US wins its invasion, China will scorched earth Taiwan province before leaving. The mainland has never depended on Taiwan for anything, so even if US occupies it, the trajectory of the mainland will not fundamentally change. And an all out attack on Mainland China is impossible due to nukes, so even if Taiwan can become US' most powerful military base, so what? Such a base is only useful if there's an actual enemy to be fought.

When Taiwan is occupied, it will be burnt down to cinders to prevent the invader from looting Chinese land. Meanwhile, the Mainland has already begun its path towards leading semiconductor development, and with Taipei knocked out by force, it'll be the leader even if the island is occupied.

So even a succesful invasion doesn't really solve the fundamental problems facing USA. That's not even considering how much losses they will take attacking one of the most if not the most well defended areas in the world.

However, USA doesn't often view things in long term, usually they prefer going for a short term victory, and the idea of taking over Taiwan is appealing to the US govt.

Click to expand...

@Biscuits I may not agree with your aggressive stance BUT we share the same conclusion, the US will gain nothing on this adventure, In fact with the aftermath of Pelosi visit the realization that the American is so overstretch had been crystallized in the region. My take the Chinese strategy is to create a situation for a Colored revolution by using this so called blockade as a reminder of an invasion threat and this exercise may last until 2024 presidential election.

When was the USA scheduled to sail warships down the Taiwan Straight?

Or were they vague about the timing so no one really knows?

All i have in mind is a phrase such as "in the coming days" or "in a few days".

Barefoot said:

When was the USA scheduled to sail warships down the Taiwan Straight?

Or were they vague about the timing so no one really knows?

All i have in mind is a phrase such as "in the coming days" or "in a few days".

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with military communication closed , I don't think they're willing to risk those Carriers...lol

Anyway I'm back, decided to set depth to 900m and rig for silent running shortly after Pelosi's plane landed because I thought in that highly emotional state I might say something online that I'll regret later. Having gone through the past 200 pages of this thread I can see some of the members here in this thread might have benefited from the same. That said though I've been keeping tab on Chinese social media and I say our members here generally have a much cooler head than say the folks on weibo, oh boy it's been a roller coaster on there for the last week. In the last few days I see increasingly Chinese people writing "I like to apologies for my behavior in the last few days, I let the nation and the party down with my defeatism" and things like that. So certainly CPC seems to have passed the test internally.

I don't think it's that big of a surprise for long time PLA watchers here that PLA could arrange for exercise of that size and at that speed. It certainly left an impression on the world though. Even on joints like LessCredibleDefence I saw someone doing the usual "China is a paper tiger and the exercises amount to nothing", and someone else random immediately replied "tell that to the armada currently blockading Taiwan".

On PR front while I agree that as it stands it's a big win for China, I also disagree that the whole thing was planned out this way by CPC and Xi. I don't believe all that initial "don't play with fire unless you want to get burnt" type talk coming out of Chinese media and MFA were mistake. They were very deliberate ploy to apply pressure, bluff if you prefer to get Pelosi to not make the trip. I think CPC judged that a similar tactics seems to have worked back in April when she possibly had her tactical positive, so just replay that move and it will work again in August. This was a major mistake and very nearly ended in disaster for China's soft power when the bluff didn't work.

To CPC's credit they had Plan B ready for when she did land and carried it out pretty much flawlessly. That said even in the case of Plan B, things went as well only partly because of what China did, the rest was own goal by Taiwanese and western media. Taiwan's ROCMND engaged in epic coping over the last few days with their:

• no, no missile overflew the main island, on wait Japanese MOD said they did? Well they don't count because they were above 100km Karman Line and so are technically in space and not in our airspace
• we will intercept any missiles that overfly our island, on wait actually PAC-3 interceptors cost three times as much as DF-15B and we need at least two interceptors to have chance of successful interception, so now we need to save up the missiles for the actual war and aren't going to do anything this time
• no, all PLAAF aircraft briefly cross the mid line and turned back. Oh there's a photo of Su-30MKK with Taiwan central mountain in the background? That's photoshop
• no, no PLAN vessel approached Taiwan close enough to take photos of the landmass, that one of Heping power plant is photoshop. Oh there's actually a video of it too, well that's fake news

With all that coping it's then very difficult to spin the exercise as nothingburger from a paper tiger.

Similarly with the western media, they could have just used their normal tactics and ignored the exercise and pretend nothing is happening - something that they've successfully employed for other things like the current construction of Tiangong space station. But instead we got talking heads going all "Shit we got rused! Xi masterminded the whole thing and lured Pelosi into a trap so that he could use it as excuse to change the status quo". One of the big attack used against little pinks and wumaos like me is we're 大棋党 and like to mentally masturbate that CPC is only showing weakness now as part of some elaborate plan to win the future. The media narrative in the west shut that right down and in fact made it seem like Xi indeed was playing 5D chess when in reality I don't think it was that complicated.

Nice that the own goals were, I think the lesson here for CPC is they should not have been in this position to start with. Had they not luck out it could have been a disaster. Going forward I hope they don't attempt bluffs like that again.

Biscuits said:

Taiwan is no pawn, when Beijing sets up bases there, they'll overlook Japan and the Philippines directly, the result being that Japan will come under the same degree of encirclement which South Korea is already in, and US navy will be under threat pretty much in the whole west Pacific.

As I wrote above I think there's only 2 choices for America and both are about equally likely since neither is especially appealing.

1. Don't join the civil war officially, which means ROC will be crushed in weeks but there will be some period of fallout for China and US largely maintains its control over the states they already control.

2. Begin a special military operation and join the civil war on the side of ROC. In other words, passing the current act being discussed. If they lose, they'll lose everything except a handful of complete dependents like UK, Canada and the Pacific islets. If they win, they'll gain Taiwan under US military occupation.

Honestly, regarding long term planning, it is the 1st option which is more appealing. Even if US wins its invasion, China will scorched earth Taiwan province before leaving. The mainland has never depended on Taiwan for anything, so even if US occupies it, the trajectory of the mainland will not fundamentally change. And an all out attack on Mainland China is impossible due to nukes, so even if Taiwan can become US' most powerful military base, so what? Such a base is only useful if there's an actual enemy to be fought.

When Taiwan is occupied, it will be burnt down to cinders to prevent the invader from looting Chinese land. Meanwhile, the Mainland has already begun its path towards leading semiconductor development, and with Taipei knocked out by force, it'll be the leader even if the island is occupied.

So even a succesful invasion doesn't really solve the fundamental problems facing USA. That's not even considering how much losses they will take attacking one of the most if not the most well defended areas in the world.

However, USA doesn't often view things in long term, usually they prefer going for a short term victory, and the idea of taking over Taiwan is appealing to the US govt.

Click to expand...

Agree totally on the value of Taiwan as a critical geostrategic linchpin not a pawn-as stated before by many others:TW's geo-position breaks the Island Chain encirclement of China,gives future PLAN immediate access to deep water of Pacific for SSBN's-SSN's& surface groups,interdicts threatens Japan(SK's) energy/shipping routes and oddly enough along with Hainan Island can form China's ""Great Sea Wall" that looks outward to defend not an island chain to garrote Chinese mainland.A full war where China's loses and TW is occupied against us like a giant Okinawa???-NO WAY-Armageddon first and Japan maybe SK will be incinerated firstly before being used as asupply- RR base while China/USA fight tooth&nail to the death?-I believe China is powerful and smart and determined enough it will never deteriorate to that level.I see it now as this defacto blockade is like a hand around TW-just hasn't closed it as a fist.Erasing of that hated TW Straits "meridian Line" is very satisfying- the West's propensity to always divide other peoples land and populace is hopefully coming to an end especially in East Asia.BTW historically Japan recognized the great geostrategic value of both Hainan and TW and seized them-they are even more valuable now.

efficient_kiwi said:

Personally, I do feel the current situation of heightened tensions all started with 反送中 in 2019. I don't know if you recall, but the DPP was basically on the ropes after the losses in '18, before being saved by the images of tear gas in the streets of HK. I still wonder if the CCP thinks it was worth it, simply handing over the election to Tsai. Some in Taiwan joke that Xi actually wanted Tsai to win given their actions, lol.

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Let's educate what you and probably many Taiwanese like you may not realize:

HK riots:
1) HK police used primarily tear gas and baton.
2) 0 fatal gunshots from police
3) 0 protester deaths from police brutality.
4) Multiple cases of attempted murder by HK rioters on HK policemen.
5) Multiple cases of attempted murder by HK rioters on opposition figures, and civilians who don't agree with them.
6) 1 confirmed murder case by a HK rioter.
7) Multiple acts of terrorism by rioters including explosives, and MTR derailment.
8) PLA HK garrison came out and cleaned the streets. They never engaged in any riot suppression activity.

HK police force did everything humanly possible to quell violent rioting without killing the rioters. Take points 4-6, many such rioters would have been shot dead by police in the US and other democracies. 1 year of rioting and no PLA forces turned up. But 1 week of the BLM rioting, and the National Guard shows up. You really don't know what kind of restraint China had shown to the HK rioters who were displaying xenophobic violent behaviors. In any other democracies, use of lethal force would have been justified.

So no, I do not accept your thinking about the apparent Chinese brutality during the HK riots. The brutality was one sided. The HK roaches who did everything possible in the context of HK to do harm and murder. If they had AR-15s and rifles supplied to them (which was attempted by the CIA), they would have become legitimate terrorists.

Xi didn't hand over Tsai the elections. It's the Taiwanese voters who were brainwashed by Western MSM and DPP media to vote Tsai back in. The DPP is using the ideas of 'Taiwanese identity' and defiance to the mainland to get her support. These things lead to fascism.

This is historically very dangerous. If the Taiwanese economy collapses because of DPP political stunts. Many Taiwanese will get poorer and very angry. Then when the DPP redirects that public anger again onto Mainland China again. This could transition into actual fascism. Fascism is an ugly thing. Once Taiwan crosses into that, it is almost impossible to stop AR from happening.

Yes, exactly, HK's case is really striking of the power of manipulating the perception of reality.

Sardaukar20 said:

Let's educate what you and probably many Taiwanese like you may not realize:

HK riots:
1) HK police used primarily tear gas and baton.
2) 0 fatal gunshots from police
3) 0 protester deaths from police brutality.
4) Multiple cases of attempted murder by HK rioters on HK policemen.
5) Multiple cases of attempted murder by HK rioters on opposition figures, and civilians who don't agree with them.
6) 1 confirmed murder case by a HK rioter.
7) Multiple acts of terrorism by rioters including explosives, and MTR derailment.
8) PLA HK garrison came out and cleaned the streets. They never engaged in any riot suppression activity.

HK police force did everything humanly possible to quell violent rioting without killing the rioters. Take points 4-6, many such rioters would have been shot dead by police in the US and other democracies. 1 year of rioting and no PLA forces turned up. But 1 week of the BLM rioting, and the National Guard shows up. You really don't know what kind of restraint China had shown to the HK rioters who were displaying xenophobic violent behaviors. In any other democracies, use of lethal force would have been justified.

So no, I do not accept your thinking about the apparent Chinese brutality during the HK riots. The brutality was one sided. The HK roaches who did everything possible in the context of HK to do harm and murder. If they had AR-15s and rifles supplied to them (which was attempted by the CIA), they would have become legitimate terrorists.

Xi didn't hand over Tsai the elections. It's the Taiwanese voters who were brainwashed by Western MSM and DPP media to vote Tsai back in. The DPP is using the ideas of 'Taiwanese identity' and defiance to the mainland to get her support. These things lead to fascism.

This is historically very dangerous. If the Taiwanese economy collapses because of DPP political stunts. Many Taiwanese will get poorer and very angry. Then when the DPP redirects that public anger again onto Mainland China again. This could transition into actual fascism. Fascism is an ugly thing. Once Taiwan crosses into that, it is almost impossible to stop AR from happening.

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Thank you-I've also read that many masked rioters were imported by Britain/USA from Europe-these violent hooligans were often the worst esp Ukrainian(hahaha-die assh*les die!!!)A total CIA/MI5-MI6 roadshow