Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

HeiTangSeng said:

So far the reflections of UK/RUS conflicts have focused on the military aspects. But economically, reunification around 2027 (just to use a widely rumored number) will be a net gain for greater China. In fact, if Gordon Gekko was pitching, it will be a whale of a deal for the investors and management. It's like using Taiwan's assets to finance the takeover!

In this respect, it has nothing in common with the current war.

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I would delay any forced reunification past 2027.

Economically, China can still grow a lot faster than the US+potential allies for decades yet.
As time goes on, China's military and overall technology keeps improving.
Plus the world becomes more and more entangled by trade with China.

So the status quo is fine

FriedButter said:

Why is everyone (or most) people focusing on the year around 2027? What’s important about that besides reaching 1 of the PLA modernization goal.

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I think the reason implied was that PLA will need that long to be completely prepared to face down all possible threats in a war over Taiwan. Just like the building and showing off of the "wind farms", everything is in the plan.

AndrewS said:

I would delay any forced reunification past 2027.

Economically, China can still grow a lot faster than the US+potential allies for decades yet.
As time goes on, China's military and overall technology keeps improving.
Plus the world becomes more and more entangled by trade with China.

So the status quo is fine

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To extend the Gordon Gekko analogy, "Under new management, the prospects of Greater China will be even greater"! Besides, when you're so well-armed, nobody will even bother with a competing bid. So the takeover doesn't have to be hostile

Edit: I believe that Xi was chosen with this mission and his time is not unlimited

HeiTangSeng said:

To extend the Gordon Gekko analogy, "Under new management, the prospects of Greater China will be even greater"! Besides, when you're so well-armed, nobody will even bother with a competing bid. So the takeover doesn't have to be hostile

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It's not just the military (ie. the stick)

It's the carrot as well.

Think the sheer number of Chinese outbound tourists to Taiwan, trade and investment level between Taiwan/China, Chinese technology leadership, soft power in terms of music, movies, TV, media etc etc

It's the natural result of [high-income levels] x [the Chinese population]

So it is best to wait a few decades

AndrewS said:

I would delay any forced reunification past 2027.

Economically, China can still grow a lot faster than the US+potential allies for decades yet.
As time goes on, China's military and overall technology keeps improving.
Plus the world becomes more and more entangled by trade with China.

So the status quo is fine

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Agreed.

China has decades worth of economic growth remaining. Economic success is the KEY to Superpower Status, and China isn't some desperate declining power like Russia that is forced to resort to military conquest to reassert influence. China already diplomatically isolated Taiwan so the status quo is just fine and can bypass Taiwan entirely to project power to 2nd island chain and beyound. And if US bully wants to provoke China into adventurism to tank it's GDP growth, then China should be wise enough to recognize that. US is still temporarily dominant and might use Taiwan to bait/provoke China to slow it's development. US nightmare is actually if China grows grows grows unabated. Whether Taiwan is reunified in 2030, 2050, 2100, or 2150, it really doesn't matter. What is the urgency?

HeiTangSeng said:

To extend the Gordon Gekko analogy, "Under new management, the prospects of Greater China will be even greater"! Besides, when you're so well-armed, nobody will even bother with a competing bid. So the takeover doesn't have to be hostile

Edit: I believe that Xi was chosen with this mission and his time is not unlimited

Click to expand...

Why not grow your economy first so Chinese people have high-living standards and high per-capita income. What is the rush? US isn't stationing naval bases there. If it's just name recognition, then it's useless formality anyways. Some batshit insane Republicans in US wants to derail Chinese development by baiting/provoking because US is still powerful and time is inevitably on China's side if it ignores provocations and grows grows grows into Second Superpower status. The next few decades is the most important for Chinese nation, and we can't get baited/provoked by low-hanging fruits like name changes by a perpetual bully seeking to tank GDP growth. We Chinese are more wise than that and can see through US trap and bullshit.

I would recommend Ray Dalio's "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail"
It's basically an update and extension to Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" with a lot more analysis on finance.

And it comes to the conclusion that every empire/society/country follows a similar "arc" in terms of lifecycle (250 years +/- 150 years)

So it mainly focuses on the situation in the Western World from 1500AD onwards, with the Dutch Empire Arc, then the British Empire Arc and then the American Empire Arc.

But it also looks at the Chinese dynasties from 600AD onwards from the Tang->Song->Yuan->Ming->Qing->People's Republic.
And found a similar story in terms of Arcs.

The most interesting part was the conclusion that based on the indicators, the USA is in the decline phase, whilst China is still in the ascent phase.

So it's not just that China is growing and can grow much larger than the USA.
It's that the USA is suffering from imperial overstretch, has become a kleptocracy run by the rich, is spending beyond its means, etc etc

So it makes sense for China to wait. We can already see the US running persistently large trade deficits and also government budget deficits, which are unsustainable in the long run.

The US Net International Investment Position is is already at negative 69% of GDP, and based on current run rates, I reckon we're looking at negative 100% of GDP around 2026.

But outwardly, everything in the US will likely look ok (potentially for decades) until one day, there is a "crisis" which destroys confidence in the USD as a reserve currency

word going around the street (twitter) is Ukr MANPADS managed to shoot down several Rus Su-27 and Su-34 when they were on low altitude ground target runs dropping dumb bombs.

if true this is both hilarious and pathetic at the same time...

like @Bltizo said several pages ago, PLAAF needs massive POs on PGMs of all shapes and sizes ASAP. and please for the love of god ditch the awful rocket runs

Russian air force is performing very badly. Clearly their "we don't use targeting pods, unguided bombs and rockets are just fine tactic" is clearly biting them in the ass. Don't be be surprised if we beging seeing more targeting pods in PLAAF service in few years time... they are most definetly looking at this.

Edit, Ecaedus wrote similar message at the same time...lol.

ecaedus said:

like @Bltizo said several pages ago, PLAAF needs massive POs on PGMs of all shapes and sizes ASAP. and please for the love of god ditch the awful rocket runs

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He also wrote a good thread on that in Twitter

Phead128 said:

China has decades worth of economic growth remaining. Economic success is the KEY to Superpower Status, and China isn't some desperate declining power like Russia that is forced to resort to military conquest to reassert influence. China already diplomatically isolated Taiwan so the status quo is just fine and can bypass Taiwan entirely to project power to 2nd island chain and beyound. And if US bully wants to provoke China into adventurism to tank it's GDP growth, then China should be wise enough to recognize that. US is still temporarily dominant and might use Taiwan to bait/provoke China to slow it's development. US nightmare is actually if China grows grows grows unabated. Whether Taiwan is reunified in 2030, 2050, 2100, or 2150, it really doesn't matter. What is the urgency?

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The later the better, but you can't wait forever. Taiwan is already attempting to create a nationalist society and once there is no living memory of Taiwan being governed from Beijing international acceptance of the liberation will decrease. 2049 is a reasonable deadline. 20 years from now China should be powerful enough to deter any US or allied involvement. Plus the Taiwanese population of military age men is dropping fast.