Miscellaneous News

plawolf said:

Because this is a game between China and America. What the people living in Taiwan wants and chose are frankly irrelevant and entirely ignorable at this point.

Even if a pro-reunification candidate wins with a 99% majority, the CIA will just assassinate him/her and stage a coup or similar other crisis to justify direct military intervention to stop peaceful reunification.

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Ma Ying-Jeou was closest to pro-unification candidate in decades. He is still alive.
They just did the stupid sunflower revolution on the FTA that was negotiated.
Very stupid because now all the major Taiwanese companies are losing ground to mainland companies.

Maybe it was inevitable, but there is an undeniable exodus of Taiwan scientists and engineers to the mainland, enough that the DPP government outlawed it. They talk about semiconductors, but really this is affecting all industries, even basic ones.

On the high side, there are an estimated 2 million Taiwanese working and living in mainland. That is almost 10% of the population, an insane number really.

Is Taiwan really more attractive than Mainland, Singapore, HK, or even South Korea for any kind of skilled worker? The only people Taiwan is attracting nowadays are white LBH, I guess they are okay for the crappy English teachers industry...

CIA is not an invincible force of influence. They have to face the economic reality.

FriedButter said:

The money was better spent improving the economy and R&D rather than expanding the nuclear arsenal. Especially before the CIA ring got dismantled.

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Both. Both are necessary.

While the need and importance to improve the economy and quality of life of Chinese citizens + intensifying R&D efforts in various fuelds are set in stone, having a mere 350 nukes is woefully insufficient against the warmongering hawks leeching on Capitol Hill that are bristling with (at least) 1500+ nukes aimed squarely at China right now.

At present, China's military capability is pretty sufficient to deter smaller nations from trying to provoke trouble against China, but only at that.

Therefore, in order to deter the US and NATO+ from provoking conflict/war with China as best as possible, a massively powerful conventional military + a formidable nuclear arsenal is necessary. It's like Yin and Yang complementing one another.

I'm not calling for a blind expansion of China's nuclear arsenal that mirrors the fever of the First Cold War, but having an equivalent cumulative (readily and actively deployed) strategic arsenal scale (in megaton) to the US has become a necessity instead of a luxury by this point, I'm afraid.

Big statement from Singapore's Defence Minister on Australian military assets coming to Singapore.

As usual, China shouldn't expect any country to make it any kind of favour just because it says so. Overwhelming military superiority is the only way

Btw Singapore seems quite happy with AUKUS

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Both. Both are necessary.

While the need and importance to improve the economy and quality of life of Chinese citizens + intensifying R&D efforts in various fuelds are set in stone, having a mere 350 nukes is woefully insufficient against the warmongering hawks leeching on Capitol Hill that are bristling with (at least) 1500+ nukes aimed squarely at China right now.

At present, China's military capability is pretty sufficient to deter smaller nations from trying to provoke trouble against China, but only at that.

Therefore, in order to deter the US and NATO+ from provoking conflict/war with China as best as possible, a massively powerful conventional military + a formidable nuclear arsenal is necessary. It's like Yin and Yang complementing one another.

I'm not calling for a blind expansion of China's nuclear arsenal that mirrors the fever of the First Cold War, but having an equivalent cumulative (readily and actively deployed) strategic arsenal scale (in megaton) to the US has become a necessity instead of a luxury by this point, I'm afraid.

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I know but the issue is was it better pissing away 10s if not 100s of billions producing and maintaining thousands of nukes 30-40 years ago when China economy was irrelevant. Or was it better to invest in research, infrastructure, industrial, etc.

Do you think China would be in a better place if they spent 10s or 100s of billions in nuclear weapons or in the economy a couple decades ago. China producing more nuclear weapons likely began in earnest under the Trump era anyway and it takes time to ramp up production.

FriedButter said:

I know but the issue is was it better pissing away 10s if not 100s of billions producing and maintaining thousands of nukes 30-40 years ago when China economy was irrelevant. Or was it better to invest in research, infrastructure, industrial, etc.

Do you think China would be in a better place if they spent 10s or 100s of billions in nuclear weapons or in the economy a couple decades ago. China producing more nuclear weapons likely began in earnest under the Trump era anyway and it takes time to ramp up production.

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Yes, I'm talking about present and coming future.

MixedReality said:

If the DPP wins the next election, MSS has failed in its job. When intelligence agencies fail to do its job, war becomes likely. If Russian intelligence agencies did their job in the last decade, the Ukraine war could have been avoided.

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After the DPP won the election, it undoubtedly increased the possibility of war. However, whether this possibility can reach the level of Ukraine, I have serious doubts.

Apart from Taiwan's war capabilities, mobilization capabilities, and self-sustaining capabilities that we have discussed tirelessly in various threads of the forum, another very important part is the will of the Taiwanese people to fight. Although it cannot be quantified, it is much weaker than Ukraine because:

1. Compared with Ukraine, Taiwan has a "strong" opposition party.

Although the KMT is known as the "century-old rotten party", it still won most of the seats in Taiwan's local administrative region through the mid-term elections in 2022. Taiwan's next local elections won't be held until 2026.



2. Taiwan and the mainland have very strong economic and trade ties.

Although there is no specific number of Taiwanese engaged in business activities in the mainland, there are as many as 123,781 (2022) investment projects by Taiwanese businessmen in the mainland. According to the cross-validation of various sources, the estimated number of Taiwanese in the mainland is between 1 million and 3 million (the total population of Taiwan is 23 million). Until the mainland cancels most of its trade agreements with Taiwan, such economic and trade ties will be difficult to break.

3. Taiwan has a high standard of living

There is an old Chinese saying, "It is easy to go from frugal to extravagant, but difficult to go from extravagant to frugal." Although water shortages, electricity shortages, and egg shortages have frequently occurred in Taiwan in recent years, the standard of living in Taiwan is much higher than that in Ukraine. The resistance to forced mobilization may exceed the imagination of Westerners.

4. Taiwanese character

Although Taiwanese media and Western media deliberately portray Taiwan as an ideologically dense society. However, the secularization and anti-political correctness of Taiwanese society are very strong. Most Taiwanese are pragmatic, refined egoists. In addition, during the DPP’s rule, most of the political people that relied on the manipulation of populism and ideology were reduced to “slaves of money and privileges.” Therefore, it is difficult to form a hotbed of populist ideology that was politically correct on a large scale six or seven years ago.

In addition, the initiative to start a war is not in the hands of Taiwan and the United States, at least on the surface. Therefore, I believe that even if the DPP comes to power will greatly increase the risk of war, this risk is still relatively controllable.

Petrolicious88 said:

That’s exactly the type of strong man tactics big countries use to dominate smaller countries. And exactly the way to push PH further towards the Americans.

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History disagrees. China seized Philippine islands under pro-US Aquino. It resulted in a Philippines that wanted an off-ramp and Duterte being friendly to China; China reciprocated. Now the Philippines has forgotten about China's power and repaid our softness by going back to pro-US Marcos. So we need to remind them again. It is exactly the pattern I outlined.

And this doesn't just pertain to this conflict. In all of history, countries bow to power; not to kindness or friendship. The bond formed by a charming approach is superficial and frail, never standing up to challenge or self-interest. The relationship formed by power and intimidation is as strong as the will to survive... because it literally triggers fear of death and destruction.

Strong man tactics are the only way to get things done, though they may often need to be veiled by diplomacy. Nonetheless, when they succeed, it is because you were strong enough and when they fail, it is because you were not.

Rules based order modern piracy.

NEW YORK - One person was killed and at least five others injured when a parking garage collapsed in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

It happened shortly after 4 p.m. at Ann Street near Nassau Street in the Financial District.

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It was a chaotic scene after the garage collapsed in the middle of the afternoon.

"Saw a lot of people, the crowd on the street, fire trucks, police," witness Coby Yushanayev said.

Authorities said there were six workers in the building at the time of the collapse, and they have all been accounted for. One was killed, four hospitalized in stable condition, and the other refused medical attention.

"There was a worker that was trapped on the upper floors. He was conscious and alert and moving around calling us. He just couldn't get down, and we were able to put firefighters up there in the building and take him out across the roof to another building and bring him down safely," FDNY Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito said.

The cause of this collapse will be determined by a forensic engineer, but initial findings show the weight from the number of vehicles parked on the roof deck, plus the age of the building, contributed to the collapse.

The roof caved into the third floor. Pressure on the facade and further instability led to a full-on pancake collapse.

"What we observed from the drone deployed, we observed that there are a four story building all the way pancaked, collapsed all the way to the cellar floor," Acting Department of Buildings Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik said.

Vilenchik added, "At this time, I should mention also that there are some active violation on the building, dated back to 2003. But in 2010, it was application filed, which not indicate that violation was corrected, but it was filed. There are some active permits on the building, one of them is related to electric work on the premises."

supersnoop said:

It's as Canadian as Feijoada!

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Yep anything that turn good in Canada is sold abroad...