How does fighting Russia, getting a bloody nose (and losing anyway) put you in a stronger position against China? Intuitive, it makes so little sense.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
It plays to the egos and emotions of the intended audience of his penned essay: the increasingly unhinged and ideologically rigid leaders of the west. It's no different than the erroneous assumptions of Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country; all we need to do is remove Russia from S.W.I.F.T. and voilá!! Russian economy is poof, gone.
So Mr.Wu has learned well how to play and impress the westerners self-appointed guardian of the free world, and the so-called rules based international order. The article itself was not meant to be an exercise in actual intellectual and god forbid an honest appraisal of his own island's actual defense standing. The cultural, historical, and constitutional constraint put in placed preventing the wet dream of independence. The very name of the island he represents bears the very name he deplores and spits on the daily and that's China and being Chinese.
Pro-independence folks have always existed, and most realise how much danger they create if they push their agenda too much. What is worrying is when pro-independence activists speak, argue and act in ways that defy common sense and rationality. This Joseph Wu is letting ideology "interconnected fate of democracies" get in the way of basic strategic logic. If I were him (which I'll never be), it would make so much more sense to tell the Western readers to abandon Ukraine, go all in on Taiwan, rather than try to split Western resources on a lost cause called Ukraine.
That's only one part of the puzzle. The other one is domestic population and support for said independence. If Wanwanese see the West dropping support for Ukraine and abandoning it to Russia, obviously their support for independence will drop because they will fear that the same will happen to them (nevermind all the public declarations, actions speak louder than words after all).
So purely on resources, it makes sense to call for abandoning Ukraine to support Taiwan. But for morale and public support of independence, it makes sense to call for supporting Ukraine.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
If America bleeds out its war machine in Ukraine, it won’t be able to fight China over Taiwan, so instead of armed reunification, they get peaceful reunification. Profits.