Will China Invade Taiwan?

[CumbrianLefty]

Less likely than it was a week ago I agree, beyond that though its hard to say.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes. It's a matter of time. There is no chance for peaceful reunification, so it will be liberation instead. I agree that the Russo-Ukrainian war has, or at least it should, serve as a warning to China about invading Taiwan. But that means we need to build up the strength of the PLA further and make more meticulous and better plans and preparations, not give up the idea. Also this war has increased the chance that Taiwan, particularly under the current authorities, will declare independence, which means we will attack regardless of how ready the PLA is.

Doubt it, that is still a pretty obvious "red line".

[CumbrianLefty]

Maybe not immediately, but it would make military action by PRC much more likely in due course.

[CumbrianLefty]

Putin thought the Ukraine war would be effectively over by now, and (partly for that reason) didn't expect anything like the international response that actually occurred.

But apart from that, you are totally correct.

[CumbrianLefty]

As previously mentioned the PLA hasn't had a proper war since 1979 - but isn't it also true that one went less than brilliantly for them? Indeed, the China/Vietnam conflict certainly seems to have a few parallels to what we are seeing now.

[CumbrianLefty]

“Will” is a strong word.

There is also the question of timescale - there must be a decent chance they "will" at some point prior to the heat death of the universe. Maybe not in the lifetimes of many if not all of us, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

The view in mainland China that ultimately Taiwan "belongs" to them is widespread and by no means just confined to the upper echelons of the CCP.

(indeed, the general Russian view of Crimea is very comparable)

Vietnam, not really. And as already said there is history - both ancient and modern - to deter too.

[CumbrianLefty]

It probably has enough nukes to hurt China, yes. How big is its arsenal roughly?

[CumbrianLefty]

Even at its most expansionist Imperial China only touched the fringes of India, enough said.

[CumbrianLefty]

So if Xi is going down the Putin road, who is his Dugin?

[CumbrianLefty]

So if Xi is going down the Putin road, who is his Dugin?

There are a collection of public figures who espouse similar thoughts, but none of them seem to have formulated a similarly solid intellectual framework as Dugin.

Well that is one way of describing it, I suppose

Have you actually seen his utterly bat***t mental maps in Foundations of Geopolitics?

On topic, he claims a large slice of northern China for Mother Russia. Good luck with that one

[CumbrianLefty]

There are only two possibilities.

A. Xi has realized that he doesn't want to be Vladmir Putin and that despite China's size and growth, it's 1.4 billion strong population, military, and economy are no match for the combined economies, militaries, 2.5 billion + populations, and technological might of NATO, Japan, India, and the vast alliance-- the strongest the world has ever seen by far-- arrayed against it, and he has far less chance of defeating the U.S. than Imperial Japan in 1941 when Yamamoto rhetorically asked if Washington, DC could be taken. And that his country has bigger problems, such as a collapsing birth rate and family formation, which, in the long run, is a surer harbinger of decline than any other possible fact of the world.

B. He's a suicide bomber.

The crazy thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if it was B. His rhetoric about how China has to be self sufficient in food is scary. Like why would you be so obsessed with that if you were not planning for a future in which China is cut off from food imports, and why would that happen unless...

... my worry is no longer that China could somehow "win". It's the fear that hawks in Washington will actually get us into a hot war in which there are no winners and where there is extensive enough damage to the U.S. that civil liberties we take for granted and democracy itself domestically here might not survive the war.

There are rather a lot of "ifs" and "maybes" in the above doomsday scenario, aren't there?

When it gets to something that complex and convoluted, its probably not worth worrying about.

[CumbrianLefty]

Isn't it always?