Thoughts?
Is this imperialism by China, a country which is supposed to be left-wing? Leftists are normally anti-imperialism. Wouldn’t it be better to let Taiwan democratically decide whether they want to be part of China or not?
Thoughts?
Is this imperialism by China, a country which is supposed to be left-wing? Leftists are normally anti-imperialism. Wouldn’t it be better to let Taiwan democratically decide whether they want to be part of China or not?
Taiwan is too strategically important to the United States and Taiwan two difficult an invasion target for this to happen.
It’s just political posturing.
Is the US really a dependable ally?
They’re not a dependable ally but they need them. I would never depend on the United States being benevolent but I would depend on needing Taiwan to secure strategically important resources like semiconductors.
I think you would be right with any other government in America’s history, not sure if you are with the current regime.
In this case, yes. The fabs there are far too important to let them slip control. Now, if we could just build some fabs in Ukraine.
From what I’ve read, generally-speaking, the US expectation is that the US would win a conflict with China over Taiwan, but that the US would take serious naval losses in doing so.
I suppose that China could have a different view of the matter, though.
I think that a more-compelling argument is that if you, in fact, intend to invade Taiwan at any point in the remotely near future, you’re probably better off just invading it, not loudly announcing that you will do so at some unspecified point in the future and then sitting around while the potential invadee fortifies itself.
💯
I can see these announcements as placating domestic audiences and the military drills as discouraging the US from a potential intervention by signalling higher difficulty and losses.
West Taiwan sabre rattling.
Posturing plus demonstrating they can blockade Taiwan in case the US decides to send the cavalry stationed close by.
E: BTW the US and TSMC are continually working to diminish Taiwan’s stratrgic importance to the US by building fab capacity in the US.
The long game of Beijing politics is to just be nice to Taiwan while Americans grow increasingly unhinged.
Not sure how threatening forceful unification every few months comes under “being nice”.
Liberals will be in the middle of a bombing run on Venezuela and stop to complain about Chinese aggression
I don’t at all like, nor agree with the current USA administration rhetoric or potential plans towards Venezuela - but that doesn’t have any relevance whatsoever to Chinese aggression and antagonism towards Taiwan, nor the fact that the Taiwanese - from their perspective - have way more to fear from China than the USA.
Two things can be bad.
Yup. The trends of rising standard of living in China plus the stagnation and self-destruction of the US are both pointing to closer ties between Taiwan and China over the long term - over the coming decades. Even today the majority in Taiwan prefers status quo and not independence. There’s pro-idependence and pro-unification minorities. Besides, I don’t think the Chinese want to deal with a separatist population and all the instability that causes, which would imevitaby follow if they annex by force.
The majority in Taiwan have always preferred status quo. That’s what happens when you border a much larger neighbour that would see any overt move to officially declare independence (as in rebrand as Taiwan officially) as justification to invade.
That’s just the Taiwanese being self-aware to notice large power disparities and not wanting to rock the boat. Actual unification support with China polls about in the 10-15%. Lower than the “move to independence” bloc.
No disagreement. I just think that there’s a good chance for things to move in the unification direction because of these economic trends over the long haul. Might not happen that way. There’s probably also a good chance to stay status quo for decades. Independece is very unlikely I think because the potential countries to recognize Taiwan are critically dependent on China in various ways, and declining in economic power.