The Chinese Government is speeding up their efforts to swallow Hong Kong and Macau into the Mainland.
Closing the media outlets, museums, websites that speak against them. And a few key people get abducted here and there to scare more people and force them to accept the Beijing Regime. But... The people from Hong Kong still demonstrates and tries to fight for their lost rights.
its sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese.
Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng Xiaoping is gone with Xi, basically a emperor for life. There is no hope for China to turn into a democratic country.
Taiwan is the last place for the progressive Chinese. After Chiang's family, Taiwan have progressed to be the most democratic and open minded country. It elected a first female president in Taiwan, allowed gay marriage...etc. While American left Taiwan to have a business relationship with China (CCP) for more than 40 years.
I fear Taiwan will soon be conquered by China, not by force but suppression and economic ties. After Taiwan is gone, there is no more place for any open minded and progressive Chinese.
Some think that if the US extended their protection to Taiwan, Beijing would not attempt to take Taiwan.
Let's just assume for a moment that the US will fight off attacks by China to take Taiwan. And that US successfully ward off an attack. What next? What is there to prevent China from trying again and again and again? Will the US be prepared to ward off attacks after attacks after attacks? This is unlikely to happen.
With this, lets again assume that China eventually successfully takes Taiwan. What next? They would have taken over an island with a large number of people who resents their rule. There will be a persistent resistance group as long as Beijing continues her ways and Beijing is aware of this and is trying to shape the education of the younger generations so that the resentment does not cross generations.
Even if all these were to take place and all hope seems to be lost. There is a glimmer of hope. A totalitarian state has one major fault. There is no effective feedback mechanism and to assume that this one man can make the right call, the right decision all the time is a stretch. At some point, be it internal infighting, or a policy misstep creating intense misery amongst the people, there will be discontent and if the history of China is any indication, the discontent can trigger uprisings and eventually a change of regime.
The only way the regime can be changed is from the inside.
> Some think that if the US extended their protection to Taiwan, Beijing would not attempt to take Taiwan.
> What next? What is there to prevent China from trying again and again and again?
> The only way the regime can be changed is from the inside.
Worth noting that the Chinese Army “may not be willing to fight” (‘pay the bill’ for the aggressive stance of the Foreign Ministry). [1]
If the Chinese Army did not score decisive victories early on, they may be the one to give up, pushing back pressure from the top, instead of trying again and again.
1) China won't attack Taiwan until it can be assured a swift victory.
2) China will reach that state within our lifetimes.
WWII was won, in part, by US manufacturing prowess. China has that advantage. It's military is currently behind in equipment, but if it chose to, it could build a blue water navy or whatever else it wants in record time. It also has the political ability to engage in major projects like these (see respective COVID19 responses).
I suspect Chinese military leadership is far more competent than US or EU. The cream of the crop in the West doesn't go into the military (see Afghanistan for an good example of how US armed forces are managed).
I also think we will see major disruptions in military from autonomous and semi-autonomous machines which will really reduce the US lead. DJI is headquartered in China, as are many of the other players here. If heave machines like carriers are obsoleted, the US advantage might turn into an expensive liability.
Carriers are already obsolete in a superpower war. Both sides possess weapons that can destroy them utterly from a great distance, and their location cannot be kept secret. Carriers won't last a day.
China's hypersonic missiles have shorter range than an F35 launched from a carrier with midair refuel drone.
The only issue is that we'd want our carriers closer in practice. Close to the action means faster response times. If we are willing to destroy Chinese satellites, then China's kill chain becomes much harder.
I'm not convinced that a drone or spyplane can reliably penetrate the defensive line of destroyers + cruisers + E2 Hawkeyes.
And satellites aren't even that reliable either, it may be possible to hide a carrier between satellite flyovers in practice.
A drone could not penetrate a defensive line of destroyers, cruisers, and E2 Hawkeyes.
However, a destroyer costs $870 million. I can build a drone for around $870 which has decent range, and sufficient firepower to do real damage if attacking with sufficient precision (e.g. placing a small explosive charge directly within a barrel).
That means I can launch a million drones for the cost of one destroyer. I'm pretty sure that a line of destroyers, cruisers, and E2 Hawkeyes wouldn't be able to destroy a fleet of a million drones. If they could, the cost of destroying each drone would likely be greater than the cost of the drone.
You can also launch 870 cruise missiles for the cost of one destroyer from a greater range with greater destruction.
Actually, this is wrong. That is the cost of the missiles, not the cost of the launch platform, nor the cost of the personnel, nor the cost of the logistics.
CRAM bullets cost cheaper than your drone, and those CRAMs are on each Destroyer. I think our cruisers have 2 CRAMs on them (but I forget exactly)
These CRAMs can aim-bot and destroy subsonic cruise missiles (500mph), and even supersonic cruise missiles (1000mph). That's why China has spent billions developing hypersonic missiles (2500+mph) to dodge our CRAMs and missile defenses.
How fast is your drone flying? Does it pull enough lateral Gs to dodge CRAM shots or avoid the Patriot defense missiles?
The "city-version" has shorter range, because we need the bullets to self-destroy themselves before they land on someone's property. So the Israeli "Iron Dome" is in fact, inferior, to the defense system on these Destroyers / Cruisers that surround the Carrier.
Tel Aviv's Iron Dome also has a much more difficult job: defending a population center rather than just a few ships. There will naturally be "holes" in the Iron Dome (just areas of the city that aren't as well defended).
In contrast: we can position our ships to maximize the chance of interception, and minimize the chance of our CRAM's failing.
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The worry about China's drones is their stealth spydrones which will try to triangulate the position of the carrier strike group. The drone then sends the coordinates to a hypersonic missile.
I'm not convinced that the stealth systems on those drones are sufficient to "hide" from radar, probably only good enough to prevent things like CRAM/Patriots from locking on. Without the ability to lock on, we don't have an ability to kill those drones from Destroyers / Cruisers.
That's where the Carrier comes in. The E2 Hawkeye has an aerial radar system and can get "eyes in the sky", making our targeting superior (maybe then our Patriots can hit). We can also launch fighters (F22 is probably sufficient) to close the distance and lock on / destroy the target... or even engage in a dogfight (radar-drones wouldn't have much dogfighting ability).
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How is China launching a million drones anyway? Their carriers aren't like ours. We have 4x catapults and 2x runways per carrier, I'm pretty sure China's carriers are only 1x runway. How many minutes does it take per launch?
If its an air battle you want, the 4x catapults + 2x runways the Supercarriers push will get more planes into the air than anything in the Chinese Navy... and we have something like 10 carriers fielded right now.
We're talking about Taiwan. China sets them up in the fields in a few of the rural communities near Xiamen. They simultaneously lift off from the fields. They fly at ~25mph. They take perhaps three hours to clear the water between Taiwan and China. There's a million of them. They're slow, but fairly agile.
Looking at the video, it looks like the C-RAM system is shooting perhaps dozens of rounds per second. Shooting down a million drones would take many hours of continuous shooting, assuming every bullet hit, which it wouldn't.
And a Patriot missile is $2-3 million.
I think the future of warfare is likely to be cheap, small, but smart and precision.
* A small drone flies into a gun barrel and explodes.
* A small drone flies into a jet air intake, and explodes, spraying material designed to damage the engine as it passes through
* A small drone deposits a chemical weapon in a ship's HVAC intake
* A small drone sprays corrosive paint on a camera, on a jet window, other surface we look through
* A small drone launches a single bullet to kill a mechanic
... and so on.
I think a lot of this goes like rock-paper-scissors, where a million $1000 drones overwhelms a $1 billion ship. On the other hand, a hundred thousand $10,000 drones could probably make quick work of a million $1000 drones. And so on.
As long as the ship is traveling 25mph away from a 25mph drone, its shooting them down with machine guns (and bullets are very, very cheap). A flock of drones flying at 25mph isn't a weapon, they're sitting ducks. Fully and completely ineffective at ever dealing damage to these warships.
Like, 25mph means that these drones are going to be within effective range of the machine guns for 10 minutes when the ship is standing still. And these AEGIS systems on these destroyers have 300km+ effective radar range.
Unless you have very expensive equipment on those drones: they'll be flying in blind and getting sniped. Either stealth (which prevents the CRAM from locking on), or superior radar (to see the ships before the ships see it), or a combination thereof.
And again: if they're not standing still: the ships can basically run around in circles and the drones would never catch up.
1) China doesn't need to destroy US ships; it merely needs to keep them distracted long enough to take control of Taiwan. If China moves quickly, the Taiwanese leadership are deported to Beijing, and there are boots on the ground, it's a done deal. Once that's done, it will be like Crimea. There's no way the US is getting drawn into a land war in Asia.
2) Ten minutes, at a dozen shots a minute, means a gun firing at 10 RPS can take out 6,000 drones. That's 0.6% of a flock.
3) You can't run circles around a flock of millions of drones, no matter how fast you go. A flock can cover a lot of space. The best you can do is run away, which would take US forces out-of-commission.
4) The Taiwan Straight is simply not that large. It's not hard for China to be aware of everything that happens there, even with a fleet of small, cheap AUVs. Heck, they could drop a few hundred thousand of these as well, if they wanted to.
5) It's equally not hard for China to communicate with a flock of drones. A directional spread spectrum link isn't easy to jam. At that range, even an optical link is practical, and not something where we have countermeasures.
6) A million drones can effectively blanket the whole Taiwan straight.
7) In terms of stealth, I'm not sure how technology will progress, but I'm pretty sure that building drones indistinguishable from birds on radar just wouldn't be that hard. I'm also pretty sure a flock of drones could be made to emulate other forms of craft, on radar.
8) I'm also pretty sure China wouldn't telegraph what they're doing. It's not like we can prepare countermeasures. I gave one example of a disruptive technology; there are dozens of others. To be honest, I have no idea how AEGIS would deal with a million targets, nor what having that many targets would do to its ability to track things like Chinese landing craft, unless the US were explicitly prepared for this particular threat.
Also, the C-RAM price-per-round is about $30. With a $1000 drone, things are cost-neutral if about 3% of rounds hit. At 10 kilometers, it would take rounds a little under 10 seconds to arrive. Even modestly chaotic trajectories would dodge most rounds.
Frankly: the discussion point of "suicide drones" is pretty ignorant.
25mph drones will not hold back a warship. They can't effectively close range at 10km out, let alone at 5km, 1km, or shorter. As I stated earlier: warships are literally faster than that.
The "meta" under discussion, by serious people (including Chinese investments / Chinese saber rattling) is the missile. 500mph cruise missiles, 1000mph supersonic missiles, and 3000mph hypersonic missiles.
If you're going to "suicide drone", you do it at 3000mph to impress people. You don't do it at 25mph. Even at 500mph and 1000mph, the methodology is so clearly ineffective that China has spent billions making 3000mph missiles instead.
The minute you start thinking about how these drones are going to take off, refuel, get their payloads (etc. etc.), is the minute you realize how impractical the whole proposal is. What kind of launch platform will these drones take off in? What's the effective range of a drone?
US Destroyers have tomahawk cruise missiles that can reliably hit targets 2000km away, and these missiles fly at 500mph+. How long does it take for your 25mph drone to cover the 2000km range that these Destroyers are at defending Taiwan?
By the time your drones get there, the Destroyers have already launched all their missiles and have gone home.
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How do you even find the warships in the first place? You keep saying "hundreds of drones", but drones flying at 10km high can only see 300km out.
Secondly: if you fly "like a bird" at say 1000meters, you can only see 100km out before the horizon blocks you. It'd be impossible to track down the warships firing from 2000km away.
At these ranges, the E2 Hawkeye of the Carrier will see your drones, and an appropriate response will be dispatched. Most likely, the warships will just avoid the drones. Hiding behind the horizon.
What kind of drone are you using to even try to tavel 2000km over water? I'm pretty sure that your typical $1000 drone simply don't have the range or speed to even get to the warships.
> There's no way the US is getting drawn into a land war in Asia.
Classic blunder or not, the US gets drawn into land wars in Asia fairly regularly (especially in the 21st century, where we’ve spent most of it involved in two at once.) 1950-1953 Korea, 1955-1973 Vietnam, 1991 Iraq, 2001-2021 Afghanistan, 2003-2011 Iraq II: Elecric Boogaloo, 2014-? Iraq III: Now with Syria, too.
I either agree or think your predictions make sense, but I think your premises that lead to them are a little bit suspect.
China doesn't have the same manufacturing prowess that the US did because of its location. In World War II, the US was essentially an untouchable supply chain with access to both oceans. It could fight Japan and supply Russia through the west if necessary, and it could fight Germany and supply England and Russia through the eat too.
In China's case, the main issue is that while the factories are certainly humming right along, they need to import food, oil, and other raw materials. Where do those come from? Certainly Russia, despite its blustering, isn't going to do too much to help China because that gives the U.S. an easy excuse to attack Russia in the east. Expect Russia to sit this one out and maybe screw around in a inconsequential way in Europe at best.
Will China then get resources from neighbors? Sure. Except now they have to transport all of these raw materials to the east coast of China where all the factories are. Lots of lead times here.
Meanwhile, the US can simply purchase the same materials from untouched supply chains in Europe and South America.
> it could build a blue water navy or whatever else it wants in record time.
I very much doubt this. And this has to happen years (decades?) before a war breaks out. China would have to build these ships in docks on the shore, which would be vulnerable to any number of U.S. bombing campaigns from strategic locations (Guam, Japan, carrier fleet, etc.). Not to say why wouldn't the U.S. also build hypersonic missiles?
> It also has the political ability to engage in major projects like these (see respective COVID19 responses).
Sure, that's always the general strength of the authoritarian regime. The ability to issue dictates. But that's also the great weakness, because you can go down a very wrong path and you won't know until its too late. Japan experienced this in World War II.
But the U.S. (and allies) would undoubtedly be united in a response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The center-left, center, and entire right wing of the US for sure would be. So I'm not sure I'd look at the U.S.'s COVID-19 response and generalize from that.
> I suspect Chinese military leadership is far more competent than US or EU. The cream of the crop in the West doesn't go into the military (see Afghanistan for an good example of how US armed forces are managed).
What do you base this on? If nothing else, the United States and European Union (NATO allies) have been engaging in actual joint operations all over the world for the past 20-some years.
And the U.S. fought a different kind of war in Afghanistan than it would the one it might have to fight against China in the Pacific. First, the U.S. occupied the country just fine for 20 years, and then got tired of it. The U.S. also operated with very strict rules of engagement. Like, shoot at US soldiers then throw your Ak-47 in the weeds and say it wasn't you and nobody could do anything since you didn't have your weapon on you. Iraq looks to be a better example but neither should be relied upon as a good case.
> I also think we will see major disruptions in military from autonomous and semi-autonomous machines which will really reduce the US lead. DJI is headquartered in China, as are many of the other players here.
Who cares about DJI?
> If heave machines like carriers are obsoleted, the US advantage might turn into an expensive liability.
Weren't you saying that China would build a blue-water navy in record time? What would they do with this obsolete navy?
But the U.S. doesn't need to keep its carrier groups within range of any Chinese action to cause lots of problems for China. A naval blockade, they can go sink ships in ports that are friendly to China but aren't in China, etc.
> The Chinese military also has more manpower.
True that quantity does have a quality all of its own, but it seems like a bottle neck to me. Are they going to load up boat after boat and sail soldiers to Taiwan? Seems like a pretty expensive offensive and will Chinese moral handle losing soldiers in boats going to attack Taiwan? Lots of uncertainties.
Anyway, my point here was just to provide some counterpoints to some of yours here. Frankly, this is all really stupid.
> Not to say why wouldn't the U.S. also build hypersonic missiles?
China isn't even building missile-defense cruisers (equivalent to the AEGIS system on US-ships). Our tomahawks (cheaper, subsonic cruise missiles) would obliterate them at much cheaper prices.
Why fly at 3000mph (hypersonic) when 500mph is already too fast for their defenses?
There's no reason to build hypersonic missiles until China (or Russia) demonstrates missile-defense capabilities. Even then: the methodology of "launch 20 missiles simultaneously to overwhelm their defense system" seems a lot cheaper than using developing or using hypersonic missiles.
Cheap subsonic cruise missiles are all you need unless your opponent can shoot them down. China needs Hypersonic because of AEGIS (ie: we've reliably demonstrated that we can shoot down missiles flying at 500mph). China hasn't done that, and doesn't seem to have any plans to obtain this technology yet.
"The center-left, center, and entire right wing of the US for sure would be."
I doubt that. I am an American and wouldn't support war with China over Taiwan. I don't know a single person who has ever said anything suggesting they think we should commit the country to war to protect Taiwan.
Coming off the failed Afghanistan war I expect war would be extremely unpopular. Especially with an enemy so much more capable than assorted Afghan militia.
I really don't want another war. At the same time, I don't want the world that would result from China taking Taiwan, either.
What's wrong with that world? 1) We didn't keep our promises. 2) Another 23 million people oppressed by force against their will. Even if it isn't our job to defend them, it still doesn't sit well to see it happen. 3) We can't get chips (much less important than the other two).
Where does that leave me? Not wanting war, but not wanting the alternative? There are a fair number of people with that perspective. If it comes to it, what will we decide? I don't know, even for myself.
War is tough and horrible. Any person can see that. There are many complex reasons why the larger Afghan army could not stand up to the Taliban, and while the situation is not comparable at all to the Chinese military, my point is that around the world, there are military units that aren't prepared or willing to fight the wars that their politicians wage.
I do wager that China's PLA would win a war that involves Taiwan, just due to sheer numbers and resources, but that the experience would be so bitter that the PLA would lose morale in various respects. This is partly because they don't actually have real war experience in the modern era.
Even armies with real war experience can get bitter. Armies without real war experience that suddenly get thrown into the fire, I'd wager that they would get even more bitter. PTSD and suicides would only be par for the course, the real issue would be inexperienced soldiers starting to question "what are we really doing and why am I killing people, do I really believe in what I'm doing?" I wager it would create cracks in what is currently a fairly unified country in China.
The local big player is Japan. It would be hard to intervene because of its current constitution but I don't see them letting PRC push its border so close. Moreover Okinawa was historically a vassal state of both Chinese empires and Japan, so it's possible China greed could extend there as well.
> Let's just assume for a moment that the US will fight off attacks by China to take Taiwan. And that US successfully ward off an attack. What next? What is there to prevent China from trying again and again and again? Will the US be prepared to ward off attacks after attacks after attacks? This is unlikely to happen.
America did this in Korea and it split the country in half.
> With this, lets again assume that China eventually successfully takes Taiwan. What next? They would have taken over an island with a large number of people who resents their rule. There will be a persistent resistance group as long as Beijing continues her ways and Beijing is aware of this and is trying to shape the education of the younger generations so that the resentment does not cross generations.
Also, brainwashing via complete control of the media, disappearing dissidents... They're doing it to the Falun Gong and the Muslims and others and they'll have no problem doing it to more.
> Even if all these were to take place and all hope seems to be lost. There is a glimmer of hope. A totalitarian state has one major fault. There is no effective feedback mechanism and to assume that this one man can make the right call, the right decision all the time is a stretch. At some point, be it internal infighting, or a policy misstep creating intense misery amongst the people, there will be discontent and if the history of China is any indication, the discontent can trigger uprisings and eventually a change of regime.
Also possible for there to be enough bureaucratic momentum that those within it have enough skin in the game to want to install a new head. But once China's growth starts to slow down I wouldn't be surprised at the CCP losing the Mandate of Heaven and the Ouroboros eating its tail again.
> America did this in Korea and it split the country in half.
That is not even close to what happened. Korea was divided at the end of WWII into Soviet and US occupation zones after the Japanese surrender. Prior to that, it had been occupied by Japan.
I agree that once the growth slows China will start to see cracks in its society. This, I submit, is the reason why Beijing is doubling down on the nationalist path. Cast the West as the enemy and China as the victim of oppression to drum up nationalist sentiments.
The social compact I believe that exists in China is that the people put up with the curbs either out of ignorance of the lacks of curbs or because of the promise of a better life which comes along with increased job wages as long as they toe the party line.
The moment the bargain is not held up for the increased wages, the compact starts to get eroded. Turmoil in China if it happens will have a widespread and largely unknown consequences. Unknown because too many pieces are intricately linked to the stable functioning of China.
For one, I hope to be able to witness this one day.
From a tactical point a view it looks a minor issue, except of course for the people of Taiwan. I cannot imagine what somebody in Taiwan, born and raised in a democracy, might be thinking when looking at what is happening in Hong Kong
From the Strategic point of view, you have to look at a map to see what that would mean. China would take over Taiwan, and immediately expand its sea island building around its borders. Cut off the Philippines and Japan across the South China Sea. From Taiwan a fighter jet can be over Japan in 10 min. Australia with its rich mineral resources and empty spaces would be next...
That the US, Australia, Japan together not make it clear to China invading Taiwan would mean a price not worth paying, will prove to be the Strategic blunder of this Century.
I don't know where this absurd idea came from that "China invading Taiwan" means "Australia/Japan would be next!".
As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan is a part of China. They wouldn't be invading another nations, they would simply be reclaiming sovereignty over a renegade province.
That is something entirely different from invading a Western ally. One thing has absolutely no bearing on the other.
Have a look at a map, and see the distance from Yonaguni ( Japan ) to Taiwan and the distance Yonaguni to mainland Japan. You think China will do what they are doing in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, South China Sea and suddenly...Come to their senses and stop, specially if unchallenged for previous actions?
Are you in the diplomatic corps? Are you certain that US, Australia, and Japan are not communicating to China? Not all diplomatic exchanges are made public. For example, it is clear that the US is currently talking with the Taliban leadership. What are they saying? We have no idea, but it is taking place. I suspect the same is true for the above.
There will be political unrest as soon as the populace realise that the easy victory they were promised is not materialising and in fact tens of thousands of sons -- only-children who represent the future, pride and prosperity of their parents -- will not be returning home.
> I fear Taiwan will soon be conquered by China, not by force but suppression and economic ties.
A majority in Taiwan (two-thirds) are against unification, and that's hardended further after what's happened in HongKong. This is especially so among young people, who mostly also identify as being exclusively Taiwanese. Support for unification mostly comes from KMT, who are older and identify as Taiwanese and Chinese. As that generation fades away, these ratios will tilt even further.
For most young Taiwanese, Mainland China has nothing to offer for them to want unification.
>It elected a first female president in Taiwan, allowed gay marriage...etc
It's a trap to equate "progressive" social change with democracy. It's perfectly possible to have a socially liberal society that's also very authoritarian. In fact the Western world is going in that direction.
The rule of law is a better example of an artifact of democracy.
Singapore does not significantly differ in its authoritarianism from the PRC. They are however much richer, much smaller, and decided to follow a "capitalist" model, so they get less hate in our political discourse.
That is the most ridiculous hyperbole I have ever heard.
Yes, Singapore does have strict limitations on freedom of speech, but at the same time have separation of powers, free elections and a national identity separate to the PAP.
Singapor only has "Free Elections™" where the opposition is strictly controlled and not allowed to win more than a token number of seats. See also: Nicaragua, Venezuala, etc...
> That is the most ridiculous hyperbole I have ever heard.
>Singapor only has "Free Elections™" where the opposition is strictly controlled and not allowed to win more than a token number of seats.
Through limitations on campaigning, gerrymandering and defamation suits. Not ideal, but no threats, no bullets, no bribing the electoral commission. A far cry from China where they crush entire populations with police brutality.
(In regards to my original comment, SG's elections are free in the sense that all citizens can vote without fear of backlash, but they are not fair because the PAP rig things in their favour)
You'll be startled to know that Sun Yat-sen was a favorite of USSR and Comintern, better than CCP and Mao. And Mao has been the propaganda department head of KMT...
Thinking of politics as some random personal preference, what a showing of naivate...
A question out of curiosity: would you prefer DDR to be crushed militarily as well, instead of just giving up the ghost in 1989?
As a fellow European, I can see that communists are somehow still considered better than the Nazis, and part of the difference might be that their gulags were never conquered by an external force and photos of their skeletal prisoners never made it to the media. They mostly dismantled them themselves once Stalin was dead and the regimes behind the Iron Curtain turned from outright murderous to just oppressive.
> would you prefer DDR to be crushed militarily as well, instead of just giving up the ghost in 1989?
Why are you assuming I wouldn't have prefered the Nazis to have "given up the ghost" as well? Are there any signs of the CCP "giving up the ghost" anytime soon? Given the choices that actually existed, I prefer, as the White Rose put it in one of their leaflets, an end with terror rather than terror without end. Human mortality is a given either way, the dignity that comes with agency and intellectual integrity is what the struggle is about. I don't ask for how long someone lived, but as who they lived.. or as Hannah Arendt put it:
> Once upon a time, there was a happy time when people were free to choose; better to die dead than to be a slave, better to die standing than to live on one's knees. Once upon a time there was a wicked time when imbecile intellectuals declared that life was the highest of goods. Today the terrible time has come, when it is proved every day that death begins its reign of terror exactly when life has become the highest good; that he who prefers to live on his knees dies on his knees; that no one is easier to murder than a slave. We the living have to learn that one cannot even live on one's knees, that one does not become immortal by chasing life, and that when one no longer wants to die for anything, one dies even though one has done nothing.
-- Hannah Arendt via DeepL
> As a fellow European, I can see that communists are somehow still considered better than the Nazis
That's still like saying something with a lethal dose of 50g is better food than something with a lethal dose of 5g. I don't see the point of even ranking them.
HK was sold to Britain as part of the corrupted and weak China's humiliation.
What do you want to say?
Are you trying to depict the image that HK has been forcefully claimed by China?
Please stop this type of propaganda behavior. I don't like CCP, but that does not make HK not part of China.
We Chinese eventually will get rid of CCP, but we don't want the great nation get split. Just like any patriot in US would not want this great nation get split.
Who cares what it was / wasn't part of. The majority of people in HK don't want to be part of China. That's all that matters.
> We Chinese eventually will get rid of CCP, but we don't want the great nation get split.
Dude, what? HK hasn't been part of China for years. What possible justification could you have for re-integrating it. This isn't about preventing a split, this is about undoing a split, and destroying a democracy in the process.
For someone who is anti-CCP, you don't seem to empathize with the people in HK who tasted democracy and have had it ripped away.
You can wipe it away like that, but it is the entire point of Chinese leadership since a long time, even opposing parties, that what once was China will be China again. So the 'who cares' is the vital point in why they are doing this; they care very much, not about the pieces of land or the people, but just the simple fact that they consider it China because it was taken from them (and they always said they will get it back) no matter who say they own it now (Taiwan is not uniformly recognised as a state). And I believe many (majority?) on the mainland agree with this, even if they don't agree with the CCP.
You now get why it is pointless to argue with the Chinese. And Hong Kong wasn't returned to China. It was Handed over. You can also tell most of their assumption about China were taught when they were young. It is always hard to break those assumptions.
Most part of Hong Kong doesn't belong to China for close to 150 years. And you can read why they want Taiwan with so called unification. Taiwan wasn't even part of so called China for most of human history.
They also claims to be Anti-CCP. But have done absolutely nothing against CCP. But because their love of China they must save China first ( helping CCP ) before they somehow get rid of CCP. Oh the irony.
Dude your comment is pure racism without self awareness. And a showing of ignorance beyond saving!
> You now get why it is pointless to argue with the Chinese
I suppose you say similar things in private, just swap Chinese with black, Mexican, Japanese etc.
It was OK to say this type of statement on “Chinese”, because, of cuz, even US president did this.
> And Hong Kong wasn't returned to China. It was Handed over.
Don't play the word on me...
The treaty was signed long time ago. And was the results of foticful invasion.
Returned or handed over, that's for Chinese, UK, and HK people to decide. You as a random (probably racism inclined as well) has no privilege to apply one word or another! And you are probably the least qualified as well, based on the amount of ignorance demonstrated in such a small number of words.
> You can also tell most of their assumption about China were taught when they were young.
WTF we Chinese told you things about China, and all those are what we were taught?!
First, is there anything wrong with that? You are boasting racism statements, which I assume was also taught in school? Is that OK?
And outside of class, we Chinese cannot learn the truth about China? For God's sake, CCP are not omnipotent entity who can control people's mind...
Or you are simply stating that Chinese are not capable of independent thinking, because we are just Chinese? (Of cuz, I am placing a racist trap for you, but likely that's what you are thinking right now...).
> It is always hard to break those assumptions.
Assumption?
I see things with my own eyes, and hear words with my own ears, and read books with my own mind.
You, someone, who randomly punce on Chinese topics, based on 300 years+ colonists education and indoctrination, and plagued by a racism bigot president, who should lead the nation on the positive and good, instead base his whole presidency on demonizing Chinese and China, are free from assumptions!?
You, are having a assumed righteous mindset, which couldn't be farther from the truth...
> Most part of Hong Kong doesn't belong to China for close to 150 years.
You failed to mentioned HK was abducted.
And UK applied brutal colonial ruling, and harsh indoctrination in all levels of the society.
Oh, of cuz, for someone who was decent from the people, who genocide the indigenous people, forgetting the source, omitting the root, is always the standard practice of demonizing the people with strong cultural roots...
> And you can read why they want Taiwan with so called unification.
What? Shed some light on the facts then.
> Taiwan wasn't even part of so called China for most of human history.
LMAO national states were not a thing for the most of human history, so what? Let's dissolve and ask UN to rule the world. I'll be very happy, if the head of the Mafia, would be willing to relinquish the supremacy...
> They also claims to be Anti-CCP.
Why? Why? Why do you relate to CCP? To paint a picture of hideous valin through association, right?
I am not surprised such ploy is well learned by the observers of the US mainstream media...
> But have done absolutely nothing against CCP.
When I was preaching the Chinese citizens rights and the need to stand strong against the bully and unfairness of the CCP officials, you would be calling me a CCP sponsored propagandist.
You are anti CCP, but only superficially in the name.
> But because their love of China they must save China first ( helping CCP ) before they somehow get rid of CCP.
What? Why save China needs to helping CCP? Are you suggesting that CCP is the only medium through which one can help improve China? I thought you are anti CCP, and want me to be one as well...
> Oh the irony.
Yep, your whole post is an irony. One that someone who does not have a clear mind, even muddier writing, delivered an outrageous irony of human ignorance...
> The majority of people in HK don't want to be part of China.
Where is your evidence?
I have friends live and working in HK. Certainly the silent majority doesn't care much. Like any normal people, they prefer better life and rewarding career, than being full time protester.
The 2016 US election already showed that the silent majority rarely aligned with the mainstream rhetoric.
> > The majority of people in HK don't want to be part of China.
The pro-democracy camp, who overwhemingly supported the anti-extradition (anti-CCP) protests in 2019, had a landslide victory during the District Council Election in 2019 [1].
CCP, realizing that fair elections could threaten its rule in Hong Kong, later imposed the National Security Law and arrested lots of opposition members [2].
And then many HKers voted with their feet, literally not being part of China, to show their distrust of the future of Hong Kong under CCP rule [3].
[1] is for local district election. It's ridiculous to say that these elected personels are pro democracy, as if pro democracy is conflicting with CCP. CCP sanctions the democracy state of HK. That's part of deal of the treaty. This is one thing.
Additional, these elected officials are for local executive branches. They actually have no say in how the fundamental political structure ought to do or what to do in the place.
In the typical NYT fashion, they link two groups of people together without formal evidences.
[2] And the national security law. As a common practice all over the world, the law does not change anything in how the HK political system working. I am not sure why any patriotic citizens in HK would find national security law impairs their activity to uphold the democracy in HK. I mean the law literally has nothing to say about how power structure should be. It only states that no one share impair China's sovereignty over HK.
Lastly, stop painting the HK protests as some grandiose ideology fight. It's just young people are not getting the opportunity for flourishing. It's no different than "occupying wall street" it was just that China happen to be the favorite punching bag of disfunctional government to offset their incompetence.
This "great" nation was built on the corpse of several smaller nations a d ethnic groups. Theire reservations are a Disneyland of death by funny dances and deserve to be protected?
This great nation was not built on the corpse of smaller nation.
Since the Zhou dynasty, which derived from tribal era, China was already a unified entity. The process of creating Zhou was certainly not involving any other nations.
Qin dynasty, China have already been a unified country, under unified laws, economic rules, and mixed culture. With a great deal of characteristics of modern nations.
Qin's unification process is standard warfare between feudal lords. Very much like what happened in the long history of Europe.
Once China was unified this way. The cycle of division and unification have never ceased.
Your statement is at best inaccurate. At worst just random imagination.
Well, no, China's unification was a cultural and ethnicity blanding. It was never a genocide.
First I already debunked the notion that China conquered small nations to form its heritage. No China got it's heritage long ago through tribal merger.
And the US history of founding is patently different, and vastly more brutal and immoral...
Wargames are designed to be lost. It's not as useful to say "welp we stomped all over them" as it is to push the forces being tested further and further until they break, then fixing or compensating where it broke and pushing even further. Wargames aren't constrained by reality, and the game's opposing force may be more powerful than in reality. Just hearing that the US lost a wargame doesn't mean anything without knowing more details. Think of a wargame as the military's version of a pentest.
> Wargames are designed to be lost. It's not as useful to say "welp we stomped all over them" as it is to push the forces being tested further and further until they break, then fixing or compensating where it broke and pushing even further.
Wasn't there a pretty famous case, in a wargame meant to simulate conflict with Iran, where the red team general actually played to win but the game leaders reset things with new constraints that played to US advantages?
There are also pretty significant intrinsic problems with a Taiwan strait conflict: it's literally in China's backyard and the PLA is modernizing so the US can no longer rely on having an overwhelming technological advantage. IIRC, Taiwan's military strategy also assumes that they'll have a technological over the PRC, so they haven't embraced asymmetric tactics as much as they should.
From my armchair, it seems to me that Taiwan needs to adopt something like the Israeli model, where pretty much their whole population is in the reserves and can be mobilized quickly for a conflict. The US needs to figure out a way to reinforce and resupply it, and disentangle its supply chains from China to make that workable.
However, I'm not hopeful with the kind of leadership we have now. It's thinking is too short term and it's unwilling to make any really costly commitments.
You're probably thinking of the 2002 Millennium Challenge. That was a wargame plus a training exercise, which complicates things. For example, there were real US Navy ships out in the Persian Gulf, but to avoid disrupting commercial traffic they were confined to a specific area. The OPFOR (opposing forces) commander knew the confines, so he didn't have to scout for BLUFOR (US forces), and BLUFOR couldn't maneuver to avoid him. For another example, BLUFOR was jamming and destroying all of OPFOR's communications, so OPFOR switched to motorcycle runners. Unfortunately the simulation software didn't exactly support motorcycle runners, so they moved just as fast as radio communications but were invulnerable to BLUFOR strikes.
BLUFOR kept getting revived because it was also a training exercise in addition to a wargame. You've got dozens of ships gathered in the area to practice formation maneuvering, underway replenishment, etc, under wartime conditions. If you're on a ship that's blown up on day 2 of 20, what are you supposed to do for the rest of the time? It's better for training to revive casualties.
Stuff like this is why it's not easy to trust the outcome of a wargame.
>Wasn't there a pretty famous case, in a wargame meant to simulate conflict with Iran, where the red team general actually played to win but the game leaders reset things with new constraints that played to US advantages?
yes, wargames are designed to be difficult to win, unless political expediency interferes with the design.
We won Afghanistan fairly easily (a few months), and held it fairly easily for 19 years. And not to trivialize 4000 dead, but if it had mattered, that would have been a pretty small sacrifice.
Where we failed miserably was at turning the result into a stable country, but Taiwan is already a country.
Besides that, stability is always relative, in the longer term no country is ever stable, in the shorter term in the case of countries like Afghanistan they are stable about as long as other nations don't cross their borders.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and many others besides. All of these were at some point reasonably stable, and then someone somewhere decided to attempt to enlist them in one scheme or another and/or tried to wage a proxy war through them or actively tried to install regimes more friendly to foreign interests.
The Roman Empire in the long run also wasn't stable, but it fell to rot from within, as most countries eventually do. But in the case of Afghanistan the destructive force was applied from without.
Sure, but you can also examine recent US defense proposals / thinktank wonks gaming out indo pacific strategy, i.e. AGILE deployment in Japan, hosting IRBMs in region. The overwhelming pattern and prevailing consensus for those that follow the space is that despite proposals being aspirational / borderline geopolitical fantasy, US blobs aren't even pretending to pursue strategies that explicitly defend TW anymore. Force balance has changed so much with PRC military modernization that US simply cannot defend TW against PRC off her shores. So much so that it's barely worth speculating anymore. Focus is on containing PRC which =/= defending TW. Entirely different propositions that normies still try to conflate with TW defense.
Japan would care a lot if China made a move on Taiwan. They recently strengthened defense ties there.
Wouldn't just be the U.S.
Oh, and two of the above mentioned countries have real blue water navies that can go anywhere to cut supply lines like say, oil from the Middle East. One does not.
the thing is Taiwan can't count on the US as we have demonstrated that we aren't willing to help when called on by a nation we have treaty obligations to. The US agreed to defend Ukraine from Russia in event of invasion in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of its nuclear stockpile. Then Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula, part of Ukraine, and the US did nothing.
Why would the US treat Taiwan any differently when China is the US biggest trading partner?
As for Japan, they are constitutionally prevented from declaring war.
So of Taiwans strongest alies, one cant defend them,and one wont defend them.
Cutting oil from the ME would not be enough. China would ration oil and increase imports from Russia massively as well as reactivate domestic oil production, it would be great for the environment, China would carry on, and the US would make a lot of enemies.
The Ryukyus are mostly adjacent to Taiwan, it’s also where most of America’s Japan based military bases are. So in terms of air power brought to bare, China has a huge hill to climb with enemies right next door. The main reason that China has pushed for dominance of the entire South China Sea is simply so that they aren’t easily hemmed in from the rest of the world.
A war between the USA and China would ultimately do no one good, even Chinese wolf warriors should realize that.
No, it really doesn't. Japan doesn't have the capacity to deploy enough air power to affect the invasion. If Japan made the strategic mistake of getting involved militarily before the US, the Chinese would use ballistic missiles to strike Japanese airbases and supply infrastructure and carry on.
I agree it would do no good to have a war between the US and China for anyone. I want Taiwan to stay independent and chose its own destiny. But the reality is that China has an overwhelming advantage in-theater over anyone and it's only getting worse.
If China invaded Taiwan, Europe would stand together with the US on any retaliation. It would be the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait all over again, geopolitically. China would be cut off dead from the global economy, no matter the cost. I don’t think it would be practical to liberate Taiwan, but China would be ruined.
China is not Iraq. It's insane to compare the two.
Europe was okay with the first invasion of Iraq because they frankly had very little to lose and a lot to gain.
Meanwhile suiciding the EU economy by cutting off Chinese exports would hurt the EU a lot more than it would hurt China and certainly much more than the invasion of Kuwait.
In any case I'd recommend reading what Chinese generals write on the subject. For the exact same reason as you cited they don't want to invade Taiwan unless "necessary" until the balance of trade shifts far more into the Chinese side.
Yet when confronted on the possibility of doing it now they make a very solid point. China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.
That is to say, in the Chinese calculus, the EU and US cutting themselves off of Chinese trade would hurt the former more in the short term and medium term than it would hurt China, and their arguments for it are compelling.
Beyond that, the truth is that there is a lot more to the economy than the EU and the US. China would still trade with Russia, Africa, South East Asia, almost definitely South Korea, and most of Central and South Asia.
The real thing that is at issue in Chinese military planning is not a voluntary embargo, it's a blockade by the US. But even the ability for the US to execute such a maneuver is already questionable and dwindles every year, and it would assuredly royally piss of the entirety of the world and definitely kill millions outside of China from economic dysfunction.
>China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.
Tell me what I'm missing about their domestic oil industry then, because everything else I'm reading tells me they need to import around 10 million barrels of crude oil a day (primarily to produce gasoline and diesel, so it's very hard to substitute).
Indeed, they do. They still have the domestic capacity to expand internal production to cover most of those 10 million barrels. I didn't say they produce everything they need in sufficient quantities, just that they produce it. It would cause short term trouble and rationing but long term the impact is mitigated.
Looking at the most recent numbers, they produced just under 4 million barrels a day domestically. Oil production isn't something where you can just triple the output over a few months. China has been working to expand their internal production for a while, and it takes billions of dollars and years to do so: https://www.forbes.com/sites/edhirs/2019/06/06/china-is-bett...
Did you read the article? Why would they plan to spend 77 billion over 5 years for a 50% increase in production if they could crank it out of their existing infrastructure in under 100 days?
And even if Russia repudiated every other contract they have in Asia, it doesn't look like they have the pipeline capacity to get that much oil to China, even if the cross border capacity for China to import it existed. So it would have to come on tankers, which would generate some interesting geopolitical brinkmanship.
That's assuming things don't escalate far beyond sanctions or a possible blockade. The risk with a naval confrontation is that it's very easy to quickly generate casualties that would make backing down politically suicidal. Even just a few of the smaller ships getting sunk means hundreds of dead sailors.
77 billion is the price to do it right over 5 years. If you don't care about quality and are willing to spend more you can do it faster. We have historical examples of this.
The pipeline capacity alone from Russia to China is 1.6mbd. Of that, 600 000bd are used, so there is 1mbd of spare capacity just in that pipeline.
It doesn't really matter if the US can or can't back down. It will be disastrous politically and economically to the US and its allies to a level that can scarcely be imagined. Even then, US naval forces have a serious chance of defeat. China is not a small country you can roll over. They have a very well thought out, multilayered, exceedingly technologically sophisticated A2/AD umbrella that means that millions of square kilometers will be in practice off limits to the US. Beyond those zones, China enjoys extremely prompt hypersonic strike capability that has no real counter, which means that in a hot war any US vessel that gets it's rough location leaked running a blockade or running through a strait risks getting sunk straight up.
It's not a war that the US can win. What are the objectives? Take back Taiwan? Literally impossible. Regime change in China? Forget about it. About the only thing that can be done is to hurt the Chinese economy roughly as much as the US economy, enrage the entire rest of the world and destroy any semblance of goodwill the US has, and trigger a recession followed by a restructuring of the US economy that reduces the place of the US in the value chain.
It's simply a stupid move that has no upside. It doesn't matter how the public acts immediately, eventually the US will have to give up.
"China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another."
...produces finished goods. China cannot do this without massive imports of raw materials copper, iron ore, coal, etc. China has effectively colonized Africa for access to said raw materials.
Belt and Road is a way to set up overland routes to avoid any naval blockades.
I live in Africa and I have never been told what to do by a Chinese official or business - or even a local official actin on the instructions of a mandarin.
Unless you have watered 'colonisation' down to 'Chinese interests own some stuff in parts of Africa'.
Which - to indulge my woke hat - pretty offensive to people who lived under actual colonisation.
That's fair, don't understand the downvotes. The thing is colonisation now extends to things like believing western science and liking western music. It's become watered down to just mean any form of developed world influence.
Just a small correction: there is no such thing as Western science.
There is just science.
[Unless people truly believe the Chinese space programme uses its own, different physics, or that the concrete in the new Ethiopian dam on the Nile river has its own chemistry.]
JP/TW had "security" dialogue that basically amounted to JP begging Taiwan for semi fabs. JP isn't going to do shit because like US they're even less capable of defending TW. JP actions has been all rhetoric. It means nothing until they commit to credible but politically expensive actions. Some notional missile force increase on Ryukyu is theatre when what's needed is massive mobilization of main islands (and put every JP civilian in harms way) outside of Okinawa as prescribed in AGILE. It's not going to happen, they can't even commit to land based Aegis Ashore ABM to save themselves from NK nukes.
>One does not.
PRC has blue water Navy that operates up to ME and has been for years. It's also signifantly larger and more capable than Japans. I suspect you need to update understanding from old Zeihan powerpoints.
With respect to US, PRC has 30 CEP ICBMs which means USNavy vessels become scrap the second they pull into port. Even nuclear carriers can't stay at sea forever, nevermind their sustainment / oilers / resupply ships will be long gone. US carrier groups will likely be one-time deployment assets. This is roughly reality now, and and even more dire in the coming years. US can sink every PLAN ship on the waters and PRC can sink every USN ship in port. Or destroy entire east Asian fab supply chain, setting back US industry/tech decades. Or bait US security commitments in Korea / Japan which compels US to send assets within 1st island chain where they are weakest, negating point of blockade outside of 1st island chain. The wank over blockading PRC via Malacca / SLOC overlooks the fact that at minimum PRC can force US to sign a hegemony suicide pact. PRC can make US lose everything even in defeat. And is willing to over TW.
Acknowledging reality is wolf warrior now? Yes, I encourage people to read my comment history on the subject to get sense of current US/PRC strategic thinking and update their model likely formed by bad takes from pop Chinawatching sources. Consensus today is dramatically different than consensus from 5/10 years ago, yet there's still folks pretending TW is hard to invade / easy to defend nonesense arguments from 20 years ago.
The only thing that will stop china from interfering in Taiwan is, universal consciousness willing, South Korea and Japan along with the other Asian nations having enough sway with China to keep them at bay. I very much prefer not to entertain WW3, but as others have said many times recently, if it is going to start, it may very well be over Taiwan.
The issue is, the CCP sees Taiwan as theirs when in reality China belongs to Taiwan.
It would seem a treaty acknowledging Taiwan as an independent sovereign would be an ideal outcome, but it's weird to see nations express wounded pride, imo
That would be like saying the US belongs to the Native Indians, the Vikings or the British. It might be true, but what is the point exactly? Like it or not but Might Is Right and in less than 20 years Might equals PRC above all else (including the US, yes).
> That would be like saying the US belongs to the Native Indians, the Vikings[...]
That's not quite right. The government of Taiwan consists (consisted?) at least partially of the literal former government of the country now commonly known as China before the "cultural revolution" that murdered tens of million of people and put the CCP into power.
The closest analogy that you can get is the idea that the US belongs to the British (as they were our former government) - which you can make a decent case for, although I would still argue that the vastly different natures of the Revolutionary War and the Cultural Revolution still make them distinct.
The Republic of China was the government of China from 1912 until 1949 when it was overthrown by the CCP and retreated to Taiwan. Until at least 1971 the UN recognized it as the legitimate government of all of China.
The poster's comment is outdated, but that's the historical background -- and why it's less crazy than you might have assumed without knowing the history.
There is more relevant history: when the ROC retreated to Taiwan, they killed a lot of the upper crust of the Taiwanese already on the island. Truth is, while Japan treated Korea fairly bad, they treated Taiwan as an almost province, so that fostered a lot of distrust between the KMT and the Taiwanese on the island before they arrived, leading to atrocities. The pre-1949 Taiwanese distrust the mainlanders a lot (represented by both the ROC and PRC).
Most Taiwanese would rather refer to throw off the legacy of the ROC completely, but doing so would be considered an act of war by the PRC.
I remember my mind being blown when I read about internal Taiwanese politics and learned that both parties are more or less anti-independence.
The liberals / doves think it would provoke China, and be too high a price to pay for something that's already de facto truth.
But the conservatives / hawks argue against it because they deny the legitimacy of the PRC, so why would Taiwan need to declare it's independence from rebels in its own country?
> Possession counts for a lot more than theoretical legal legitimacy.
So in your mind, the act of murder "counts for a lot more" [0] than someone's right to their own life, and theft does not exist, since whoever possesses something owns it?
[0] What's the unit we're counting in? How do you "count" intellectual integrity or moral character?
>Might does not make right in questions of rule of law
Sure it does. The laws are written by those who can enforce them. That is by definition those with Might. If that is barbarism then all of earth is under barbarism (and I'd argue that this is true).
History is full of good examples. The Nuremberg trials is a great example of Might Is Right. The exact same laws used against the Nazis never were enforced on US citizens.
Rule of law does not have baked into it that laws are written by the mighty, or even that they can or will be enforced, consistently or otherwise. Merely that laws exist, can be made, and unmade, and should be followed.
After all, there was a reason the Founders advised that it was a great evil to put a law on the books that couldn't be reasonably enforced due to the tendency to deligitimize the authority in question.
The current status quo depends on the PRC pretending that Taiwan is ruled by a regional government, while the Taiwanese government has restricted its actual scope to Taiwan. To this effect, in 1991 Taiwan has added articles to its constitution to account for the fact that its government has only control over the "Taiwan Area".
The actual policy of the Taiwanese government depends on who is in charge at the moment. The Pan-Blue Coalition favors reunification, while the Pan-Green Coalition tries to assert a separate Taiwanese national identity.
The claim on the rest of China is still there, but only because it cannot be dropped in practice. The PRC would interpret dropping the claim on the rest of China as a declaration of Secession and Independence, which would have diplomatic and possibly military consequences.
I also don't understand your comment. I went so far as to quickly skim through the history of Taiwan and I don't understand why you said China belongs to Taiwan?
Why were the Fourth Republic upstarts allowed to take control from the Vichy regime? De Gaulle's people ran for the hills and lost any claim to their old territory.
I expect his argument is that the former national government of mainland China fled to Taiwan during the revolution.
This is true, but it doesn't make a strong argument for legitimacy. Former governments flee countries frequently, and unless there is a rapidly implemented plan to try to get them back into power they are generally ignored.
Taiwan is better viewed as a breakaway state than having any legitimate stake in the government of mainland China.
One could even argue that the agreement Great Britain had for the 100 year lease of Hong Kong was with the Nationalist (Taiwan) government and not the PRC.
Whether it is colonial or not does not matter for legitimacy. A blanket rejection of treaties on the basis of being colonial and unfair would invalidate all border agreements between former colonial countries.
Of course, the international community can condemn treaties and push for decolonialization, but in most cases this is foiled by the refusal of the colonial power to give up the claim. Examples: Falkland islands, West Sahara, Goa (reconquered by India using military force).
In many cases, it is advantegeous for both parties to seek a peaceful decoloniazation treaty, which becomes a part of international law and formal basis for the future claim on the decolonized territory.
It has a huge impact in practice. The international community will look much more favourably on a country that violates a colonial treaty with its former Metropolis than with any other country.
In practice, colonial era treaties are less legitimate. No one except the parties directly materially affected care.
> the agreement Great Britain had for the 100 year lease of Hong Kong was with the Nationalist (Taiwan) government and not the PRC
This appears to be a difficult argument to make in a consistent way. HK was ceded to GB a the Treaty of Nanking[1] which was between the UK and the Qing Dynasty Chinese government. It was later expanded in 1897, again with the Qing Dynasty.
That Dynasty collapsed in the early 20th century. That was followed by the warlord era, and then the nationalist government in the 1930s. That lasted until defeated by the Communist government in 1949.
So there were only around 20 years the Nationalist government governed mainland China, and it was long after the treaty ceding HK.
So the smart thing for the British government to have done would have been to declare the treaty invalid when the PRC came to power. GB could have claimed Hong Kong in perpetuity and the PRC would not have dared to stand up to GB in that era.
Well apart from over 70 years of mostly stable government (with Tiananmen square being the exception) they are broadly recognized by most countries and the UN and have been for close to 50 years.
There's little evidence of support in China or even in Taiwan for the idea that the Taiwan government are the legitimate government of mainland China, and Taiwanese ambition is pretty much limited in practical terms to self government.
Indeed, I don't believe Taiwan claims China in anyway I can find reference to.
> the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region more than a decade in the future
If China starts a war by releasing a biological weapon, Taiwan will be the least of their concerns. I don't see any scenario in which every Western and neutral nation on Earth doesn't turn against them. Maybe Russia helps, but I doubt it.
Hmm. Hard to imagine. Nothing remotely similar has ever happened. But, now that I think of it, the consequence might be something like a pandemic, which coincidentally we are in now.
I am a European and the idea that two superpowers would actually go to full-on war seems absurd. At least, I hope all sides agree that it is a terrible idea.
We haven't had full-on war between two sides that are "in the same league" since WW2. The cold war was tense, and there have been proxy wars, or wars between a super power and a tiny power.
When two sides are matched somewhat evenly, that's when the loss of life has been dramatic, as we've seen in both world wars.
I really hope I don't see a full on war between super powers in my or my children's lifetimes, because it would be brutal.
I mean, would we really see aircraft carriers and bombers in action? submarines? Will both sides blow up each other's satellites and create a Kessler syndrome? At which point do they start threatening with nukes?
No, I can imagine some power projection and rough play, but I don't think anyone is considering full-on war.
This is definition of ad hominem. Sure, there's a motivation, but do you think the war games are a conspiracy? I don't find it difficult to imagine the US would fail to protect an ally on enemy turf.
1) "Last fall, the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region"
These are superfluous conditions (i.e. predicting bioweapons), and of course, and you're not going to hear about the 'real' results. And of course it ignores the after effects.
2) Defenders have considerable advantage in that situation, especially with a water gap. The 'amphibious assault' situation is severely hampered by the fact that even with air cover, all Chinese surface vessels are 'extremely vulnerable'.
Literally just a single, 2-man style team weapon system, if it could actually be deployed without sabotage, could make it nary impossible for such landings. I think it would be crazy for Taiwan not to have specialty capabilities against that kind of assault. Landing operations very dangerous for the landers.
3) Taiwan has 23M most of whom won't go down without a fight. It's incredibly difficult to occupy a place like that.
4) The 'angle' for China is likely political, and to land a vanguard of political operatives, saboteurs of all kinds, media controllers etc. and possibly to try a 'coup from within' as opposed to a frontal military confrontation.
5) Any direct military engagement would be met with pretty serious repercussions, for the first time maybe, from the West. It would be 'a big deal'.
If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. 90% of the generally anti-war voices will quiet and look the other way while the 'other half' of the US releases the dragons in one way or another. If, as in the stated example there were 'Bioweapons' used against the US, then it would be WW3 level escalation and a nuclear standoff.
So again 'military confrontation' is a big deal, but 'military confrontation with Americans' is a much bigger deal they won't forget.
In either case, the tide of geopolitics will shift dramatically.
NPTO - the Asian equivalent of NATO would be formed instantly, with UK and EU as participating members.
TPP v2 - this would happen immediately and China would be de-facto ignored / out of the WTO.
There would be a China v. 'Almost Everyone Else' Cold War in which everyone would be forced to choose sides. In that scenario, there are actually very few places that would chose China, if forced. Aside from Russia, which would try to 'broker peace' (and of course Iran/N. Korea/Afghanistan/Syria) I think the only real holdouts would be in Africa, and they wouldn't be consequential. The Arab world would mostly go 'With the US/EU-led rest of the world' and so would South American for the most part.
6) We 'do business' with Taiwan in the hope that they can remain at least at their current levels of independence.
If China wants to take Taiwan and leverage the kind of spineless 'look the other way' artefact of our businesses and politicians they'll do it piece by piece, and/or make it look like a popular and legitimate 'coup' - and that Chinese forces are there 'only to ensure order and stability' and to 'protect democracy'. They need to give enough political cover to Nike, Pizza Hut and Apple to not pull out from China etc.. Kind of like Crimea, where we just 'forgot about it'.
2) A giant smokescreen? Creeping (missile) barrage of the beach? There are plenty of ways to make it hard to target anything on a beach. Air cover and missile defense will be a big deal.
3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attackers more legitimacy.
5) Headlines for days, sure, but recently the West has shown that its "red lines" are more crossable than they might appear.
If the PRC ever manages to take even momentary control of Taiwan, there's no way they let it slip away again. And remember that the ocean supply lines heavily favor China over the US (even from Japan or South Korea) for any sort of protracted conflict. The only wild card is nuclear weapons, and all we can do is hope that neither side is insane enough to use them, "tactically" or "strategically."
Pacific NATO was called SEATO. We might be surprised at how few committed and capable allies we'd have. It'd be in most countries' interest to stay neutral in an uncertain war between the current and future economic superpowers. I'd also wager that there'll be much less domestic support for sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to die over Taiwan than there was as a response to Pearl Harbor.
> I'd also wager that there'll be much less domestic support for sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to die over Taiwan than there was as a response to Pearl Harbor.
The US was interfering in Japan's affairs (particularly hampering access to oil) in the lead up to late 1941, even though support for either war was in the low 60%s prior to Pearl Harbor (amazingly as low as 7% when the Netherlands, Belgium, and France were invaded).[0] The US government, in some respects, forced the Japanese's hands in a stretched gamble by attacking it first. In a hypothetical confrontation, given the historical support US (among others) have shown Taiwan, even the existing interference alone could force China's hands to take some action that causes a drastic increase in domestic support.
In other words, my wager is that you're probably correct, but the probability of a forced action after some aggression has taken place, which subsequently causes an increase of domestic support would be more likely to occur.
Not sure US baiting Japan for Pearl harbor, but nowadays US is not the country 80 years ago. Politicians, military leaders are not as capable, more critically the industrial base is crippled. The king almost naked.
2) If you've seen these type of landings, you know that 'smoke screens' are not an area cover, just some very local cover. They can be accounted for.
Missiles barrages are not particularly useful unless they have some kind of targeting ability that we don't know about. There are not enough missiles, same for artillery. They will be able to hit communications centres and established defences, but as I said, if there is a '2 man team weapon' - and Taiwan can actually deploy them, the landings will be painful.
3) I don't agree with the Crimea Taiwan comparison.
a) 1/2 of Crimeans were pro-Russian, the rest not necessarily nationalist, or prepared. There was no material military defence of Crimea, Ukraine is poor, corrupt, and uncoordinated. Crimea is fairly sparsely populated, and nobody in the world cares about it, other than the fact it was 'taken'.
b) Taiwan is a rich, highly populated country, a strong sense of identity even if their a Pro Mainland nationalists, there are millions otherwise. They wealthy, very well prepared, very well organized. They have weapons, training a political cause. Taiwan is a mid-sized economy 'that matters'.
If CCP completely overruns Taiwan in a very heavy-handed way, with visible footprint everywhere (tanks rolling through most areas), then there might be a lack of an uprising.
But if there is any coordinated attempt by Taiwan to prepare for that, and any material ability for fighters to operate, there will be ongoing fighting.
5) I think you're misunderstanding the 'reaction'.
Yes, if CCP did 'Take Taiwan' - then there's probably no way anyone would uproot them directly. Unless there was an ongoing civil uprising etc. - then it's going to belong to China.
But there would be a 1) Geopolitical re-orientation like there never has been and 2) Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved. If China 'sinks a US ship' then 'they will pay' probably a disproportionately heavy price.
'Asian NATO' will form under completely new auspices: India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Korea etc. are now witnessing the China Dragon with a military conflict and so their fear escalates.
To your point about 'Neutrality' - Singapore might be, but not others, like India, Japan, Korea, and Arab countries which the US has incredible power over.
The 'South China Sea' probably becomes the forum for retribution, and I can see a multinational force, led by the US declaring that area 'open seas' and basically attacking any Chinese forces there. That'd be one way for the US to get their 'pound of flesh' to save face.
Pan Pacific Trade v2 would surely happen for the same reasons - it was going to happen, the only reason it did not was Trump, and now that he's killed it, it's just too hard to get going again. But a Taiwan invasion would trigger that. The 'possibly neutral' countries on the military side would more likely join this - their 'neutrality' is mostly based on fear of China, not fear of the West.
A Taiwan invasion might probably mean immediate trade war between the US and China, with the rest of the world dragged in.
And the more global geopolitical repercussions would be a little bit similar to the Cold War. The US/EU/UK/India/Japan/Korea+Others 'side' would put immense pressure on the system to try to isolate China.
Again, yes, I think China would end up keeping Taiwan, but it's the 'realignment' outside China that is the real impact.
Anyhow - direct invasion of Taiwan would be a big deal.
I think you are radically underestimating the soft power China has in Asia. Countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are far from Chinese allies, but have little faith in US commitment to the region and have to survive in the region.
There's probably a number of people in leadership positions in the region who accept the realpolitik that is isn't worth fighting China over Taiwan.
> Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved.
Your point about Vietnam and Philippines wavering on direct conflict is well taken but I did hint at that.
I didn't say 'they would be going to war over Taiwan' - I would agree with you there there.
In the geopolitical realignment, they'd be in a difficult situation, and though they might not join the Asian NATO, they'd join the new Trade Pact.
Neither Sweden nor Finland nor Austria belong to NATO either, but there's a fair degree of coordination still.
But Japan, S. Korea, India would, and that's the start of a fairly powerful coalition - some of which would probably engage the Chinese Navy in S. China sea, and maybe be involved in blockades.
"Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved Plenty of recent evidence says otherwise. :
I don't know what you mean. 9/11 resulted in two major wars and that was a non-state actor.
China sinking a couple of US ships is definitely an act of war, the only question would be 'how' the US would respond. It would be in blood, not just 'sanctions'.
> I don't know what you mean. 9/11 resulted in two major wars and that was a non-state actor.
As I said elsewhere: In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
Or more starkly: The US lost both those wars and the US population is sick of it.
If China sank a couple of US ships, I'm sure the US would declare war. But China would be 100% committed to winning an invasion of Taiwan, no matter what the cost.
The US.. not so much.
> Japan, S. Korea, India would, and that's the start of a fairly powerful coalition - some of which would probably engage the Chinese Navy in S. China sea, and maybe be involved in blockades.
Note that none of these countries have every said they would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. That's statement is conspicuously absent from anyone at all, actually.
As for a blockade, I think you are - again - overestimating support Taiwan has, and underestimating the realpolitik that would happen.
Where are the blockades over Chinese behaviour in Hong Kong? Or diplomatic protests? Or...anything at all other than newspaper articles?
The US was not run out of Iraq by Iran, not was it run out of Syria by Russia. That's a total misrepresentation of the situation.
The US lost the political will to stay in Afghanistan. It wasn't actually that difficult or costly, just not worth it.
There was no appetite for war after Vietnam, and yet Iraq 1, Iraq 2 and Afghanistan all happened.
If China invaded Taiwan, then the 'appetite for war would change' and if a couple of American ships were sunk, then the 'appetite for war' would be at 100%.
Sometimes I think I'm debating young people with no living memory of how these things change over time and how Americans absolutely do not tolerate direct attacks.
Pearl Harbour, 9/11, both had devastating consequences.
America was run out off Syria by Russia. There was lots of other things going on too, but Russia got a deep water port in the Mediterranean - something that both the British and American empires tried to stop for hundreds of years - before the Crimean war.
I mean Turkish forces shelled a US post in Syria at one point and laughed about it. That's how worried the rest of the world is about US appetite for war.
> As I said elsewhere: In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
As was said elsewhere here, the Afghanistan war was won quickly. Afghanistan was also easily kept. And that's fighting against an opponent using guerilla tactics. What failed was nation-building. But that's not the goal with a confrontation with China. The goal is symmetric warfare to hold back an invasion. Defensive warfare is easier than offensive, so the cost would be far higher on China invading than Taiwan/US defending.
> If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence.
I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
Those essentially local attempts at occupation and state building are completely different to a potential hypothetical symmetrical war with China that implicates the whole global order.
> US public support for a war over Taiwan is modest: one recent poll found significant majorities of foreign policy elites supporting US intervention, but only about 40 per cent of the American public backing it. (Even that figure likely reflects soft and reflexive backing; the country has not fought a major war against a peer adversary for two generations, and in the event of catastrophic US losses amidst perceptions that the war was unnecessary, public support could collapse very quickly.)[1]
And if the last 10 years of US politics has taught us anything it is how vulnerable the US is to arguments that cause division. China has plenty of money, and plenty of people who will be economically hurt by a war. It's pretty easy to make an argument against defending China.
Piece by piece sounds good. But after Xi and the rest of the old men who run the country kick the can, I find it hard to believe next gen Chinese leaders will care about Taiwan as much. Whats the upside to them for all this drama?
Taiwan is the #1 foreign policy issue of China and maybe a top 3 long term goal - they consider it existential to their existence.
China is an ethnocentric state, they have long memories and they plan for things.
Xi is definitely more aggressive than the others, but China basically will be trying to 'get Taiwan back forever'.
Frankly, the 'long term solution' if Taiwan remains free, may be something like a 'One China' where Taiwan is actually completely independent. Maybe even Tibet and HK. That would probably only happen if China fell apart, there were wars, and we had this Peace Agreement where the world nominally recognized China as 'One Entity' even if they were actually completely different nation states. That is obviously not likely to happen but aside from a Chinese->Taiwan invasion I don't see how union happens.
The 'Taiwan Issue' is totally nonnegotiable to China, any attempt to bring the issue up in foreign policy discussions would have the Chinese Officials walk out in anger. As far as they are concerned 'Taiwan is China and There Is No Discussion' about it.
makes me want to rethink some of my flippant comments about Taiwan's impending doom after we get our semiconductor pylons up in other places, but now at least they have my sympathy
Step back and just think about it in realpolitik terms. If you were the leader of china, what would you think about the idea of nuclear weapons being brought to your borders?
In a similar situation (the US had nukes in turkey and other areas close to the USSR) the Soviet Union used the same rational (in part) to justify putting nukes in Cuba. Just leveling the playing field. The result was the closest we’ve ever gotten to a nuclear conflict.
From one point of you could argue this was “fair”, because the US already had missiles close to the USSR and this was leveling the playing field, but fair is a meaningless concept in geopolitical relations. Leaving bad and good aside, who would ever want their rival to place nuclear weapons close by?
The government of China would have to be either traitorous or insane to not do everything in their power to prevent this from happening.
If you were an abusive ex-husband, who felt that women are property and need to submit to you (and you regularly beat your girlfriends bloody to prove it), how would you feel about your former spouse buying a gun?
Sure, you'd do everything in your power to prevent that from happening.
India, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia are all bordering nations to China with nuclear weapons. During the cold war and to this day, there are no bordering states or any one close to 3000 miles of US borders with nuclear weapons. So, your comparison to US/USSR cold war to China/Taiwan scenario is slightly misplaced I think.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think you’re really giving it a good faith effort to look at this from the eyes of China.
Imagine it in your head: the senior intelligence officer walks into the briefing room and says “The United States has placed their nuclear missiles in Taiwan, but don’t worry - that’s exactly the same as Russia having missiles, or India having done some nuclear tests and maybe having a shitty delivery system that’s 1/100 as advanced as the US. No cause for concern. Nothing has changed.”
It’s a wholly unrealistic analysis that does not even pass a cursory sniff test. The United States of America putting their nuclear warheads in Taipei, a region they consider to be stolen from them with the support of western power, would be taken as a unique and massive escalation of hostilities because it would be, they would be stupid not to consider it as such.
I don't think anyone is interested in putting US nukes in Taiwan. Presumably US nukes are already in the area on US naval vessels. It doesn't really change the balance of power; the US isn't going to start nuclear war over Taiwan.
The more meaningful scenario is what happens when Taiwan gets its own nukes. Either developed domestically or acquired shrinkwrap ("POINT THIS SIDE AT ENEMY"). At that point it's out of US control, and you can imagine the Taiwanese would use them in an existential crisis.
Of course China (specifically, the CCP) wouldn't be happy about that. That's not the point.
As a counter, I could imagine this to be alarming if hypothetically US is openly interested in invading Mexico who is allied with China. China then decides to place nuclear arsenal near Mexico city to defend it. This would be far less alarming than China initiating placement of nukes in Mexico without any intention from US to invade Mexico.
The subtle difference is offense vs. defense. If China openly agrees with the world to never invade Taiwan, US placing nukes in Taiwan would be unacceptable. But that is not the reality here.
China got antsy, and vociferously complained about plans for the US to supply South Korea with advanced radar defense system (THAAD)[1], which China contended would extend into Chinese airspace. Radar, which is on paper, purely for defense. Nukes will be 2+ orders of magnitude worse.
I agree that Taiwan wouldn't want to accept US nukes for the reason you state. However, what if they had domestically developed nukes instead?
I feel like that would be a much more tenable position that would largely address your concern, and also grant Taiwan the ability to forestall any invasion indefinitely.
There is zero possibility for Taiwan to domestically develop nukes and the ways to deliver them reliably without the Chinese figuring it out and shutting it down with massive prejudice.
Taiwan is thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence, facilities for nuclear programs would be glassed before TW could develop any capabilities.
PRC fought with US / USSR while both were nuclear powers and China was not over much less important core interests than TW. Like there's currently 10s and eventually 100s of vunerable mainland coastal nuclear power plants that TW missiles can strike right now. TW has a lot of ability to fuck up PRC if they want to. Scope of TW actions/resistence will determine proportionality of destruction by PRC. Though ultimately there is nothing TW can do to deter PRC who has fought harder opponents with less means and more sacrifice.
By the time it was announced, it would already be done.
The only real option China would have would be 'force' and a frontal war with China is a really big deal.
That said, US-provided nukes for Taiwan would be a major escelation and fingers would be pointed in the direction of the US for 'blame' etc.. A lot of people would throw a fit over that.
It might be better to just put a US base there because it means the same thing, and more: if you mess with Taiwan, even if you overrun the local US forces, you have 'awoken the actual Dragon' and no amount of 'internal division' in the US would hamper them from becoming united against China and of course all sorts of other huge material fallouts.
Ironically, I think it's the American regime who would not be able to pull it off. It would require cooperation among to many agencies and serious leadership. There'd have to be a pretty good President, with a lot of leverage, he'd have to be popular in the polls, have the backing of the Pentagon etc. etc.. I just can't see that working out so directly. It'd have to be done in a roundabout way.
Something that most westerners, particularly my fellow Americans, are unaware of is that the Soviets already had over 100 nuclear warheads in Cuba, many of them having fully functional delivery systems capable of striking the US. Even if we got them there, it’s not the end of the story
For some reason the following simple truth is difficult for my countrymen to accept, but you have to know on some level that all of this matters more to China than it does to us, and unless we completly overmatch them in power (as we did in the past, and do not now) in the long term they will always win in the east.
We could not even keep Afghanistan before our commitment flagged - what makes you think we could outlast the efforts of the largest economy in the world to remove weapons of mass destruction from Taipei?
The didn't win in Korea, they didn't win in Japan.
They didn't even win in Vietnam, the US completely destroyed N. Vietnam military machine ... and then left.
By the time the US actually left Vietnam there was very little fighting and no casualties. The US could have stayed.
Similarly in Afghanistan ... there were very few soldiers there, with a different Foreign Policy there's no reason to believe the US could have chosen to 'stay'.
There are still major bases in Korea, Japan and Germany, no reason not to keep a base in Afghanistan if they thought they wanted to.
Nukes in Taiwan would really upset China (a lot!) and throw a big wrench into everything, but it's a very legit threat, it would make direct assault really hard.
Certainly one 'Omega Weapon' would be a short range, small yield nuke that Taiwan could use against an invading maritime force. Scary, but real power.
Your presumption of unity is doing a lot of work here. I, for one, would absolutely oppose going to war against China for the sake of Taiwan, instead preferring that that money go to humanitarian causes that would help Taiwanese suffering under a CCP regime. War, especially nuclear war, is abhorrent and I would not stand for it.
It doesn't matter whether you or I would support war, it matters what the population wants, and given a direct assault on US forces and the invasion of an ally, 1/2 the US population would be gunning for war and enough of the rest would be convinced.
Unfortunately 'some money to helping Taiwanese' would basically be futile, as there wouldn't likely be a way for that to be applied. (Donations are not going to help Hong Kong, now and won't help Taiwan in the event of invasion)
It also doesn't matter if we 'abhor war', force is a fundamental part of the equation even in 2021, if you're not prepared to use it in the right context, you'll lose the freedom to have the choice. And by that I don't mean 'You need to carry a gun!' because you don't, I mean we need to be prepared to use the Armed Forces (or force in generally) as is reasonably necessary.
And that would effectively be a pretty much necessary case.
These conflicts have 'knock on effects' - for example, if Saddam was able to simply roll into Kuwait willy-nilly, there's no reason to believe that Qatar or Saudi wouldn't be next. That, and 'because Oil stability' -> War.
It's unlikely the US would respond with an invasion of Taiwan because that would be essentially impossible, but probably there would be a 'war' in the South China sea and a Cold War after that.
> I, for one, would absolutely oppose going to war against Germany for the sake of Jews, instead preferring that that money go to humanitarian causes that would help Jewish suffering under a Nazi regime.
ROC had its own nuclear program in the past and almost made it to the point of being able to produce their own. The US, of all parties, intervened to have it stopped. Probably because Chiang was an unhinged madman intent on retaking the mainland. ROC is now an imminently nuclear nation. Something like six months away from having nukes at any time.
This is true of most medium-sized industrial countries, actually, if they have power reactors. If Japan, Germany, Canada or even Finland or Argentina, really wanted nukes and wrote a blank cheque for domestic spending to that end, they could have one within a year, probably much less. Only lack of desire (mostly for the diplomatic and possible military consequences, I figure) really keeps them from doing so.
Both Taiwan and Japan are known to be capable of fielding nukes but do not because it would inflame tensions in the region and the USA has implicitly guaranteed to back them with an existing MAD solution. If the USA withdrew from east Asia, both Taiwan and Japan would probably start producing nuclear weapons within a few months (or before the USA had left if given a head’s up).
Even putting the proliferation issue aside, a Taiwan nuke program just won't deter China, will merely justify an invasion. This may have worked - in the sense of deterring PRC - 30 or more likely 40 years ago, when their army was much weaker. It's far too late to think about that now.
I agree. The biggest issue for Taiwan would be war head delivery. They can nuke a few cities in fujian, but the communist party has never fully trusted Fujian anyways and wouldn’t see it as a great loss, let alone a deter it from turning the island into a waste land rock.
> Honest question: Why not just give Taiwan nukes?
Fair question, here's at least one answer:
1. that's a violation of the non-profileration treaty and the USA and the West basing its entire legitimacy on the rule of law. Values and all that.
See how far student-union whataboutism gets you once you do that.
2. because nukes are counter-productive: you cannot fire one nuke - you have to fire them all. The second Russia sees the nuclear flashes from US assets, ALL of their nukes start flying.
Unless you think Putin is going to wait to see exactly where in Asia hundred of thermonuclear ICBMs are aimed at.
And the first to land will be in Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Rome, Jerusalem, Sydney, Toronto [1]. (Before you press the down-vote, take the time to investigate the Sampson Option in orthodox MAD nuclear deterrence).
And that is not counting the Chinese nuclear response.
Nuclear proliferation is a bigger concern than a Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
If the US gives nukes to Taiwan, what would stop China giving nukes to eg Venezuela (or whatever South or Central American nation the US doesn't like that month).
Edit: previously I wrote "If the US gives nukes to China". I meant Taiwan here of course.
Hong Kong seems really like a canary in a coal mine. Shouldn't it be easy for any of the world's democracies to speak out for such a small territory that is being threatened by a dictatorship? Apparently not in this sad era of decline. I swear I can feel it in the air. Principles are seeming more and more old fashioned. Money trumps all.
Sure Xi is breaking agreements of backing of for few decades, but in the end HK was to be integrated.
Not a lot of interest in fighting china on this as they have 'colonialism' card ready.
But not acknowledging Taiwan as a country, denning them flag in the Olympics is a worrying creeping level of Chinese soft power. Eastern countries should be working on decoupling as much of their economies from china.
They don't only want to close those who speak against them. Actually everyone they don't have full control of. AFAIK the mainland China is a separate world with its own different Internet and business ecosystem and little interaction between it and the rest of the world allowed.
Happened well before my edit. People associate narratives with tribal politics and vote accordingly. For those like me who think and speak independently, it is a massive disappointment to get caught in the crossfire.
Nowhere in the constitution are you protected from consequences when you say something stupid, and right-leaning folks have been saying this particular stupid thing a bit too often. Have the offices of Fox News or Breitbart or the Creation Science Museum been raided by police? No? Then this is not even close to parallel.
There’s a seam of individuals cutting across the political spectrum that is confused about their right to speak freely. They think it translates to a right to force everyone to listen to them. Then they become shirty when told to fuck off.
It’s naturally correlated to extremities of viewpoint, both due to the absence of critical thinking on the part of the complainant and the elevated likelihood their views fall outside a certain window of acceptability.
One side has to show tolerance, convince others and be kind. Instead, we are throwing people under the bus, enranging them further and permanently affecting their mental health - they'll never to ever listen to any progressive voice.
This is an absolute disaster. People forget that the point of debates and exercise in politics is to convince the other side and get their vote. May be I am crazy to think this way.
There are plenty of examples but you won't hear about those things if all your information comes from the corporate press.
Someone else in the comments posted a twitter app with many examples but when someone finally posts the receipts, nobody follows up. What does that tell me? People are not interested in the truth but defending their tribe.
The Nazis were totally right-wing. Their purges shocked the world. It's not just a left-wing thing, it's a common theme across all forms of extremism. Left, right, religion-based (look at the Taliban now, they don't really fit in the left or right category at all)... It always comes down to the same thing. Not listening to the other person but choosing to silence them with violence instead. The flag they wave is different but the extremism remains the same.
What we need is balance. Left and right together. Agreeing to disagree and finding a way to work together anyway. That's democracy. It's hard but it's the only way.
Whose voice is getting quashed in the US? Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, email, phones, a magazine, protests, their own news channels, subReddits.
What group doesn't have all those things? Whose voice is being quashed - exactly? Even straight up Nazis have websites, newsletters, gatherings, organized protest marches and Facebook pages. The fucking Taliban is on Twitter.
So...who is being quashed because of their beliefs, exactly?
> Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter [...] subReddits
You appear to be arguing that no-one has ever been kicked off Facebook or Twitter, and that no subreddits have ever been banned. Is that your position?
The ACTUAL complaint is that people demand an AUDIENCE - they want to be able to broadcast their views to the largest number of people possible.
Nobody in the US is being "quashed" - you can run your own website, print your own newsletter, and nobody is going to kick down your door or send you to a re-education camp. Like I said, Nazis run their own websites, and the Taliban is on Twitter. Nobody here is being "silenced" because they can't grab the microphone - nobody's owed a microphone in the first place.
It's not even "relative privation" - nobody has a God given right to...Facebook. People serious about their causes run their own websites - they don't immediately start whinging because they've been booted from Reddit.
> Whose voice is getting quashed in the US? Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, email, phones, a magazine, protests, their own news channels, subReddits.
Your second comment:
> So "Silencing" is just getting kicked from Twitter and FB?
The first indicates that there are multiple services to "be heard" - but I've said repeatedly that the ultimate fallback is running your own website.
Sorry I was responding to the notion that people took being banned from FB/Reddit/whatever as being quashed. Those people are free to print their own newsletters or run their own websites.
It seems like two separate points, which is why I don't see it. Maybe I should have made it more cohesive.
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are multibillion-dollar corporations that control a colossal share of online communications.
You approve of said quashing because it aligns with your political ideology.
> Those people are free to print their own newsletters or run their own websites.
And if the registrars and payment processors do the same, as has already happened? You'll move the goalposts again.
Having a voice doesn't not equal being heard. Especially not if you define A Voice as writing on Facebook or Twitter. You might as well stand on a box in the dead parts of Detroit and talk politics. Being heard in a democratic country means your vote matters.
Nobody has the right to "be heard"! That's the thing. You have the right to scream it out loud, but nobody is forced to stand there and listen.
No - you can't falsely equate "being heard" by being on FB and Twitter to voting.
If my neighbor starts screaming Nazi talking points, I have the right to walk away. They still have the right to scream them.
Buy Facebook isn't "forced" to carry their views, either! And the Nazi believes what they're saying, so to ensure they're heard, they launch their OWN websites, print their own newsletters, and show up at protests.
No. Just No. Nobody is forced to carry anyone else's speech, and only people so weak in their beliefs as to "give up" when banned by FB and Twitter are complaining.
This is completely wrong. "Being heard" is being on FB and Twitter, as these platforms (1) are effectively public forums by nature of their massive, near-monopolistic reach, (2) claim protections of public forums, such as immunity from liability due to user-posted content, and (3) implicitly and explicitly portray themselves as public squares/forums[1].
The online equivalent to "having the right to walk away" is blocking someone on a platform. It's that simple.
Once a company has reached a monopolistic size, which describes FB and Twitter, then it either needs to be broken up, or treated like a utility/government service - this is exactly the argument that you see all the time about e.g. ISPs and Alphabet/Google - because there's no other morally excusable way to act. The first amendment was written to only apply to the government because that's the entity that's the most likely to (and most dangerous in) silence speech and discourse, not the only one.
You definitely would not be making these arguments if it were your ideological tribe that were being censored.
Bullshit. If I was a serious <whatever> I'd go run my own website.
People whinge about being censored but don't care enough to run a website? Nazis run their own websites. It's easier than ever to run a website.
Nobody is owed being on a private platform, and it's total bullshit to say that we should force companies to. It's not a "de facto public square" - it's an advertising platform, first and foremost.
So @Jack said it was a public square - in the context of the ideal. Did he make that statement to a court? Because I'll bet being deposed, he'd say that was flowery talk.
> People whinge about being censored but don't care enough to run a website?
People talking about "whinging" usually do so because they can't come up with a logical counter-argument. That pattern holds true here.
> Nobody is owed being on a private platform, and it's total bullshit to say that we should force companies to.
If a private platform holds a near-monopoly on speech online, and actively uses anti-competitive behavior to hold people on their platform (as Facebook does, at least) - yes, individuals are owed the right to be present on that platform, because (as stated repeatedly before) it's a monopoly. Facebook is one of the largest sites in the world and enjoys the network effects of being the largest social media site in the world, as well as the lens through which millions of people perceive the world around them, and does its best to keep people there through a variety of anti-competitive strategies - if, at that scale, they decide that they want to ban people for non-illegal content, then the only sane thing to do is to break them up so that they no longer have a monopoly position, which is clearly not happening.
> It's not a "de facto public square"
It is. It has the properties of a public square, namely public visibility, generally available access to the population, a design that allows for and encourages conversation between individuals, and a design meant to emulate a public forum for discussion. Even though it's not legally a public square, it's a de-facto one because it has all of the properties of one and is treated as one - that's what "de-facto" means.
> it's an advertising platform, first and foremost.
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Ultra-scale social media platforms have the properties of both advertising platforms and public fora. You don't like the classification of the latter? Well, it's going to remain one until it's broken up or changes its behavior or suddenly loses users.
> So @Jack said it was a public square - in the context of the ideal. Did he make that statement to a court? Because I'll bet being deposed, he'd say that was flowery talk.
You're intentionally being obtuse. Of course the CEO of Twitter wouldn't stand behind his claim in court - but only because that'd be disadvantageous to him (in any court case likely to come up in the next several years), not because he didn't mean it. Nothing you said has any bearing on the fact that he said that it was a public square and meant it. You can't explain this away - it literally came from the CEO, the strategic lead for the company. If he says that Twitter is like a public square, that means that he's directing the company to that effect.
For one, it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink. Many people who didn't vote for Clinton or Biden are effectively in career hiding. Threatening someone's job over their beliefs/opinions is very effective censorship.
The right of free speech protects against government retribution. It does not protect private individual / corporation retaliation. This is why you have secret ballot - so no one can retaliate against you for someone you’ve voted for.
People are demanding access to an audience like it's a right, and saying their votes don't matter if they can't reach an audience. It's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink.
Have you ever tried it?
FWIW, coworkers in my org pushed for a blacklist of words we’re not allowed to check into the codebase within the last year. I raised my counter opinion. I did so respectfully. Today, there’s no blacklist, and I still have my job.
Btw my presidential vote was a write-in for Bernie Sanders as president with Yang as running mate. Laugh if you like. I’m vaccinated; I wear a mask wherever the property owner of whatever establishment I’m in requests it (e.g. signs posted on the door), and omit the mask where not. I think my governor’s recent mask mandate is a mistake because we could already navigate the problem organically with the above approach, and anyone who wasn’t previously respecting an establishment’s masking policy isn’t going to respect a top-down legislative one given there’s no intent of enforcement.
People will disagree with my political opinions. And if they want, they’ll downvote me to communicate that. But I’m confident I won’t get banned from HN for stating these in the unusual event that it’s relevant to the discussion, much less that any future employer of importance is going to comb through here and decide against hiring me because I respectfully put forth an opposing political viewpoint.
Eh, the anti-PC example is anti-progressive though. I didn't want to elaborate my comment with lengthier political views since HN usually isn't the place.
But here's a right-leaning hot take to drive the point home: 18 months into this pandemic and I've never once had any input into the policy response. I thought the agreement was "I get the vaccine, I get to live my life as normal". Now that policy changes (mostly state-level) are flipping that, I regret getting the vaccine: I'm in a low-risk demographic and I just gave up my most powerful tool in influencing policy decision. I won't make that same mistake with the booster shots Biden discussed earlier today: I won't be getting those until my policy leaders actually serve me as a constituent.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink.
Still confident that GP is wrong about that and I won't lose my job or livelihood by posting this.
EDIT: To be clear, this not evidence in favor of the comment you were responding to: "There is a trend of certain dominant power in all of these countries that is quashing all opposing voices". As far as I can tell, supporting things the majority of society disagrees with has always been ground for career repercussions in the "land of the free" (as it is in the rest of the world).
For the same reason I wouldn't put a Biden/Harris sign on my gun store in rural Missouri, I would probably keep my mouth shut on abortion if I'm the CEO of a video game developer.
Your job is to make other people money. If you become a liability you're not going to have a job much longer.
Context and the multiple roles of a person, is why people get upset over this.
I agree with you. As a CEO, estranging any significant section of the market is not a good career move!
But amongst their friends, family, [insert other social circle here] their comments may not be a big deal.
As a non-public persona, I say expletives at work(as an employee) that I wouldn't want my child hearing(as a father). I can get away with it because the two worlds don't collide.
But once you have a public persona - like being a CEO - your worlds are merged into one. You don't get to have a "personal opinion" because your public persona cuts across all boundaries and your comments will be judged in the context of a public majority opinion.
Having a "public" persona is no joke. Take it seriously and expect that non-majority opinions will get public blowback so there better be a good reason for them!
The US republic was basically founded on pamphlets, newspapers, books..then incredibly long debates and respectful discussion.
Look at the structure of the Lincoln–Douglas debates.
One candidate spoke for 60 minutes, followed by a 90-minute response and a final 30-minute rejoinder by the first candidate.
That doesn't work anymore. None of this works. Yes, all opposing voices will be silenced until there is 1 party basically everywhere. That is what people want and so that is what you will get in a democracy. There is no evidence to the contrary.
I am just glad I am old enough to have lived most my life already.
If Beijing ever martyrs the protestors like tianeman again I don't think the world will take kindly to that at all. I even think russia would join an american coalition. China has no strong allies that wouldn't prefer to spare themselves in the event of worldwide intervention and they can't fight off the entire developed world alone no matter how far they came in recent decades.
The US got too involved in too many wars for the wrong reasons and we got weary of them. China sees this as a weakness (admittedly).
If the US does not flinch, no one else will and we won’t and no one else will.
We know terrible things are happening en masse in Xinjiang, Iran does terrible things to dissidents, north Korea does terrible things.
China and N Korea have nukes. Iran is close. In the and no one will do anything if they decide to fully bare their teeth.
Economically it’s a “commons” no one is willingly going to leave because it’s leaving too much money on the table. In a globalized world, companies really heavily influence foreign policy. These companies want the printer to stay on.
US has sophisticated missile defense systems and enough nukes to send the entire continent of asia back to the stone age. A nuclear war started by any other nation than the U.S. is literally suicide, and these world leaders know it which is why all there has been since WWII in terms of nuclear warfare is saber rattling.
No sane person would initiate a first strike --it's uncertain whether someone would be able to launch a full retaliatory strike. Only insane people like Castro and LeMay would give orders to launch. Today's nukes are near-civilization ending. They are not the equivalent of a month's worth of carpet bombing executed in one sortie.
Nukes have been civilization ending since the 1960s. You should see the plans made by American planners at the time. They joked about having to turn the nation of Albania into nothing. US has enough sensors to track when launches occur that a retaliatory strike would be launched almost immediately. Even if missiles somehow got through to the continent, we have many of them in discrete locations on submarines, waiting to launch. We are even using our navy more for missile defense since there are advantages to being mobile and ephemeral than having a fixed defensive battery that everyone can see on google earth satellite imagery.
The problem is if a country leader/government thinks that is worth ending civilization because there is something kind of afterlife that is better.. you hear the argument made about Iran. Not sure if I agree. But MAD breaks down if on side does not care about surving. Which makes nukes really scary..
The ability to "nuke an entire continent" isn't saber rattling, it's holding a dead man's switch. All major powers have been holding them for decades, and piling more nukes on doesn't make any difference at this point. All mutually assured destruction does is prevent attacks in the physical domain from happening*. So instead the fights continue in the political, economic, and digital domains. If anyone makes a physical attack in response to a nonphysical one, they have already lost.
* against other major powers, of course. Major powers themselves continue to test what they can get away with. Russia moving into Crimea. China saying "What? These guys have always been part of China. Do something, I dare you."
China's arsenal is almost a full order of magnitude smaller than just what the US has currently deployed and ready for launch (not counting the rest of the stockpile which is like 4x the size). We have enough weaponry to completely overwhelm their defenses. China does not.
I suggest you read the article you linked carefully. Follow the links to the articles of each of the constituent programs, and read those articles carefully with a critical eye. Pay particular attention to the number of interceptors those programs actually have, the type of missile those systems are designed to intercept, and the locations of the installations. You can use the "measure distance" tool on google maps to plot out great arcs to get an idea of what sort of threat those installations are meant to counter.
I'll sum it up for you: The US has some defense against countries like North Korea. Not against Russia, nor even China. But don't take my word for it, read those articles carefully, paying attention to the details.
“ Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”
"SIOP-62 included the virtual obliteration of the tiny country of Albania because within its borders sat huge Soviet air-defense radar, which had to be taken out with high assurance. Power smiled at Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and said with a mock straight face: "Well, Mr. Secretary, I hope you don't have any friends or relations in Albania, because we are just going to have to wipe it out.""
Not to mention that the US deployed strategic arms in more diverse locations (other countries), making a first strike against them that takes out most of their response capability difficult to pull off successfully.
Wtf? Why are people in this thread acting like the nuclear option is an actual option. This isn't StarCraft where you trade into the enemy forces, and as long as you cripple their economy you win. You just killed billions of innocent people. Everyone lost.
Y'all need to go watch War Games again. The only winning move is not to play.
Ah, but China holds all the financial levers to keep everyone in their place. If there were a war there'd be no "Made in China" goods being exported. Take a look around you and think about that for a few minutes. They can get away with almost anything. The only thing they fear is an internal uprising.
> The only thing they fear is an internal uprising.
Unfortunately, they're so good at propaganda and fear that they seem to have the civil unrest front on lock. Any real protests are erased and no one is allowed to mention it ever happened.
I have to assume this practice won't last forever. Historically, it never does. But it could last a while.
Fully agree that there is endless history inter and intra asia. As a 1st gen asian american let me assure you I am familiar with that reality.
This is 2019 Thailand:
According to a BoI report, investment applications from Chinese projects in the first nine months of this year amounted to 45 billion baht, up 100% from the same period last year, mainly from the rubber industry and tyre manufacturing.
This is Malaysia in 2016:
China is pouring huge money into Malaysia and most people have yet to bat an eye on the significance of this huge impact.
In times of trouble, who is it that comes to support Malaysia? It is the Chinese.
“This has led to Malaysia’s foreign bond holdings going back up to over 50% and also gave our ringgit some form of stability,” says Astramina Advisory Sdn Bhd managing director Wong Muh Rong.
- https://archive.is/Ipbnu#selection-2839.0-2839.191
The reason for pulling old quotes is to show that this is a trend that has continued forward. I'd be happy to be wrong.
Politics isn't that simple. Not everyone in those countries feels the same way or is being paid by the same people. Even in HK where citizens regularly fill the streets to openly protest Chinese influence, the HK govt has many Chinese sympathizers who are trying to ensure the situation shakes out in China's favor.
This mirrors what happened in Thailand as well. While the younger generations (90s or after) want to see a better and fair politics, many people involving in politics nowadays are more likely to support Chinese influence (infrastructure, pandemic response, among others). In fact, when its embassy published an op-ed bashing Thai people for diminishing the efficiency of COVID-19 vaccine it supplied to Thailand, there are some Thai people who actually gave apology on behalf of the fellow Thais, despite their series implying that face masks from Thailand have a low quality.
> If there were a war there'd be no "Made in China" goods being exported.
That would be the best thing that ever happened to the rest of the world, and to Chinese citizens as well.
China has long abused its citizens to undercut global prices on manufactured goods. Their political and religious prisoners are very often put to work in factories (if not sent to work camps or tortured in prison); and wages for factory work are very low compared to the rest of the world.
In the early 1930s, the USSR survived by shipping so much grain out of Ukraine that by 1933, 25% of the Ukrainian populace had died. Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes always abuse people one way or another to survive.
> In the early 1930s, the USSR survived by shipping so much grain out of Ukraine that by 1933, 25% of the Ukrainian populace had died. Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes always abuse people one way or another to survive.
During the Great Leap Forward around 1958-1962, an estimated 15 to 55 millions died in China due to famine, while China was still a net exporter of grain (to Cuba and Africa).
That was due to abusive behavior on England's part.
Every country and every political leader is capable of committing atrocities. But overall, rule-of-law democracy is much better at mitigating that than other forms of government.
> rule-of-law democracy is much better at mitigating that than other forms of government
I believe that both are exploitative, just that developed democracy is better at hiding it - either internally through low wage labor or by exporting to developing countries.
We wouldn't be trading with China if it didn't benefit us. A sanction damages the participants as much as its target. This doesn't matter if your target is a smaller country like Iran or even Russia, but China is way to big an exporter to sanction.
>Their political and religious prisoners are very often put to work in factories (if not sent to work camps or tortured in prison)
So you want them to shut down the factories, in which case they'll be sent to be sent to labor camps or rot in prison instead?
>wages for factory work are very low compared to the rest of the world.
China's average wage more than doubled over the past 10 years. Do you expect wages to increase by an order of magnitude overnight? Also, why would you blame China for this instead of the importers demanding razor thin margins or manufactured goods?
> We wouldn't be trading with China if it didn't benefit us.
The ends don't justify the means when those means are morally wrong. Morally wrong means create collateral damage that I believe will haunt us for generations to come. (I'm sure you can think of various 20th century dictators whose actions still haunt the world.)
> China's average wage more than doubled over the past 10 years.
That's good, but it's more a result of Jintao's relaxed policy than the current president's policy. Not that I approve of Jintao - he was as much an authoritarian leader as those that preceded him.
>It’s forced manual labor, done for the benefit of the non-imprisoned populace.
From what I understand, when the media talks about an Apple supplier exploiting Uighurs for example, they're talking about a factory that employs willing people and others who are forced to find a job or else they'll be sent back to a detention camp. This is terrible, but it's not comparable to being sent off to a laogai camp.
>Mass shutdown of factories might actually spur some protest from the general populace and shed light on the plight of the imprisoned.
Someone desperate for work won't give a damn about the plight of others. This goes for the Chinese who will angry at what they perceive as western hegemony, and the people who would lose their jobs at home.
> they're talking about a factory that employs willing people
Prisoners forced to choose between harsh detention or menial factory work, are not “willing”.
This is the same argument made by people against minimum wage increases - “why do low wage workers do such jobs, they have a choice”.
The USA also has the same kind of prison labor, and inmates are forced to work for the profit of companies and the state, while receiving barely any wages in return. In fact, most of them cannot get any real work after release either.
> Someone desperate for work
I’m talking about the general global populace waking up to the fact that their goods are made by (essentially) slaves, as a result of labor shutdowns. This would be really beneficial to the worker class, and harm the ruling class.
And from the previous comment:
> importers demanding razor thin margins
Western companies that “believe” in human rights could just as well manufacture goods with a conscience and demand fair-trade supply chains; instead of just profit. But obviously, reality shows us otherwise.
>Prisoners forced to choose between harsh detention or menial factory work, are not “willing”
I mean that the factories employ regular employees as well as those threatened to be sent back to detention. I don't see why both groups of people should be punished so that people thousands of miles away can feel a better conscience.
>I’m talking about the general global populace waking up to the fact that their goods are made by (essentially) slaves, as a result of labor shutdowns.
Has anything like that has ever happened in history? I don't see how people in economic distress are less likely to care about the plight of others. Meanwhile, if people cared enough to cut all trade with China, I don't see what more awareness would get us.
> I don't see why both groups of people should be punished so that people thousands of miles away can feel a better conscience.
What do you mean? This thread is about how China is violently dealing with dissenters within Asia (HK is not China). We’re talking about how a ban on slave labor Chinese goods could solve things.
> Has anything like that has ever happened in history?
Never before in history has the global manufacturing industry concentrated into one region (China).
> I don't see what more awareness would get us.
Awareness would instigate change, and China would be forced to stop utilizing prisoner-slave labor.
> people thousands of miles away can feel a better conscience
I’m really concerned by the level of dismissiveness you’re showing. Not sure if this discussion is leading anywhere.
I really think nobody cares. Even if China were to military invade Taiwan tonight, I'm not sure there would be any form of retaliation from western countries.
The only reason Hong Kong has had this period of independence is a side effect of western power subjugating the Chinese mainland. As the Chinese mainland grows in global power and the west decays into internal squabbles there should be no expectation that the pretenses of western power will remain intact.
I think I'm being downvoted out of some sense of political duty to Hong Kong from westerners, but really there has been nothing holding the mainland back other than the threat of western power. If there is no threat, there is nothing that will hold them back, whether we find it tasteful or not.
I am disappointed by the naivete displayed by Hong Kong and their Western supporters (plus some mainlanders who privately admitted so). They are just replaying the tiananmen square riot, and had been setup from the beginning to be walking into the trap that happened before, and many times over the course of human history...
They had a very good chance of inducing meaningful change into Chinese people's mindset, and plant the seed for much bigger scale of change in China. Imagine a free and solidified China, with Taiwan finally joining the whole under a free nation. That would be the real junvanation of the nation.
They squandered, they lack the discipline, showing stutling naive approach to serious politics, they are put down like weak fire in the winter days...
Heartbreaking. I can't even talk about Tiananmen with Chinese -born friends under 40 in the US or Europe. TikTok and WeChat has achieved their goals of driving historical memory from their brains. And if I even mention Taiwan within seconds I am hearing the term "renegade province." It seems for now possible to create a true virtual totalitarian state in the 21st century. It's chains are forged out of "Xi thought" apps and distracting two minute videos.
It's partly due Chinese brainwashing, and partly due to American brainwashing.
Imagine whenever an American expat talks to a foreigner, which happens daily, someone mentions racism in US. Very soon people will get really sick and tired of hearing about it, and will emotionally deny/downplay its existence.
Long-term American expat here. I know you're only trying to make a point, but racism is almost never the first thing anyone mentions, even if they're talking about America, which usually isn't the first thing someone wants to talk about.
And when it does come up? Well yeah, racism in America is a huge problem, and I don't think expats have any problem talking about it.
Being thin-skinned about your country's complicated history is never a good look.
> racism is almost never the first thing anyone mentions, even if they're talking about America
Sadly that's not the experience of Chinese expat and immigrants, especially those in the States. Many people can face criticism, but few enjoys being bombarded with the same criticism everyday.
In fact, American netizens probably has a similar experience and reaction. You just have to look at some sibling comments to see how they deflect and downplay racism, despite my clear intention of just using it to demonstrate a point, as opposed to seriously criticize US on this worldwide problem.
What’s funny is the most racist interactions I have had in professional situations were with Chinese businessmen. China is exceptionally racist. But they do try to cudgel America with it repeatedly.
I think this is true for many places around the world: where racism is just as serious or more so than in the US, but racism appears more prominent in the US because the issue has been dealt with more head on.
TikTok is 2 years old, WeChat is... 10? Communist china is well over 50 now. The apps are tools, nothing more. Just like Twitter is for the western left, btw.
> The national security unit had earlier requested that the Hong Kong Alliance hand over information, reportedly including personal details of all members since the group's founding and financial records.
> On Tuesday, the deadline for the request, the alliance members handed over a letter explaining their refusal to co-operate.
That takes a magnificent and heartbreaking degree of courage.
Police have accused Ms Chow of inciting subversion, her lawyers said.
The absolute genius of the CCP isn't that they're cracking down on Hong Kong and domestic democratic movements. The brilliant part is spending the last forty years forging a culture that approves of it. Many Westerners perceive the Chinese populace as ignorant of what their government does. That is not true. Speak to some international students some time. They're fully aware of what the CCP does, and they agree with it. To them, national unity and tranquility really is worth throwing dissidents and activists into prison or just disappearing them.
Indeed. I have an otherwise quite reasonable friend whose stance on Xinjiang province is:
"The camps aren't real, it's just an exaggeration. And if they're real, it's because the Xinjiang people are there voluntarily. And if they're not there voluntarily, it's probably better anyway, since it would be a really bad thing long-term to have a large minority of people that is not culturally united with the rest of China. It's not pretty but it's for the common good."
How do we know your friend is wrong about their existence?
I can say that at least, it's hard not to be surprised by such opinions. I've been to Xinjiang and know people that live there. Pretty sure you could live your whole life without seeing said camps.
I also know people that have had family members die from attacks from the Uighurs. If real, I suspect the CCP started the camps after the terrorist attacks - if you look up cities like Korla you'll know what I mean - the security there is insane, complete with officers with submachine guns escorting school children. I didn't have the balls to take a picture...
> How do we know your friend is wrong about their existence?
Because if they're right, there's no way to know anything about the world. Even the PRC government now admits the camps exist, and their propaganda approach has moved on from outright denial to other tactics.
This is only half true. Many of my Chinese friends, especially affluent ones who have spent time abroad, both know and hate what Xi is doing to their country. Behind closed doors and or while walking in parks in Shanghai and Beijing I've spoken with people who still mourn friends lost in Tiananmen, who found Xi's removal of term limits deeply unsettling, and who dream of religious freedom in Tibet and Xinjiang.
China is full of a great many intelligent and aware people who are working hard to reclaim their country. Lots of the most progressive folks I know are working within the government, making day-to-day decisions as low level bureaucrats to dull the sharp edge of totalitarianism wherever they can.
Perhaps a modest number of Chinese people genuinely don't care much for anything other than stability and profit. However, the heart of China still beats for independence and many good people are waiting for their chance to reclaim the country.
History is not optimistic about quiet pushes for progressivism and civil rights. This is not even a western bias: if you really want change, it's going get rough before it gets better.
It would’ve been much more free under British rule towards the end but the mainland government pressured the UK not to allow that to happen in preparation for the handover.
I visited in 2016, too. The fellow there recommended that to learn more about China I should visit Taiwan. At the time I thought that was a pessimistic point of view.
Taiwan did seek to preserve the heritage of China after the communist takeover on the mainland, which sought to pretty much destroy said heritage in a cultural revolution.
Please don't give credence to nonsensical nationalist tropes. The Oracle Bone Script goes back to about 1200 BC during the Shang Dynasty, that makes about 3200 years of history. Before that it's _pre-history_.
It's a bit younger than Linear B, Old Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit. So in terms of a traceable, continuous culture China is at the fourth place of so.
These days I'd probably be called a "historical nihilist" in China for saying that.
That was the most pedantic correction I've ever seen on HN in a while :-). I think the parent was just speaking loosely rather than spreading "nonsensical nationalistic tropes". Take it easy.
Does being 5000 or 3200 years old really change the discussion to anyone but historians?
I think it touched a nerve because that line of thinking ("we're the oldest culture") is presumably highly propagandized amongst CCP China. 1800 years is the difference between "best" and "just another", which is a big deal in totalitarian narrative terms :)
It's certainly changes the discussion to the CCP ! They intend to cement the notion that China is the oldest, greatest, most venerable nation their is. Truth be damned.
How so ? There's a case to be made for Linear B because of the Greek Dark Ages, but Old Avestan ? By that same token, Oracle Bone Script also doesn't represent a traceable and continuous culture.
Persia was conquered by iconoclastic foreigners. Many native traditions were lost, even the knowledge of how to read the old writings. Continuity was significantly interrupted.
> There's a case to be made for Linear B because of the Greek Dark Ages
That's sufficient to defeat the claim of cultural continuity, but note also that the case that Linear B has been deciphered at all isn't on the firmest ground.
> Persia was conquered by iconoclastic foreigners.
Spouting this as if it somehow justifies or reinforces the CCP's claim to China being the oldest and therefore most venerable of cultures is just continuing to give credence to their nationalist tropes. It's not as if China had never been conquered.
I try to remind people of this all the time, it’s especially interesting since the leadership is trying to destroy artifacts of their history to fit a very recent narrative.
They only occasionally use bits and pieces to talk about how they are in ancient culture, but they are rapidly becoming a very young culture in a historical sense.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. During the communist revolution (in the 40s), the previous government was overthrown and escaped to Taiwan. That was when Mao and Communism took over.
> During the cultural revolution, the previous government was overthrown and escaped to Taiwan
Not the Cultural Revolution. Cultural Revolution was in the 1960s, the Communist victory over the Nationalists and the Nationalists' flight to Taiwan was late 1940s. The "Cultural Revolution" was not a "revolution" in the classic sense. It was not an attempt to install a new government. It was a totalitarian exercise in which the Communist Party – led by Mao – attempted to eliminate every aspect of Chinese culture and society that wasn't enthusiastically communist
> Not sure why you are being downvoted. During the communist revolution (in the 40s), the previous government was overthrown and escaped to Taiwan.
Incorrect. The previous government of China (the Beiyang government) was overthrown by a collaboration between the CPC and the KMT (Which was led by Chiang Kai-shek).
The CPC and the KMT then had a war, which the KMT lost - and fled to Taiwan.
As a bonus, the KMT then proceeded to carry out the White Terror - 38 years of one-party rule, repression and martial law, which ostensibly purged Taiwan's of suspected or alleged communists.
Another thing the US can do (and other countries that criticise China's human rights policies) is set a better example in international affairs. People in the US and US-aligned countries can organise opposition, for example to end the blockade of Cuba, take care of the disadvantaged, and end the illegal wars and terrorism. Meaningful action we can all take, utilising the freedoms and privileges we have to criticise the actions of our governments.
Thats an incredibly simplified take on it. HK might not represent a large part of the chinese economy but it still facilitates a large part of foreign investment into chinese companies.
In CN there are largely three types of listings A shares, B shares and H shares. A & B are listed on SZ and SH exchange and are not freely traded like you know it from the west. H shares are listed on HK exchange and are freely traded using the Hong Kong Dollar.
This is why companies like Tencent are dual listed on Shanghai and Hong Kong exchange, to facilitate foreign investment that wouldnt be possible in the same way if Tencent was only listed as B class on Shanghai exchange.
If it were true, China would not have delayed its Anti-Sanctions Law in Hong Kong [1]. Hong Kong is huge in supporting the Finance of China.
> But the Hong Kong government can only welcome the stock listing opportunity to reinforce Hong Kong as the world’s premier IPO destination, especially at a time when the introduction of the national security law
has raised concerns about maintaining the city as a global financial hub.
But that is a myopic comparison. The strategic value of Hong Kong’s (semi)-open capital markets is that they act as a conduit between a totalitarian isolationist state and the rest of the world.
The US’s capital markets support international trade in a somewhat similar way, and are thus innately valuable even without accounting for the productivity of American workers.
Capital inflows to China are done through Hong Kong. HK is just a financial center for China. As far as the population goes, China could care less as long as they two the communist line.
It isn't exactly easy to leave your country, family, friends, and entire life behind. The UK did make it easier for HKers to get visas and relocation, but I think efforts like this only go so far in practice. Not enough people want to leave until it is too late. Because, and it is hard to blame them, they hope that their home will end up being saved by the many people fighting to preserve it. Leaving, in a way, is giving up.
We should also note that with the growth of Shenzhen and other mega cities, HK isn't that important to China anymore. That's part of why they've become more aggressive in the situation.
It's an interesting idea, but it would amount to calling China's bluff. China has stated that they would definitely commit to a ground invasion of Taiwan if the US recognized it. The question is -- how serious are they about that?
Personally, I think they'd go for it. They've been itching to take over Taiwan by force anyway.
You can’t compare Afghanistan and Taiwan. The US never really cared about Afghanistan once they got rid of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. They only stayed as long they did because the optics of leaving were always going to be bad.
The US does care about Taiwan, because of real economic interests.
Absolutely not. US troops in Taiwan create a long term issue. It's objectively better for China to strike Taiwan before there are sizeable troops there than wait for those trooos to accumulate forever.
China would strike as soon as US troops officially settle in China in a military and not police/security/training/sales capacity.
I bet loads of people said the same thing when Britain and France gave the Sudetenland to Germany. That didn't work out very well for them, and it was only because Germany and Russia fell out and fought each other that Britain won that war; if not for that it's entirely possible that democracy would not have survived at the world would be a very different place today.
That's really easy to say when it's not you or your kids on the front line.
Beyond just Taiwan, the last cold war kept the third world in a constant state of proxy war between the major powers, costing millions of lives in the short-term and delaying development in the long term.
Worth considering if you're in favor of more of that in the name of human rights.
> ...the last cold war kept the third world in a constant state of proxy war between the major powers, costing millions of lives in the short-term and delaying development in the long term.
And the alternative might have been "let the Soviets win." That choice would have definitely been a way to avoid war and achieve a kind of "peace."
What happened when we finally left Vietnam? Absolutely nothing, that's what. Lot fewer people dying from napalm.
We had to support one-way helicopter rides under Pinochet and contras gunning down nuns? Or else the soviets win?
If it's about national pride and staying on top, fine, but don't tell me it's human rights with that record. The Chinese haven't acted with force outside of what they consider their soil/sea in like 40 years. Xi is pretty worrying but until he starts doing that, let's not agitate for killing a bunch of people just in case.
The world is a messy place and at many times it may be impossible to pursue that goal in an entirely consistent manner.
There's also the other factor of self-preservation. It's not a good strategy to cede advantages to your opponent and hope a deus ex machina saves you in the end.
> The Chinese haven't acted with force outside of what they consider their soil/sea in like 40 years. Xi is pretty worrying but until he starts doing that, let's not agitate for killing a bunch of people just in case.
Who's advocating for a bunch of killing? I think the main (perhaps only) thing I'm seeing advocated for here is diplomatic recognition.
As of right now, there's no battlefield. China's official doctrine has been non-interference in other nations since Mao and they've mostly stuck to it with a few aberrations like a 30 day war in Vietnam.
Xi has been pushing the limits internally and maybe one day that turns external but people here are talking about pre-emptive cold war.
EDIT: diplomatic recognition is a purely symbolic move, and in this case the symbol is a middle finger to China. I'd argue the upsides are limited, but I was more objecting to the general theme of china hawkishness that points towards a new cold war.
That's true, but if it ends there, then it's not a vital matter of self-defense for us. Honestly, not even that important in terms of balance of power provided we get that TSMC plant up in Arizona first.
What it IS, is a grievous insult to our insistence on being the last word in international affairs.
> That's true, but if it ends there, then it's not a vital matter of self-defense for us. Honestly, not even that important in terms of balance of power provided we get that TSMC plant up in Arizona first.
That's not a great look, and will probably eventually end with our allies either defeated or heading for the exits.
Being a reliable ally seems like it'd be pretty important to self-defense. China has a pretty big population, it's unified, and may have the patience to chip away at things and outlast us.
> What it IS, is a grievous insult to our insistence on being the last word in international affairs.
I suppose it's always an option to withdraw and leave our allies become tributaries of the new empire. Maybe we can eventually become one ourselves and our grandkids can gave peace under the emperor.
This would absolutely never happen, but if we were serious about completely removing the possibility of a Chinese mainland invasion of Taiwan, we could just publicly give Taiwan some nukes.
It would be a global political shitstorm, but even mainland China would not be stupid enough to invade after that.
Nuclear proliferation may be bad for all sorts of reasons, but MAD really does appear to work.
Also Taiwan already has nuclear power plants, so it's not that crazy. They are capable of developing nuclear weapons on their own if they really wanted to.
US would never do that, it would violate Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Some non-nuclear NATO countries do host US nuclear weapons, but they are legally and physically under US control. In an actual nuclear war, the US would release these nuclear weapons to their allies – at which point the US would have indeed violated the treaty, but in a nuclear war who cares?
So in principle the US could station US-controlled nuclear weapons in Taiwan, and publicly announce they have done so. But it would be an extremely risky move – basically the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again, but this time with the US playing the role of the Soviet Union.
Given the extreme risk of such a move, I doubt the US is going to make it.
> The US unlikely to be enormously bothered about violating treaties if it finds doing so in its interest.
The US cares greatly about the NPT because it wants a world in which only a small number of countries have nuclear weapons, not a world in which dozens of them do.
NPT limits nuclear weapons to 5 countries only - China, France, Russia, UK, US. Four nuclear states refuse to give up their weapons as the treaty demands (and hence refuse to join it) - India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan. But a world with 9 nuclear weapons states is preferable to one with 90
> What exactly is China going to do?
Attack Taiwan? China would likely try to call the US nuclear bluff with a massive conventional attack. The ensuing loss of human life and economic damage would be enormous.
> The US cares greatly about the NPT because it wants a world in which only a small number of countries have nuclear weapons, not a world in which dozens of them do.
The treaty doesn't ensure that in any way. It's an empty letter.
> NPT limits nuclear weapons to 5 countries only - China, France, Russia, UK, US. Four nuclear states refuse to give up their weapons as the treaty demands (and hence refuse to join it) - India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan.
Exactly. The NPT does fuck-all against this, and it's going to be of equally fuck-all use against the next bunch of countries that really want to get nukes. (Also, BTW, fuck knows if your four shouldn't be a five: how certain are you, really, that South Africa doesn't have them?)
> But a world with 9 nuclear weapons states is preferable to one with 90
Maybe. (Yeah: I'm not even all that sure about that, any more.) But that has fuck-all to do with the NPT, since that is of absolutely no use in ensuring the former in stead of the latter.
> ...but if we were serious about completely removing the possibility of a Chinese mainland invasion of Taiwan, we could just publicly give Taiwan some nukes.
IIRC, that's one of the PRC's red lines to trigger an invasion.
Also, I'm not sure if Taiwan could get to the point of having a survivable nuclear arsenal that's large enough to guarantee MAD.
China doesn't want war, it wants status. They see the last 200 years as a reversal of the natural order of things, and want China to be top dog again. They literally see themselves as the center of the world: Zhongguo means "central country".
On 1, let's not pretend that short term destruction necessarily leads to long term prosperity. We've "won" most of our recent wars, long term prosperity was not the result.
On 2, there is no conventional war with a nuclear power.
Tariffs? We tried a trade war, and it had some economic effect, but no lasting political effect. We probably don't want to get involved in another land war in Asia, if we can avoid it. We could try asking them nicely, but beyond that I feel like it's up to the people of China to decide their own fate.
A land war against China over Hong Kong would be ridiculous. They have the entire country as a base. The western countries would have to fly/sail everything in. Not to mention the legal situation. It's their soil already. It would be an invasion. Against another superpower no less. Really bad idea.
And China can hurt the city enough by just turning the water off. It will only hurt the people of Hong Kong more.
No, this change won't be driven by the military. It will have to come from within. Probably the most durable way anyway (see how this worked out for Afghanistan).
Taiwan would be a totally different thing though. They have been independent for so long and they have no wish to join communist China (which they've never been a part of). And it's much more defensible. I do hope we will stand by them when it comes to it.
> A land war against China over Hong Kong would be ridiculous.
Indeed. It's a complete non-starter.
If the West wants to beat China they must be more subtle and crafty than a direct military invasion: the 2nd Cold War will be mainly fought using diplomacy, trade, economics, technology and spying. Not direct military conflict, apart from maybe a few proxy wars.
Western countries probably wouldn't land any ground forces but instead form a naval blockade all along the china sea and use their air superiority to deindustrialize the country.
Ask them nicely?! Appeasement never work, did we forgot what we have learnt from WW2? The only way out is to start a cold/hot war until toppling the CCP.
Remember CCP have no similarly as Republican or Democrat. They will never fight fairly with you. Once you amass enough and they see you as a threat. They will use any methods to take it away from you. See what happened to Jack Ma. [1]
You're describing any hegemonic power structure. But my point was not that Democratic/Republican parties are worse than the CCP (on domestic power at least - they are worse than the CCP on foreign policy, but I digress...). My point was that it is easier for Americans to make change in their own country. So why not start there? That's something Americans (and people from US-aligned countries, to some extent) can actually do something about. The CCP is much harder problem that requires international solidarity to overcome. We need to set a positive example for dissidents in China, beating the war drums will not help them.
Punish them how? The global economy is heavy reliant on a cooperative China.
UK have made it clear they aren’t part of the EU so why would the EU care?
Just recall the context China are operating from: Hong Kong was stolen from them at the height of the opium wars. There is no fairness in these geopolitical dealings.
Overall this sucks for HK… but it’s actually easy to understand all the parties involved actions/inaction… it’s just crap though. :(
Then first, remove the dependencies, there are places that you can start manufacturing stuff cheaper than China, and without the risk of Chinese stealing the IP.
It is not a UK/EU issue. At the end of the day CCP think itself as a rising power and will want to expand its power to anywhere on earth. The belt and road initiative is basically modern day colonisation, instead of taking over a whole country or city, Sri Lanka lost a port for 99 years. [1]
The solution is pretty simple, direct low value labour to the internal economy or phase it out, and trade increasingly in difficult products (or products that difficult at scale, of which there are more than you think) as far as foreign trade. It's a fairly proven strategy, it has good odds of working with an already strong internal market.
The China of the opium wars was a completely different entity than Communist China. I don't see that there is any obligation whatsoever to deal with the ccp as if they are the legitimate successors of all things formerly China.
They're lying, cheating, and stealing from every entity they deal with on the world stage, blatantly holding themselves above any law, even internally. This doesn't end well unless there's some sort of overwhelming grassroots revolution from the inside. Thanks to Western panopticon tech, that can't happen now, so China's merry band of pirates is headed for Taiwan and global conflict.
Blatantly holding themselves above any law, who does that remind me of..
We have done and continue to do more than our fair share of lying, cheating, and stealing. We metaphorically stacked the deck. You say "global conflict" - I'll remind you that it takes two to have a conflict. And America has the modern world beat in terms of starting and perpetuating conflicts.
I wasn't defending their action. Just pointing out that is the context they operate from. Whether it is fact or indoctrination isn't really important. Their action is 100% consistent with that belief.
Every country is lying/cheating/stealing... Is there an honest operator out there?
Well, yes - if Apple or Samsung violate IP laws, there is recourse.
If China steals all the Arm Holdings IP and infrastructure in China, there is no recourse.
If I scam someone on EBay or Amazon almost anywhere in the Western world, they can take me to court given sufficient evidence and magnitude of the scam. If a Chinese seller on Alibaba or Amazon scams me, there is zero recourse.
The Western world has a surprising level of default trust and honesty in business. There are gross and obvious exceptions, but China is culturally and legally playing a vastly different and incompatible game.
“The western world” is the minority in the world… like 20 or so countries. And typically they benefited from colonialism. I know it’s fun to ignore history, but it’s dishonest.
If the US or a European state signed a treaty with the UK under the conditions that the UK imposed on China, would you call for the US to be punished for breaking that treaty?
Genuine, non-inflammatory question: Who's behind this, in China? I know that "Winnie the Pooh" gets the public blame, but this seems to be a very... public, provocative thing to do. Is the person ordering it aware of that, and how provocative it is? Is it Carrie Lam? Their chief of police? Orders from someone higher up in the party, maybe at the ministerial level? Or does the order really from the top? Frankly, I would think that Mr Xiping would have better things to do running a country of a billion people than decide to provoke the HK populace on a random day in September.
Edit: very rudely, please tell me why you're down-voting me if you are?
I'm the furthest thing from an expert, but if you think about it from a PR/publicity sense, its the best time to do it;
1. No one is paying attention due to the pandemic,
2. By 2047, there'll be no dissodence left and the transition will seem smooth, instead of a fight. The press will say the transition happened with minimal incidence, and it allows China to de-value any protests/outcry from other countries.
No one in particular. Many people agreed about a plan years ago, with various factors they set out to trigger various steps, and those determined that today was a suitable day and no one objected specifically, so it went ahead. That's the most likely scenario.
Xi himself probably spent very little time on this in the recent past.
> Who's behind this, in China?
Xi and his ally within the CCP. Even within CCP there are power split and Xi needs to create a scene to concentrate the power to himself.
> Is the person ordering it aware of that
Surely they do, but to CCP, this is the only way to make them feel confident enough, by squashing all dissidents.
> Is it Carrie Lam? Their chief of police?...
Personally, I guess the order from CCP to HK govt is, "get rid of all dissident, use any means that you think that will work."
> I would think that Mr Xiping would have better things to do running a country of a billion people than decide to provoke the HK populace on a random day in September.
CCP have crack down so many things these day, no? Things happen in parallel.[1][2][3][4]
Doublethink is a skill that takes some time to learn.
While you're still waiting to get up to speed, just understand and accept that all Chinese people are the property of the Emperor. It's much easier to make sense of things.
I know it is a joke, but they do not deny the event. They just put it into a different context. It goes something like: 2000 lives for 20 years of stability. Well, actually 30 years now.
> That would be an interesting tradeoff conversation if true.
While no-one can predict the future, we can have a good guess what a democratic China would be like, because one exists. It's called Taiwan. Which is richer per capita and arguably more stable than the PRC.
Wikipedia claims: the official PRC position at the time was 300; many other estimates are in the thousands ranging up to 10,000. Of course now they are trying to erase it altogether.
The tagline "objective, nonpartisan and insightful" on 'World Affairs' really brings it home.
The Chinese government obviously has its own propaganda, but being anti-China is objective and nonpartisan in the US. It's not taking sides, it's just the natural state of affairs, the entire media thinks so, both kinds of it.
> but being anti-China is objective and nonpartisan in the US
No, pretty much all American propaganda mills that are not formally associated with a political party claim to be “objective and nonpartisan” (the latter is truly universal, the former or a close synonym quite common). It doesn't matter if the viewpoint being pushed is one orthogonal to the party divide, common to the major factions of both parties, or extremely partisan in its appeal, or even outside of the mainstream of either party. The label is, itself, propaganda (though so routine and formulaic and widely recognized that it only has an impact on the most unaware.)
There's a 'foreign policy grownup' archetype who gets credibility for free whether they're on MSNBC or Fox News. That grownup has a default stance of American global supremacy, and China has gotten too big/rich/powerful to be compatible with that worldview.
Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe acknowledged and defended the Tiananmen crackdown in 2019. That's pretty much going to be party / national consensus going forward.
>stopping the "turbulence" was the "correct" policy.
The power balance between the US, UK, and China in 1984 was far more in favor of the US and the UK than it is now and they still caved to Chinese demands vis a vis Hong Kong. Given the state of global power balance now, there is not a chance in hell that any of the West will do anything (except maybe words) to support the Hong Kong.
The U.S. did nothing in the arrangement because their position wrt the CCP was one of engagement to balance against the USSR.
It was the UK, which caved because, as revealed in now-declassified democratic cables from 1958, Zhou Enlai flatly stated that the PLA would invade if HK was given independence.
The UK quite simply could not defend HK. It had failed to defend it in WWII against Japan (it couldn't even defend Singapore) and would have no hope against the CCP, even without the Harbour Tunnel to the Kowloon Peninsula, which had already been operating for some time.
Instead it opted for an agreement in the joint declaration and a hope that the CCP would lean more towards international norms as the Shanghai cadre assumed more control. Objectively a poor solution but, I have to say, probably the most rational.
Of course, we all know what happened. Deng's best laid plans came to naught and another 'great leader' emerged.
In 1984 China was part of the warsaw pact and well allied. Who will stand up to chinas defence in the face of an american coalition today? Russia would honestly probably join the american coaliton.
i wouldn’t call those police. i would call them enemies of the hk people, if your government oppresses you, they are not YOUR government. a true government works with the people, anything outside of that really shouldn’t exist. it’s sad that with all that we know in 2021, we still have barbaric systems that are designed to oppress. all people, rich and poor are made of the same material, anyone who says otherwise or acts otherwise is delusional. sorry, not sorry. i am really just tired of hearing/reading oppression to this degree. to accept this as the way things are is fine until it’s banging on your door at 3am to pull your family members out because they don’t fit an unrealistic/inhumane “standard” that a random other person made without thinking or not caring a about the suffering it will cause. all i keep thinking of when, not if there will be a breaking point. history tends to repeat itself, hopefully some of the good people finally stand up and demand to be treated fairly. but we’ll see, maybe it will just get better, a change of heart or something. who knows
Leaders in the former Soviet Union learned the easiest way to erase an historical event was to remove all public record of it.
For those who do not remember they would arrest a member of say the Politburo and then all pictures of him with other leaders would be airbrushed out, sometimes even in library books. It was as if he was no longer ever born.
Not to argue about this directly, but there is a stark difference in that we can argue about this. Is it not true that China will censor discussions about Tiananmen square especially if it disagrees with their narrative? Yes I'm sure Chinese citizens know some information about Tiananmen square that westerns don't. AKA the info and only the info that paints it as a western overreaction, but that has little meaning when it's literally the only narrative that's allowed.
Also for the record. While interesting Operation Yellowbird seems entirely innocuous
If our goal is to democratize Russia and China, that is, change their political systems to conform more closely with our democratic one, is that not tantamount to a declaration of ideological war by us?
>>Critics say it is aimed at crushing dissent but China says it is meant to maintain stability.
Of course both are right.
This is a blatant crushing of dissent, wherein merely attempting to curate a few facts is now cast as a crime deserving a life sentence.
OTOH, the CCP requires stability to maintain its illegitimate[1], brutally dishonest, murderous, expansionist authoritarian 'govt'. This "stability" and requires that the population remain ignorant of the CCP's corruption, history, and current practices.
Western democracies were massively foolish to ever engage with CCP and treat it as if it were legitimate.
While we thought we were exploiting cheap Chinese labor, the CCP strategically exploited our myopic focus on quarterly profits. They now have won a massive transfer of strategic commercial & military intellectual property, strategic manufacturing know-how, and massive amounts of capital to strategically deploy to buy more global influence. This will go down as a blunder of historic proportions.
We see the signs every week, as here, yet nothing is done about it.
[1] While this govt may be recognized, it came to power over it's people at the point of a gun, and can only maintain that power without the free consent of it's people. Being a de-facto ruler does not make a ruler legitimate. By that reasoning, the Taliban should immediately be recognized as a legitimate govt.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. History has stopped...." Orwell's '1984'
> Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words, the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies.
probably until the current communist party loses its grip. Currently, it's sort of a federated dictatorship.
They see what S.Korea has gone through in being a full democracy, taking lessons from it to ensure it doesn't happen there.
S.Korea is a free society now, but even as a 40 something guy, I remember days of militaristic regime holdovers from quasi dictatorship of the past.
You couldn't criticize the president, the press was closely monitored, no one dare expose rampant corruption and collusion of big business and prosecution office.
I remember my neighbor skipping classes to demonstrate against the government, throwing Molotov cocktails.
Some people got whisked away and put into labor camp, not to be seen again for months or not make it out alive.
Where is China on the timeline? They're probably currently at where Korea was in early 1970s. But they also know that the timeline now is far more compressed in modern society and change could happen much quicker.
All the the actions you're seeing from China, is done out of fear of losing grip.
Reading this, I find it funny how so many people have an image of their "enemies" in their minds and laugh at the idiocy they've mentally constructed for these enemies.
Reading this, I find it funny how way back in the heyday of Usenet it dawned on me "people really believe this stuff!", for a wide array of stuff.
Yes, many people do construct a mental strawman and take great pleasure in assigning & attacking it. It's also interesting how many actually do believe such strawman-like absurdities in earnest. Yes, there are people who construct an image of "but real communism has never been tried!" types and impute the term so they can attack; there are also people who truly believe "but real communism has never been tried!".
Not the same kind of suppression, not by a long stretch.
You're still legally entitled to stand on a street corner in the US and shout racial slurs, if that's your thing. You're also legally entitled to assemble and protest there.
None of the undertakings that are equivalent to those actions are permitted in China, and will immediately subject you to violence.
> But there is considerable extralegal hate speech regulation. Your face will be plastered all over social media and you will get "cancelled" and lose your career
That's a pretty convoluted way to say "people in the US don't tolerate assholes".
> and no "free speech" laws will protect you from that
You have a right to speak freely without the government stopping you. You have no right to have people listen to you. In fact the same guarantee that you have for speech also enshrines free assembly.
So everyone who disagrees with your bullshit is free to ignore you and convince others to ignore you. They're also free to boot you off or out of their property.
Yeah, I don't know how America can be considered a so-called "free country" when the people living there will get angry at me for using slurs and being generally discriminative. I'm sure it's just a matter of time until they create some kind of unethical legal punishment too, as they did with expressions of anger (assault, murder, etc.).
Deng was actually in the middle between the hardliners and reformists, from accounts I've read. He wasn't officially head of the party anymore, and there was stalemate for a few days about how to handle the protests before Deng finally weighed in with 'enough is enough'.
I'm sure they do. I'm also sure they know it's fleeting. They're operating on time schedules of decades, if not centuries. The Sterisand effect is effective for weeks or possibly months, unfortunately.
I would like to remind everyone in this thread that to call China and Taiwan separate is wrong. There is only one Taiwan, whose mainland western territory is currently occupied by an illegitimate revolutionary government.
Closing the media outlets, museums, websites that speak against them. And a few key people get abducted here and there to scare more people and force them to accept the Beijing Regime. But... The people from Hong Kong still demonstrates and tries to fight for their lost rights.