We should not choose to fight a war with China if they invade Taiwan

Here's a hot take.

We should not choose to fight a war with China if they invade Taiwan

The cost to the U.S. military of fighting China in its backyard in the waters around Taiwan would be profound. We would likely lose many hundreds of attack aircraft, potentially scores of Navy ships (including four aircraft carriers), and the lives of tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen. That kind of damage to our armed forces would put our national security at home and abroad at great risk for decades to come.

Plainly stated, we should not choose to fight a war with China if they invade Taiwan.

I think the summary of this is that if we fight China, we lose, even if we win.

Food for thought.

 

Are you planning to have the Chi-Coms control the chip supply that our business, defense, airlines, auto, and space industry all run on?

https://www.bloomberg.com › news › articles › 2023-09-08 › taiwan-determined-to-remain-indispensable-source-of-best-chips
Taiwan Determined to Remain 'Indispensable' Source of Best Chips

'Taiwan will remain the world's "indispensable and irreplaceable" source of the world's most advanced microchips, the island's...'

 

They already do.

China won't invade Taiwan. They don't need to.

 

Can't we manufacture chips here at home?

 

War has risks. There’s someone out there who doesn’t think the risks are worth it.

shocking news

 

Not by tomorrow.

 

I’m not against trade with other countries, but I am against being dependent upon other countries. I don’t like being dependent on foreign oil imports, and I don’t like all-electric cars because the batteries are sourced in China.

And I certainly don’t want to go to war because Taiwan is our source for computer chips, especially if we could be making them here at home.

 

I wish we had made different decisions in the past, but we didn't.

'In 2021, TSMC announced its plan to build a multi-billion-dollar facility in Arizona. But the plant will only be ready from 2025 at the earliest, and will probably not be capable of producing chips at what will by then be the technological frontier in terms of scale.'

https://theconversation.com/the-mic...ed-taiwan-and-it-would-affect-everyone-206335

That's just one factory.

 

There are other factories such as Intel that are building thanks to the government helping with he CHIPS funding. But yes, it will be years and these companies will want to build new technology. We should delay China until then and spend more money. Really we should be investing in photonic chips, which replace all our computers, not building facilities that produce technology that's already existing in a saturated market.

 

Don't know why you fellas are all worked up about China and Taiwan (officially known as the Republic of China). All the chips and every other thing they make is made possible because of our shitty unions, our shitty government, our shitty taxes and our shitty regulations. Don't blame China, blame those responsible in DC.

The teamsters just put Yellow Freight out of business. The USG is about to bankrupt RiteAid. And the UAW is doing its best to send more production overseas.

Shocker, China has us by the balls. Stevie Wonder could have seen that coming.

 

We used to. I wonder what happened?

 

Just my two cents: Tears ago I worked for Fairchild-Weston... a division of Fairchild which had been bought by the French oilfield company Sclumberger. Schlumberger also sought to buy a division of Fairchild that made microchips. The federal governemnt stopped that sale because the microchip division of Fairchild was considered essential to US defense.

We've always been critically short of microchip manufacturing apparently.

 

The thing is it shouldn't be we as in us alone. It should be the entire world saying NO together. The fact is most of the world are ******* and can’t fended for themselves. And sadly because of our military leadership, they’re more concerned with how many LGBT we have, than competent killers and leaders. Don’t think we’d be capable of fighting a war anymore anyway. If our last pullout was any indication, it seems quite clear our boys are NOT what they once were.

 

why not, I thought the right hated China, be a good way to bring those jobs back home if people could not buy from China anymore due to a war

my guess is China knows it would cost them too much, so will not do it

 

and all our IT will soon be controlled by India

I agree with you, putting all our eggs in one basket is a national security risk

 

Not if you adhere to the economic doctrines that have dominated American politics & the economy since Reagan became President.

If Americans can decide that it is OK for government to subsidize and possibly control chip production in the name of national security then yes, you can. If Americans keep blaming government, workers, unions & everyone but the real culprits for problems like this then probably not.

 

Unfortunately Xi needs to invade Taiwan to feed the Chinese nationalistic impulse which keeps the people’s minds off of the economic failures of his communist government. He’s run his mouth too many times about how island is a part of China not to do it.

 

It was cheaper to make them in China so that’s where the industry moved. In a perfect world, that would be fine because an economist would say China has a competitive advantage. Unfortunately Xi has decided that he wants to dominate the world and impose his system on it. Therefore we have to make a stand.

 

First, what makes you think China will actually invade Taiwan? Second, what makes you think we would abondan our allies in SE Asia, including Tawain, Japan, etc?

Yes, China does rabre the sabres but that is usually because they want the West for something or to keep the hardliners in China in check. But the reality is China has been saying this for 50 plus years in one form or another.

 

And now they are moving to Vietnam, Brazil, and other places.

 

Actually no. Xi, as well as all other previous CCP Chairmans, use taiwan much the same way the GOP uses illegal immigration for political purposes. Talking about it is one thing, and that has all China has done. We had an agreement of One China, Two systems. That agreement was broken, or at the very least, perceived by the US as broken when China began its changes in Hong Kong. But in Taiwan, they are Chinese, ethically, and still have a 50/50 split that they are a separate country. In some circles, Taiwan represents the True Chinese Government, not the CCP.

 

There is no winning in a modern war, China will lose as well. So we will just cross that bridge when we get there. Guaranteeing we wont interfere, is permission for them to invade.

 

Good question. But there is something else to consider in this question of going to war with China over Taiwan. It is the history of Taiwan. And it is this history that lends some legitimacy to China's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. Here it is in a nutshell.

In the 1600s, the colonial Dutch claimed Taiwan, but Dutch rule ended, and it was annexed by China in 1683. For the next 212 years, it was a recognized part of China.

In 1895, the Imperial Japanese seized it from China.

In 1945, with the defeat of Japan in WW2, Taiwan was returned to China.

In 1949, the Nationalist Chinese were defeated in the Chinese revolution, and they retreated to Taiwan and took control of it, and they have had it ever since. The communist Chinese government chose not to pursue the Nationalist Chinese to Taiwan, but they have never considered the losers of the revolution to have a legitimate claim to a piece of Chinese territory.

In 1971, the United Nations voted to recognize the communist Chinese government (PRC) as the representative of China.

In 1991, the Taiwan government recognized the PRC as having jurisdiction over mainland China.

As Americans, we love freedom and democracy, and we are opposed to communism. But that aside, there is some legitimacy, based upon the history of Taiwan, to China's position. I suspect that had the Chinese revolution gone the other way, and it was the defeated communists who retreated to Taiwan, our position would be that Taiwan was a part of China, and China had every right to reclaim it, by force if necessary.

In our own history, there was the potential to have a similar situation. In the 1800s, prior to our Civil War, there was a move to make Cuba a U.S. state. This idea never gained enough support to become reality. But, for a moment, let's imagine that Cuba had become a U.S. state. And imagine that, at the end of the Civil War, instead of the surrender of the Southern forces, the rebel government had evacuated to Cuba with its remaining army and taken it over. Given the horror of the Civil War, there may have been a prevailing opinion to just let them have it for the time being. But very likely, the U.S. would have never considered the government of Cuba to be legitimate, they would consider Cuba to be a part of the U.S., and the U.S. would very likely have reclaimed it at some point in the future, by force if necessary, even if that move was delayed until some time in the 20th Century.

So it is our opposition to the totalitarianism of communism that is the reason why some would choose to go to war with China over Taiwan. As a freedom-loving American, I totally understand that. But, painful to think about as it might be, the history is what it is, and it lends legitimacy to the PRC's position on Taiwan.

Other considerations:

(1) China is a nuclear nation.

(2) America is a divided nation, and choosing to go to war against a nuclear power when our territory has not been attacked would be unpopular. As evidence of that, the American public probably has a majority who support arming Ukraine to fight the Russians, but they are decidedly against committing our armed forces to going into this war directly.

(3) China is not Iraq or Afghanistan, and, as you pointed out, even if the war didn't go nuclear (God forbid), we would sustain losses, perhaps very severe losses. In this day and age of satellite intelligence, accurate land, air, and sea-based missiles, it is very hard to hide and protect an aircraft carrier from a technically advanced adversary. And I suspect that whatever support existed within the American public for this war would quickly dry up if China sunk an aircraft carrier and thousands of American lives were lost. And present-day America has a tendency to turn on itself if wars don't go according to plan.

(4) A war with China would also mean a cutoff in trade. How many Americans would lose their jobs? How would Americans react to a shortage of goods because nothing from China was coming in? Add all that to #3 above, and we have a toxic recipe for America.

My two cents, three cents because of inflation,

Seth

 

Sounds good on paper but what are the chances we end up getting dragged into that somehow anyway?

 

I would be surprised if Viet Nam gives in to China. They have been traditionally enemies despite both having communist systems. Brazil, the rest of South America and Africa is another matter. Brazil is especially aggravating because the Biden administration interfered in the election there and installed a leftist.

This is full of left wing gobligook. I guess the bottom line is you support giving the Communist Chinese whatever they want since we both know their word is worthless. The comment comparing the situation at our southern border with Taiwan and China really pisses me off.