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

It certainly is catching up to them.
Interesting times in China.

"A curious absence could be felt in Beijing this week. When the annual session of the National People’s Congress (npc) began on March 5th, China’s unhappy people were missing.
These are anxious, confusing times for ordinary Chinese. A once-unstoppable economy is slowing. Consumer confidence is weak. The savings of many Chinese, particularly those who own property, are losing value."
THE ECONOMIST, China | Chaguan, Why China’s confidence crisis goes unfixed, In 2024, to acknowledge public gloom is to doubt Xi Jinping, March 7, 2024.
https://www.economist.com/china/2024/03/07/why-chinas-confidence-crisis-goes-unfixed

 

China is an aging society that can't recover positive demographics. Their goal of zero population growth went to far so that now through the mid twenty first century they will lose 40% of their population. What remains of their work force will be old, their cheap labor advantage will dry up. Even now they are imploding, and there's not turning back.

U.S. should be paying attention. We are turning our future away when we turn away all those southern immigrants, because our current population is aging out too. Not nearly as catastrophically as China's but there is a day coming when we will wish we looked for ways to make the immigration problem ... a solution.

 

There is nothing easy about China invading Taiwan. If Taiwan was pushover, they would have taken them 80 years ago. Taiwan's geography is very forbidding of invasion, and if they know that they can't steal the chip factories, it may not be worth China's while.

 

LOLOLOL

Excuse me, but I laugh at such posts and wonder if such posters have some "expert advice" for surgeons, astronauts, and Supreme Court Justices. I really am amused at such "military experts" that sell shoes for a living and are so knowledgeable.

Member of West Point Class of 1975 that has Commanded troops from Missouri to Germany, trained troops from Virginia to Iraq, been trained from Fort Sill to Fort Benning, seen war from Grenada to Iraq, developed weapons from Fort Benning to Huntsville, from Fort Rucker to Fort Bliss ... but never had the experience of selling shoes.

I need more experience online to learn about war.... LOLOL.

 

What is false? Biden can wage war in Ukraine without Congress footing the bill? Huh?

 

I see.

 

China has fallen off the demographic cliff, and it will be a long drop.

“The "Chinese century" is over.
After all the prognostications, projections and proclamations of the past 20 years asserting that China would soon overtake the U.S. as the world's dominant superpower, the People's Republic is now facing twin perpetual headwinds, and has no realistic options for countering either of them.”

“If you think China has ghost cities now, imagine that vast nation with barely one-third of the population it has today. What will happen to property values in a country where between 50 and 70 percent of its people have disappeared?”
SALON, ANALYSIS, China's Great Leap Backward: So much for the next dominant superpower,
The Chinese century is over. Facing upside-down demographic and economic trends, China is heading off the cliff
By JOE TAUKE, July 30, 2023.
https://www.salon.com/2023/07/30/ch...ard-so-much-for-the-next-dominant-superpower/

 

I'm amused that in a 4 paragraph response you never engaged his point.

 

Might have been intended for another post or posts on the thread.

 

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor) announced a year ago that they were making a huge expansion in the U. S., and got about the process very quickly. They're building new 'fabs' in Arizona, and the plans are very promising:

https://www.trendforce.com/news/202...ack at TSMC's progress,before the end of 2024.

I've 'heard' that we've had a tacit understanding with Xi Jinping for several years that he gives us enough time to replicate the chip-manufacturing industry somewhere besides Taiwan, and then when we've completed the transition, he can have his little island back.

Truth? We couldn't stop the Chinese anyway, so, when you mash all the air bubbles out of it, we're just going to pack up all our 'stuff' and leave....

 

If it were easy to take Taiwan, China would have taken it 80 years ago.

An attempted invasion could result in the strait filled with drowning conscripts, littered with sinking Chinese ships, Chinese harbors ripped to shreds by missles, down Chinese jets from the mainland to Taiwan, Chinese landing ships disintegrated in the heavily mined narrow harbors of Taiwan, and any Chinese forces that did make it to the streets, rotting dead on the asphalt.

Stripped of the Mandate of Heaven by their defeat, the Chinese Ruling Party could be dealing with a full fledged revolution in the aftermath of their brutal defeat by Taiwan.

'Taiwan has stacked up large inventories of anti-air, anti-tank, and anti-ship weapons and ammunition. That includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and low-cost munitions like mobile coastal defense cruise missiles (CDCMs), which have the capacity to destroy China's expensive naval vessels and naval equipment.'

As the lumbering Chinese forces are trying to launch, Taiwan will be destroying their harbors with missiles and sinking their hapless boats full of sea-sick conscripts as they attempt to cross the stormy strait, heading for Taiwan's narrow, heavily armed and obstructed harbors.


China hasn't even been able to take the Kinman Islands from Taiwan, in nearly a century.

Hapless Chinese forces will attempt to run the gauntlet of the Strait Of Death.

'Sea mines, combined with fast-attack craft and missile assault boats, along with land-based munitions positioned on shores and nearby islands, would face the PLA in its most vulnerable state before it gets a chance to land and start an operation.'

'One of the main goals of Taiwan's tactics is to protect the principal defense systems, including aircraft and anti-ballistic defense systems, which can intercept ballistic rockets and inflict primary damage on invading powers.'



Taiwan may need to administrate the smoking ruins of China for a time until civil authorities that understand the right of Free Nations to exist peacefully behind secure borders, can be established on the Mainland.

https://www.dw.com/en/how-taiwan-ca...ina-even-without-us-direct-support/a-62669521

 

It was a reply to @AARguy. If you put him on ignore then when I respond to his posts, you will not be able to see his post that I'm replying to.

 

I sincerely hope you're right, Zorro. Indeed, if we had a strong, relentlessly decisive president in office right now, I'd be much more likely to agree with you. But after witnessing the inept Biden regime's catastrophic 'bug-out' from Afghanistan less than three years ago -- and -- the half-assed, lily-livered approach it's taking today toward Islamo-Nazi forces headed by Iran against our ally, Israel, I'm not at all encouraged.

"Sharks" like Putin, Xi Jinping (and the priesthood that runs Iran) smell 'blood in the water'. Even worse, they have the advantage of consistency in purpose, and, patience. By contrast, we're led by a gaggle of inept, 'woke' jerks who can't make their minds up what they're doing, why, or for how long.

 

Well, a price is certainly being paid for having Bribed Demented Joe at the helm.
Hopefully he will not be there much longer.

But looking at the logistics. We do such an outstanding job of projecting force that we make what is potentially very difficult, look pretty easy, it's not. We can bring overwhelming force to anywhere on the globe, and we can do it fairly rapidly, but, that's the result of over a half century of work, preparation and practice. China has never demonstrated that ability.

Russia to some extent has, for example, they put forces into Syria and they fought. Their navy fired cruise missiles that worked surprisingly well, now neither has done anything like Desert Storm I or II but, Russia at least had some skills and practice at this, yet their invasion of Ukraine was a complete cluster. And they didn't have a strait to cross, they simply drove tanks down highways. They quickly bogged down and have settled for heavily fortified, and mined positions around the bordering Russian populations, and while no one is going to drive them from their positions, they aren't going to advance much from them easier.

Even that would have failed if they had to cross a stormy 100 mile wide strait.

'To invade Taiwan, China would have to conduct an extraordinarily complex military operation, synchronizing air, land, and sea power as well as electronic and cyber warfare.'

We make this look easy, it's anything but.

'The Taiwan Strait is incredibly choppy, and due to two monsoon seasons and other extreme weather events, a seaborne invasion is only viable a few months out of the year.'

And those aren't consecutive months, so the entire invasion from launch to control of the Island would have to be accomplished in 30 days, or any forces landed would be cut off supply and reinforcements at the end of the 30 day weather permitting period.

Take a good look at that coastline, it's cliffs with no large harbors of the type needed for invasion.



Those dinky little harbors are going to be heavily mined, filled with ship traps and with withering fire being delivered from the heavily reinforced cave system that the locals have been building and fortifying for nearly a century, in preparation of this invasion.

The invading conscripts trying to make landing are going to hit the bottle neck of those dinky harbors, while puking their guts out.



Then after the mines and anti-ship missiles tear their boats apart, they are going to drown.

China doesn't have the amphibious fleet necessary to invade which means they will turn to their fishing fleet, and those take a lot longer to unload, all while the missiles of Taiwan are tearing them to pieces.

Not a lot of ports, and they will be destroyed before China gets there



'Due to the shallow water, China would have to anchor ships far from Taiwan’s coast and move equipment to the shores slowly, making the ships vulnerable to Taiwanese missiles and artillery.'

Imagine the Allied Forces not able to get on the continent on D-Day and you have a sense of what the Chinese will be facing after they fail.



The geography of Taiwan is an invasion force's nightmare. There is a reason China has yet to attempt this.

'Taiwan has also invested in defenses, from mines to anti-landing spikes, and mobile missile launchers.'

Much more at link

https://www.cfr.org/article/why-china-would-struggle-invade-taiwan

 

CFR author, David Sacks, is quite an expert on this China/Taiwan situation! I respect his opinion, and your own is always well-founded (as I have observed for a long time). I must say, you had me in your earlier post where you mentioned the possibility (or certainty) that China's rulers would lose "the Mandate of Heaven". Not very many of us know just how far back, or how deep into the collective Chinese mind and memory that concept goes.

The Chinese never have been very adventurous, except for several notable failures during the Yuan dynasties in their attempt to conquer Japan, as I'm certain you know. Indeed, the 'Great Wall' itself was built to keep raiding nomadic armies out -- a purely defensive effort. And in modern times, the ability of even relatively small, unsophisticated domestic militias like those of Vietnam were more than the Chinese could deal with for any length of time or much success.

So, I hope you're right about the Chinese taking a more circumspect approach toward any nascent 'expansionism' -- although I'd bet that when the 'movers and shakers' in Beijing discuss the pros-and-cons of aggressive action, they no doubt assume that the time could not be better than while we Americans are yoked to today's wholly unreliable, unprofessional Democrat cabal. *** Although in fairness, I must admit, I admired Nancy Pelosi's very visible, very forthright visit to Taiwan in 2022, which cost Xi Jinping a huge loss of "face" in the East-Asian sense of the concept.

 

All good points and I also think that the history of humans is such that irrational wars occur, massive miscalculations happen and folks get into wars that end up resulting in far more loss than anyone expected. So, there's that.

But, if China decides to try to take Taiwan, they could sincerely regret it. It will probably come down to how hard are Taiwanese willing to fight for their country. That's tough to measure, but they may be far more determined than Chinese conscripts.

 

But never underestimate the ability of a high level macho dictator to chase the irrational.

 

Xi is almost "Confucian" in his public persona... this is common among the East-Asian 'nomenklatura' which abhors personal revelations of any kind. He may be "macho", but it would be anathema to reveal it to anyone, or to let anyone actually be aware of it who isn't part of the 'inner circle'.

And if these secretive, erudite apparatchiks are nothing else, they are rational! They have to be, or, as our friend, Zorro, has pointed out, they risk losing that all-important "Mandate of Heaven" which has been structural in Chinese thinking since 1,000 years before Christ!

 

I was busy laughing at an INTERNET WARRIOR sharing expertise about war.

 

And you've still added nothing of substance to the discussion.

 

Perhaps you should.

DEI DESTROYS CHIPS

'DEI (racial and other quotas) is intrinsically evil. At The Hill, Matt Cole and Chris Nicholson reveal a shocking, practical downside to DEI hysteria: “DEI killed the CHIPS Act.” The issue is critical because Taiwan now produces 90% of the world’s advanced microchips, and China has indicated its intention to annex Taiwan in the near future. So the CHIPS Act sought to incentivize chip production in the U.S.'

Read the whole thing.

 

Lighten up a bit.

 

And still, nothing.

 

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

China propaganda is trying to keep us out of it for sure

China just needs to leave Taiwan alone

 

Isn't this the same signalling of weakness that you guys said encouraged Putin to re-invade Ukraine?