After China annexes Taiwan, we will be much more reliant on other sources of computer chips. Ideally for national defense concerns, these sources should be domestic.
I am pretty sure that China would lose more trying to take the heavily guarded island than they could ever get back from occupying it afterwards. Unfortunately that's not enough to stop major powers from invading for irrational reasons. If major powers only invaded when they had something to gain, Saddam would still be in office.
I find this statement hard to take. It feels like propaganda to me. Emotional issues are not without context.
Is it being an "emotional" issue more correct than it being an issue of (1) educational indoctrination, (2) explicit media based propaganda, and (3) lack of access to opposing view points? Clearly there is some systemic explanation for people's emotions.
If the Chinese government preached the values of "do unto others as you would have done to you" rather than "we must right the wrongs of the century of embarrassment" would we see this being an "emotional issue." If the issue of Taiwan were cast in the light of "if you were Taiwanese, how would you feel about China?" do you think it would still be an "unstoppable irrational force"? If the Chinese government preached values like tolerance and diversity, do you think the Chinese people would have the stomach for dominating another people?
China, rightfully, was angered by colonial transgression against it, but then wishes to be a colonial power itself, committing the very same evils it faced against less powerful countries. By Chinese standards, it appears that might makes right, so should the world not exercise might against and colonize China, an action that is right under Chinese morality? Or is it a matter of Han Supremacy, where the moral system is built upon the idea of Han superiority and rules for other nations that don't apply to China itself.
How should I feel empathy for "the Chinese people" when from the outside it appears that they wish to dominate another people?
China may envy the same power US has, whatever name you want to make it, either domination or colonial. Of course, China sees US as a big bully and wish to do it better.
There is no Han supremacy in China, ethnic is not a big topic in China except for the largeminor ethnic groups. There are City Supremacy maybe, people from big cities look down on small cities for example.
People view Chinese in through racism eyes would see things differently. I remember that the Chinese university was labeled as colonial power, and people went to street and protect the establish of a division of Chinese university with labels saying "we don't want to be Chinese colony". There is NYC division in Shanghai, and there are no Chinese people protesting being a US colony. Most brands in big mall in China are western brands. It is okay for people to learn English but learning Chinese is surrendering to Chinese colony power. I only see racism in these stories, nothing more.
> For China, it’s an emotional issue. No amount of losses would be to steep once it starts.
That's a negotiating position portrayed by China, the same simplistic one used by lots of people: 'I'm so emotional that you'll just have to back down.'
The risk is that having lit the fire of nationalism among their population (as many people are doing), the resulting forest fire can be hard to contain.
>I am pretty sure that China would lose more trying to take the heavily guarded island than they could ever get back from occupying it afterwards.
That's not true at all. The first island chain blocks the Chinese military from unfettered access to the Pacific. Taiwan is the only part of that chain the CCP can potentially occupy. If they do and put PLAN bases there, then they gain a portal to the Pacific. It's extremely strategically valuable to them.
HTF(how the fuck) is Taiwan going send missiles beyond its own airspace let alone over China's to blow up the three gorges dam?
If China is serious Taiwan will be encircled with s-400's in little islands(artificial or otherwise) surrounding it before the first shot is ever fired, at which point the conclusion is already a forgone tale.
When it does happen the rest of the world(by which i mean the U.S) will be pre-occupied with domestic issues, cyber space issues and possibly another pandemic.
Not to mention the backdrop of the fact that the U.S launching missiles to China might trigger the MAD doctrine of Russia because missiles heading in that general direction might as well be heading to Russia, or be assumed to be as much.
>“Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation” - Russian military chief warned last year after round of reforms
Ergo the U.S president at that time will leave Taiwan out to dry instead of risking World War 3.
> Ergo the U.S president at that time will leave Taiwan out to dry instead of risking World War 3.
I don't think (or atleast I hope not) the US would use nuclear weapons to defend Taiwan, but I have a hard time believing that the US wouldn't offer atleast token military resistance. At the very least, the US has a lot of standing to lose with it's many allies accross the globe that would make leaving Taiwan out to dry very costly.
The fact that it need not be nuclear, complicates their possible response because
>“Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack
and based on recent historical data in ukraine, it's not beyond the states course of action to not do anything of consequential note, and instead opting for token gestures.
What point is conquering a people if you level it to the point that people can live there? It defeats the point of annexation. I guarantee Taiwan has seen that day coming that they've got bunkers galore kind of like Switzerland. Believe it or not, it's a mountainous island.
At best, it'd be a drawn out Afghanistan with a diplomatic sanction frenzy worldwide. China would be painted by global media outlets as evil if they took a total war approach. They'd have to do it like Russia with Crimea or Milosevic in Yugoslavia with paramilitary groups. Everyday the Taiwanese identify less Chinese making it that much harder.
The only thing that will make them do it is if the US and EU are in a weak state and can't be bothered with policing that. Like another depression and global war elsewhere.
> The only thing that will make them do it is if the US and EU are in a weak state and can't be bothered with policing that.
If that were the case then neither would they be reigning in Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and India. All Chinese strategic adversaries right on their doorstep. India alone could shut down oil shipments to China that all have to sail close by. Japan’s navy is stronger than China’s and they have formidable air defenses. China might just spark a regional war which they probably wouldn’t win. I hope they’re not suicidal enough to test this though.
The point is to control the island that locks in their aspirations of controlling Asian sea trade and thus slowly controlling the countries around them.
They don’t care about the people there one bit.
When they control most of the world in the future, they can just rewrite history and nobody will know. Classic move.
It won't happen. It would be like Russia in Afghanistan. The US would funnel supplies through almost all of their Asian allies in the Pacific as well as deploy a UN peacekeeping force much like in the Yugoslav wars.
You can be damn sure that an American politician would use that as rhetoric to bring jobs back. I can assure you republicans would leap for this opportunity. It would be the best PR they could ever get.
It doesn't have a marital culture. It isn't large. It doesn't have especially rugged or inhospitable terrain. It doesn't have religious fundamentalism. It doesn't have a bottom-heavy population pyramid full of young men willing to fight a decades-long insurgency.
There's not going to be a Taiwanese insurgency after the deed is done. If China takes control of Taipei, the game is over. We need to help Taiwan before it gets to that point.
It's Afghanistan in the sense that it's gonna be an attritional war. It's a mountainous island so that signifies a naval invasion which can be spotted very quickly. They may not be prepared but it's not like they wouldn't have time to mobilize.
The PRC has asserted their claim over Taiwan for half a century at this point. The PRC is China and Taiwan has been a part of China for over 100 years. Taiwan is still a government in exile as far as diplomacy is concerned.
Why exactly do we need to get involved? You do realize that it's a declaration of war? How many Americans eligible for the draft do you think right now are going to voluntarily sign up for a fight against China? Especially if it's just for the defense of some small nation like Taiwan? Nobody would be pro draft for what would be another Vietnam but instead is an actual fight against China.
It's not just a matter of "We should." It's very easy for you to say that when you or your children aren't going to fight the Chinese in a war that we most definitely do not need to be involved in.
> The PRC is China and Taiwan has been a part of China for over 100 years.
I think this is not factually accurate. In the last 100 years, Taiwan and Mainland China have been controlled by the same government only between 1945-1949.
China (Qing Dynasty) controlled Taiwan for ~220 years before losing it to Japan. Japan ruled Taiwan for ~50 years. RoC ruled both Taiwan and the mainland for ~5 years before losing the mainland in the revolution. (Edit: RoC has not ruled the mainland for ~60 years, which is almost twice as it ruled the mainland.)
I think you are correct that no draft would be instituted. We have plenty of military assests that certain people would love to justify the maintenance of so there would absolutely some fighting by US personel on behalf od Taiwan, regardless of how smart or winnable that war would be.
I highly doubt they'd get involved at that scale. You're talking about a major conflict. One in particular the US would not like to get involved in. The US never even did that with Russia. What makes you think the US would protect Taiwan? US military strategy for the allied Asian countries has always been "treat them as a buffer" and hasn't changed. If they got involved it would be an international incident seeing as two major nuclear powers are at war. There would enumerable politicians also hesitant to instigate that conflict. The US sat by while Britain was being invaded in WW2 and needed ridiculous political cozying up to even get troops over to the front in WWI. Why would they stick their necks out for Taiwan?
Taiwan is one of the most important allies the US has against China. I think that a straight-up bombing/invasion of Taiwan would be met with a massive naval response from the 7th fleet (pretty much total war, short of nuclear). China is still at least a decade away from naval superiority, so I don’t see why they would tempt fate. They’ll simply continue their buildup in the South China Sea, and hope that the US in the meantime weakens or loses interest for political reasons.
> US military strategy for the allied Asian countries has always been "treat them as a buffer"
Is that why there are so many bases and troops in South Korea and Japan? Any invasion of either of those two countries would likely trigger an instant war with the US.
Because the U.S. of 2021 is a vastly different country on the international stage than it was in 1939, let alone 1916.
The U.S. barely had standing armies for either of those wars and a highly no-involvement mindset that came directly from the sentiments of the American population.
Flash forward to today. Why do you think the U.S. has ~ a dozen aircraft carriers if not to defend its interests?
The U.S. would absolutely go to war with China over Taiwan. For better or worse. Ground troops? Highly unlikely. Air and naval assets? Yea no doubt about that.
The U.S. interactions with the Soviet Union are interesting but it’s just not quite the same. Had the Soviet Union attacked, directly, a key U.S. ally then the U.S. might have simply retaliated with nuclear weapons. Not worth the risk. There isn’t a sense that this is how a war with China would progress. A lot has changed.
But overall, there won’t be a war unless something catastrophic happens to Chinese leadership (like they get a real Hitler type of figure), because they’re not stupid and the status quo works fine for everyone, despite the rhetoric.
what was the reason for China to get nukes ? Because at one time, they wanted to take over TW and got threated by nukes by the USA. Now both countries have nukes and large armies. With China having geographic advantage.
So yeah, US would likely not come to the defence of TW.
It's a fantasy to think the US would defend TW because they're both democracies. US can easily change it's position and say it's an internal matter when shit hits the fan.
Yet here we are. The U.S. has fleets, airbases, a defense pact with Taiwan, and regularly sells Taiwan weapons.
But the U.S. won’t defend Taiwan because China has nukes? Ok how about China won’t attack Taiwan because the U.S. has nukes?
And you’re severely oversimplifying the entire interaction. China has geographic advantage to do what exactly? Fly planes to Taiwan? Not with U.S. forces nearby. Land troops? Good luck with that. Bombard the island with ships? Well that’s why the U.S. fleet is there.
Fortunately all of this is saber rattling. Nobody not China, Taiwan, or the U.S. cares to change the status quo. The U.S. gets to maintain Taiwan as is. The CCP has a boogeyman they can use. And Taiwan gets to do business with everyone.
The US won't defend Taiwan because it has absolutely no benefit to them. All the talk of defending is purely for show. When it hits the fan, the US will stay out of the way. More likely during a Democrat administration as well.
The US is done with interfering in Asian conflicts over communism. China knows it too and they're gonna make a move while the whole of the US's industry is there still. The US solely supplies Taiwan to keep them technologically up to date so that they can mount a reasonable defense. But with almost all 1st world nations universally not acknowledging Taiwan's sovereignty, you'll be hard pressed to see any bureaucrat NOT turning a blind eye but sending out a measly sanction and move some manufacturing home.
The U.S. isn't the E.U. . It's demonstrated time and time again willingness and ability to engage in conflicts to preserve its own interests. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan (which again, isn't going to happen b/c everybody is fine with the status quo) would without a doubt be met with U.S. forces in the air and sea. China's only hope here is somehow to win a quick and violent war in which the U.S. just says "this isn't worth it" by destroying lots of U.S. assets. What's scary to think is that even if this happens, the U.S. might say ok fine and commit entirely into a war with China. This could drag Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, the Philippines, India, and other countries into a literal non-nuclear World War.
America is a very, very stubborn country. We spent like a trillion dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of people b/c of Osama Bin Laden over the course of a 20-year war and absolutely brutal insurgency. But I'm expected to believe that the United States wouldn't have the appetite for a conventional war? The one that all of its military might is built for? That the U.S. would not defend an ally and undue all trust in all alliances on the global stage? NATO is gone, in this scenario. The E.U. starts building up military forces b/c they can't trust that the U.S. will defend against Russian aggression. Etc.
There are a lot of cascading effects that are very bad for the U.S. and global stability compared to just buying stuff from other countries temporarily and checking Chinese aggression here.
On the other hand, the U.S. has a high potential for smashing Chinese forces in a quick and intense war. It's a gamble I think U.S. leadership is willing to take.
I don't see either side backing down. And China loses out in longer-term wars. So why bother when you can just keep things as they are and rattle sabers instead while trading with each other?
wow!!! in roy jones jnr's voice - ya'll must've forgot the us lost the vietnam war. it was supposed to be quick and easy right. same as iraq war ? nothing in war is ever quick and easy. and in war, who wins is not who has the biggest guns but who has nothing to lose. you think the us can afford to send more young men, to TW whilst the TW ain't willing to do that themselves.
I’m not following the point you’re trying to make. Defending Taiwan and sinking Chinese ships in modern combat is not even close to the same kind of war as Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam where the population (in some respects) was against U.S. presence except in the case of Iraq where the U.S. demolished all of the Iraqi military in a couple of months when engaged in actual nation state level war. In this scenario I doubt a single soldier would be deployed except to Korea or Japan just in case. Certainly not to invade China or something crazy, and there’s little reason for any to be on the island of Taiwan where, as luck would have it, would be actively cooperating with American forces to repel an invasion.
Why would the Taiwanese not fight against an invasion of their country? Are they just wasting money buying missiles and planes to defend their island against China for no reason?
I think you just have a slant here and aren’t thinking about how these forces might interact. Comparing the invasion of Taiwan by China in 2021 to U.S. war in Vietnam is very confusing. Maybe you’re trying to make me angry by saying the U.S. lost the war? I mean they did “lose the war” in the sense of “why are we killing all of these people again? Let’s go home and stuff.”. But who cares anymore? This isn’t sports where we are keeping a score.
Please keep political and nationalistic flamebait off this site. If you want to make a thoughtful comment about geopolitical risks to semiconductor supply, that's fine. Leading with "After China annexes Taiwan" is trolling—by effect, if not intention: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... We're trying to avoid that here.
Past: Mao had the chance to conquer Taiwan, however, the causalties appeared him as too high, hence, this "goal" was never persuaded.
Present: Despite some very loud hardliners wishing for the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, there is currently no indication that China is preparing for it:
"Milley added that he thought China had little intention to take Taiwan by force: There’s no reason to do it militarily, and they know that. So, I think the probability is probably low, in the immediate, near-term future."
"The PLA currently lacks the required amphibious lift, logistics, and materiel for a robust cross-Strait invasion and shows no urgency to achieve it,” Andrew Erickson, a professor at the US Naval War College"
Agreed. Also in their thinking, they have time on their side, for every year, for every decade, mainland China grows bigger in relative economic terms.
Do US citizens honestly think National Defence os a top priority above all else? If so, why?
The reason I ask is because its quite rare to find any other democratic country, barring Israel, that mentions national defence in almost every discussion about most things
Other democratic countries don't have the influence and power that the United States does (for better or worse).
Consider the Cold War (which really wasn't that long ago) where there was a real possibility of the destruction of the country, or 9/11 where the country banded together to fight a perceived threat. Keeping the United States as a top world power is obviously going to be of interest to Americans, and national defense is a part of that.
> Do US citizens honestly think National Defence os a top priority above all else? If so, why?
Ultimately, being able to guarantee that you can defend yourself ensures you can seek out your other values in life, whatever they might be. In fact, I'd argue that many countries have the privilege to not even think about their national defense too much because they rely on American military guarantees for protecting their borders and trade.
Americans certainly do quibble about the size and scale of the American military machine and its role in the world though. This is a very frequent topic of discussion in political discussions with a number of friends.
Go back a hundred years and "national defense" was just a part of European culture. What's changed is that in the post-World War period, Europe was necessarily domesticated (aside from the UK and France) and made to be solely dependent on the US for all geopolitical and defense needs. The UK absolutely still talks about national defense issues. Germany chooses to ignore the issue because for the past 70 years, the US was tasked with dealing with these pesky minor details and Germany could pretend that any global geopolitical issues could be solved with pacifism and trade deals.
Yep. Abandoning HK is just the beginning. When the rot gets too bad in an empire the only outcome is fall. Ask Rome, or any of the 100s of lesser empires that have come and gone. The era of Chinese-brand communism, super-charged by free markets (!) and the ruthless use of technology, is upon us. It's a keep-your-mouth-shut-and-you'll-be-fine era, and I for one will not survive in it, and I will mourn the passing of our cultural of praising dissent and whistleblowers and the trouble-makers that, more often than not, contribute far more than anyone else.
Purely from a technological standpoint (not humanitarian or geopolitical), I see annexation of Taiwan as a great thing to get US out of it's current laissez faire in Semiconductors, esp Intel. It would be a good wakeup call for Silicon Valley to stop working on Ad-Tech and start semiconductor startups to live up to its legacy dating back to 1970s. I am afraid, it won't be SV doing this, it will be Austin (R&D, currently Apple/Samsung SoC) and Phoenix (Manufacturing - currently, Fab-42 in Ocotillo).
In the 1800's and early 1900's, it was not uncommon for miners in the American southwest to build homes into the ground, simply because there was no other material available.
If you go to Shoshone, California, you can wander around their abandoned cave homes. There's a bunch across the street from the Inyo County Sheriff's substation. Just go up the dirt road, around the hill, past the cemetery.
As the intro page demonstrates, modern C++ isn't really all that messy. I think there's a solid argument that it's a more dependable option than Dart, which isn't really used by anyone other than Google.
Better languages have moved beyond C++. I've developed software for over 20 years. I've use C++ for many of those years. Software languages and tools have evolved past C++.
Imagine the "evolution of man" drawing. C++ is the middle guy not exactly standing upright.
An "evolution of man" drawing wouldn't really be accurate because it implies each entry is static in terms of evolution. C++ is very obviously not, and modern C++ is barely recognizable compared to code written years ago.
I agree. All should choose their own languages and tools. The more competition in the marketplace the better. Hopefully the one you choose will have long term support, be accepted by industry and developers, deliver on the promised marketing, and have reasonable open source licenses. Anything else?
