If GDP per capita were relevant, then Luxembourg, Monaco, and Liechtenstein would be the dominant superpowers. And Taiwan would be able to defend itself from China without relying on the US. The ability to project force is only loosely correlated with economic measures, but overall GDP is the more relevant metric than anything "population corrected." And the core point remains: China is today a peer economically to the US, while Japan lagged far behind the US back during WW2.
> I'd suggest you're a little too sanguine about China's ability to maintain its oil supplies in a major conflict.
Is your suggestion that the US would start bombing civilian targets deep in the heart of mainland China (how?) to defend Taiwan? And Russian oil pipelines?
> If China attacks and tries to invade an island of 23 million people who want nothing to do with China, which has its own democratically-elected government and produces a huge part of the world's semiconductor supply, is the region and world supposed to idly stand by?
Is the claim here that countries never let bad things happen beyond their borders?
It's true that no country wants a China dominant in the region, but it's also true that no country wants a China cut off from their economies. Which puts them between a rock and a hard place. Do you think an iron miner in Western Australia is going to be happy with his house being foreclosed on because he can't pay the bills because it's all for the good cause of defending Taiwan's autonomy?
> In any case, the only people who would buy a rationale for the Chinese to attack US warships would be members of the CCP and some subset of the Chinese population.
Eh. I imagine the PRC intentionally having some ship full of medical supplies go through Malacca, ignoring US orders to stop, and then getting blown up. If you don't think the CCP can figure out a way to turn that into a nationalist uproar, you lack a sense of imagination.
My goal here is to dissuade anyone from the notion that a war between the US and China is in any way something with a preordained outcome or somehow costless for any involved party. It'd be a massive destruction of lives and wealth. If either country gets it into their head that such a war could be conducted quickly, cheaply, and easily, it increases the likelihood of war, which is something we should strive to avoid at all costs.
You're missing the forest for the trees. The point of looking at GDP per capita is to get a sense of where China's economic development is at for the average Chinese person.
As I have stated, China's behavior has a lot more to do with internal issues and challenges than external. Even Taiwan is largely a distraction that's a convenient tool for the CCP to manage internal politics.
China's economic situation is not as rosy as the CCP would like the world to believe. The CCP is well aware of this and certainly knows that if it doesn't deliver on its economic promises, which essentially boil down to "we'll escape the middle income trap", China will be in a very dangerous decline.
Time is running out to deliver on its promises, which is likely one of the primary reasons it's taking a much more belligerent and aggressive stance on the world stage. An economically and demographically healthy and confident country doesn't isolate itself the way China has.
> It's true that no country wants a China dominant in the region, but it's also true that no country wants a China cut off from their economies. Which puts them between a rock and a hard place. Do you think an iron miner in Western Australia is going to be happy with his house being foreclosed on because he can't pay the bills because it's all for the good cause of defending Taiwan's autonomy?
You seem to think that China's aggression stops at Taiwan. It doesn't and everyone in the region knows this.
You mentioned Australia. Australia already been subject to Chinese economic corruption and coercion for years. When Australia stated that the origins of COVID-19 should be investigated, China responded with a trade war[1]. Now CCP mouthpieces are issuing military threats against Australia[2].
Japan is another country that China is increasingly trying to bully. A CCP mouthpiece even put out a video this year that stated "We will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time."[3]
Finally, on its other flank, China is increasingly provoking India[4].
This is simply not "normal" behavior for a country that genuinely seeks peace and stability. China's behavior is increasingly aggressive and highly irresponsible.
> My goal here is to dissuade anyone from the notion that a war between the US and China is in any way something with a preordained outcome or somehow costless for any involved party. It'd be a massive destruction of lives and wealth. If either country gets it into their head that such a war could be conducted quickly, cheaply, and easily, it increases the likelihood of war, which is something we should strive to avoid at all costs.
I don't think anybody here has raised this notion. I certainly haven't. Everybody knows that a hot conflict could very well result in massive losses for everyone involved.
Again, what I think your comments gloss over is the fact that the growing tension in Asia /the Indo-Pacific is a result of China's increasingly aggressive political, economic and military behavior. China is the one bullying its neighbors. China is the one engaged in a build-up of military capacity that is not merely defensive in nature. China is the one that claims territory that belongs to multiple other countries under international law and, in the case of India, is literally trying to grab land. China is the one that throws temper tantrums and sends "wolf warriors" to intimidate diplomats anytime other countries don't do what it wants. China is the one making violent threats against other countries through embarrassingly juvenile military propaganda[5].
The US isn't doing this stuff. European nations aren't doing this stuff. Taiwan isn't doing this stuff. Japan isn't doing this stuff. Australia isn't doing this stuff. India isn't doing this stuff. South Korea isn't doing this stuff. The Philippines isn't doing this stuff.
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-03/heres-what-happened-b...
[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-09-16...
[3] https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/in-propaganda-video-c...
[4] https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Why-is-China-making-a-perman...
Yes, China is acting as a bully. But the universal response isn't standing up to China but cowering before it. US airlines are scared to even acknowledge the existence of a place called Taiwan. When Muji accidentally labeled some hangers as "Made in Taiwan," it only took a few days before it groveled before China and begged for forgiveness. I'm 100% in agreement with you that these things are ridiculous and a sign of deep-seated insecurity on mainland China's part. But these incidents also do not make me optimistic about how regional players will react in the case of war. Businesses and the general population will be eager for the conflict to be wound down as quickly as possible, regardless of long-term strategic costs. And without a broad regional coalition strongly committed to restraining China and rolling back any gains it has made during a conflict, Taiwan is (literally) dead in the water.
Again, I live in Taiwan and I'm realistic about Taiwan's odds of defending itself successfully without help from the West and Japan, which I put at close to 0.
But I'm cautiously optimistic. Now that the US has removed itself from Afghanistan, there is a clear reorientation of its diplomatic and military focus to the Indo-Pacific. The US is getting closer to Taiwan, which is taking its defensive capabilities more seriously (albeit too late for comfort). Japan is basically remilitarizing and being more vocal about its willingness to counter Chinese threats. Australia is aligning itself with the US and UK to counter China. The US is even getting closer to India.
China is only going to get more dangerous as its demographic and economic situations become more precarious, but its growing isolation is the best thing under the circumstances and might be one of the only things that keeps it in check.
If it lashes out and is able to annex Taiwan, there will be significant consequences for the US and West, and the Indo-Pacific region won't be the same.
But here's my final thought: if China takes Taiwan, it will take the US down a big notch and create a lot of uncertainty for the US role globally going forward. But this event does not really pose an existential threat to the US. The US would remain a very powerful nation even after a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Certainly nobody is going to invade the US.
On the other hand, an attack on or invasion of Taiwan is an existential event for the CCP. If the CCP miscalculates in any way, it's the end of the CCP. Interestingly, even if CCP wins a battle for Taiwan, the CCP might ultimately lose the war because it's unlikely that the CCP can take Taiwan and get away with it economically and diplomatically. For a country that's already on shaky footing in these areas, it could be a case of "be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it".
PPP has its flaws/limitations, but I don't really see your point. China has 1.4 billion people, the US 330 million. Look at GDP per capita. This reveals one of the reasons China is getting so dangerous: its ability to escape the middle income trap is looking more and more doubtful.
It's no surprise Xi is talking about "common prosperity". If he and his CCP sycophants can't deliver on their economic promises to the Chinese people, they are going to have big internal problems. The problem is that the easy gains have already been made and now China is facing a demographic cliff while it's preciously overleveraged economy is starting to show real cracks.
> China has enough domestic crude production and the ability to import it from Kazakhstan and Russia to fuel its military indefinitely (albeit at significant domestic pain)...
I'd suggest you're a little too sanguine about China's ability to maintain its oil supplies in a major conflict.
> It's unlikely that China would attack US warships in (what it sees as) its territorial waters out of nowhere. The more likely way a conflict would develop is it initiating some kind of aggression against Taiwan, which the US would respond to by shutting down that exact freedom of navigation in international waters in an attempt to starve China and its economy. As US warships enforced an embargo via threat, force, and even sinking Chinese and neutral civilian shipping, China would use that as justification for attacking US warships.
This is the weirdest part of your comment. If China attacks and tries to invade an island of 23 million people who want nothing to do with China, which has its own democratically-elected government and produces a huge part of the world's semiconductor supply, is the region and world supposed to idly stand by?
I live in Taiwan and while I have serious doubts about Taiwan's ability to defend itself, Taiwan does have the ability to retaliate and cause pain in China.
Furthermore, it's increasingly likely that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would involve Japan[1], which has a mutual defense treaty with the US. This really isn't just about the US. It's about the region. No country in Asia, save for North Korea, wants an imperial China free to take territory as it pleases.
In any case, the only people who would buy a rationale for the Chinese to attack US warships would be members of the CCP and some subset of the Chinese population. Incidentally, based on my experience living in the region, I suspect that a good number of Chinese, perhaps the majority, are not at all eager for imperial war, and that number will grow if they are forced to experience the hardships that come with imperial war.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1020866539/japans-position-on...