>> China could take Taiwan and I don't think anyone would stop them.

I am inclined to believe that it would look similar to Iraq invading Kuwait, only 100000 times bigger and bloodier.

I think the US, UK, Australia, Japan, and many EU nations would strongly disapprove and take military action.

China has a military strong enough to credibly take on the US, the UK, Australia and Japan in their backyard. That is because, as you'll note, these powers are all thousands and thousands of kilometers away from the theater, which gives China a massive advantage.

The best they could realistically do if the invasion does succeed is try to force an embargo. This will be massively unpopular, kill tens of thousands in third countries that will be sanctioned as collateral damage, and crash the world economy, and still might not work.

>> these powers are all thousands and thousands of kilometers away from the theater, which gives China a massive advantage.

The past 100 years of wars and military conflicts have shown that military logistics can overcome great distances if needed.

Great distances and economic consequences did not stop past wars. I doubt they would stop a war caused by the invasion of Taiwan.

>> This will be massively unpopular, kill tens of thousands in third countries that will be sanctioned as collateral damage, and crash the world economy, and still might not work.

The damage would be incredible, likely as bad as World War 2, or possibly worse.

The past 100 years of wars have show precisely the opposite to the observant.

Great distance stopped many, many wars. It is the reason the US is so rich, right now.

Economic consequences did not stop actual wars, yes. But in the event that an embargo is the only realistic alternative, it is a very powerful factor.

> The past 100 years of wars and military conflicts have shown that military logistics can overcome great distances if needed.

> Great distances and economic consequences did not stop past wars.

Yeah, the wars of German invasion of North America -- sub-theaters of WW1 and WW2 -- were over so quickly hardly anyone even noticed them.

None of us know exactly what different leaders are planning so you may well be right.

I do wonder though: if that is the USs plan, why not say so? The US has formal alliances with NATO, Japan etc. They're public, because making them public dissuades the chance of an attack. If you're going to risk getting into a war, why not minimise the risk at no cost by being upfront about it? Instead the US maintains a position of "strategic ambiguity".

It would also be hard because China isn't Iraq. It's a nuclear nation with a bigger stronger army and much better morale. And Taiwan is an Island. You can't mass your troops 100m from the border and then march over when ready. The allies would need to do an amphibious landing less than 200 miles from the Chinese coast (aka air force), under fire from subs and against a fortified target.

Strategic ambiguity makes sense because they don't want to encourage Taiwan to declare independence by saying they'll 100% back them to the end. Blank cheques are great ways to start wars.

That's a fair point but then why not just tell Taiwan that? why not agree that publicly.

Strategic ambiguity means china is emboldened and that Taiwan cannot rely on any US support whatever secret deals have been made no?

There is no US Air Force base in Taiwan. There are 3 in South Korea (Kunsan, Osan, Sasebo) and 3 in Japan (Kadena, Yokota, Misawa). That’s it.

No country would lock China out of their economies. It would be the most painful suicide imaginable. China is already the source of most components in most industries. A China that annexed Taiwan would also be the main source of the world’s semiconductors.

And that’s even before getting into how companies cut off from the second largest market in the world would struggle to survive against competitors that weren’t.

13 percent of US trade is with china. 20 percent of EU trade. And that's trade, not percent of economy.

I think you might be over estimating how indispensable they are.

This is one of (not the only reason) China is so hungry to move into harder to replace industries (cutting edge chip manufacturing for instance, infrastructure like 5G).

And of course Chinese markets are mostly closed to Western goods and services already...

You've read Norman Angell's The Great Illusion?