I expect so. But China is a great power, and Russia is only a regional power. It's much easier and cheaper to isolate Russia.
China's claim on Taiwan is 1000x more valid than the Russian claim on Ukraine, and the world would react differently. I say this as someone who likes the RoC, and thinks they have a right to self-determination.
Ultimately, though, China is trying to win the economic and political game. You need a large military to play that game as a great power, but you don't have to actually invade people to exercise military power. And wars are terribly costly when you're trying to modernize infrastructure. Decoupling China from the US would be terribly costly to both sides, while trade is profitable. So they use that to buy a sphere of influence, largely in Africa and South America. Putin is the idiot who still thinks he can invade his way to a sphere of influence, which hasn't really worked out for anyone after the Spanish-American war.
The PRC claim to Taiwan is about as weak as can be. They have after all _never_ ruled the island. The mainland and Taiwan have only been unified (if you can call the 45-49 “unified”) for four years in the last 125 years. Moscow ruled Ukraine up until a generation ago (not that I think that gives Russia any claim to Ukraine).
The PRC’s claim to Taiwan is ludicrous.
I think you got it backwards: Taiwan's claim on China is more valid - after all, they are the original China unspoiled by the demon of communism.
I don't say that to support the CCP - the only legitimate government is one chosen by the Chinese people - but saying "Taiwan and the North were the original governments" is plainly false. The Confuscian emporers, going back 2,000+ years and lasting until ~1911 (with many interruptions), would have by far the best claim on 'original government'.
I absolutely support the freedom of the people in Taiwan - and of those in all of China, though only the ones in Taiwan have it - but the parent doesn't make sense to me:
What is the "original China"? Imperial, Confucian China, which (including many interruptions) goes back over 2,000 years, and ended in ~1911? The predecessors to imperial China? Neither has anything to do with the Nationalists (who fled to Taiwan when they lost the civil war to the Communists).
Which region would that be?
Their military spending is less than France and Germany combined.
I believe that’s the play EU and NATO is going for. Putin made a mistake so obvious and of such magnitude that the western powers decided to go for the jugular. The risk is of course that it doesn’t work, as it didn’t in Belarus. We’re facing Cold War remastered in that case.
Sorry to be brass, but why would NATO support Ukraine? Its not a strategy ally. There aren't any special resources there. I don't know why the US was tempting Ukraine to join NATO in the first place.
A major superpower decided to invade a sovereign country with absolutely no provocation with the goal of extending their borders. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. It shouldn't be allowed.
Let's be clear here as well. Russia is not the only country to have done this. Western countries have been just as guilty in the past.
This is false. NATO in 2008 invited Ukraine to join. This is the equivalent of Cuba inviting Russia to setup a military base on US borders. The US's reaction was to economically nuke Cuba.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
The USSR put missiles in Cuba, and got the US to agree not to invade and to withdraw missiles from eastern Europe.
We need to know about the parallel universe where the "NATO aggression" results in Russia agreeing not to invade Ukraine.
Well, after those countries became NATO countries their own militaries were NATO militaries, so of course NATO has a permanent military presence in those countries. Unless they totally demilitarised.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
This is on NATO's website from 2008 meeting. How is "welcomes" not be interpreted as an invitation?
Ok, there was the Bay of Pigs, but the US pulled out support at the last minute. Had they invaded Cuba we'd be using that as an example of where the US did the wrong thing by invading a sovereign country (there are other examples...FYI, I'm not American).
As I commented elsewhere, this is a 14 year old invitation.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8942780/
We didn't take up arms, we just starved Cuba to death and didn't give them access to modern medicine.
The document you linked clearly states that the US now recognizes this was a mistake.
"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States has informed the US Government that such activities violate international law and has requested that the US take immediate steps to exempt food and medicine from the embargo."
But your initial comment was if Ukraine provoked Russia, so you're going down a rabbit hole of history that has no bearing on this.
That's conspicuously not what happened with Ukraine. It could not be more not what happened with Ukraine.
Cuba makes no sense as an argument about current events, and if it did, one could have a conversation without random whatabouts.
I don't see the difference.
You don't see a difference in what caused the crisis, right, sure.
THEN what happened?
In both cases, there was precedent for violating sovereignty. Bay of Pigs with the US, and Crimea with Russia, among other things.
But the US agreed to not invade again, and Russia on the other hand...invaded.
Did the separatist movements start because of Russian agitation, or because of actions the government of Ukraine took? Is Ukraine targeting ethnic Russians in the Donbass region, or are they just attacking separatists, who maybe(?) happen to mostly be ethnic Russians? I'm having a hard time understanding the true history here.
> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
The USA would be understanding of Mexico’s sovereignty and stand by while North Korea sends military aid to Mexico, installs their elite sons and daughters as board members of Mexico’s largest corporations, and blatantly strategizes who will become the “elected” leader of Mexico.
Perhaps you should take a hard look at the reality of what all powerful nations do when they feel threatened by their foes close to their borders. Ignoring it is at everyone’s peril.
AFAIK they are allowed to do that. And if they did, the USA should take a long hard look at itself and think why Mexico wanted to do it.
There, do you have any more strawmen for us to burn?
Yes.
Or, more realistically, China.
Is this supposed to be trap of some kind?
> Over the past two years, NATO member Turkey and Ukraine have bolstered defense industry ties, including an agreement by Turkish drone-maker Baykar to build a production facility near Kyiv for its popular Bayraktar TB2 drone. The Ukrainian government has also dubbed Turkey "one of its key economic partners."
https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-intelligence-agency-abducts-ar...
To be determined. I surmise Ukraine will go the way of HK/Belarus and demonstrate that shitpost supremacy is not a counter to disproportionate military force. That getting drunk on propaganda manufactured and reinforced by liberal western media is ultimately going to trigger harsher reprisals and bloodier escalations. The alternative to Putin's quick "special operations" / decapitation strike is UKR cities getting shelled to rubble that we witness now. PRC will learn not to half measure in the name of cross strait "brotherhood", strategy can change but enduring geopolitical interests do not. We're now setup for an even bloodier resumption of Chinese civil war, and TWers will see the cost of porcupine strategy and prolonged insurgency and connect the dots of how much more hopeless doing so on an isolated island will be.
>What happens when Europe faced with the threat of a lack of energy going into next winter?
What's the sociopolitical aftermath of EU embracing migrants? People are fickle once policy touch their lives, it's much easier to turn on the gas spigot again, waive away sanctions, reduced promised military expenditures than to kick out already settled migrants. There's also Trump 2024.
What does this even mean?
You also have no idea what you're talking about, because HK was part of China (just a "special administrative region"), and Belarus isn't democratic and wasn't invaded by another country to get taken over. The situation in Ukraine is dramatically different. You're talking like Ukraine has lost the war and Taiwan is next, but, besides that you're being hyperbolic and, again have no idea what you're talking about, you're disregarding the reality that Russia cannot sustain this war either economically or by force in Ukraine (they may be able to take control of the country but won't be able to occupy it forever, there is way too much resistance) and that Taiwan will likely have more direct military support.
Ditto with TW who has UKR tier of military support on paper, i.e. help country defend itself, except it's significant easier for PRC to turn TW info a isolated failed state if the geopolitical calculus neccessitates it. The reality is it costs a lot to integrate these regions RU/PRC but little to spoil them. UKR lost the war the same way Afghanistan did, it won't be a normal country for generations.
It took 20yr to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and that was without much external meddling. How's Syria doing? This could very much turn into "Iraq for white people" and unlike Ukraine does not have strong internal race/religion animosity (well it kind of does, but those regions left in 2014) that can be harnessed to keep the pressure off the invaders and puppet government.
With the west providing the people of Ukraine with financial, material and ideological support this has the potential to become an incredibly bloody conflict. Ukraine is 40million people. If even 1/10th of that say fuck it that nation is a level of ungovernable that is hard to appropriately quantify. I don't think many people appreciate the kind of "once in generations" abyss eastern Europe is staring into.
Or I could just be wrong and Ukraine could roll over. After all they were ruled by Russia historically and it hasn't been that long. Time will tell.
edit: there is an inflow of Ukrainian male population into Ukraine. There is Foreign Legion now
> If Putin loses in Ukraine, could that also mean the end of his regime in Russia? The Russian people are standing up to him.
If we see a loss of Putin's power in Russia as the world and his own population lionizes against him, a botched Taiwanese invasion could lead to a similar outcome in China.
Lots of food to chew on for the strategists.
Also, I expect that the Chinese government has tighter control ("physically" and propaganda-wise) of their people than is the case in Russia. So I don't know that we'd see demonstrations or protests if China invaded Taiwan. Also I would guess that more people in China believe that Taiwan should be ruled by Beijing than people in Russia who believe Ukraine should be ruled by Moscow. Unfortunately I can't find polling numbers on this, which isn't surprising, as that data may not exist outside of some Chinese intelligence system.
I attended lectures taught by incredibly nationalistic professors with an almost religiously fervent level of support for the CCP's "triumph over the America and the world" (paraphrase, but true to the content). Most of the young folks either didn't care or harbored distrust. They told me corruption was rampant and people were bitter.
After the earthquake, people really hated on the CCP.
Anecdotal, but it really shaped my opinions.
Look at Hong Kong. They clearly hate it, but they can't do anything about it.
As I see it, they have already won, and will continue to win for a long long time.
What I mean by this is that western countries didn't support them in the way (I feel) they should have, probably because they believed that Russia would easily walk over Ukraine, similar to how it had caused such confusion and prevented a defense in Crimea (I'm not a historian, this is my naive view of those events).
Ukraine stood up to the bully, and showed us (the west) that we were wrong to not believe in them. It isn't over, and it can't be claimed as a victory yet, but they convinced the west that they had enough of a chance that we should come to their aid. They showed us what the Ukrainian spirit is. They have given hope to other regions and countries that may come under threat in the future.
I wonder if they have given China extra pause in their stance toward Taiwan.
If Putin loses in Ukraine, could that also mean the end of his regime in Russia? The Russian people are standing up to him. He has proven that he is not only fallible. Will this also be taken as a sign of weakness to Russians?
You're absolutely right about cheap energy, and it's why I thought this was a strange time for Russia to invade Ukraine. Europe will be coming out of winter in a few weeks. This gives the summer to shore up reserves and build out alternative energy sources. Remember, Tesla built the Adelaide, Australia power plant in less than 100 days[1].
What happens when Europe faced with the threat of a lack of energy going into next winter?
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-wins-50m-bet-with-giant...