Talk to Xi then: "Xi says no one can stop China's 'reunification' with Taiwan":
* https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-...
Originally, the US was the protector of almost all Asian countries from Japanese Imperialism, an axis power allied with Nazi Germany. How are people like you forgetting the rape of Nanjing or the mass killings of civilians by the Japanese across the Philippines and many other places? How are you forgetting Japanese imperial occupation of Taiwan and Korea? How and WHY are you forgetting Japanese Unit 731 [1]?
Ironically, the government which fled to Taiwan was ousted by a Communist revolution and chased into exile. How likely do you think is it that this operation, destablilising China, was funded and supported by the communist Soviet Union?
Writing that "US is the intruder" in your other comments completely dismisses history and is a ridiculous show of brainwashed anti-Western propaganda spread by Putin, Xi, Trump and such authoritarian dictators.
Of course a whole lot more happened after 1945 and American war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere are part of that. As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side.
Given all that, I am also glad that Europe is now moving to emanciapte from the dependency on American security infrastructure but that doesn't mean NATO should stop or that the US should stop being allies with European nations. Trump gets his goal of spending less for European security but that comes with the loss of hegemonial influence.
Those captured by the US military were secretly given immunity. The United States helped cover up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The US had co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own warfare programIsn't this their main point? There's plenty of examples of killing those not on their side outside of "authoriatarian communists" (hint, Iraq, Gaza). You still believe in them and that's fine, but there is a lot of Western projection that they are right and others are not, which is the sense I get from your comment. It's reasonable for people to be against this and "anti-Western". It's also ok to see the strong development brought in from the West and support them. But this is a point for the locals to work through and not pushing a narrative like this one seems to be just as much pro-Western propaganda ignoring anything against it as the other way around.
Edit: More so, the fact that America's initial response to Japan's imperialism was diplomatic rather than military undermines the narrative that America was just using Japan as a pretext to cover for America's own imperial ambition. America, far from leaping at an opportunity to invade Asia, was committed to diplomatic resolution of the matter until Japan's imperial ambitions drove them to directly attack the American military, forcing America to respond in kind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bases_in_the_Phi...
The PRC already buys the loyalty of who they can in Taiwan, but Taiwan nevertheless remains resolute.
You'd be surprised. I'm not saying that all of them (or even most of them) will accept the payment, but there have been multiple cases of espionage committed by Taiwanese military personnel who received extremely trifling amounts of monetary reward from the Chinese. Here's just one example: https://www.worldjournal.com/wj/story/121222/8572208
Excerpt:
"檢警調查，李慧馨陳姓小弟在台北市中山區放款接觸軍人，2023年6月李女以新北市蘆洲區瑞磘宮主身分及宗教交流名義至澳門，再到大陸接觸國安情資人員，返台以金錢引誘缺錢軍人。
李女等人要求軍人交出軍人身分證審核後，穿制服拿五星旗拍攝宣告投降影片，呼口號「中國人不打中國人，我反對戰爭」，用Telegram傳送交付影片「閱後即焚」，偷公務文書，交付航線圖、演習時間等多項軍機，收賄依資料機密程度計價，吸收同袍可提高報酬。
張、林、劉、吳、彭、李姚姓及兩名陳姓現、退役軍人涉案，涵蓋陸軍、海軍、憲兵軍官、士官、士兵，最高階為中尉，僅劉獲利15萬元台幣(約4500美元)，其他人尚未拿到犯罪所得。"
Translation:
"According to the investigation by the police and prosecutors, Li Huixin's younger associate, surnamed Chen, was involved in lending money to military personnel in the Zhongshan District of Taipei City. In June 2023, Li traveled to Macau under the pretense of religious exchange and as the head of Ruixian Temple in Luzhou District, New Taipei City. From there, she went to mainland China and made contact with national security intelligence personnel. Upon returning to Taiwan, she used money to lure financially struggling military personnel.
Li and her associates required military personnel to submit their military identification cards for verification. Afterward, they were asked to wear uniforms and film surrender videos while holding the Chinese five-star flag, chanting slogans such as "Chinese people do not fight Chinese people, I oppose war." These videos were then transmitted via Telegram with a self-destruct feature. The group also stole official documents and provided information such as flight paths and military exercise schedules. Bribes were paid based on the confidentiality level of the data, and recruiting fellow soldiers could increase rewards.
The case involves active and retired military personnel with the surnames Zhang, Lin, Liu, Wu, Peng, Li, Yao, and two individuals surnamed Chen. The suspects come from various military branches, including the Army, Navy, and Military Police, spanning officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers. The highest-ranking officer involved was a lieutenant. Among them, only Liu received illicit gains amounting to NT$150,000 (approximately USD 4,500), while the others had not yet received any criminal proceeds."
Finding someone who meets Criteria X is a long way from finding either a Majority or even just enough of a minority to make a difference.
When people believe their action will not make a difference, they pay less heed to the consequences of their actions. People will take money to do things if they don't think it will change much.
There are probably plenty of gun runners who sell guns to rebels that would should they succeed in their rebellion it would be detrimental to the gun-running business. Nevertheless they would happily sell them guns to them while they think the rebellion is doomed.
It's not always that simple though. Significant strategic decisions can involve projecting ineffectiveness to obtain the support of those who do not want you to be effective. Because of this, people have committed betrayals that have turned out to be far more significant than they imagined. I suspect this happens more often in fiction than real life, but fiction more frequently focuses on the significant. Real life produces the significant by having millions with the one in a million chance of being significant.
So in a completely hypothetical scenario, if the CCP surreptitiously offers 10,000USD (or pick any other amount you want) to each Taiwanese citizen who votes in favour of reunification, might we not potentially end up in a situation where >50% of Taiwanese voters accept the deal because each of them labours under the erroneous assumption that he or she is in the minority?
Though with an AI race going on and Musk practically living in the White House, I can't imagine the US would let China have Taiwan without a fight right now.
Also, forcing TSMC to build a number of modern fabs in the US is sort of a warning to China to stay away AT LEAST until those fabs are done. If China attacks right now,I think we would see the full might of the US forces coming to their defense.
AI right now has the same role as nukes had during the cold war. Nobody really knows how quickly it will develop, and many scenarios would allow those who get it first to take out all enemy nukes without much risk of receiving a retaliatory strike.
For instance, AI may make it possible to build a virtually perfect missile defense against ICBMS, it may may allow perfect tracking of subs and other submarine threats, it may power drone swarms capabable of disabling any integrated air defense network, and even to destroy all enemy missile siles and nuclear subs whil minimizing loss of life.
The US is not going to let China get there first, if they can stop it.
Massed ICBM defense is a matter of sheer volume - with the current GMD system the US can throw enough exoatmospheric kill vehicles (and THAAD to handle the leftovers) to counter a handful of re-entry vehicles from a smaller nuclear power like North Korea or Iran. Not hundreds (vs China) or thousands (vs Russia) that you would see in a peer-level nuclear exchange where everyone has multi-megaton MIRVs, decoys, and SLBMs with much shorter flight times.
Some fantasy future AI with the right sensors may perfectly track all of that sub-orbital mayhem. Without an enormous fleet of thousands of kill vehicles to actually defend against that threat, and the logistics to keep that fleet operational, it can do nothing about it. Building and supporting that sort of strategic defense is obscenely expensive, and as such it remains a Reagan-era fever dream.
1) If you can strike the the ICBM's before the MIRV's separate, you only need a fraction of the number. To do this, you need to already have the interceptors (or whatever else used to shot them down) in orbit before the ICBM's launch.
Independently of AI, Starship is making it much cheaper to place objects in orbit, and can help with this. (Though it could trigger a first strike if detected, it might be possible to hide interceptors within Starlink satellites, for instance.)
2) Coordination and precision. This is what wasn't in place at all in the 80s. I'm old enough to remember when this was going on, and labelled impossible. I still remember thinking, back then: "This is impossible now, but will not remain impossible forever".
Whether it applies to interceptors already placed in orbit, novel weapons such as lasers, typically also placed in orbit or interceptors intended to stop reentry vehicles one faces a coordination problem with time restrictions that makes it very hard for humans or even traditional computer algorithms to solve properly.
This, more than the volume, was the fundamental showstopper in the 80s (the willingness to pay was pretty significant).
Now, with AI tech, plenty of known options open up, and an unknown number of things we didn't think of yet, could also open up.
Accuracy and coordination is the most fundamental one. Here AI may help distribute the compute load into satellites and even independent interceptor vehicles. (Both by making them more autonomous and by improving algorithms or control systems for the dumber ones.)
But beyond that, AI may (if one side achievs a significant lead) also a path to making manufacturing large numbers much cheaper, meaning one could much more easily scale up enough volume to match whatever volume the enemy can deploy. Also, with more advanced tech (allowed by ASI), interceptors can potentially be made much smaller. Even a pebble sized chunk of metal can stop most rockets, given the velocities in space. The hard part is to make them hit the target.
Basically, what I'm saying is that whoever has ASI first may at minimum get a time window of technological superiority where the opponent's ICBM's may be rendered more or less obsolete.
In fact, I think the development of the Poseidon by Russia was a response to realizing decades ago that ICBM's would eventually be counterable.
However, AI tech will possibly even more suitable for detecting and countering this kind of stealthy threats. Just like it is currently revolutionizing radiology, it will be able to find patterns in data from sonars, radars, satellites etc that humans and traditional algorithms have little chance to detect in time.
He's very much in favour of the CCP.
Elon Musk suggests making Taiwan a ‘special administrative zone’ similar to Hong Kong (2022): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk...
Tesla commits to promoting 'core socialist values' in pledge with Chinese auto companies (2023): https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/tesla-commits-promoti...
Tesla’s path in China clears as Musk courts both Trump and Xi (2024): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/22/elon-musk...
He and his mother are also wildly popular in China, and we all know how susceptible he is to flattery:
The rise and rise of Maye Musk: China’s love affair with Elon Musk’s mother (2024): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/25/the-rise-...
What is your response to this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_KEFpuIro
Transcript here: https://singjupost.com/transcript-jeffrey-sachs-on-the-geopo...
>What was Putin’s intention in the war? I can tell you what his intention was. It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality. And that happened within seven days of the start of the invasion. You should understand this, not the propaganda that’s written about this.
>Oh, that they failed and he was going to take over Ukraine. Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Understand something basic. The idea was to keep NATO. And what is NATO?
>It’s the United States off of Russia’s border. No more, no less. I should add one very important point. Why are they so interested? First, because if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grande or in the Canadian border, not only would the United States freak out, we’d have war within about ten minutes.
>Sachs has suggested that the U.S. was responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. In February 2023, he was invited by the Russian government to address the United Nations Security Council about the topic.
On day 7, the three-day military excursion to Kyiv had stalled, the Russian army was scrambling to establish supply routes and figure out logistics for a war that should have been over, and Putin was trying to convert a stalemate into something he could call a success. Nobody at the time would have claimed that his behavior on day 7 was reflective of his plans on day 1, when days 3-7 were clearly not going his way.
That you really can't know, and
>That's like beating someone up to get them to like you.
Is a very flawed analogy.
That's certainly true now, even if it wasn't true before. So why would Putin act in a way that was absolutely guaranteed -- win, lose or draw -- to fortify and entrench NATO's presence on Russia's borders?
His NATO excuse never made any sense. Don't invade anybody, and you have nothing to fear from NATO.
May be he is/was worried about USA
Or maybe Russia see eastern and central Europe as their sphere of influence, which they lost. And now they're using any excuse to try to re-establish that.
What kind of NATO danger did they expect from Georgia?
Russia had zero reason to see de-militarised Europe as a threat.
Umm, no. Bullshit. That's my response. It's the 3rd time in a decade Putin pulled this off. Let's not pretend this is anything about NATO obligations. He wants to take back land he feels was always his (aka the most common reason for war)
The only reason why Russia is so much against NATO is the article 5, because it makes attacking peaceful nations expensive and risky for Russia.
If you adjust for population, that's like Mexico bombing nearly every building in the US and killing 8 million people.
Hamas is the aggressor only in a very immediate sense. Israel holds millions of Palestinians under military occupation, steals more and more of their land over time, and kills Palestinians all the time. From January 1st through October 7th 2023, when there was no war going on, Israel killed 234 Palestinians in the West Bank. That's just business as usual for Israel.
Not quite. He favours isolationism. It's just that Israel is an exception because many Americans (especially religious right wingers) view it akin to a 51st US state.
They could stroll into Taipei and Trump wouldn't lift a finger.
I'm not going to bat for Trump – I don't like the guy – but this seems provably false just based on the fact that Trump has already applied tariffs to Chinese imports. Not only that, he's ratcheting up those tariffs because Beijing has so far refused to come to the table. He seems to be continuing his 2016 policy of economically antagonizing the Chinese.
Apple, Microsoft, LVMH, Volkswagon, Ferrari, etc don't have that.
Donald Trump is also deep in debt to Chinese banks.
China's arsenal of standoff weapons is orders of magnitude more potent than it was during the last Taiwan Straits Crisis.
That may be more than worth it if they succeed.
Taiwan is not like Ukraine. As long as TSMC has monopoly on the latest AI chips, it's at least as important as access to oil.
For the PRCs invasion of Taiwan to work with minimal risk of excessive losses, they need to do it very quickly so that it's a fait accompli, minimizing the chance of any American response at all.
Not even remotely true.
> In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargamin...
Not true. Just sneakily cut the submarine cables i.e. Internet before the "offical attack".
Most of the comments talk about a blockade, but no need. I doubt a lot of things will function without Internet. There were discussions of Satellite but not confirmed.
Taiwan doesn't have a huge data center capacity. A lot of services are in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc...
Of the big clouds e.g. AWS is only opening a data center later this year.
It's also not so simple. Even local servers / services might have all sorts of "needs" to phone "home" elsewhere e.g. for analytics. A lot of software might not have been tested and will crash. Even the big clouds might not work in isolation.
Then there's also things like patches, updates, firmwares etc. A lot of things like kubernetes clusters may be set to auto update and crash. If you need a docker image the local CDN didn't cache then it is gone.
There have been plenty of polls / surveys and it isn't united. Lots of people living there were originally from China or have some relationship to it.
Ukraine put up a mostly unified front and managed to do so for so long. Not every place can or will.
Despite what the US media keeps making of it, China isn't all evil nor does >50% of Taiwan think this way.
Have you ever worked on a military contract? Or even just a regular government contract? It's a whole other type of sales, contracting, and fulfillment process.
Yes
> You seem to believe that military networks are slapped together with off-the-shelf SaaS apps
You seem to believe I was talking specifically about the military. Taiwan isn't Ukraine. China has infiltrated the every day lives etc over the years. It's not unified.
The chaos just from the everyday citizens, protests, etc might cause enough trouble for the military / government. Those aren't "air-gapped".
Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory, and the US will be able to play merry hell with China's naval logistics from day 1 (obviously with escalating levels of firepower available over time as more resources move in-theatre).
China could secure a more reliable victory by expending most of it's ballistic missile inventory to incapacitate the US bases in Guam and Okinawa, but that would inexorably trigger WWIII.