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War with China?

tones

Tones deaf
The Australian version of 60 minutes does some excellent, thought-provoking stuff, and this is the latest:


I personally think that a Chinese move to incorporate Taiwan by force is inevitable, and the big question is, what happens then? Will the US cavalry come galloping to its aid, and risk a wider conflagration?
 
I read somewhere a couple of months ago that the US reckon China will attempt to take Taiwan within five years
 
Bit of a scary thought, the chance of a miscalculation by one side or the other is very real, Xi is more and more like an Emperor and by surrounding himself with yes men who tell him what he wants to believe, bad enough in a democracy but worse in a dictatorship, he could be tempted to try by force, although China usually plays the long game and will try for more subtle forms of coercion to achieve its aim first but how long is the great unknown. If the US looks like it’s losing there is a real risk they may nuke one of the islands China has been building and then the world is heading for a very bad place indeed.
 
Only just started watching it, but ‘The Day Today’ vibe is rather wonderful; “worse than Darth Vader”, “is resistance futile?” etc.

PS Scary premise obviously. Unthinkable that Taiwan may fall to the Chinese communist dictatorship, it was heartbreaking enough to see Hong Kong under authoritarian police state rule.
 
It’s worth digging back into some of the Adam Curtis documentaries too. They went some way to explain why for several decades now the Chinese dictatorship has been flooding the world with subsidised ultra-cheap goods and manufacturing facilities. Effectively to remove that functionality from the west by making it uneconomic, and then investing heavily in the US bond market etc. What is coming has been coming for a very long time now. The vacuous right-wing politics of the west never plays the long game, it is always based on short term cash in the back pockets of an elite. China (and to a lesser degree Russia) has been playing a far more clever game here and they have likely won before many even realised what was going on.
 
It’s worth digging back into some of the Adam Curtis documentaries too. They went some way to explain why for several decades now the Chinese dictatorship has been flooding the world with subsidised ultra-cheap goods and manufacturing facilities, effectively to remove that functionality from the west by making it uneconomic, and then investing heavily in the US bond market etc. What is coming has been coming for a very long time now. The vacuous right-wing politics of the west never plays the long game, it is always based on short term cash in the back pockets of an elite. China (and to a lesser degree Russia) has been playing a far more clever game here and they have likely won before many realised what was going on.

Pretty easy to outsmart a population when the biggest issues on half their minds is how cheap shit is they can buy at Primark, etc.
 
Nobody wants war with China. Taiwan will be allowed to fall.

It’s not just Taiwan that would fall it would be America’s place in the world order, it’s unlikely the US would stand by and let that happen which is why it’s a dangerous situation.
 
It’s worth digging back into some of the Adam Curtis documentaries too. They went some way to explain why for several decades now the Chinese dictatorship has been flooding the world with subsidised ultra-cheap goods and manufacturing facilities. Effectively to remove that functionality from the west by making it uneconomic, and then investing heavily in the US bond market etc. What is coming has been coming for a very long time now. The vacuous right-wing politics of the west never plays the long game, it is always based on short term cash in the back pockets of an elite. China (and to a lesser degree Russia) has been playing a far more clever game here and they have likely won before many even realised what was going on.

The west got a lot of stuff and China got a lot of IoUs. I can't figure out who the real loser is.
 
Haven't seen the video but not sure an invasion makes sense as there are some major risks. Geography is one - any invasion is likely be amphibious but there are a 100-odd miles of water between China and Taiwan which will take the Chinese hours to cross (weather permitting). That’s a lot of time to hide from satellites, and a lot of time for subs (via Aus etc) and missiles to find their targets. And then what happens when the Chinese actually land? How will they keep supply routes open and safe? Further, Chinese forces, despite being well resourced, lack significant real-world battle experience - and America’s navy is still ‘ahead'. Would Xi risk them on a gamble as big as Taiwan? There is also political risk - does Xi want to further isolate China? The US, the EU (+ global Britain) and regional allies are likely to introduce sanctions and cut-off regional supply lines. Of course, Xi may calculate these risks are worth taking, and that the West won’t respond in a meaningful way - its track record on that front hasn’t been great recently. And if Trump gets re-elected, who knows what could happen. Commentators in general though think Xi is more interested in threatening war rather than war itself.
 
It’s not just Taiwan that would fall it would be America’s place in the world order, it’s unlikely the US would stand by and let that happen which is why it’s a dangerous situation.
But they wont go to war. There will be much sabre rattling, lots of sanctions etc etc. Not war over Taiwan. It would cost far too much and its far from clear the US would win quickly and cleanly.
 
The vacuous right-wing politics of the west never plays the long game, it is always based on short term cash in the back pockets of an elite.

The right wing have been playing the long game, but it's only about consolidating domestic power, not about any global policy.
 
The right wing have been playing the long game, but it's only about consolidating domestic power, not about any global policy.

I guess they will sell out to China just as cheaply as they sold out to Russia for the illusion of control.
 
China needs to control it’s population and part of this is providing employment via huge amounts of sales to the West. If we in the West and democratic countries across the world put a ban on importing Chinese produced goods, their economy would go Pear shaped and before long this would lead to civil unrest. Unlikely as Apple and other large western company’s would not want to lose their cheap access to labour and it would also push China into aggressive retaliation economically and militarily. Basically the world has slept whilst China is almost at the point of running things. Russia will no doubt take advantage adding their military might to the equation. Let’s face it they have almost won and we have given them the ammunition.
 
We elected spineless cretins who reduce taxes, export jobs and turn the uk economy into a all you can steal diner for the city of London.
 
We elected spineless cretins who reduce taxes, export jobs and turn the uk economy into a all you can steal diner for the city of London.

But we also chose to buy cheap stuff, and not to pay a premium for not-made-in-China. I think there's blame to go around on this one.

We're locked in economic mutual destruction with China, though that's slowly starting to uncouple (China's domestic demand is rising, production is being moved out of China). It's certainly to be hoped that the relationship doesn't deteriorate to how it was with the USSR.
 


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