203
Two years ago I would've said that this is probably nothing. But the ukraine war started just like this, with military exercises coming closer.
It still is nothing.
China does not have the ability to launch an amphibious invasion.
This is purely for domestic rhetoric.
China does not have the ability to launch an amphibious invasion.
It's closer than you think:
CSIS developed a wargame for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan and ran it 24 times. 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. Victory is therefore not enough. The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan
However, it inevitably raises the question: if China tries to take Taiwan, are the United States and its allies able to stop it? And the alarming answer is: Quite possibly not. Analysts say China has more troops, more missiles and more ships than Taiwan or its possible supporters, like the US or Japan, could bring to a fight. That means that if China is absolutely determined to take the island it probably can. But there’s a caveat; while China could likely prevail, any victory would come at an extremely bloody price for both Beijing and its adversaries.
TLDR:
- China has mass. 1.4billion people means you can keep throwing meat in the grinder.
- If the CCP/Xi commits to an invasion, it'd be an existential risk to fail, so they'd be more likely to make that sacrifice.
Also: risk of nuclear war.
Extremely unlikely they would get TSMC either, which is one of the big reasons they want it.
Oh, yeah.
Even if the invasion was succesful, it would be a textbook pyrrhic victory. IRC there are already plans to ship everything important out ASAP and destroy what can't be shipped. Obviously they don't want the Chinese to get their hands on it. What isn't destroyed on purpose, would like be destroyed by the war itself. Taiwan's lovely, but the whole reason it has strategic value is because of its high tech industries.
It makes no sense to invade. But hey, never underestimate the stupidity, megalomania and vanity of an ageing autocrat.
China has 1.4b people, it does not have the boats or resources to land even a fraction of them on the island.
Russia does not have the ability to take Ukraine, but still tries.
There are significant differences, some of which have already been mentioned. In terms of Ukraine, the difference last time they had their exercise before the invasion was that they had transported things not necessarily having to do with the flexy shit they did the previous exercises with. Autumn 21 rus*ia was transporting blood, field hospitals and some hq equipment, things we normally don't see them doing, proving that to be the first steps for the invasion. West knows very well the difference between setting up an invasion and setting up a flex to scare and coerce.
Ch*na has absolutely nothing to indicate these are but provocations. They lack the equipment, logistics and education to invade Taiwan. If this actually brews up to something, its mainlanders doing a quite literal suicide
From what I read and I'm not sure how accurate this is or not, but the two aren't really comparable. The logistical challenge of invading Taiwan is great enough that it would be impossible to hide preparations.
Xi is a chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff. He isn't going to listen unless you tempt him with hunny
‘Cruising for a bruising’ I believe is the appropriate phrase.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Taiwan’s defence ministry has urged China to stop “destructive, unilateral action” after reporting a sharp rise in Chinese military activities near the island, warning such behaviour could lead to an increase in tensions.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has in recent years regularly carried out military drills around the island as it seeks to assert its sovereignty claims and pressure Taipei.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said that since Sunday it had spotted 103 Chinese military aircraft over the sea, a number it called a “recent high”.
The ministry called the Chinese military action “harassment” that it warned could escalate in the current tense atmosphere.
“We urge the Beijing authorities to bear responsibility and immediately stop such kind of destructive military activities,” it said in a statement.”
Taiwan’s defence ministry noted last week that July to September is traditionally the busiest season for Chinese military drills along the coast.
The original article contains 393 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
203 points (97.7% liked)
World News
38531 readers
2176 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS