The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.
“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.
How many years and how fortuitous do the circumstances have to get before people stop insisting an invasion is imminent?
There’s an enormous amount of value in China and Taiwan remaining friendly trading partners. Westerners refuse to acknowledge this.
But… but China bad!!!
The funny thing is I don’t think China actually expected the US military to nope themselves out potentially faster than their ability to surpass their reliance on Taiwan. I wouldn’t be surprised if they use it to strongarm a deal into essentially purchasing Taiwan if no one is left to back them.
China and Taiwan already do an enormous amount of trade. And some of Taiwan’s biggest companies are heavily invested on the Chinese mainland.
Despite the DPP’s fervent desires, that’s not going to change. So now the only question is whether an isolationistv party can continue to hold a majority in a country with an increasingly China centric economy.
I think everyone underestimates Taiwan. It’s not a defenseless country.
Yes PRC has a massive army, but Taiwan is an island. The PRC military force on the island would be limited to how many they could send across the strait and maintain supply lines to. A large part of the island has cliffs for coastline, so there’s a limited number of locations they could land. The landing operation would be a bigger operation than D-Day. The Germans didn’t have much for radar and there was no satellite intel back then, and there were a lot more potential landing spots for D-Day. The Germans didn’t know where the allies would make their landing. Taiwan on the other hand will be tracking those ships all the way across the strait, and they will know exactly where they’ll be coming ashore.
And of course there’s drones. Russia was supposed to take over Ukraine in a week (two weeks tops!) in their special operation. The US is supposed to be able to completely dominate Iran. But those damn drones are a real problem, aren’t they? Where do you suppose Ukraine gets the chips from to control those drones? Taiwan likely has the designs Ukraine is using and they have drone production going completely on their island. Even if China were to completely blockade Taiwan, they could continue to produce drones endlessly. And those Ukrainian sea babies effectively neutralized the Russian Navy. Will the Chinese Navy fare better?
We can reasonably assume China is sharing tech with Russia to test on the battlefield against drone technology that Ukraine is likely sharing with Taiwan. Russia has to keep their navy far away from Ukraine to keep their ships safe from the drones. The US navy is keeping it’s distance from Iran for similar reasons. If China has to keep its navy far from Taiwan to keep their ships safe from drones, an invasion of Taiwan just isn’t going to work, is it?
Look at a a map of Taiwan in relation to China. Taiwan is tiny, and it’s right off the coast. If China wants it, there is no stopping them. We’re certainly not going to stop them with our 6000 mile supply line, and the dumbest people to ever operate a country since Caligula.
I know you’ve been conditioned to think that everything that happens in the world (both good and bad) is because of the USA. But read my post again. I’m actually talking about Taiwan’s capabilities on it’s own.
You need to look at a map. Note that Taiwan is an island. Kinda like how Britain is an island. There was a time when some authoritarian asshole controlled most of Europe and since you love looking at maps, note that the English Channel is far narrower than the Taiwan Strait. So what does your map based analysis say about Britain’s chances against the Nazis? What about their chances against Napoleon?
It might be harder to take over an island than you think. It all depends on how hard the people on that island are willing to fight.
Forgetting about Tibet so quickly, I see
:-/
hahhaha and there it is gentlemen, tankie gonna tank
Hasbara ass response.
lmao what a loser you are
It would be indeed incredibly stupid for Xi to try to invade Taiwan. There’s the economic cost and there’s a real possibility that he could wind up in the same situation Trump and Putin are currently in. Lots of those pesky drones creating a stalemate situation.
But authoritarians are being really stupid lately, so we can’t discount the possibility of Xi being as stupid as Trump and Putin.
That’s why he’s playing his cards by deliberately not intervening publicly in the war in Ukraine, counting on chaos in the West all the while making most of the disillusionment among developing countries to align to China.
That a direct invasion of Taiwan would potentially destroy vital assets necessary for the Mainland’s technological advancement.
I’m trying to think of a comparable series of blunders the Chinese have committed.
Xi’s much more in the mold of an Obama or a Merkle than Putin or Trump
You need to cut back on all the tankie propganda you’re consuming a little bit, buddy.
What about the sino Vietnamese war, that’s one blunder I remember
The three-week incursion into Vietnam in 1979 was certainly a bad decision by the Chinese government. Idk if it stacks up against the American 13 year invasion, occupation, terror-bombing, and torture/assassination campaign that became emblematic of US Foreign policy. Easy to forget the scope of the difference between the two interventions, given how often modern China-watchers love to bring up the former while neglecting the latter.
But do you have anything perpetrated by the Xi administration specifically? Or just something a sitting administrative official actually presided over?
I mean sure, but I don’t see China behaving much better if they ever become a super-power the way the US was for the last hundred years. Especially considering their treatment of Uyghurs.
I would argue a large part of China not trying to militarily expand their Power was US dominance and their global policing.
I’m not sure what else they’d need to do to qualify, shy of actually building out a global network of military bases. In that case, sure. If they start acting like the US, then they’re no better than the US.
But for the time being, what I’m seeing - and I’ll quote Dr Lubinda Haabazoka, Director of the University of Zambia Graduate School of Business and former President of the Economics Association of Zambia on this one
To date, I’ve seen a lot of Chinese Hospitals (and factories and ports and colleges) opening up across the world. Meanwhile, the only thing guys like Trump and Starmer seem to want to contribute are frowns, finger wags, and 500 lb bunker busters onto wedding parties.
Yes, and what I’m saying is that the only reason they haven’t done that yet is because the US hasn’t let them. But I suppose that is something we can only speculate about until the time comes. And again, I think we only need to look at how they are treating Uyghurs and their aggressive/imperialistic local geopolitics to be able to guess how they would act if they were in the position the US is/was. And that’s not touching on their surveillance state which is unrivalled in the world.
That’s the same type of Neo-colonialism the French have been up to for the last 100 years. Definitely not something positive for these African countries. There’s a reason it’s called debt trap diplomacy.
I just don’t see why we should hope for the benevolence of the upcoming authoritarian super-power when there’s ample evidence they are no better and just haven’t had the freedom to be as bad scope-wise as the current super-power.
It’s not the US, it’s this big magic rock. Also works to scare away tigers
China is the one superpower who isn’t wasting their resources on a pointless war, and are investing heavily in infrastructure and their people, and their manufacturing base for EVERYTHING is unparalleled.
They are taking over the world without firing a shot. Why would they screw that up just to take a tiny island that is no more than a symbol. Let the Westerners think they have some sort of power over them, they know the real truth.
You are saying that like the US and Russia weren’t in way better positions before their respective wars.
What the commenter you’re replying to is saying, is that we can’t trust dumbfuck dictators to not make the stupid decision of invading someone else, no matter how idiotic it might be.
Dictators have startet wars for way less.