Taiwan

[mikbone]

Im starting to hear alot of chatter about this island.

A tweet that China is planning an invasion in early June.  China just tested a military exercise effectively performing a blockade.  US marine troops are doing exercises in the Philippines.  And a Naval battle group led by the USS Ronald Reagan is in the area as well.

Taiwan produces 60% of the world’s computer chips.  And 90% of the production is done by a single company, TSMC - Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company.

The supply chain problems of COVID will pale in comparison if anything happens to TSMC.

My IRA is heavily invested in technology as well…

Anyone have some insight?

[mikbone]

 

Elder Clayton Christensen also makes a cameo in the video.

Edited May 26, 2024 by mikbone

[LDSGator]

Insight? Yes, but it goes against the “Omg, we’re all doomed China is our gravest enemy war is eminent.” way of thinking. 

[LDSGator]

Before anyone gets overly excited and eager for war, they should remember that Taiwan has, oh, maybe two months out of the year that it can be invaded.
 

Unless the invading forces enjoy typhoons, fog, tsunamis… 

Edited May 26, 2024 by LDSGator

[Ironhold]

China's military has a badly flawed logistics system, to the point that it is greatly hindering their ability to project their military very far beyond their own borders. Their navy can harass anyone operating within the so-called "Nine-Dashed Line" and a little beyond it, but they'd be pressed to provide proper support for any marines or soldiers they sent to initiate a ground invasion. Even if such an invasion did take place, Chinese soldiers have such terrible supplies - including miserable rations that are of such inconsistent quality food poisoning is a real concern - that the soldiers would be hard pressed to hold whatever land they take. (For those who have access to YouTube, look up Steve 1989 MRE Info and search for his reviews of Chinese military rations. He did, indeed, get food poisoning off of a Chinese ration, a ration that was so terrible chlorophyll was actually leeching off of the vegetables and turning the pork green.)

The big issue with China is that they're a nuclear power, and there's reason to believe they might also have biological and chemical agents. This is protecting them and their buddies (like Iran and North Korea) from any sort of direct invasion, but utilizing these weapons against whatever power they are trying to conquer would risk destroying whatever it is they're trying to seize in the first place. This is especially true with Taiwan and its manufacturing sector. 

As it is, the Federation of American Scientists once estimated that if Japan changed their constitution to allow for the nation to possess nuclear weapons, they could have their first functional device within a calendar year; this led to the FAS declaring Japan to be a de facto nuclear power. A nuclear Japan (which is also well capable of biological and chemical agents) would throw such a wrench in China's plans that China would have to seriously consider its next steps. 

[LDSGator]

4 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

China's military has a badly flawed logistics system

That, and they aren’t stupid. They know they’d be just about by themselves if they got into a war with us. North Korea doesn’t count, Russia has their own problems. China wants no part of us. 

[mikbone]

46 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Insight? Yes, but it goes against the “Omg, we’re all doomed China is our gravest enemy war is eminent.” way of thinking. 

Yes they are horribly corrupt.  Their campaign of misinformation is out of control.  They have all kinds of internal problems.  And the numbers of military supplies and effect are questionable.

But then again, 19 guys with a bunch of box cutter’s perpetuated September 11, 2001.

[LDSGator]

29 minutes ago, mikbone said:

But then again, 19 guys with a bunch of box cutter’s perpetuated September 11, 2001.

True, but China isn’t motivated by religion. The 9/11 hijackers were. 
 

That’s an absolutely crucial distinction. Sorry.  

Edited May 26, 2024 by LDSGator

[mikbone]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

True, but China isn’t motivated by religion. The 9/11 hijackers were. 
 

That’s an absolutely crucial distinction. Sorry.  

orly?

But, you could also state that a true religion is instituted by God.  Whereas a false religion is perpetuated by Satan.

There are people out there that can be just as inspired by a false ideology as a false religion that are willing to do stupid things.  

Emnity exists outside of religion.   

I was just listening to a Chinese nationalist spokesperson arguing why Taiwan is still part of China.  Pretty firm beliefs.  He was angry too.  

[LDSGator]

33 minutes ago, mikbone said:

orly?

But, you could also state that a true religion is instituted by God.  Whereas a false religion is perpetuated by Satan.

There are people out there that can be just as inspired by a false ideology as a false religion that are willing to do stupid things.  

Emnity exists outside of religion.   

I was just listening to a Chinese nationalist spokesperson arguing why Taiwan is still part of China.  Pretty firm beliefs.  He was angry too.  

Okay. 
 

China is not my favorite son either. I love their people-my BIL lives there and we’ve hosted four Chinese exchange students-but like all of us here, I dislike their government. 
 

I don’t let my dislike of their government delude my views of the current state of world affairs.
 

China is watching the Ukraine and seeing how they (Ukraine) are fighting back. China is taking notes-they don’t want the worldwide condemnation and their own Vietnam. Could an invasion happen? Sure. But it’s not likely.  

[LDSGator]

https://www.cfr.org/article/why-china-would-struggle-invade-taiwan#:~:text=The Taiwan Strait%2C over ninety,and require thousands of ships.

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/why-china-remains-unlikely-invade-taiwan

 

[mikbone]

16 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

China is watching the Ukraine and seeing how they (Ukraine) are fighting back. China is taking notes-they don’t want the worldwide condemnation and their own Vietnam. Could an invasion happen? Sure. But it’s not likely.  

I sure hope that cooler heads prevail.

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, mikbone said:

I sure hope that cooler heads prevail.

We agree totally there. 

[Just_A_Guy]

In the long term (10+ years), I don’t think Taiwan is defensible by the US against invasion by a peer (or, as the Chicoms are likely to become soon, superior) military power—the geography is against us.  IMHO the US should offer political asylum for any Taiwanese national who wants it; incentivize their tech industries to set up additional factories on American soil, support Japan, South Korea, and Australia becoming open nuclear powers; and scale back our own military engagement in the region.

Edited May 27, 2024 by Just_A_Guy

[mirkwood]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

In the long term (10+ years), I don’t think Taiwan is defensible by the US against invasion by a peer (or, as the Chicoms are likely to become soon, superior) military power—the geography is against us.  IMHO the US should offer political asylum for any Taiwanese national who wants it; incentivize their tech industries to set up additional factories on American soil, support Japan, South Korea, and Australia becoming open nuclear powers; and scale back our own military engagement in the region.

Wow...what a rational idea.

[Traveler]

Tiawan is a problem.  I have spent some time working there.  The people are wonderful – perhaps one of the kindest cultures I have encountered.  The Church there is very young, experience-wise but growing.  There are a lot of people on the island, and they all want to be reunited with friends and family on the mainland but none of them want to live under communism.  They know communism much better than it is known in this country and they would rather die than be ruled by communism.  The problem is that the people of China and Tiawan are one people that should be one country. 

I think we need to understand history – I will try to make this short (most difficult).

When Marco Polo established relations between Europe and China, trade brought lots of new things to Europe.  But China thought and was far superior to Europe both with products and knowledge in general.  The only thing that Europe had to trade of value to Chima was gold and silver (and other precious elements).  After a couple of years of trade China was accumulating the wealth (gold, silver and precious elements) of Europe.  China acquired all the reserves Europe had taken from their colonies and then some.  Something had to be done or the western civilizations would all go bankrupt.

20 western families from Europe (one with ties to the USA) formed an alliance to create an international drug cartel.  Afghanistan was targeted as a source of opium and the drug and it addictions was introduced into China to recover the gold and silver reserves.  The drug trade devested China resulting in what is known in China as the 100 years of shame.  China began to fight back against the drug trade.  Eventually (end of the 1800’s) China attacked an island off the coast of China where the opium (heroin) was manufactured in a desperate attempt to stop the drug from destroying China.   All of Europe and the USA sent their military to end the China rebellion.  There is a movie titled “55 days in Peking” (or something like that starring Charlton Heston).  The reason I brought up this movie is to establish the blatant attitude of the West to this drug trade problem.

The war against China was over quite quickly resolved and China surrendered.  As punishment the West took Hong Kong and Tiawan away from China for 100 years.  Hong Kong was given to the UK and Tiawan was given to Japan with the promise that they would be returned to China after the 100 years.  As a side note, the British turned Hong Kong into a trading center and Japan turned Tiawan into a hell hole (a reason that China and Japan currently do not get along very well).  The result of this China completely imploded and the Quin Dynasty that ruled China (including its economy) collapsed.  Eventually communism started to take hold in China.  Two world wars and China had gone from a superpower to a 3rd world economy (though technically, by definition, is became a 2nd world economy).  At the end of WWII Tiawan was taken away from Japan.  With the collapse of government and everything else in China, communism rose to power in a brutal dispute with western backed efforts of a fledgling democracy.   The little fledging democracy was given the island of Tiawan.

When the 100 years of occupation of Hong Kong and Tiawan was over and with communism in control of mainland China – The communist government of China demanded that Hong Kong and Tiawan be returned as promised to China.  Britain quickly caved and gave up Hong Kong to establish a president of returning these assets to China. 

So now we have the problem of Tiawan.  According to international law we have no leg to stand on, beyond the fact that the people living in Tiawan do not want to be taken over by the communists.  But we did not do anything for the citizens of Hong Kong that wanted a say (mostly we can thank the UK for that).

Is China sympathetic towards the fentanyl problem in the USA? – probably no more than we were with China when China was having their problem with heroin to which we contributed and were very unsympathetic.

I do not think China wants a war with the USA.  But I also think China sees an opportunity to make a move because of a weak administration in the USA.  I also believe that China has leverage with many of our elected officials (more so with democrats than republicans).  I think that Trump is a wild card that China does not want to deal with.  I am concerned that China will make a move before the upcoming election.  I do not know if they will invade Tiawan (I hope not) but I think they will try something – soon.   Perhaps China thinks the fentanyl trade is enough for now.  I question if our elected officials will oppose the flow of fentanyl, beyond border rhetoric.

 

The Traveler