According to the Washington Post, China's annual work report is a little more militant than usual about "resolving" the Taiwan issue. The change from previous annual reports is the addition of “in the new era,” which I interpret as "taking over Taiwan before Xi Jinping dies." But that's just a cynical guess from someone who knows nothing about this.
(But I do wonder what the US will do when China eventually invades Taiwan. My guess is nothing much, but again, I know nothing.)
Anyway, there's also this:
[The report] also said one of the goals this year would be to control coronavirus infections in a “targeted” way, suggesting an approaching loosening of the draconian policies that have kept China’s coronavirus infection count close to zero, but have weighed on the economy and upended daily life. “Occurrences of local cases must be handled in a scientific and targeted manner, and the normal order of work and life must be ensured,” Li said in the work report.
I dunno. China reports a very impressive vaccination rate, which doesn't surprise me since they have impressive ways of dealing with anti-vaxxers. Nonetheless, the efficacy of their vaccine is questionable and it seems like every country that eases up on pandemic restrictions eventually gets its turn in the barrel. If China does ease up—and I grant that they have to eventually—I won't be surprised if COVID-19 surges in their large and mostly naive population. There is, unfortunately, a price to be paid for being too effective in fighting COVID.
You can't really hide a large-scale invasion of Taiwan, so the US would have months of warning and preparation. I don't think they'd do nothing - unlike with Ukraine, we do basically have a defense agreement with Taiwan in all but name and China knows that.
The thinking on Omicron was that they'd fight it aggressively until they could get their own mRNA vaccines out there (Chinese government won't just use the US vaccines, presumably out of pride). They've got some candidates in Phase 3, so that might be why they're talking about easing up - once they can get people vaccinated with better vaccines, then there might not be as many potential Omicron deaths.
An all-out invasion of Taiwan would almost certainly lead to a severing of most economic and diplomatic ties between China and the US. Right now, neither the US nor China could afford that (they need the manufacturing jobs; we need the cheap consumer products), so I don't think it's imminent. At some point in the future, however, when China thinks it has the resources to weather that, well, all bets are probably off.
Let's hope Taiwan negotiates the best deal they can for some autonomous status before they get anywhere near a shooting war. Western countries have acknowledged for decades that there is only one China.
That's where China blew it with Hong-Kong....
The other issue is would the US let mainland China corner the market on high end chip production?
If the preparations for an invasion become clear, I expect that the first thing that the Seventh Fleet would do is put 24/7 surveillance on the state of the art TSMC foundries and when the Chinese get close, bunker bomb them into oblivion. I would hope that the scientists who work there would already have left the island.
If the preparations for an invasion become clear, I expect that the first thing that the Seventh Fleet would do is put 24/7 surveillance on the state of the art TSMC foundries...
Something like this needs to be done, agreed. Although it seems to me the ROC's own military could play a role in this, too. They're already on the ground, after all. Simply preposition hardened bunkers housing special sabotage crews near the key foundries, and make it known the facilities will not survive for ten minutes if the PLA lays a glove on that island.
(One problem, though, is that both the US and the PRC are well aware of their own economies' vulnerability to a disruption of TSMC operations, and from what I can tell are assiduously working to remedy the situation. So Taiwan's leverage in this area isn't going to last indefinitely.)
If Russia can say Ukraine as a distinct ethnic group & physical landmass doesn't exist, & have the Falangist Right & Fauxgressive Left believe it, then clearly Taiwan is historically NOT China.
It's closer to Palau than Peking, more Guam than Guangdong.
It's Polynesian, is what I am saying.
Have you been to Guam, Palau or Taiwan? I haven't been outside of the cities much in Taiwan, but to a westerner it seemed very Chinese, completely different from either Guam or Palau. The only thing Chinese about Palau were the tourists, although I understand they are now clamping down on Chinese tourism as a the locals find them rude and irritating (the new ugly Americans).
Taiwan is Polynesia the way that the US or Canada is Native Indian. The aboriginal Austronesians are about 3% of the population (my wife is one of them).
A better analogy would be "Taiwan belongs to China the same way the United States belongs to Britain."
No.
TSMC alone is worth more than all the rest of Taiwan. Won't happen.
The US will fight, so Taiwan will never agree to a deal.
In addition, what happened in Hong Kong proves China will not stick to its deals. So you can't make a deal with them.
All good replies, and I'll give it more thought. I do wish we could answer Russian imperialism while affirming that the United States doesn't do it anymore, but I'm naïve.
Hong Kong is perhaps a microcosm of the difficulties emerging from a zero-COVID regime.
Numbers in the US still falling almost everywhere, though rate of declines are slowing. Some backsliding in MT, and ID, ME and NV stalling out. Last of the President's Day hiccups have cleared (see IL). More counties now down to "modest" levels of Covid spread. Hospitalizations and ICU usage still going down too.
Interestingly, in places where masking rules have relaxed, people are still keep up with the masking. Good to see--waiting a little bit longer until cases have dropped instead of anticipating drops a better way to go.
Unfortunately, vaccinations are waning. Covid, at least the early variants, messes up blood clotting which causes long term problems. I hope the vaccines minimize that too for breakthru infections.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/opinions/covid-19-cardiovascular-symptoms-sepkowitz/index.html
China will not invade Taiwan. If they do it will be a complete disaster. Ask yourself why England was not invaded by Napoleon or Hitler. It's an island. Invading across the sea is extremely difficult. Taiwan is something like 3 times further off the coast of Asia than England is off the coast of France. Taiwan has an able and well-funded, well equipped military. Taiwan's coast is rocky and treacherous and is full of military defenses. I mean maybe they take Quemoy and Matsu, but Taiwan proper? Never going to happen with an invasion.
There is simply no way the Chinese are that stupid. If they were going to invade Taiwan they would have done it 50 years ago. An invasion of South Korea or Vietnam or Mongolia is more likely.
Fifty years ago they didn’t have the navy for it. Not entirely clear they do today.
And while the had “the bomb” I don’t think they had a way to deliver it to the US Mainland.
The Koreans view the Chinese (and the Japanese) similar to the way the Poles view the Russians and the Germans. The Chinese already went to war with the Vietnamese once in recent times and found it unproductive.
Taiwan has an able and well-funded, well equipped military.
I wish that were true, but it's by no means the consensus view. Certainly "well-funded" is off by more than a little. The Taiwanese have been skating off America's policy of deliberate ambiguity for literally decades. Given the danger, their military should be something like Israel's (Taiwan is about double Israel's size and GDP). But don't think they're devoting even 2% of that to national defense.
There is simply no way the Chinese are that stupid.
Political leaders—especially dictators who face little in the way of constraints—do seemingly irrational things from time to time. You may have noticed war breaking out in Europe along these lines. Also, what to Western eyes may seem irrational might seem logically compelling from the standpoint of holding onto power domestically.
Also: it's pretty clear that one of the reasons the US has acted so vigorously with respect to the Ukraine situation is to provide Beijing with a warning as to what's in store for them.
It must be nice to be so blase about almost everything.
Taiwan is Polynesia the way that the US or Canada is Native Indian. The aboriginal Austronesians are about 3% of the population (my wife is one of them).
A better analogy would be "Taiwan belongs to China the same way the United States belongs to Britain."
suggesting an approaching loosening of the draconian policies that have kept China’s coronavirus infection count close to zero, but have weighed on the economy and upended daily life.
Where does WaPo get this crap? I doubt more than 2% of the country's population has been "upended" (in lockdown) at any one time over the last eighteen months or so*. And lockdowns these days are usually over in 1-2 weeks.
International travel has been upended. That's true. But life is pretty normal for those of us who don't need to go abroad. (I mean, if wearing a mask on a bus or showing your vaccination status is what they mean by "upended," I don't know what to say.)
For the record I'd personally way rather be living in a Western-style Covid situation at this point. By that I mean: MRNA vaccines + the jettisoning of most other restrictions. And that's because I'd like to travel abroad. So for me personally the PRC's current rules are a PIA. But "upend" is an absurdly over the top way to describe the situation.
*Hong Kong is a shitshow from what I understand. Maybe that's what the WaPo writers are thinking of? But that's less than one half of one percent of China.
My son, a Taiwan "Sea Dragon" Special Forces vet, just received a call from the ROC army (we both live in Taiwan), inquiring about his weight and what he’s been doing to keep in shape lately , and, BTW, informing him that his every-two-year call-up in the reserves, which usually lasts a couple of days and is mostly a chance to get some fresh air and get pissed with old comrades, has been moved up to this year and extended to two weeks.
When he asked when it was to take place, the caller from the army just replied “Soon”.