Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Chinese leader would 'try to use other ways to do this.”

  • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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    10 months ago

    Sounds reasonable, even under very generous assumptions regarding the expansion of the Chinese army, there’s no way they can take Taiwan within the next few decades (unless big, but unlikely, changes in alliances in the region), according to military strategists. And by that time, those generous assumptions might no longer be tolerable for the Chinese economy.

    • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Well, there have been a lot of war games that currently show China losing but by a small margin. It’s likely that in less than a decade China would win by a small margin. According to many US generals.

      So while your wrong, China almost certainly could take Taiwan in less than a decade, I would argue that there’s no chance in hell they would do it. Winning by a small margin here means millions if deaths if not nuclear war. This would be massacre that would make both Israel and Russia’s violence look down right peaceful.

      And it’s not like China hasn’t shown it’s hand in what it would do. War is not China’s goal, a blockade is.

  • HowMany@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Remember that “top U.S. general” who unequivocally and with 100% certainty told the U.S. that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - which led to the longest “war”, for nothing, in U.S. history?

    Yeah… good times.

    • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Well that was a whole conspiracy that was never prosecuted and was a special event. I take your point but do think that it was a very unique period in history.

      • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Vietnam’s false flag was also a unique period in history. Libya too. Yugoslavia too. Those damn unique accidents keep happening!

  • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I think the best course of action for China is lower the tone and try to have some business with Taiwan (I don’t know if they have it now) and from there go up until both side become partners.

    • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      China’s way of partnering is through domination, and under Xi it is no longer even a matter of opinion or interpretation. The Taiwanese know that well, while the rest of the world is readjusting after a half century of concessions and “trying to be good friends”.

      China doesn’t believe in/wants/cares about a world order with all countries equal under the same international laws, and that’s what I personally find to be the scariest for the world’s stability in the long term (rather than the naive “democracies are good vs authoritarianisms are bad and hence we should align against CN/RU”).

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        China’s way of partnering is domination? Why are you projecting the European project onto your political enemies? Domination is how the North Atlantic has “partnered” with the rest of the world for the last 600 years. China is providing an alternative.

        You think China doesn’t believe in international law when that’s essentially the only position it has been expressing and espousing for decades? Again, you’re projecting. The USA has no interest in all countries being equal under international law. The USA is the scariest and most dangerous for world stability in the long run. Of the most bombed countries in the world, the US bombed the top 4 and all of them around China (Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam).

        The USA has politicians like Condoleeza Rice saying that invading sovereign nations is a war crime when she was a major architect of the US invading Iraq. Many of the countries you’re talking about are literally British construction. You think The Phillipines is named after someone who lives in that region? You think the borders of African nations are naturally straight?

        It’s fucking ridiculous how blind you are to the projection.