The US Defense Department’s grand strategy for protecting Taiwan from a massive Chinese military offensive involves flooding the zone with thousands of drones.
    • @vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      24•8 months ago

      China has no incentive to invade Taiwan.

      I hope you are right, but your post is giving me big “herr Hitler is not going to invade Poland” vibes.

    • @frezik@midwest.social
      3•8 months ago

      China has no incentive to invade Taiwan

      Thank you for explaining you know nothing about geopolitics right at the start.

        • @frezik@midwest.social
          0•8 months ago
          • China has an old ideological incentive
          • Xi might want an invasion to hide his own failures
          • China wants TSMC ** TSMC might be rigged to explode, but China might be willing to go, anyway, in a “if we can’t have it, nobody can” strategy
          • China doesn’t want an unsinkable aircraft carrier in range of its mainland
          • China wants to extend its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone ** Which itself has implications for how the US can deploy carriers around China

          You can argue that none of the benefits add up to the cost of an invasion–I would tend to agree–but saying China has no incentive is just dumb. In particular, ideological reasons may be weighted much higher by Chinese leaders than any outsider could guess.

    • @papertowels@lemmy.one
      1•8 months ago

      And even if you get a beach head there(on the West side), it’s not Normandy, there’s sheer fucking cliffs, and then MORE mountains.

      Idk much about Taiwanese coastline, but your wiki article states:

      The terrain in Taiwan is divided into two parts: the flat to gently rolling plains in the west, where 90% of the population lives, and the mostly rugged forest-covered mountains in the eastern two-thirds.

    • @Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
      8•8 months ago

      Nobody is saying invading Taiwan would be a good idea, the CCP has been very consistent in stating that they are willing to do it though.

      I personally thought Ukraine wouldn’t be invaded by Russia because it would make no sense and go against Russia’s interests. Turns out I was half right, but it happened anyway.

      So let’s hope that it’s all sabre rattling and continue planning for the worst.

          • @HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
            -3•8 months ago

            Yes.

            Not a single government (not even Taiwan’s government) has ever said that Taiwan is not part of China.

            I understand why you’d think otherwise if you get your understanding of the situation from online discourse. But here’s the thing: Most online discussion is coming from people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

            • Flying Squid
              0•8 months ago

              And not a single government, not even Peru’s government, has ever said that Peru is not part of Swaziland.

              Strangely, that’s not the same thing as all nations agreeing that Peru is part of Swaziland.

              • @HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
                2•8 months ago

                From 1945 to 1971, China was represented at the United Nations by the government in Taipei, with almost universal recognition. It would be very odd for any country to say that Taipei (and hence Taiwan) was not part of China at that time.

                And if Taiwan was part of China from 1945 to 1971, surely it must be part of China now, because there have been no significant political changes in China since then.

                Both the government in Beijing and the government in Taipei recognize Taiwan as being part of China. Each government claims to be the rightful government of all of China, including Taiwan. (However, the government in Taipei only has effective control over Taiwan and a few islands, while the government in Beijing has control of the mainland.)

                Since 1979, the USA has had a policy of “strategic ambiguity” where they do not say that Taiwan is part of China, but they clearly recognized Taiwan as part of China up until then, and they have not made any statements changing that position.

                • Flying Squid
                  -1•8 months ago

                  if it’s ambiguous, how can they recognize it as part of China at the same time? That’s the opposite of ambiguous.

                  • @HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
                    4•8 months ago

                    Yeah, it’s not actually very ambiguous. It’s more confusing than ambiguous.

                    If you ask if the government in Taipei is the legitimate government of China, the USA will say no.

                    If you ask if Taiwan is an independent country, the USA will say no.

                    But if you ask if Taiwan is part of China, the USA will avoid answering, even though that’s the only option left.

        • OfCourseNot
          1•8 months ago

          Wouldn’t the separatists be mainland china? Honest question. Like there’s continuity from the former china government to Taiwan’s, the people’s republic is the newest entity.

            • OfCourseNot
              1•8 months ago

              I’m not talking about who’s ‘rightful ruler’ or not. The roc was a country and the communist revolution took a part of the territory and made it into the prc (a new country) while the roc still exist in the remaining territory. That’s the definition of a secession. I was just pointing out one of the holes in your analogy.

              Now that you took the time to write that I have a couple of questions. Was the white terror an ethnic cleansing? I might be under informed on the matter but I don’t know anything about any ethnic groups targeted in particular. Your last paragraphs imply that the sovereignty and territorial questions about Taiwan and the People’s Republic aren’t a settled matter for the whole world (except maybe the prc). Are there many voices claiming for the Taiwan government to be the ruler of mainland China anymore? Or any territorial ambitions other than staying an independent island nation?

              • @cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mlEnglish
                3•8 months ago

                Chiang Kai-shek’s claim to a legitimate ROC government are tenuous at best. He basically used his position to launch a right wing coup against the unity government and attempted to purge it of all left wing elements. Claiming legitimacy when you’ve basically used force to try and take full control over a government is par for the course for fascism. That’s why I don’t believe the CPC demonizes the ROC prior to Chiang Kai-shek. They still holds Sun Yat-sen, a key founder of the ROC, in high regard.

                Also, IIRC most of the dissidents in Taiwan were mostly people who lived there or who were indigenous to the Island prior to the KMTs arrival. As such, the white terror did involve suppression of a Taiwanese ethnic identity.

    • @papertowels@lemmy.one
      2•8 months ago

      Ultimately, if China truly has no incentive to invade Taiwan, why not just recognize it as a sovereign nation? They haven’t, they likely won’t, and that to me is enough evidence to show that there is reason to invade - we as armchair strategists simply don’t know them.

      Does China benefit from the current arrangement in any way that would motivate them to keep the status quo?

    • @Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      3•8 months ago

      I don’t disagree with the points you’re making in terms of military explanations.

      I think the U.S. definitely wants to provide Taiwan with all manner of drones, as they can use that as a test bed for their own drone efforts. Even if it’s unlikely to actually occur, I think the specter of China getting involved militarily is an opportunity the U.S. is keen to exploit that will allow them to deploy and test drone systems on the dime of one of their strategic partners, rather than solely at their own expense.

      But I also think that China is working on a diplomatic/economic win in Taiwan.
      With the recent passage of the … oh, I can’t remember the name of it … the law that allows China to arrest people who criticize China online that will apply to Chinese citizens who live/work in Taiwan, or to Taiwanese citizens who have reason to visit China, it means that there is a pall of fear over criticizing China in Taiwan.
      If folks can’t criticize China, it skews the narrative in Taiwan. A few more laws like that, some social/election influence campaigns (in the U.S. and Taiwan), and I could see a gradual undoing of Taiwanese-U.S. relations, and perhaps even a voluntary joining of PRC in a few decades.
      I’m sure, though, that the U.S. is doing the same thing in Taiwan, to try to keep the relationship tight. So it sorta comes down to who can do the best data mining, influence campaigning, and crafty diplomacy.

      All armchair speculation on my part, but that’s how I think it’ll shake out. Less of a military conquest, and more of a cultural conquest.

        • Flying Squid
          -4•8 months ago

          I don’t know if this is what they’re talking about, but pretty much the entirety of the Chinese government elite is made up of Han Chinese despite there being a bunch of other ethnic groups. And, of course, there’s the ethnic groups that the Chinese government severely oppresses within their borders like the Uyghurs and the Tibetans.

            • Flying Squid
              0•8 months ago

              Hmm… how does the Han Chinese dictator of China relate to the ethnonationalist policies of the Chinese government, which promotes the Han over other ethnic groups and outright oppresses other ethnic groups…

              You know, I’ll have to ponder that for a while and get back to you on it because you’re right, I just don’t see a direct line.

      • 100
        7•8 months ago

        lol who is trying to claim most of south china sea again and harassing their neighbours?

    • @papertowels@lemmy.one
      2•8 months ago

      China doesn’t have the Navy to setup a blockade

      Do you have sources that backs up that claim? Just because they didn’t do so in a sabre rattling exercise doesn’t mean they can’t. Afaik their navy is actually quite capable, and actually it’s the largest in the world by number of vessels.

      As of 2024, the PLAN(PLA Navy) is the second-largest navy in the world by total displacement tonnage[18] — at 2 million tons in 2021, behind only the United States Navy (USN)[19] — and the largest navy globally by number of active sea-going ships (excluding coastal missile boats, gunboats and minesweepers)[20][21] with over 370 surface ships and submarines in service,[22] compared to approximately 292 ships and submarines in the USN.[23]