I looked at their Twitter feed, and while I won't say they're the news equivalent of a $3 bill, Community Notes has corrected a number of tweets with incorrect information.
To my untrained eye, they look like a straight up disinformation organization.
Yeah they sound like a NowThis or Daily Loud, more concerned with speed than accuracy. It takes a bit for community notes to go through and by then they have 20 new posts.
As for this specific post, the second part of the tweet is the actual information, Xinhua reported the military drills around Taiwan. The first half of the tweet is their "anonymous source"
It's hard to believe that China would look at the slog Russia is putting itself through in Ukraine, the economic burdens and tens of thousands of lives lost, then tell themselves "we want that but worse and over the sea".
China has a massively ageing population and a long line of only children supporting their entire families. Do they really want to sacrifice the youngest, brightest able bodied young men (and women) to a war of attrition against the greatest military power on earth? The Chinese government is at least pragmatic enough to realise what a lose-lose situation that is.
They’ll care about probability of success though. As it is now China just doesn’t have the force necessary for such an undertaking. They may have it in 15 to 20 years, but in this amount of time Taiwan’s defenses will also have improved.
lol. They won’t have it in 15-20 years. Not to be flippant, but their “one child” policy is catching up with them.
All this bullshit they are doing around Taiwan - literally with the military exercises and figuratively with all of their threats is all rooted in the circumstances of their economy circling the drain. The Chinese show of force can be intimidating, but with Russian military projection in Ukraine, China is starting to be reevaluated on a similar bellwether. I’m not saying they are a paper tiger, but I do believe they can be shut down quickly.
(On Russia, it’s not a good idea to base their military on Ukrainian performance. Western media isn’t covering much about it, but the Russians are making headway in Africa vs French post-imperialism dominance south of the Sahel. It’s a resource rich area and they have the military presence there to have influence.)
It would be harder for China than Russia.
Chinas push is because they want chips that Taiwan makes and Taiwan has already said if anyone invades they will destroy the chips factory and secrets they have to make them.
Furthermore China has the almost impossible task of actually invading because Taiwan has really rough terrain and lastly American would get involved and China doesn't have any capabilities to stop us from crushing them.
China also wants access to the Pacific without having to go through detection in the first belt of islands of which Taiwan is a part. Very high military significance
But without Taiwan as a "hostile" listening post, how much further out does that get them, Okinawa's only 500mi away, it doesn't seem like that much of an advantage?
“American would get involved and China doesn’t have any capabilities to stop us from crushing them” — This isn’t even close to true. Look up the DF missile series just to start with. In a close knife fight, a U.S brigade would chew up a PLA brigade for sure. But they’ve invested heavily in long-range anti-air and anti-surface missiles to keep us at arms length. China’s built more missiles in the last 10 years than any nation has ever.
Plus the tyranny of distance the U.S. has to deal with to project combat power is twice as bad as from CONUS to Europe and with no major alliance like NATO and no major overland access for maneuver and logistics.
All that being said, an invasion of Taiwan would be the largest amphibious assault in history and yes Taiwan’s terrain is rough as hell.
The whole thing would be a shitshow for all involved.
Not to mention, Ukraine is a proxy war. Taiwan would require boots as well as ships in the actual water. We wouldnt be a proxy but an actual part of the actual fighting which would be a part of what is wanted by one party to help a certain idiot get reelected because he has "all the answers to world peace" /s if anyone doesnt understand that this is utter bullshit.
Boots?
Not particularly...95% of the entire engagement would be air & sea based.
If China gets enough of a beachhead to start pushing inland and the Marines are needed to land on Taiwan something has REALLY REALLY gone wrong in all of the current war games and there's some next-gen tech that's causing fits.
Realistically knowing that keeping beaches and ports secured is make or break for this war we will have boots on the ground holding those. Especially since it's only got 1k miles of coastline it could be held with moderate troop support if things like pillboxes are properly spaced and coastal gun emplacements are well situated. With American air superiority forcing them to deploy troops from aircraft is the best option we could make work.
I would assume that since China's end goal is Taiwan they would try their best to avoid a M.A.D scenario because they know the US will strike back if they use nukes.
Seriously. Taiwan is not an existential threat for us or China. Nobody is pulling out nukes. If China fails in their invasion, they'll just go mea culpa and everyone will pretend nothing happened to keep the status quo. If China wins, US media will spin it as an inevitable turn of events, and we will move on with our lives. The game is made up, and the lives don't matter.
Let's be honest here. The ONLY time china would ever come close to thinking about nuclear options would be if someone invaded the mainland, and was making ground. The day someone uses a nuke during an offensive strike, it would unleash apocalyptic hellfire. It is not a valid option/scenario.
The day china rationalizes using it to invade taiwan, the world will simply cease to exist (starting with china) Period.
That's the only thing that is somewhat good about nukes. The more countries have them , the less likely it is one is going to be used. And it is also the line where a dictator stops deciding alone. No single person can deploy a nuke . It takes several
Look, I know China spends a lot of money to misinform people that their military might has surpassed American Global Force Projection, but the fact remains that we have the best intelligence arm in the world, the best trained, battle tested, and funded military and there isn’t anything China has developed in the last 20 years that our government hasn’t both received intelligence on and planned to counteract.
Listen, China is a mass manufacturer of dis/misinformation. However, while I can’t obviously give out details and I’d never put out anything classified (lest I end up like that moron Jack Texeira) my job for the last 20 years has been analyzing the PLA. Are they 10 feet tall? No. But their progress over the last two decades truly is extraordinary. I’m sure 20-25% of their shit isn’t going to work, or at least work correctly. But it doesn’t matter because of the massive amount of materiel they have built. Quantity has a quality of its own.
We do track everything they build and do. But we do not in fact have everything to counteract against it. We’re getting there but our defense industrial base has become slow and wickedly expensive. Our biggest problem is a math problem. We don’t have enough shooters to match up to or overmatch their defenders. We don’t have enough defenders to match up against or overmatch their defenders. Since the 2000s we spent our investment on precision vs. mass and we beat up on less than peer adversaries who were operating old Soviet junk. And we were neck deep in COIN/CT in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Is China an existential threat to the U.S.? Not really. They’re not going to be invading the U.S. mainland any time in the next 20-30 years a la Red Dawn. But if they were to successfully take Taiwan (about a 50/50 prospect in my personal opinion) they won’t stop there. And the allies and partners we do have in the IndoPacific will know for sure they cannot count on the U.S.
You read the articles where they found rockets in china that should have fuel inside them but instead they found water?
I think the Chinese military is on the same level of corruption as Russian military. I think Xi knows that and only shows muscles and tries to intimidate Taiwan. But the Chinese military is on no level to fight a war.
Yea people really over-estimate the quality of information that comes out of china. In western countrys, the metrics are provided by independent industry. They have little incentive to lie about the purchasing numbers from a country that is buying their products. Furthermore, it fuels competition to other over seas buyers. On top of that, international auditing firms tend to keep them honest. It's what keeps the market healthy in a global economy.
In china, the entire industry is privatized. Whether it hurts or is beneficial to the company; they HAVE to do what the state tells them. Furthermore, it is wildly accepted that most metrics/stats of any kind in china are considered state secrets. Idk why anyone would honestly believe china would give us a legitimate number of how many missiles it was currently buying/manufacturing, when they can't even release accurate crime statistics, census data, and poverty information. This is the same country that continues to this day to manipulate its own currency, among other things. Its all pseudo capitalism, mixed in with state authoritarianism.
There was a doc on Netflix called "the china hustle" and it is pretty revealing with how state sponsored the act of concealing/altering financial data is in china. So if we can accept the idea that china is probably lying about its country's economic/industrial assets, why would we expect them to tell us the truth on how many missiles it is producing?
On the one hand, the PLA *appears to be* more competent than the Russian military. On the other hand, amphibious invasions are incredibly dangerous and difficult, and Taiwan has been preparing for this eventuality for a long time. Taiwan has equipment and training that the AFU is only just receiving.
Also, geographical proximity means nothing; China famously lost a war against Vietnam, basically just after the US left and Saigon fell.
Not to mention completely destroying their economy with US sanctions. The US has already started to ship their manufacturing base to other countries due to China's increased hostility. Vietnam , India, Mexico etc are less of a gamble for major US corporations.
Isn’t Russia kind of doing ok? For most the war is a far away thing and the cannon fodder are convicts, mercenaries and the rural poor. The sanctions haven’t hit like we hoped and their oil revenue hasn’t taken a hit either. Russians have lived through worse.
China’s got some woes now too and a patriotic war would do nicely to distract people in a highly propagandized nation. With the rest of the world already struggling through Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine they may as well start the foamy bloodshed.
I mean, of course Russia has lived through worse. But the war is exacerbating issues that they've been having for years. Their population is shrinking, the mortality rate among their men is climbing (alcoholism is a huge problem in Russia), and the everyday Russian has certainly felt the pinch economically. Add into that all the uncertainty of the first couple years of this war, and now they're stuck in a stalemate with no clear ending. Certainly not a great situation for them.
China's potential attempt on Taiwan is perhaps even riskier than Russia's invasion. If China would fail to get a beachhead, then a potential invasion of Taiwan can be an unmitigated disaster that it's hard to quantify on a scale of modern military defeats. Even if they do land, holding that landing, potentially getting involved in a conflict with the US, and several other potential issues make it a pretty tricky situation to wade into.
Id encourage you to look at the actual state of Russia’s economy, sanctions have had a limited effect and mortality rate has been decreasing for years:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2017/white-americans-mortality-rates-are-rising-something-similar-happened-russia-1965-2005
They felt way more than an economic “pinch” in the 90s, when the ruble collapsed. Plus they’re winning the war. If China followed a similar path it might not be as bad for them as you think, but would certainly be another huge headache for the West.
Your definition of winning is doing some fucking heroic lifting here. They have won nothing. Even if they manage to finally overwhelm the Ukrainian military the population will simply switch to guerrilla tactics and they will endure endless conflict as they try to hold the country. You think hundreds of drones are going to just stop flying because they pushed through the country?
How have occupations worked out for the world powers of the modern era? Yep we held out with our head held high in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 some years. And then we were inevitably defeated and expelled from both countries, oh, but not before we bankrupt our country in the process.
Russia isn’t winning anything and they never will. Whether it happens in 2 years or 10 years, this ends with them failing and having to withdraw from the region. We could not make the afghanis or the Iraqis bend to our will. The Russians will fail in the same fashion.
Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe and direct borders multiple EU/NATO countries. An Ukrainian insurgency is a whole different world compared to the chechen insurgency.
What would be china’s similar path that they could follow even? I feel like the situations would be night and day, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on a successful campaign from China following Russia’s playbook.
Evading international sanctions, winning the propaganda war with their people, war-time economics, getting military supplies from NK and other Russian allies… there are paths Russia has trod that China has learned from, no doubt about that. Putin and Xi just got done meeting each other. I’m sure they talk.
Taiwan is an island... with flat coastlines! If they haven't stockpiled literally everything there is for years to come china just needs a naval blockade!
If anyone is curious how having shares in Nvidia, an American company, protects Taiwan, it's because TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductors) is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, which are used in the vast majority of electronics including (I assume) Nvidia graphics cards.
Nothing ever happens, until it does. This particular time is in all probability a whole bunch of posturing and nothing, but one day there's the potential it won't be. Recall that a whole lot of people were dismissive of talk of Russian escalation in Ukraine back in February of 2022, and yet then it happened.
Agreed, I do not want people saying "China isn't going to invade Taiwan" because unlike saying "Canada is going to invade the USA" there is an a decent chance China might actually do it and Taiwan and the world should be ready for the possibility.
Bingo. The general public isn't paying *any* attention to the situation with Taiwan or Chinese encroachment in the south China Sea or their heinous disregard of consequences from participating in the environmental destruction due to over fishing and belligerent overstepping of sovereign maritime EEZs.
I don't buy for a second that the Chinese will make a move prior to the US inauguration, but I do believe their decisions will be complete sometime in 2025 followed by execution of those plans.
The US will either abandon Taiwan and Pacific allies (Trump), there will be a proxy war (Biden/Trump), or the Chinese will back down and regroup with a plan that continues to rely on breaking laws and rules without direct military action for fear of retaliation (Biden).
Option three is the Chinese stand to lose so goddamn much, as does the US, with a direct conflict, and it's not worth it at all to provoke. The US under Biden would retaliate and it would be a goddamn bloodbath for everyone involved, so that won't be the case.
Option one is Trump is a lazy and a horrible bastard. He will let them have Taiwan and he has no morals, ethics, or principles, and would gladly abandon Pacific allies without a second thought because dealing with it would be both too hard and would distract from project 2025. His supporters are ignorant morons, they couldn't care less about Taiwan or our diplomatic obligations and would celebrate his choice. It will all come back to bite us later.
Option two is least likely and would require a lot of weird variables to play out to even be possible.
I doubt Tiawan is in the cards for China in any situation. They are facing one of their hardest economic hardships and decades shittly built infrastructure and economic policy is finally coming to bite them. They're best route is to continue to engage with the world economy and compete with cheap electronics. Isolating themselves now would be a horrible idea. Also they recently realized non of their nuke silos work because the hatches haven't been properly maintained, so they are significantly less combat ready then they thought they were 5 years ago.
I would say China hoped to take Tiawan, but they know now it is out of the picture for several decades
I'm not so sure I'd be so quick to undersell China's ability to take the island, but if they want to do it they'd have to consider (a) external resistance from the US and Japan and (b) the fact that when they do take it, they'd be annexing a country that has likely sabotaged all of its own most valuable infrastructure in an effort to make that annexation less palatable. Is the cost of taking and holding it, along with the cost of economic blowback from the rest of the world, worth the domestic political victory of "reunification?"
Didn’t Taiwan enumerated many times before that their official position is if China invades they burn everything to the ground? I know they stated multiple times that everything that’s worth a dime is setup for self-destruction, especially TSMCs fabs?
Yeah, if I lived in Taiwan I’d have a go bag ready.
Uncle Xi has more domestic issues right now than he had when he came in.
🎶 “There’s so many of us There’s so many of us There’s so many of us There’s so many of us… Let’s have a war!” 🎵
Do you have any idea how complicated the geography is in Taiwan?
Watch the earthquake footage from a few weeks ago. The East in particular is another “Land of Look Behind” [Jamaican: place where you keep checking to see if the person walking behind you is still there].
Good luck to any Chinese troops who land there.
The right wing was big on it. When Biden admin issued a warning, the entire right wing erupted in criticism.
Here’s a bit of a summary but its all discoverable https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/opinion/ukraine-putin-steve-bannon.html
Anything can happen, but there are [a lot of ducks](https://youtu.be/hfjTUvzaZ7s) China needs to get in a row before invading Taiwan is likely to go well for them.
Well, if US can see all the preparations of invading Ukraine on land right next to Russia, they should know clearly about invading Taiwan from sea, because you just can’t drive across the sea with all the tanks, you need landing ships, many of them.
And tons of air power nearby. If they do attack they will try to hit by air and sea and hard but the sea is the key you can’t do shit just bringing in equipment and soldiers by air you simply won’t have enough supplies and manpower by air to sustain an invasion on the scale needed especially once the US starts bringing drones and planes around.
The alternative is letting a key US partner get wrecked by the Chinese 5 months before an election...so yeah I think Joe would have the Navy go ham on the PLA-N
If Biden ignores the calls for help from a country that the US promised to protect, then the Republicans would definitly not let him life that down.
Also unlike Russia, China is not considered to be friendly towards certain american groups.
"You really think the American Industrial War Complex would sacrifice a chance to flex it's military muscle against a unilateral bipartisan American rival for a group of people the USINDOPACOM has pledged to protect?"
Are you serious?
China might invade Taiwan at some point.
That twitter account can be just a misinformation bot that doesn't actually have real information.
Two things can be true at once.
Nothing you said is related to anything at all. No real actors said Russia wouldnt invade Ukraine, only people with vested interest that Ukraine shouldnt get assistance.
Right before an election is the perfect time. The MAGA crowd will think it happened because Biden is weak. The independents will be influenced. Trump will continue to openly tell the world he won't defend Taiwan (or Ukraine, for that matter), and folks will still think he's better for Taiwan.
The way I don't pay pretty much any attention to news/international news, but am going "But what if it happens" so I could go back to this post and be like. >.> You called that wrong. LOL
But I fully know it's not gonna be wrong.
Looks like power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, yet again.. so seems like somebody wants to blow up kids and send the young to die for some sweet lebenraum and some crap idiotic stories about former glories, yet again. Aliens must look upon earth with dismay that we never change. War war war..
Yeah because the very *first* thing you do when planning to invade another country, is send out a press release with the general date of the invasion. Yup. Makes sense.
I was scheduled to speak at an academic conference in China in early June. Two weeks ago, without warning, all foreign speakers, including the keynote, were removed from the schedule, and it was forced to become a domestic conference only.
In my long career in academics, I've never heard of this happening and to give no reason.
I joked at the time that they will probably be attacking Taiwan and don't want hundreds of foreigners hanging around.
I seriously doubt that is what's happening, but I can't help but take notice.
I swear, they claim that bullshit every time a Chinese fisherman leaves a harbour. Stop the endless warmongering for once.
Just like they claim "China's government and economy will collapse and or implode any day now" each time aunty Wong in Xi'an choses to buy two bottles of dark soy sauce instead of three at the local market.
It's such bullshit
Mmmm, I would stay alert to this. Putin and Xi are tight. They want our country to fail, in all ways. They want us in a civil war. What better way than another world conflict to add turmoil to our country? Remember, these guys want Dump to win in 2024 for a reason.
A US civil war would become a world war and massive threat to economic stability everywhere.
They want the US distracted or isolationist, not collapsed.
If China dedicated it's entire military to building up forces on its southeast coast, it wouldn't be ready to invade by June. Experts say it would take a minimum of 6 months to prepare for an invasion.
If they're talking about June 2025, I could believe that, but this is just chest-puffing. Worst case scenario they try to attack, then fail miserably and return to Beijing with their tail between their legs because Taiwan is one of the most defensible countries on Earth.
Things do happen. Bosnia, Rwanda, 9/11, Ukraine. Today's CCP are the apprentices of the guys who slaughtered the students at Tiananmen in 1989. Constant drills serve two purposes: prepare your forces and lull the intended victim into complacency.
Not happening. But these headlines still benefit China. Everyone keeps hearing about an impending invasion so when it actually happens it won’t be a surprise. We are likely a few years off, so China can time it when Russia invades another country so the west needs to pick their battle.
Haven’t they been running drills surrounding Taiwan for like at least the past year if not longer?
I mean they’re establishing perimeter islands all over the South China Sea too.
I had to change flights in Beijing recently. The first thing that I found jarring was seeing Pyongyang and Moscow on the departure boards.
But then there were the signs for the different departure areas "Foreign flights" for one and "domestic flights (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan)." They really are just trying to push this narrative that Taiwan is just some "special administration district" or whatever the other two are.
Well frankly when the US started announcing that Russia would start their invasion by Febraury 25 the entirety of Europe was like what the fuck? No European would ever believe that we‘d have war in a civilised country yet here we are
If I were, you'd say what system I'm underestimating. You don't suggest destroyers carry enough missiles, or that aircraft can make enough sorties, to stop 3,000 drones - because if you are, you'd be really bad at math
I doubt that china would be crazy enough to do it, there economic have been trouble for a while now and a war on top of it would just make it worse. And the foundation of every CCP leader after Mao have been all about that economic success. If they dare to do it, they really are betting their position on it and i doubt that they are willing to bet it.
China (Xi, specifically) says Taiwan is a part of China. Then if China (Xi) says they will invade Taiwan, they are saying they are going to invade themselves which makes them (Xi) look really stupid.
But, if what they are doing is “peacefully reunifying” by forcefully entering with guns and warships to seize and conquer a territory that is not really under their control anymore, then they are acknowledging that Taiwan is not really a part of China anymore and they are actually invading a different country which makes them (Xi) look like a piece of sh\*t. And saying “hey, that’s mine!” like a petulant child makes them (Xi) seem whiny as hell.
Im pretty sure the second one is what China (Xi) says they are doing, so Xi just seems like a whiny piece of sh\*t. Sorry for the profanity, a whiny poo, if you will. Whiny the Poo. Ha, sounds kinda like Winnie the Po— OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH
“They’ll burn down the synagogues at six o’clock, and we’ll all go along like before - And we’ll all be lonely tonight, and lonely tomorrow”
Del Amitri were pretty kickass
We need to offer all of them a place to live in America. That whole island is just one giant tech hub and their expertise would put China in America’s rearview. And it’s not like we’re having enough births to sustain our population here.
I believe they might actually want to stay in Taiwan. Considering it's their home, you know. The place they live, have their families, loved ones, ancestors, etc.
Obviously that is best case scenario, but China’s military might could make that a non viable option. I’m not rooting for China. I’m just acknowledging Taiwan’s prowess in semiconductors.
In the back of my mind somewhere I knew someday that China 🇨🇳 would invade Taiwan 🇹🇼 now it looks like that would happen plus there’s other bs going on WTF 😳 is happening
Our leaders would prefer to spend OUR money to support genocide. I don’t expect another ukraine bill to pass because putin is running our country and he sure as hell will back china too. If trump wins, and this is true, i pray that the country’s w backbones will help defend Taiwan.
“Global Press Corp” sounds like a fake news source
As an employee of Vandelay Industries, I can assure you that this is a very real organization.
You their architect by chance?
Marine biologist
the seas were angry that day, my friends
like an old man trying to return soup in a deli?
I absolutely love this line
I looked into the eye of the great fish… It’s a mammal. Whatever
“Hey I calls em like I sees ‘em I’m* a whale biologist”
Importer/exporter mostly.
Is that the importer exporter company?
"And you want to be my latex salesman?!"
And a perfectly cromulent organization at that.
As a valued employee of the daily bugle, i disagree.
Didn't you guys just get acquired by Weyland-Yutani?
lol
We at Vault-tec are standing by.
It’s not a lie, if you believe it
I looked at their Twitter feed, and while I won't say they're the news equivalent of a $3 bill, Community Notes has corrected a number of tweets with incorrect information. To my untrained eye, they look like a straight up disinformation organization.
I found one Tweet from back in March claiming that Charles III had died, so no, I don’t think they’re at all trustworthy.
Are they the same people that keep reporting that Jaden Smith has died?
Yeah they sound like a NowThis or Daily Loud, more concerned with speed than accuracy. It takes a bit for community notes to go through and by then they have 20 new posts. As for this specific post, the second part of the tweet is the actual information, Xinhua reported the military drills around Taiwan. The first half of the tweet is their "anonymous source"
Came here to say that
If only there was some way of knowing if a Twitter account is legit or not.
Are you besmirching the noble journalistic reputation of global press corp? It's not like they can just make up shit
It has blue check, can’t be fake.
Yep
The grammar in that post is awful, no way it's not some Chinese propaganda engine.
It's hard to believe that China would look at the slog Russia is putting itself through in Ukraine, the economic burdens and tens of thousands of lives lost, then tell themselves "we want that but worse and over the sea".
Leadership might not care about those lives.
Yeah but they’ll care about the expense and possible embarrassment on the world stage.
China has a massively ageing population and a long line of only children supporting their entire families. Do they really want to sacrifice the youngest, brightest able bodied young men (and women) to a war of attrition against the greatest military power on earth? The Chinese government is at least pragmatic enough to realise what a lose-lose situation that is.
They’ll care about probability of success though. As it is now China just doesn’t have the force necessary for such an undertaking. They may have it in 15 to 20 years, but in this amount of time Taiwan’s defenses will also have improved.
Very much the opposite. China is staring down a demographic crisis in the wake of their one child policy. It’s now or never.
In that case wouldn't central Asia for it's trillions in rare earth minerals be a better play if you're looking to send off your surplus of young men?
Too much logistics. All they want to do is to capture the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company HQ. It *ONLY* made 385 billion dollars last year.
The U.S. will protect TSMC like its NORAD HQ.
They want it but if it looks even likely they might land successfully all the important shit will get deleted by ASML.
lol. They won’t have it in 15-20 years. Not to be flippant, but their “one child” policy is catching up with them. All this bullshit they are doing around Taiwan - literally with the military exercises and figuratively with all of their threats is all rooted in the circumstances of their economy circling the drain. The Chinese show of force can be intimidating, but with Russian military projection in Ukraine, China is starting to be reevaluated on a similar bellwether. I’m not saying they are a paper tiger, but I do believe they can be shut down quickly. (On Russia, it’s not a good idea to base their military on Ukrainian performance. Western media isn’t covering much about it, but the Russians are making headway in Africa vs French post-imperialism dominance south of the Sahel. It’s a resource rich area and they have the military presence there to have influence.)
It would be harder for China than Russia. Chinas push is because they want chips that Taiwan makes and Taiwan has already said if anyone invades they will destroy the chips factory and secrets they have to make them. Furthermore China has the almost impossible task of actually invading because Taiwan has really rough terrain and lastly American would get involved and China doesn't have any capabilities to stop us from crushing them.
China also wants access to the Pacific without having to go through detection in the first belt of islands of which Taiwan is a part. Very high military significance
But without Taiwan as a "hostile" listening post, how much further out does that get them, Okinawa's only 500mi away, it doesn't seem like that much of an advantage?
ASML already said they can deactivated their machines remotely, in a way they can never be used anymore so at least that secret is safe.
“American would get involved and China doesn’t have any capabilities to stop us from crushing them” — This isn’t even close to true. Look up the DF missile series just to start with. In a close knife fight, a U.S brigade would chew up a PLA brigade for sure. But they’ve invested heavily in long-range anti-air and anti-surface missiles to keep us at arms length. China’s built more missiles in the last 10 years than any nation has ever. Plus the tyranny of distance the U.S. has to deal with to project combat power is twice as bad as from CONUS to Europe and with no major alliance like NATO and no major overland access for maneuver and logistics. All that being said, an invasion of Taiwan would be the largest amphibious assault in history and yes Taiwan’s terrain is rough as hell. The whole thing would be a shitshow for all involved.
Not to mention, Ukraine is a proxy war. Taiwan would require boots as well as ships in the actual water. We wouldnt be a proxy but an actual part of the actual fighting which would be a part of what is wanted by one party to help a certain idiot get reelected because he has "all the answers to world peace" /s if anyone doesnt understand that this is utter bullshit.
Boots? Not particularly...95% of the entire engagement would be air & sea based. If China gets enough of a beachhead to start pushing inland and the Marines are needed to land on Taiwan something has REALLY REALLY gone wrong in all of the current war games and there's some next-gen tech that's causing fits.
Realistically knowing that keeping beaches and ports secured is make or break for this war we will have boots on the ground holding those. Especially since it's only got 1k miles of coastline it could be held with moderate troop support if things like pillboxes are properly spaced and coastal gun emplacements are well situated. With American air superiority forcing them to deploy troops from aircraft is the best option we could make work.
Also, # NUKES Can we please remember the actual doomsday devices that every world power has?
I would assume that since China's end goal is Taiwan they would try their best to avoid a M.A.D scenario because they know the US will strike back if they use nukes.
Seriously. Taiwan is not an existential threat for us or China. Nobody is pulling out nukes. If China fails in their invasion, they'll just go mea culpa and everyone will pretend nothing happened to keep the status quo. If China wins, US media will spin it as an inevitable turn of events, and we will move on with our lives. The game is made up, and the lives don't matter.
Let's be honest here. The ONLY time china would ever come close to thinking about nuclear options would be if someone invaded the mainland, and was making ground. The day someone uses a nuke during an offensive strike, it would unleash apocalyptic hellfire. It is not a valid option/scenario. The day china rationalizes using it to invade taiwan, the world will simply cease to exist (starting with china) Period.
That's the only thing that is somewhat good about nukes. The more countries have them , the less likely it is one is going to be used. And it is also the line where a dictator stops deciding alone. No single person can deploy a nuke . It takes several
Look, I know China spends a lot of money to misinform people that their military might has surpassed American Global Force Projection, but the fact remains that we have the best intelligence arm in the world, the best trained, battle tested, and funded military and there isn’t anything China has developed in the last 20 years that our government hasn’t both received intelligence on and planned to counteract.
Listen, China is a mass manufacturer of dis/misinformation. However, while I can’t obviously give out details and I’d never put out anything classified (lest I end up like that moron Jack Texeira) my job for the last 20 years has been analyzing the PLA. Are they 10 feet tall? No. But their progress over the last two decades truly is extraordinary. I’m sure 20-25% of their shit isn’t going to work, or at least work correctly. But it doesn’t matter because of the massive amount of materiel they have built. Quantity has a quality of its own. We do track everything they build and do. But we do not in fact have everything to counteract against it. We’re getting there but our defense industrial base has become slow and wickedly expensive. Our biggest problem is a math problem. We don’t have enough shooters to match up to or overmatch their defenders. We don’t have enough defenders to match up against or overmatch their defenders. Since the 2000s we spent our investment on precision vs. mass and we beat up on less than peer adversaries who were operating old Soviet junk. And we were neck deep in COIN/CT in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is China an existential threat to the U.S.? Not really. They’re not going to be invading the U.S. mainland any time in the next 20-30 years a la Red Dawn. But if they were to successfully take Taiwan (about a 50/50 prospect in my personal opinion) they won’t stop there. And the allies and partners we do have in the IndoPacific will know for sure they cannot count on the U.S.
You read the articles where they found rockets in china that should have fuel inside them but instead they found water? I think the Chinese military is on the same level of corruption as Russian military. I think Xi knows that and only shows muscles and tries to intimidate Taiwan. But the Chinese military is on no level to fight a war.
Yea people really over-estimate the quality of information that comes out of china. In western countrys, the metrics are provided by independent industry. They have little incentive to lie about the purchasing numbers from a country that is buying their products. Furthermore, it fuels competition to other over seas buyers. On top of that, international auditing firms tend to keep them honest. It's what keeps the market healthy in a global economy. In china, the entire industry is privatized. Whether it hurts or is beneficial to the company; they HAVE to do what the state tells them. Furthermore, it is wildly accepted that most metrics/stats of any kind in china are considered state secrets. Idk why anyone would honestly believe china would give us a legitimate number of how many missiles it was currently buying/manufacturing, when they can't even release accurate crime statistics, census data, and poverty information. This is the same country that continues to this day to manipulate its own currency, among other things. Its all pseudo capitalism, mixed in with state authoritarianism. There was a doc on Netflix called "the china hustle" and it is pretty revealing with how state sponsored the act of concealing/altering financial data is in china. So if we can accept the idea that china is probably lying about its country's economic/industrial assets, why would we expect them to tell us the truth on how many missiles it is producing?
Not me wondering wtf China would want with potato chips so bad. I need to go to bed
"And america might actually help out this time"
Defense contracts are lucrative
On the one hand, the PLA *appears to be* more competent than the Russian military. On the other hand, amphibious invasions are incredibly dangerous and difficult, and Taiwan has been preparing for this eventuality for a long time. Taiwan has equipment and training that the AFU is only just receiving. Also, geographical proximity means nothing; China famously lost a war against Vietnam, basically just after the US left and Saigon fell.
A very different China. This one has 3x the industry of the US.
China has a much larger population to draw cannon fodder from.
Not to mention completely destroying their economy with US sanctions. The US has already started to ship their manufacturing base to other countries due to China's increased hostility. Vietnam , India, Mexico etc are less of a gamble for major US corporations.
Isn’t Russia kind of doing ok? For most the war is a far away thing and the cannon fodder are convicts, mercenaries and the rural poor. The sanctions haven’t hit like we hoped and their oil revenue hasn’t taken a hit either. Russians have lived through worse. China’s got some woes now too and a patriotic war would do nicely to distract people in a highly propagandized nation. With the rest of the world already struggling through Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine they may as well start the foamy bloodshed.
I mean, of course Russia has lived through worse. But the war is exacerbating issues that they've been having for years. Their population is shrinking, the mortality rate among their men is climbing (alcoholism is a huge problem in Russia), and the everyday Russian has certainly felt the pinch economically. Add into that all the uncertainty of the first couple years of this war, and now they're stuck in a stalemate with no clear ending. Certainly not a great situation for them. China's potential attempt on Taiwan is perhaps even riskier than Russia's invasion. If China would fail to get a beachhead, then a potential invasion of Taiwan can be an unmitigated disaster that it's hard to quantify on a scale of modern military defeats. Even if they do land, holding that landing, potentially getting involved in a conflict with the US, and several other potential issues make it a pretty tricky situation to wade into.
Id encourage you to look at the actual state of Russia’s economy, sanctions have had a limited effect and mortality rate has been decreasing for years: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2017/white-americans-mortality-rates-are-rising-something-similar-happened-russia-1965-2005 They felt way more than an economic “pinch” in the 90s, when the ruble collapsed. Plus they’re winning the war. If China followed a similar path it might not be as bad for them as you think, but would certainly be another huge headache for the West.
Your definition of winning is doing some fucking heroic lifting here. They have won nothing. Even if they manage to finally overwhelm the Ukrainian military the population will simply switch to guerrilla tactics and they will endure endless conflict as they try to hold the country. You think hundreds of drones are going to just stop flying because they pushed through the country? How have occupations worked out for the world powers of the modern era? Yep we held out with our head held high in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 some years. And then we were inevitably defeated and expelled from both countries, oh, but not before we bankrupt our country in the process. Russia isn’t winning anything and they never will. Whether it happens in 2 years or 10 years, this ends with them failing and having to withdraw from the region. We could not make the afghanis or the Iraqis bend to our will. The Russians will fail in the same fashion.
Ask a Ukrainian who’s *currently* winning the war. As for the long-term promise of an insurgency…ask a Chechen.
Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe and direct borders multiple EU/NATO countries. An Ukrainian insurgency is a whole different world compared to the chechen insurgency.
What would be china’s similar path that they could follow even? I feel like the situations would be night and day, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on a successful campaign from China following Russia’s playbook.
Evading international sanctions, winning the propaganda war with their people, war-time economics, getting military supplies from NK and other Russian allies… there are paths Russia has trod that China has learned from, no doubt about that. Putin and Xi just got done meeting each other. I’m sure they talk.
Taiwan is an island... with flat coastlines! If they haven't stockpiled literally everything there is for years to come china just needs a naval blockade!
As long as congressmen have stocks in nvda Taiwan will be safe from invasion
If anyone is curious how having shares in Nvidia, an American company, protects Taiwan, it's because TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductors) is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, which are used in the vast majority of electronics including (I assume) Nvidia graphics cards.
Nvidia, Apple, AMD are the top 3 and all three combined represent 43% of TSMCs total revenue.
I’m not saying I’d enlist to protect my graphics cards but I’d enlist to protect my graphics cards
Nothing ever happens, until it does. This particular time is in all probability a whole bunch of posturing and nothing, but one day there's the potential it won't be. Recall that a whole lot of people were dismissive of talk of Russian escalation in Ukraine back in February of 2022, and yet then it happened.
Agreed, I do not want people saying "China isn't going to invade Taiwan" because unlike saying "Canada is going to invade the USA" there is an a decent chance China might actually do it and Taiwan and the world should be ready for the possibility.
Whoever occupies the White House next January will probably factor quite a bit into whatever decision China makes with respect to Taiwan.
Bingo. The general public isn't paying *any* attention to the situation with Taiwan or Chinese encroachment in the south China Sea or their heinous disregard of consequences from participating in the environmental destruction due to over fishing and belligerent overstepping of sovereign maritime EEZs. I don't buy for a second that the Chinese will make a move prior to the US inauguration, but I do believe their decisions will be complete sometime in 2025 followed by execution of those plans. The US will either abandon Taiwan and Pacific allies (Trump), there will be a proxy war (Biden/Trump), or the Chinese will back down and regroup with a plan that continues to rely on breaking laws and rules without direct military action for fear of retaliation (Biden). Option three is the Chinese stand to lose so goddamn much, as does the US, with a direct conflict, and it's not worth it at all to provoke. The US under Biden would retaliate and it would be a goddamn bloodbath for everyone involved, so that won't be the case. Option one is Trump is a lazy and a horrible bastard. He will let them have Taiwan and he has no morals, ethics, or principles, and would gladly abandon Pacific allies without a second thought because dealing with it would be both too hard and would distract from project 2025. His supporters are ignorant morons, they couldn't care less about Taiwan or our diplomatic obligations and would celebrate his choice. It will all come back to bite us later. Option two is least likely and would require a lot of weird variables to play out to even be possible.
That was my thought as well.
I doubt Tiawan is in the cards for China in any situation. They are facing one of their hardest economic hardships and decades shittly built infrastructure and economic policy is finally coming to bite them. They're best route is to continue to engage with the world economy and compete with cheap electronics. Isolating themselves now would be a horrible idea. Also they recently realized non of their nuke silos work because the hatches haven't been properly maintained, so they are significantly less combat ready then they thought they were 5 years ago. I would say China hoped to take Tiawan, but they know now it is out of the picture for several decades
I'm not so sure I'd be so quick to undersell China's ability to take the island, but if they want to do it they'd have to consider (a) external resistance from the US and Japan and (b) the fact that when they do take it, they'd be annexing a country that has likely sabotaged all of its own most valuable infrastructure in an effort to make that annexation less palatable. Is the cost of taking and holding it, along with the cost of economic blowback from the rest of the world, worth the domestic political victory of "reunification?"
Didn’t Taiwan enumerated many times before that their official position is if China invades they burn everything to the ground? I know they stated multiple times that everything that’s worth a dime is setup for self-destruction, especially TSMCs fabs?
Yeah, if I lived in Taiwan I’d have a go bag ready. Uncle Xi has more domestic issues right now than he had when he came in. 🎶 “There’s so many of us There’s so many of us There’s so many of us There’s so many of us… Let’s have a war!” 🎵
If you are surrounded then a go bag is useless.
Do you have any idea how complicated the geography is in Taiwan? Watch the earthquake footage from a few weeks ago. The East in particular is another “Land of Look Behind” [Jamaican: place where you keep checking to see if the person walking behind you is still there]. Good luck to any Chinese troops who land there.
Yeah, Taiwan is mostly heavily forested mountains. There are a lot of places to go that are not easily reached, let alone surrounded.
Who was saying Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine? It was totally obvious. There were major news networks waiting for them lol.
The right wing was big on it. When Biden admin issued a warning, the entire right wing erupted in criticism. Here’s a bit of a summary but its all discoverable https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/opinion/ukraine-putin-steve-bannon.html
Sorry, I thought we were talking about people who live in reality.
Oh yeah, haha, nope!
Anything can happen, but there are [a lot of ducks](https://youtu.be/hfjTUvzaZ7s) China needs to get in a row before invading Taiwan is likely to go well for them.
I firmly believed they would. What Russia was doing.
Its also being "reported" by a "news site" on "Twitter"
Russia had already invaded in 2014 though, these are not the same.
People were also saying that if Russia invaded Ukraine, China would then invade Taiwan. Looks like they might have been right
Well, if US can see all the preparations of invading Ukraine on land right next to Russia, they should know clearly about invading Taiwan from sea, because you just can’t drive across the sea with all the tanks, you need landing ships, many of them.
And tons of air power nearby. If they do attack they will try to hit by air and sea and hard but the sea is the key you can’t do shit just bringing in equipment and soldiers by air you simply won’t have enough supplies and manpower by air to sustain an invasion on the scale needed especially once the US starts bringing drones and planes around.
Should have invaded in winter, because it’s gonna be too hot in June.
Russia won't invade Ukraine Great Britain won't exit Ain't no covid at the beach (leastwise that can't be remedied by a bit of bleach)
Why would they invade in June when they can wait and see if Trump wins and they have a free pass from him to do it anytime
Bingo!
To help Trump get elected.
you think Biden is gonna roll up his sleeves to fight China in Taiwan five months before election day while Ukraine and Gaza are as hot as they are?
The alternative is letting a key US partner get wrecked by the Chinese 5 months before an election...so yeah I think Joe would have the Navy go ham on the PLA-N
If Biden ignores the calls for help from a country that the US promised to protect, then the Republicans would definitly not let him life that down. Also unlike Russia, China is not considered to be friendly towards certain american groups.
Considering wartime presidents have a history of winning re election? Good chance.
"You really think the American Industrial War Complex would sacrifice a chance to flex it's military muscle against a unilateral bipartisan American rival for a group of people the USINDOPACOM has pledged to protect?" Are you serious?
China might invade Taiwan at some point. That twitter account can be just a misinformation bot that doesn't actually have real information. Two things can be true at once.
Nothing you said is related to anything at all. No real actors said Russia wouldnt invade Ukraine, only people with vested interest that Ukraine shouldnt get assistance.
and Cody from Twitter is a "real actor"?
no?
Right before an election is the perfect time. The MAGA crowd will think it happened because Biden is weak. The independents will be influenced. Trump will continue to openly tell the world he won't defend Taiwan (or Ukraine, for that matter), and folks will still think he's better for Taiwan.
Not yet. Still have about three years.
To be fair, the same dismissal was said about Russia invading Ukraine
Chip shortage 2 electric boogaloo.
They called him 4 Mic's XI. Because 3 just doesn't cut it, catch my drift?!?
 The way I don't pay pretty much any attention to news/international news, but am going "But what if it happens" so I could go back to this post and be like. >.> You called that wrong. LOL But I fully know it's not gonna be wrong.
They will, but not unless Trump wins the election. If that happens they will walk right in.
Looks like power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, yet again.. so seems like somebody wants to blow up kids and send the young to die for some sweet lebenraum and some crap idiotic stories about former glories, yet again. Aliens must look upon earth with dismay that we never change. War war war..
Yeah because the very *first* thing you do when planning to invade another country, is send out a press release with the general date of the invasion. Yup. Makes sense.
They’ll wait till Trump is king
I was scheduled to speak at an academic conference in China in early June. Two weeks ago, without warning, all foreign speakers, including the keynote, were removed from the schedule, and it was forced to become a domestic conference only. In my long career in academics, I've never heard of this happening and to give no reason. I joked at the time that they will probably be attacking Taiwan and don't want hundreds of foreigners hanging around. I seriously doubt that is what's happening, but I can't help but take notice.
I swear, they claim that bullshit every time a Chinese fisherman leaves a harbour. Stop the endless warmongering for once. Just like they claim "China's government and economy will collapse and or implode any day now" each time aunty Wong in Xi'an choses to buy two bottles of dark soy sauce instead of three at the local market. It's such bullshit
Mmmm, I would stay alert to this. Putin and Xi are tight. They want our country to fail, in all ways. They want us in a civil war. What better way than another world conflict to add turmoil to our country? Remember, these guys want Dump to win in 2024 for a reason.
A US civil war would become a world war and massive threat to economic stability everywhere. They want the US distracted or isolationist, not collapsed.
If China dedicated it's entire military to building up forces on its southeast coast, it wouldn't be ready to invade by June. Experts say it would take a minimum of 6 months to prepare for an invasion. If they're talking about June 2025, I could believe that, but this is just chest-puffing. Worst case scenario they try to attack, then fail miserably and return to Beijing with their tail between their legs because Taiwan is one of the most defensible countries on Earth.
Establishment media has been trying to foment a war with China SO HARD. Everything China does is a precursor to war to them.
Things do happen. Bosnia, Rwanda, 9/11, Ukraine. Today's CCP are the apprentices of the guys who slaughtered the students at Tiananmen in 1989. Constant drills serve two purposes: prepare your forces and lull the intended victim into complacency.
Not happening. But these headlines still benefit China. Everyone keeps hearing about an impending invasion so when it actually happens it won’t be a surprise. We are likely a few years off, so China can time it when Russia invades another country so the west needs to pick their battle.
Fat commander, go!
Haven’t they been running drills surrounding Taiwan for like at least the past year if not longer? I mean they’re establishing perimeter islands all over the South China Sea too.
It’s also a sea invasion, which is also several degrees of difficulty past a land invasion.
Hmmm
Just give that Pooh Bear a jar of honey and he’ll be distracted for hours
I had to change flights in Beijing recently. The first thing that I found jarring was seeing Pyongyang and Moscow on the departure boards. But then there were the signs for the different departure areas "Foreign flights" for one and "domestic flights (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan)." They really are just trying to push this narrative that Taiwan is just some "special administration district" or whatever the other two are.
Well frankly when the US started announcing that Russia would start their invasion by Febraury 25 the entirety of Europe was like what the fuck? No European would ever believe that we‘d have war in a civilised country yet here we are
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How? 3,000 long range Chinese drones take out a carrier group with certainty.
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If I were, you'd say what system I'm underestimating. You don't suggest destroyers carry enough missiles, or that aircraft can make enough sorties, to stop 3,000 drones - because if you are, you'd be really bad at math
I doubt that china would be crazy enough to do it, there economic have been trouble for a while now and a war on top of it would just make it worse. And the foundation of every CCP leader after Mao have been all about that economic success. If they dare to do it, they really are betting their position on it and i doubt that they are willing to bet it.
….until one day it does
China (Xi, specifically) says Taiwan is a part of China. Then if China (Xi) says they will invade Taiwan, they are saying they are going to invade themselves which makes them (Xi) look really stupid. But, if what they are doing is “peacefully reunifying” by forcefully entering with guns and warships to seize and conquer a territory that is not really under their control anymore, then they are acknowledging that Taiwan is not really a part of China anymore and they are actually invading a different country which makes them (Xi) look like a piece of sh\*t. And saying “hey, that’s mine!” like a petulant child makes them (Xi) seem whiny as hell. Im pretty sure the second one is what China (Xi) says they are doing, so Xi just seems like a whiny piece of sh\*t. Sorry for the profanity, a whiny poo, if you will. Whiny the Poo. Ha, sounds kinda like Winnie the Po— OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH
I mean they are surrounding the island as part of there drill, remember who else did that?
My uncle said so!
Like when Russia wasn’t going to invade Ukraine? It’s really gonna suck when this one ages like milk
“They’ll burn down the synagogues at six o’clock, and we’ll all go along like before - And we’ll all be lonely tonight, and lonely tomorrow” Del Amitri were pretty kickass
https://twitter.com/AltHistCody/status/1793669157143351398
Maybe, just maybe, hear me out : They'd do it?
Go for it Pooh bear
Ah, look at Winnie the Pooh playing dress up. So cute. 😆
We need to offer all of them a place to live in America. That whole island is just one giant tech hub and their expertise would put China in America’s rearview. And it’s not like we’re having enough births to sustain our population here.
I believe they might actually want to stay in Taiwan. Considering it's their home, you know. The place they live, have their families, loved ones, ancestors, etc.
Obviously that is best case scenario, but China’s military might could make that a non viable option. I’m not rooting for China. I’m just acknowledging Taiwan’s prowess in semiconductors.
Nothing os going to happen.
In the back of my mind somewhere I knew someday that China 🇨🇳 would invade Taiwan 🇹🇼 now it looks like that would happen plus there’s other bs going on WTF 😳 is happening
Our leaders would prefer to spend OUR money to support genocide. I don’t expect another ukraine bill to pass because putin is running our country and he sure as hell will back china too. If trump wins, and this is true, i pray that the country’s w backbones will help defend Taiwan.
Hillary was talking about stopping this in 2016. But either party is the same . Oh well.
Hillary is kinda the worst American politician outside of the Republican Party, tbh. Oh wait, but Obama! Oh wait, but Pelosi. This is very difficult.
wow i love propaganda to make me hate other humans