China v Taiwan. The next big conflict?

The thread title is a bit …….. not the full story, as it were. When it comes to Taiwan, won’t the next big conflict be China vs. Taiwan, USA, Japan, South Korea etc. (“etc” to be determined). I suppose it’s good it’s a shorter title (but less specific).

Morally, it's repugnant that more countries don't have proper diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Pragmatically, It's entirely understandable.

It should be noted that officially both the "Republic Of China" and the "People's Republic of China" claim sovereign over each other, but in practice, obviously "China's" claim over "Taiwan" is a lot more menacing than "Taiwan's" claim over "China" - by simple virtue of their respective sizes and military resources.

At this sage, if the option was there, Taiwan would gladly opt for independence - the people have moved on from the civil war and forged their own identity, including embracing democracy. But as it stands China has made it very clear that this is a red line, so the status quo of Taiwan pretending that it's "the real China" has bizarrely become the easiest way to survive and thrive. And survive and thrive it has.

I work with a number of people in Taiwan on a daily basis (our company has an office in Taipei), and aside from the obvious global calamity that a Chinese invasion would result in, for their personal safety and prosperity, I really hope it never happens.

We were faced with a very small taste the reality of the situation recently. We built a tool that has a "Country" dropdown in it for capturing user's addresses. However, in the one being rolled out to Hong Kong users, we can't call it "Country", we have to call it "Region", because the dropdown contains Taiwan as an option. The people running the project are in Taiwan, and even they concede that this has to be done, just to appease China.

It's mad to think that humanity can split the atom and send robots to Mars, but has to fall back on this bastardised illusion of sovereignty/non-sovereignty just to keep millions of innocent people living in peace.

But why is the world Afraid of china,only 14 countries have any diplomatic or military relationships with Taiwan and that number shrinks every year,

Why not reconise their right as a sovereign democracy and give them a seat at the UN ,

Rather than sitting here oh let's not upset china,we did the same with Putin and look how that turned out

The semiconductor industry in Taiwan would be useless to China if they invaded an invasion would destroy the thing they most covet. The knowledge that creates the latest chips is spread around the globe with Taiwan being the pinnacle where production is located. No where else could produce the latest chips. But Taiwan can't do it without massive tech specialisations that are spread around the world. China produces a lot of micro processors but can't produce the latest generation. China invading Taiwan would destroy the production of the very chips that fuel its own economy. China may not like having to rely on Taiwan but without them their own high tech industries would fail.

Well in this case a lot of ships , aircraft and people will be lost,

But as we seen very much recently the Chinese can surround and blockade Taiwan in a few hours, if there isn't a large US presence it's over and done with before the US can do anything ,

All the predictions suggest the US will loose it surface fleet and aircraft in the first week alone,yes the Chinese will have losses but they are only 90 -100 miles from their mainland who gets reenforcements and resupplied quicker

90% of the worlds most advanced microprocessors are made by TSMC in Taiwan. China invading would destroy that. You can't just march in and take over production of the worlds latest chips. America account for 50% of the chips produced and without them there would likely be a massive recession. Don't think America will allow that. But then huge amounts of chips are processed into goods by China, a massive market that would be removed by an invasion.

This is all about global economics not who has the best war machine.

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Strange sort of loss... Ukraine is in ruins, and Russia is occupying large chunks of it's territory.

You've been lied to.

No doubt we'll get the same duplicitous games around Taiwan too. There are more than enough useful idiots who will swallow and regurgitate it.

I think these days the west knows the price of everything but the value of nothing - we’ve collectively sold our futures to the lowest cost of production - doesn’t matter whether it’s clothes, computers or cars- we want it cheap.

Somewhere along the line we’ll have to pay for those decisions - and we’re already doing so- jobs, skills, communities and even whole countries are being decimated by Chinas bargaining power and sheer determination - like the new AI chat bots, and in the immortal words of one of the forefathers who got us to this place , we ain’t seen nothing, yet.

The best thing America could do for Taiwan is provide it with billions and I mean billions on military aid mostly on surface to ship missiles and on surface to air missiles. I believe this would be the best option for Taiwan. No point Taiwan getting new aircraft when this is exactly what China would be destroying in the first and 2nd salvos if they do invade. I would imagine most of Taiwans aircraft would be destroyed on the ground so make it impossible for China to land troops on Taiwan. You will need to blow the ships out of the water. Taiwan really needs billions for anti ship missiles. That's where the real key would be. I believe if China does take Taiwan within a few years might take 20 or 30 the west will come to terms with same. They will say it was always a part of China and I think China realise this, that's the biggest difference in regards Russia invading Ukraine and China invading Taiwan. Most countries after a while will say well Taiwan was technically China and move on from it. I think that's why China puts the pressure on countries to not recognise Taiwan but to recognise China as they know in the long run within 20 years even if they go to war with the United States most countries will recognise China ruling Taiwan sadly. The best thing Taiwan can do is not let the Chinese land on Taiwan so you need to take them out in the sea so a lot more investment in anti ship missiles is the number 1 priority in my opinion.

I think you're correct for the most part

I do not think a war would play out in a traditional sense though. China wants Taiwan for 2 reasons

China is basically boxed in from the open ocean by a series of islands in the East China Sea (none of which it owns), Taiwan and all the nations on the South China Sea. If there was a war, a naval blockade would be the first thing that would happen. Taiwan is key to breaking open that box

Secondly as already mention is the semiconductors.

I think for both reasons, China needs Taiwan mostly intact, so leveling the place and huge civilian casualties wont work in terms of their objectives.

In terms of Air/Sea Defense batteries, I'd imagine the army would place them on top of or very close to the big semi conductor factories, knowing that China will be reluctant to destroy them. Potentially forcing an invasion (Messy)

Someone said that Taiwan would be easily defendable but I do not think this is the case, there is no meaningful deep water port on the East of the Island, and there is no airport there either, this means reinforcing Taiwan will be extremely difficult.

In relation to their Military and Equipment, yes China has hypersonic glide weapons, but these have been used sparingly by Russia to attack stationary targets (It's unknown how many they actually have). It's highly unlikely that the warhead would sink a carrier (Unless it had a small Nuclear warhead). And they'd have to find a the Carrier group first, which in war time would be very difficult to do. It should also be noted that while China has being boosting its military capabilities, it's still not nearly as advanced as US equipment, nor do they have the power projection that the US has, and they don't have the support from nearby countries. Their army is not battle hardened either. They most likely would have no idea how to conduct a successful war against the US and it's allies other than a "Zapp Brannigan" type approach.

I think however the biggest obstacle to Jinping's desire to take Taiwan is Chinese military structure. It's highly likely that it is rife with corruption (As are all armies under this type of government) and if Jinping pulled the trigger, I'd imagine his commanders would say "No" and there would be an overnight change in leadership.

Why are the references always to the Yanks in posts when war is the subject.The Yanks are latecomers to the atrocities game.

They didn't lose Korea, despite fighting against, North Korea, Russia and china,the only reason north Korea exists today because china wanted a buffer between them south Korea and the US ,

The US didn't lose the war in Afghanistan either, Afghanistan was a thriving country not perfect but it was stable and people enjoyed Western freedom's and education, culture until the Russians came to town and bombed it back into the stone age before legging it with their tails between their legs,the US and NATO beat and removed the Taliban and brought the peace to the majority of Afghanistan for 20 years, until Trump came along and freed thousands of Taliban fighters ,and at the same time signed a legally binding withdrawal of US forces, which led to the collapse of the Afghan national army despite being give hundreds of billion of equipment and weapons,the Afghans failed,not America,

And we no have no real Idea if the taiwanese will actually fight they could easily roll over and surrender,

Sanctions and Isolation would hurt a country like China a lot.

Importing of fuel accounts for 20% of Chinas imports (And it in itself was up 35% for 2022 vs the 2021), that would be one of the first things sanctioned.

Interestingly, China's biggest scarcity at the moment is fresh water (Particularly in the North East), there is no way to sanction this directly, but any sanctions relating to is heavy industrial equipment (which is Chinas biggest import) will cause infra issues.

Actual vs Reported Grain Production in China has always been grey. They are a net importer of food despite reported domestic production, which is quite unusual.

I'd say what would be more likely to happen is for the US to lift out the machinery and key staff rather than destroy it.

I understand that, but that I'm referring to are things like high end Photolithography machines (of which there are many Taiwan) they don't need to move the entire factory, just key pieces of equipment and people. Last I checked the UV Photolithography machines are around $300m a shot.

So this is the Ross and Rachel for the next few years. Will China make a move or not.