Well not so quiet anymore
If anything, it’s the exact opposite of covert. Taiwan has been unwisely hollowing out their military for the past two decades. These recent expenditures—not matched by corresponding manpower increases—are meant to broadcast that everything’s fine, pay no attention to the problems underneath.
China has also reduced its military manpower. Both are going for quality over quantity.
Looking at Russia bungling their little adventure in Ukraine, maybe quantity alone doesn’t seem like the best approach.
Is there any active or potential war the US isn’t paying for?
If China invades Taiwan our entire economy will come to a screeching halt. Hence why America is interested.
If China wanted to invade, idk, Thailand, we’d just kind of shrug and say “Hey, don’t do that.”
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Removed, rule 4, racially loaded language.
Quietly? They have been doing so for at least 40 years. Everybody knew and knows.
It’s in the BBC ffs how quiet can it be?
Well Taiwan can either go with the US or China. They’ve been wanting to stay independent from China for a while now so I don’t think it’s much of a surprise.
Almost all countries other than USA, Russia, and China have to pick a side.
I mean Russia is pretty close to needing to pick a side.
Well, their economy isn’t collapsing any time soon. And they managed to destroy modern military systems supplied by NATO.
Hasn’t their economy already shrunk by 5% since the war began?
Seems like they’re going to become a vassal state of China.
I’ve been saying for the last couple of months that Xi is in a perfect position to reclaim the Vladivostok oblast. The native population is over 40% Han, not just Chinese, the type of Chinese the CCP gives a shit about. He could easily appear strong internally, and reclaim former Chinese territory that the Russians invaded in 1901, under the excuse of “a special military operation to defend the ethnic Chinese people in the region.” I seriously doubt that any other country other than Russia would even bat an eye, and Russia would be impotent to defend itself.
This would also give China a port that is outside of the first chain of islands that the US has set up
Yeah but nukes.
China probably has more working nukes than Russia. Maintenance hasn’t been their strong suit, making them a liability. I wouldn’t be surprised if 9/10 aren’t working, or will malfunction on launch, causing Russia to nuke themselves, and the best part is they don’t even know which ones actually got maintained.
He’s going to have to do something, they’re going to have their own economic issues to deal with…
I’m highly biased but that seems like an easy choice, geography notwithstanding.
I mean yeah, but the EU is also an available Option
When it comes to military, EU is basically NATO which is led by USA.
It is, but I wouldn’t count on our potential to wage an effective modern war in functional cooperation with the many countries in the EU. Especially when it is a war taking place out of Europe and not a defensive action.
A militaristic endeavor would surely be held up and manipulated by opposing countries within the alliance, just like it is now with economic decisions.
So US then?
So quietly that no one knows about it
Good. Even if nobody likes 'murica, their weapons work well enough to deter China from doing something stupid.
Imagine if the roles were reversed, and it was China arming i.e. Panama. How would you feel then?
(Because the USA has done a lot of "something stupid"s as well).
Edit: Folks, you can analyze the bigger picture without being a tankie. It’s unfortunate that so many ex-Redditors would rather block and report any display of critical thought
Imagine if the roles were reversed, and it was China arming i.e. Panama. How would you feel then
False equivalence, Panama’s risk of being suddenly invaded in the current political climate is nearly zero. Taiwan (is #1), on the other hand, has to be ever vigilant. Also, Panama doesn’t house the ‘rightful’ government of the US.
Obviously they’re different. But failing to empathize when given the analogy shows either the inability or unwillingness to understand China’s position.
it’s just a poor analogy, not worth taking seriously.
The US wouldn’t be arming Taiwan if China wasn’t making the claim that it is part of China. Taiwan poses literally zero threat to china. There is no US comparison here.
It’s the same shit with Ukraine and Russia, and China is watching closely. It’s probably easier politically for Republicans to fund a nation not in conflict, because the deterrence doesn’t look like as big a win for Biden, so this is why they intelligently to along with it.
From Wikipedia:
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia.
What were you saying?
Wait until you hear about the official names of China, or North and South Korea
(For the uninitiated: People’s Republic of China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Republic of Korea. Tl;dr there’s more than one issue if you’re going off the country’s official name for which land they own)
What’s your point? Did you just stop there and not read the next sentence that says “It is located at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest”?
My point is that Taiwan IS a part of China. Two different governments but the same country. And both say they are the “real” China.
I’ll piss on the CCP any day of the week, thank you very much. I’m a communist, by the way.
Great! Every democratic and peaceful nation has the right to self-defense and self-determination. Just like Tibet. Or Hong Kong. Or the Uighurs. Or one of any other dozens of peoples subjugated by communist China. Fuck off tankie.
Sidenote for Sane People: Is it just me, or do a ton of lemmy.ml accounts seem to be tankies?
.ml means ‘Marxist-Leninist’. From their about page:
“In particular, I would like to see someone (or a group of people) create a mainstream, or liberal instance. That should help to avoid further drama, and avoid attempts to turn lemmy.ml into something that it is not.”
But really, it’s Mali. But they could have set it up that way for the Marxist Left thing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ml#:~:text=ml is the Internet country,domain (ccTLD) for Mali.
Yeah that’s what I mean. Same as .dj is Djibouti, but people use it for music; or .mu (Mauritius) or .am / .fm (Armenia/Federated States of Micronesia); .io (Indian Ocean Territory) for tech (from Input/Output); .gg (Guernsey) for gaming or gambling; or .tv (Tuvalu) for Television.
As an American who knows how evil our government is, I would be like “good for panama but also China is probably not doing this out of justice and freedom”
Neither is the US. We’re doing it because Taiwan is a strategic ally
That’s fine! We should not invade Panama. I don’t think the US is currently planning on it, but after the last 20 years I’m pretty sure most citizens would be fucking glad for any excuse for our military to think twice before invading a foreign country.
If you’re comparing China/Taiwan circumstances to USA/Panama I’m sorry but I cannot call that a critical thought. The only similarity is proximity.
BBC found out about it. It aint that quiet.
Give them a bunch of nukes and biological weapons and after they arrive send a message to the PRC
“Just a fyi, we sent them a 100 but they only received 80. Be a real shame if Taiwanese operators had planted them in randomly selected cities on the mainland.”
It will be hilarious way to end the world.
Aaaand… Música, maestro!
The ultimate end of the world song. Just as the canisters release Covid-20 through 30 plus airbourne HIV
Covid-20 would mean it started in 2020.
Guaranteed that poster thinks they are very perceptive and see through the all the bs.
There’s a theory that Taiwan could achieve mass destruction with just regular cruise missiles, no need for actual WMDs.
The destruction of Three Gorges Dam would kill millions of people from the resulting flood. Be a tough target and air defense would be a nightmare, but it is still within Taiwan’s cruise missile range.
There’s been no acknowledgement ever of this plan, but it’s pretty obvious.
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Let’s hope this is enough of a deterrent…
The best weapons are ones that make it so you never need to use them.
So the US is funding Taiwan, Ukraine, and [checks notes] …Israel? Makes perfect sense to me
Check out the latest Julian Dorey podcast with Andrew Bustamante, damn insightful, especially about Taiwan and China.
There’s only so much they can do if Taiwan is unserious about its own defense. Exhibit A: the fact that eliminating conscription has apparently turned into a bipartisan consensus in Taiwan, in spite of the hollowing out of Taiwan’s military. Who exactly is going to be operating all that expensive military equipment?
Wtf you talking about?!?! They raised the conscription age to 40. I just have friends who just finished their conscription. The mass majority of us already consider ourselves independent. We have our own currency, our own government, our own laws.
Best believe if Xi bear attacks, we are stepping up to beat those China-nese scums.
Conscription period used to be 3 years, then 2, then 1, then 4 months. Finally it became too obvious that 4 months is a joke, so it’s being grudgingly raised back up, but only to 1 year. Still barely time to get any proper training done; for comparison, Israel’s conscription is almost 3 years and includes women.
The Taiwan government also persistently underpays military service members. The result is that it never hits its targets for professional (non-conscript) personnel, then wrings its hands about it…
That’s very different from your “Exhibit A”. Pretty far from what you said about eliminating conscription. Ya sure it’s 1 year now for now. The military thinks it’s enough for now. We pay the government for their expertise. We trust them here.
One year is barely enough to get proper training?
she cute
The US will definitely have egg on their face if Taiwan and China never go to war.
