- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
A classified US military intelligence report seen by the ABC says China is rapidly building up the country’s commercial ferry fleet to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan.
The report dates from earlier this year and was prepared by members of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for the Pentagon.
The US intelligence says the large ocean-going vessels have been modified to carry tanks and partake in amphibious operations.
China is building more than 70 of the large vessels by the end of 2026.
China’s Possible Invasion of Taiwan – Part I: 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2023
China’s Possible Invasion of Taiwan – Part II: 2025, 2030s, 2049, or 2050
We are literally never going to hear the end of this.
Edit: To all the losers and haters downvoting me, I’m linking to your boys at GlobalTaiwan.org. They’ve been screaming about China’s plot to conquer Taiwan for the last decade. You should love this shit. Why do these citations make you so sad and angry?
I recall similar mockery when the Biden admin came out and said a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent. It’s far fetched alarmism, until it isn’t
I mean, that’s correct, but then you’re agreeing this is, at this point, far fetched alarmism.
The broken clock is correct twice a day, but it’s still useless as a timepiece.
I recall similar mockery when Trump came out and said a Mexican invasion of Texas was imminent.
I might believe your hypothetical if Mexico was investing heavily in beach landing craft the same way the PLN is…
The island-hopping strategy that paved America’s way to Tokyo isn’t forgotten. China needs to defend some 7,200 islands off its coastline in the event the US decides to launch a first-strike. That means being able to retake territory they lose, which means needing landing craft to get them there.
For some reason, American China-Watchers only recognize one island as possible contested territory when you’ve got whole archipelagos that rival militaries would compete to secure. That’s before you get to Chongming Island or Hainan Island, both pivotal to Chinese domestic security.
This comparison would make sense if Biden was screaming about Russia invading Ukraine for decades first…
Bro I am fucking dying reading this 🤣🤣
They been crying about this “very real plan” for decades now. It’s wild 😆
Could it be because it takes decades to prepare something like this?
The invasion of Grenada took twelve days, from the coup to US intervention.
The invasion of Panama took five days between Panama declaring war and US having boots on the ground.
The invasion of Afghanistan began fifteen days after 9/11.
Maybe Americans really do think in hours while Chinese folks think in centuries. But even by that standard, a 2050 invasion would be a bit slow.
I don’t think these are comparable. Taiwan is a modern country with military alliance with the US, its own modern military and very strong economic ties to the rest of the world. It’s much harder to annex. In fact if China could take Taiwan they’d show that they could take almost any other country in the world. None of your examples are even remotely close.
If they could repatriate an island with a near-identical language and a large overlapping population and economy that’s within sight of their coastline then they could… what? Conquer Brazil or Finland or Saudi Arabia by main force?
It simply doesn’t that that long to assemble an invasion force against a country squarely in your sphere of influence. Panama and Taiwan are very neat parallels, in fact. One might also point to Cuba, which the US has been occupying via Guantanamo Bay for nearly a century.
China’s not lead by a C-list TV personality sock puppet for extractive industry, so that’s no surprise.
But that’s half the joke. There’s no real plan to do a ground invasion into Taipei. The Beijing government’s plan to repatriate Taiwan is almost entirely economic. It follows the same strategy they successfully employed in Hong Kong and are replicating in Singapore and across the rest of the Pacific Rim.
Yes they could take anyone else and install a puppet ruler. Tibet much?
I don’t think China can take Taiwan through economic means. Taiwan is just too different from China and I say that as someone whos visited both several times (Taiwan is amazing btw). Despite shared language the cultures and people’s have very different identities and most importantly different goals, education profiles and alliances. Taiwan is as far from China as Ukraine is from Russia if not more.
The reason why China is supporting Russia because how similar Ukraine-Russia relationship is to their Taiwan problem. If you check out Chinese media you can see the experiments China is running and seeing what sticks and “zelenskyy is a war mongerer” is so successful that even remote peasants are full on it. Much more effective than any economic or cultural propaganda. I have no doubt China would love to use something like that for Taiwan and you need some form of physical war to get that.
Either way I certainly hope I’m wrong and you’re right. I live almost full time in south east asia now and war with Taiwan would have devastating effects on the region. I’d take economic influence over that any time especially because SEA keeps showing up being able to resist Chinese attacks again and again despite taking China’s money every time.
A region that’s been part of China for longer than Delaware has been a part of the United States.
Hell, the revolt against the Llama started in Tibet in 1949, when the Kashag dictatorship attempted a pogrom against all ethnic Chinese locals.
Tibet might have even more autonomy than it does now (and it’s got more internal freedom from Beijing than any American Commonwealth could ask from DC), if the old guard hadn’t tried to do an ethnic purge.
I guess we’ll see what happens following the next Wall Street crash. But when the AI bubble pops, that’s going to be hell on Taiwan’s most lucrative export.
You’ve pickled yourself with right wing propaganda. If Taiwan has any kind of peer relationship, it would be between the US and Cuba. Except China isn’t trying to suffocate Taiwan with an embargo.
But China and Taiwan haven’t been in a low grade shooting war for over a decade. Neither does Taiwan have a NATO equivalent that its threatening to join. And Taiwan isn’t in the process of arresting and deporting Chinese nationals in bulk (not that the more reactionary Taiwanese natives wouldn’t like to try).
You don’t need a physical war for Chinese loyalists to become the wealthiest residents of the island, as was the case in Hong Kong and is increasingly the case in Singapore.
That is the ultimate path to unification. China’s massive economic position will be used to buy out whatever remains of Taiwan’s Cold Warrior class.
The gapping hole in the Capitalist’s armor is the fact that everything is for sale, including sovereignty.
These headlines are not predictions for the future, they have been reporting on an “imminent invasion” for decades.