[HN Gopher] China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine
___________________________________________________________________
China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine
Author : belter
Score : 92 points
Date : 2022-03-05 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usip.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usip.org)
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| China would very much prefer that Taiwan ask to reunite with the
| mainland. Forcing them back one day might be in the cards but
| setting the conditions to where Taiwan sees being part of China
| as being the better option than relying on the United States for
| its safety is what China would like to happen. Finding ways to
| drive wedges between the US and Taiwan is a part of this
| strategy.
| bllguo wrote:
| US has no interest in being beholden to TSMC in the long-term.
| once that dependency is removed the only reason from a realist
| perspective to support Taiwan is to provoke Chinese violence,
| which hopefully never happens.
| T-A wrote:
| Fixating on TSMC is for myopic tech geeks. Yes, it's
| important, but not nearly as important in the grand scheme of
| things as:
|
| - A thriving Chinese democracy showing the mainland that no,
| they are not intrinsically incompatible with freedom.
|
| - The credibility of the US as an ally to other Asian
| countries.
|
| - Taiwan's strategic location.
| bllguo wrote:
| I'd counter with your opinion being exceedingly naive..
| "thriving" is quite generous considering their economy and
| reliance on foreign powers. And culturally they're making
| the same mistake as Hong Kong in alienating mainlanders.
|
| don't think we have reconcilable opinions on US motivations
| but hey I'll gladly be wrong as long as there's no war
| scythe wrote:
| Taiwan has an HDI of .916 and a Gini of 34. China has an
| HDI of .761 and a Gini of 47. That's quite a gap.
|
| Also, they're only "reliant" on foreign powers insofar as
| they're under threat. Sri Lanka is not "reliant" on
| foreign powers because India is not threatening them.
| T-A wrote:
| > "thriving" is quite generous considering their economy
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/727592/gross-
| domestic-pr...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/263775/gross-
| domestic-pr...
|
| > and reliance on foreign powers
|
| ?
| bllguo wrote:
| growth driven largely by reliance on guess who, mainland
| China. Who accounts for >40% of Taiwan's exports.
|
| Maybe I phrased things poorly but the point is that
| mainlanders do not see much to envy. how do you propose
| that changes exactly?
| Eupolemos wrote:
| Not so, AFAIK. It is equally as much about free trade in the
| South China Sea.
| belter wrote:
| Taiwan might prefer that China ask's to reunite with them?
| Commit to a free democracy? Didn't think so...
| stale2002 wrote:
| > ways to drive wedges between the US and Taiwan is a part of
| this strategy.
|
| If that is the strategy, then it is failing.
|
| Taiwan is more anti-unification than it has ever been, and the
| people there already consider themselves to be an independent
| country.
| jart wrote:
| They consider themselves China actually. So maybe the
| Republic of China would prefer that the People's Republic of
| China ask to reunite with them.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Maybe Taiwan should try to join NATO. See if that speeds up the
| invasion
| bbotond wrote:
| How could Taiwan - a country the US doesn't recognize - join
| NATO?
| stale2002 wrote:
| By just being accepted by NATO countries to do so?
|
| Countries can do what they want. There isn't some magic
| spell, that forces countries to do thing, just because of
| some semantic game about whether a country is recongized or
| not.
|
| Taiwan could simply join NATO anyway, if they get approved.
| IanDrake wrote:
| How could Taiwan - a country not in the North Atlantic - join
| NATO?
| umvi wrote:
| Presumably by agreeing to the terms of the treaty and by
| being accepted by existing members. It's the North Atlantic
| _Treaty_ organization, not the North Atlantic Organization
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Good point. When I think of Turkey, the first thing that
| comes to my mind is "North Atlantic", same as you
| apparently.
| vkou wrote:
| The Mediterranean is technically part of the North
| Atlantic. If Greece can be in NATO, why not Turkey?
|
| But no, most of Europe isn't interested in spilling blood
| over Taiwan, just like it isn't interested in spilling
| blood over Ukraine.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > The Mediterranean is technically part of the North
| Atlantic.
|
| I'm not sure this is true. What actually happened is that
| NATO countries realized expanding NATO is in their
| interest so they ignored the "north atlantic" part of the
| treaty. While I doubt taiwan will be invited any time
| soon it wouldn't surprise me at all if Japan or even
| South Korea is.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It probably isn't so much the spilling of blood that it
| isn't interested in rather than the chances of wholesale
| evaporation but otherwise your point stands.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Turkey is explicitly in the geographic area covered by
| NATO, though (I would assume North Atlantic, North
| America, Mediterranean, Europe, Turkey and Algerian
| Departments of France Treaty Organization or NANAMETADFTO
| was considered too long of a name).
|
| Taiwan is thousands of miles outside of it.
| tharne wrote:
| Meh, I'm getting very tired of these types of articles. Why is it
| so hard to simply admit that it's really hard if not impossible
| to predict complex things like this?
|
| The types of people that write these articles also believed at
| one time:
|
| - China becoming capitalist would cause it to become a liberal
| democracy
|
| - Globalization would be amazing for everyone everywhere
|
| - The Afghan army would be able to stand up to the Taliban
|
| - Russia would not invade the Ukraine, but on the off chance they
| did, they'd roll right over the country in no time at all.
|
| The fact is when it comes to this kind of stuff, we just don't
| know and we probably never will. That's just the nature of
| complexity. You miss one minor detail or some tiny assumption or
| some "unknown unknown" is off and the whole intellectual
| scaffolding comes down.
| [deleted]
| chrchang523 wrote:
| One significant omission from this comparison: the Ukraine:Russia
| population ratio (~0.285) is almost TWENTY TIMES as large as the
| Taiwan:PRC ratio (~0.0163). The Ukraine:Russia ratio is almost as
| large as the ratio between the Confederacy's non-slave population
| and the Union's population at the time the US Civil War broke
| out; and I suspect that some overly optimistic Russian military
| planners did not properly account for this. So, although it is
| harder for the PRC to invade Taiwan than it is for Russia to
| invade Ukraine for a number of reasons, I expect it to be more
| difficult for Russia to _keep_ most of Ukraine pacified even if
| they do achieve their primary military objectives.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I suspect china is looking at this and thinking a number of
| things:
|
| 1) It needs to control banking infra (it has a messaging system
| similar to swift already)
|
| 2) Putin is acting even more boldly than normal (I suspect it was
| assuming that he would try and fully annex donbas & Luhansk and a
| bit more, then wait another few years to try again)
|
| 3) The Russian bear that is it's land army really isn't that
| great. The modernisation hasn't stretched to tactics or
| maintenance.
|
| 4) Russia shares a decent land border with china, might need to
| think again about the security there.
|
| Sure Xi and Putin are "best buddies" but real politik > than
| friendship for dictators.
| FpUser wrote:
| "best buddies" but real politik > than friendship for
| dictators.
|
| Not just for dictators
| 627467 wrote:
| But it is so much more entertaining to think they are the same.
| Just like it is entertaining that the west allowed the current
| war to happen.
| tablespoon wrote:
| China's not Russia, and Taiwan is not Ukraine, but there are
| still some important messages being sent:
|
| 1. The West's main tool still seems to be economic sanctions.
| Even unprecedented sanctions didn't prevent or halt Russia's
| invasion of Ukraine, and good luck sanctioning China.
|
| 2. The West is too scared to get involved militarily in ways that
| could actually prevent an invasion from succeeding, even when its
| adversary is fumbling and vulnerable. So that's something China
| probably doesn't have to worry about now, if it wants to go to
| war over Taiwan.
| steve76 wrote:
| antattack wrote:
| Interesting, I have not heard of USIP before:
|
| "USIP was established by Congress in 1984 as an independent
| institution devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation
| of deadly conflict abroad."
|
| In 2011 they almost lost their funding. Although, with budget of
| 39mln and 300 staff they are pretty lean operation it seems.
|
| Their staff seem to be mostly active in the Middle East, Africa
| and East Asia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Institute_of_Pea...
| credit_guy wrote:
| One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they
| certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a
| decade, maybe even more.
|
| The attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia just reminded people
| that the best war plans don't survive the first contact with the
| enemy (apparently stated by the Prussian general Moltke), or in
| the more folksy words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until
| they get punched in the face.
|
| In 2014, Russia achieved a military miracle: they took over
| Crimea so quickly and without loss of blood, that they delivered
| a "fait accompli". Oh, how much would China like to replicate
| that in Taiwan. And that's what they were preparing for.
|
| But now, in 2022, the latest example of an attempted invasion
| shows that things can still go astray. Why? No doubt China will
| analyze everything and try to see if they are in danger of
| experiencing the same problems. But the overall learned lesson
| will still be that no matter how much you plan, you can still
| encounter huge obstacles when you start a war.
|
| And the world response in terms of economic sanctions was
| unbelievable. Definitely, not something China wants.
|
| If anything the prospect of WW3 because of a Chinese
| miscalculation vis-a-vis Taiwan went down considerably.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they
| certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a
| decade, maybe even more.
|
| How can you be so certain? This reminds me of people saying
| just 14 days ago "I don't think Putin is going to invade."
|
| Taiwan is not Ukraine, indeed -- Taiwan would be easier to
| capture because it is an island. There aren't land borders
| across which supplies and weapons can be brought. They would
| have to come by ship or plane, which are easier to defeat. It
| would be easier, militarily, to take Taiwan. China certainly
| has the will, and it has learned that the worst it would face
| would be some sanctions.
| kingcharles wrote:
| > some sanctions
|
| _Some_ sanctions? The entire Russian economy has disappeared
| overnight. The only reason it has not been felt yet is due to
| inertia. There are still just about enough goods in the pipes
| to support things for weeks or months. But once computers
| start breaking, planes start breaking, shelves start to
| empty, and nothing is arriving to replace them, shit is going
| to hit the fan.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Indeed. They're being unplugged from the 21st century.
| ipnon wrote:
| To counter this claim, I'd ask you to consider which of two
| similarly sized invasions was easier to achieve: D-Day and
| the invasion of Western Europe, or Operation Barbarossa and
| the invasion of Eastern Europe. You may also consider why the
| Nazis never made it to Great Britain, and why Great Britain
| has been insulated from the Great Wars of Europe more often
| than it has taken part in the conflicts.
| ipnon wrote:
| MANPADS, ATGM, and drones like the Bayraktar have now been
| shown to be much more effective than the same cost investment
| into aircraft, tanks and artillery. In addition the united
| international condemnation and sanctions have been greater than
| I think everyone imagined. China may conclude that Russian
| strategic goals would have been better served by maintaining
| their credible threat of invasion rather than actually
| invading, and adjust their strategy accordingly. But Russia is
| not China ...
| internet_user wrote:
| >In 2014, Russia achieved a military miracle: they took over
| Crimea so quickly and without loss of blood, that they
| delivered a "fait accompli". Oh, how much would China like to
| replicate that in Taiwan. And that's what they were preparing
| for.
|
| That only seems like a miracle because you need to do more
| research into what Crimea actually is.
|
| Crimea was never actually part of Ukraine, only a paper "gift"
| to Ukranian SSR way back when, negligible amounts of ethnic
| Ukrainians live there. Nearly the entire jurisdiction is
| employed supporting the mostly russian tourist industry, or
| actual russian military, their Black Sea fleet.
|
| There were simply no other outcomes possible. It was a defacto
| Russian territory, with a token Ukranian security force against
| an entire Russian Black Sea fleet, and tens of thousands
| sailors and marines. It seems that even Ukraine itself didn't
| wholeheartedly consider Crimea it's own territory, essentially
| no resistance whatsoever.
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| xiphias2 wrote:
| The finishing sentence tells everything:
|
| ,,Beijing's calculus vis-a-vis the use of force against Taipei
| can change, so the world must continually monitor the situation
| and remain alert to warnings and indicators.
|
| Part of this monitoring must include scrutinizing Chinese
| assessments of Russia's performance in Ukraine in the coming
| weeks, months and years.''
| hulitu wrote:
| There is an institute of peace in US ? It hasn't been active in
| the last 80 years. As G. Orwell said: war is peace.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| 80? It has been about that long since the last official
| declaration of war by the United States, however...
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/US...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Formal declarations of war are so early and mid 20th
| century...
| schleck8 wrote:
| Per Orwell you wouldn't even know the phrase is ironic, so
| apparently it does not apply.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It's a good, if horrifying, book; you should read it. But no,
| the point of doublethink isn't that people _don 't know_ that
| they're doing it; it's that they betray themselves and
| support the Party.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Much of these analyses are useless unless you put domestic
| politics into calculation.
|
| If Xi wants to invade Taiwan, 90% is based on his power fight
| within the party, not the geopolitics.
|
| One crucial part of Xi's ruling is that Xi has not appointed his
| successor yet. Xi wants to stay. Does invading Taiwan help or
| hurt him to stay longer? That's his calculation.
| ctvo wrote:
| > If Xi wants to invade Taiwan, 90% is based on his power fight
| within the party, not the geopolitics.
|
| Citation? Which part of the communist party does NOT want
| Taiwan back if it could get it without massive geopolitical
| consequences?
| temp8964 wrote:
| Many high officials have strong financial interest against
| this. In Xi's eyes they are corrupted. But there are too many
| of them and Xi need some of their support. That's why anti-
| corruption campaign is crucial to achieve party's (Xi's)
| political goals.
| ctvo wrote:
| Your original point that the West's influence, through
| geopolitics, mattered very little, and internal party power
| struggles determined Taiwan's fate is inaccurate. It
| doesn't matter if Xi is directly aware of geopolitics or if
| its impact, through proxies, shape his decision, it's still
| geopolitical consequences that largely protects Taiwan.
|
| Rivals are partially against an invasion because it harms
| them financially, or harms their family's interests. This
| is amplified by their desire to not give Xi a victory, but
| if the deterrent didn't exist, surely there could be no
| plausible push back.
| posnet wrote:
| China's anti-corruption campaigns have nothing to do with
| corruption and are just populist pretext for removing
| political enemies.
| pstrateman wrote:
| I think you're agreeing with the parent.
| atlantas wrote:
| This is where the rubber meets the road. Let's register some
| predictions:
|
| If China invades Taiwan, will Apple and Disney exit China as they
| did with Russia?
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the
| population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You
| can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their
| neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen
| has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead
| within a week.
|
| This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo.
| And teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep
| their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian communist
| regime of China.
| yosito wrote:
| While this sentiment resonates with me, and probably many
| Americans, I'm not entirely sure that it would resonate with
| Taiwanese culture. Even if it did, any attempt to arm Taiwanese
| citizens is likely to draw a lot of opposition from China.
| slim wrote:
| This is naive. It's too easy to polarize any population during
| hard times. and now they are armed.
| toxik wrote:
| They have guns, the two parties warred before. In fact, there
| was never a formal peace agreement so the war is technically
| still going on.
|
| The asymmetry is in the economics. Taiwan can realistically be
| strangled by China. This has seemed like the plan from Beijing.
| Once politically weak, you can take over with sock puppets.
| anonporridge wrote:
| So, more trade with Tawain from the west, _and_ give them
| more guns.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Taiwan cannot be strangled as long as the rest of the world
| is willing to trade with them. A naval blockade of Taiwan
| would not be tolerated by the west, and the first US-flagged
| ship that gets sunk would start real war.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| I hope we don't live to see China and the USA in a hot war.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I hope we live to see the conditions that make it
| plausible go away.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| I do too, but how would that look like?
|
| I'm not sure how likely it is to when the incumbent
| empire and the aspiring one are both armed to the tits,
| neither of which will give up on their claim or their
| military. Even without confrontation they'll both keep
| force projecting. I think we just gotta hope there's
| mutual resistance to any physical escalation, either
| direct or by proxy, and that the competition remains
| economical and technological. Turns out even tying the
| economies to the hip is not an insurance against fighting
| when those ties turn into weapons in an escalation.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Governments don't have power if the people just drift out
| of their power. That's one way. Alternatively, one or the
| other could go the way of Rome (400 and later). I don't
| think that's likely, but it's possible.
|
| Or, most likely (of the options I've suggested), the next
| leaders care more about peace than the current ones.
| digianarchist wrote:
| Recognition from the PRC that Taiwan is an independent
| nation or the absorption of Taiwan as a province of the
| PRC.
|
| The stalemate will probably last a long time.
| sharikous wrote:
| For now. It's absolutely possible to keep a territory under
| your control by force if you look at the historical record.
|
| You can't extrapolate such a far fetched conclusion from one
| data point on how string the Ukraunian resistance seems in the
| first weeks of a war.
| mirntyfirty wrote:
| I don't think they have the economic resources to sustain a
| prolonged engagement or occupation.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Isn't their capacity to maintain an ongoing assault about
| available meat sacks, ammunition, food and oil - none of
| which they lack - rather than money?
| justinclift wrote:
| > food
|
| There have been mentions that they're already short on
| food for their soldiers. Wonder if that's an actual
| thing, and if so, then how badly short they are?
|
| Especially with that old phrase "an army marches on it's
| stomach" coming to mind. :)
| thejohnconway wrote:
| The lack of food among the Russian invading forces (if
| real) is due to them outrunning their logistics, not a
| general food shortage in Russia. Russia's army is not
| designed to operate more than about 50-100km from their
| rail network.
| Supermancho wrote:
| The Israeli's have managed to hold territory by force. The
| difference is that worldwide support was in favor of them
| instead of the Palestinians.
|
| I would say that you cannot hold a region by force alone
| unless you commit to multiple generations of occupation AND
| manage to maintain when superpowers oppose it.
| SmileyJames wrote:
| Feminists arm women
| yonaguska wrote:
| The "population" hasn't been armed. A small amount of people in
| some areas were armed. And fighting age men have been
| conscripted. If the goal of the invasion was to destroy
| infrastructure, that would have happened last week. Armed
| population or not.
|
| Taiwan is completely different from Ukraine culturally, and I
| don't think simply blanket arming people is a solution there
| either. Big difference being that the Ukrainian standard of
| living, even under Zelensky has been bad. If you are simply
| surviving, taking up arms is a much easier sell. If you are
| comfortable and well off, you have a lot more to lose. If Xi is
| smart, which he is- he will attempt to take over Taiwan via
| political means. I don't think he will attempt to repeat the
| Hong Kong approach with an entire country, when he already has
| pro Chinese political entities within Taiwan.
|
| > teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep
| their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian
|
| First you need to convince people that the value of freedom is
| actually worth the cost. Based on what I've seen for the past
| two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United
| States. They'd rather be comfortable than free. The cost of
| freedom is often everything for those that actually choose it.
| The benefits are only realized by the next generation.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people
| do not value freedom, even in the United States.
|
| I suspect this is a universal truth.
| ep103 wrote:
| People value stability, wealth, quality and ease of life
| and peace.
|
| Freedom is the vehicle that maintains these things.
|
| But that, apparently, requires education to remember.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, but apparently the price of that vehicle is
| preferably paid by others. And I believe that is not how
| it works.
| internet_user wrote:
| > ease of life
|
| Given the amount of covid alarmism even now, I'm not so
| sure. There are people out there protesting to re-instate
| mask mandates.
|
| People like being governed. Life is hard on your own.
| qqtt wrote:
| > But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm
| the population, the invasion can only destroy the
| infrastructure.
|
| There are no simple conclusions about what is happening right
| now in Ukraine, and it is a fool's errand to declare any kind
| of conclusion 10 days into an invasion which already displaced
| millions of people and in which almost every major Ukrainian
| city is under siege teetering on the edge.
|
| Russia's economy destroyed? Ukraine successfully resisted the
| invasion? All Russia can do is destroy infrastructure?
|
| All those jumping to conclusions regarding the Ukraine
| situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission
| Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion.
| turndown wrote:
| >the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of
| a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq
| invasion.
|
| So your response to others jumping to conclusions is to do so
| yourself? Your analogy doesn't make a lot of sense either,
| Bush was the invader claiming victory, not the local
| population saying they would resist until death(which seems
| to be fairly accurate in the case of Ukraine so far.)
| dragonelite wrote:
| It's such a weird situation right now everybody went from
| virus and vaccine expert to geopolitical expert within 10
| min.
|
| It took the West like a year of sanctions and aerial
| bombardment, then 3 weeks of "Shock and awe" to take over an
| Arab nations. If there is one thing modern day arabs are
| known for is they cant do modern warfare.
|
| Now take Ukraine its like 40% bigger than Iraq so i think its
| save to say it should take Russia like 5 weeks to beat the
| West without sanctions on Ukraine without months of Aerial
| bombardment. If at the end of this months no peace deal is
| agreed on between Russia and the Ukraine then it's should be
| seen as a hick up.
|
| But it might also become a multi year invasion every thing is
| possible in war.
| canadianfella wrote:
| daenz wrote:
| It's been mind boggling to see anti 2A people in my social
| circle cheer for normal Ukrainian citizens arming themselves
| with "weapons of war" that "wouldn't do anything against a
| country with drones and nukes." I hope a silver lining of this
| conflict is remembering that protecting your life and your
| family's lives with firearms is an inalienable right.
| windpower wrote:
| I'm someone you would describe as "anti 2A". I still think
| the "defense against home invasion" style argument is mostly
| nonsense. It's super rare, and I don't think the benefits of
| guns outweigh the downsides for that kind of self defense.
| (Having been a victim of exactly such a crime, I'm glad
| neither I nor the burglar had a gun.)
|
| However, seeing Ukrainians take up arms to fight an invasion
| has caused me to re-evaluate my position in general, and I
| actually think an armed population is likely better than the
| alternative. I'm sure Finland isn't unhappy that they're
| heavily armed right now.
| throwaway_4ever wrote:
| > It's super rare
|
| Is it? How do you define super rare? I live in a low crime
| US suburb and still personally know 3 homes that have been
| invaded: friend's next door neighbor, a house 200ft away,
| and the literal across the street neighbor.
| _hypx wrote:
| Home invasion means forcefully breaking into someone's
| house where there are people in it. It's very different
| than a burglary. Burglaries are common, but the former is
| rare.
| _hypx wrote:
| It's not that hard to arm a society when war breaks out.
| That is the same mentality that countries like Switzerland
| has. The "2A argument" is quite a bit different, and has
| very few similarities with what is going on at the start of
| a war.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| The war in Ukraine hasn't really shown anything so far. It's
| been only a few days. Wait for a few months at minimum and then
| draw some conclusions.
| duxup wrote:
| It has been a week. I'm not sure we can be assured small arms
| to locals will do much at all.
|
| What has happened in Ukraine seems to be that Ukraine's
| military was more capable / motivated and Russia's military
| MUCH LESS capable / motivated than anyone expected.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Russia benefits from disruption and chaos: it causes fuel prices
| to spike. China benefits from stability: it ensures people can
| and want to buy all the stuff they manufacture.
|
| Russia asserts the right of strong nations to meddle in any
| nation that can't resist them. China asserts the right of every
| nation to territorial integrity and freedom from internal
| meddling by, e.g., democracy and human rights activists. (To be
| fair, Putin also hates these people, but clearly thinks Russia
| itself should be free to meddle in other nations' internal
| affairs.)
|
| They are drawn together by their opposition to the West and in
| particular the US, and by their contiguity, but they aren't
| otherwise natural allies.
| stickfigure wrote:
| The invasion of Taiwan would require a _massive_ amphibious
| assault across a sea full of hostile submarines. You couldn 't
| hide all the ships required from satellites. And China's economy
| depends heavily on trade with the west-aligned world.
| manachar wrote:
| Russia didn't hide their military buildup, they just lied and
| gaslit the world via their various disinformation channels into
| believing that Putin would have to be insane to actually
| invade.
| askura wrote:
| https://blog.windscribe.com/top-r-russia-mod-admits-to-
| ownin...
|
| Yup. It's crazy how many of these are out in the wild. I
| mostly notice Chinese ones from my time there or ones
| highlighted by friends. But the Russian disinfo coming out in
| the lead up was insane.
|
| I'm all for freedom of press but state sanctioned media is
| such a fucking blight.
| mrighele wrote:
| To be fair, many experts too believed that it was madness to
| invade Ukraine.
|
| And, judging by the faces on the videos that I saw, many
| members of his cabinet and top generals were thinking the
| same.
| baybal2 wrote:
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| And judging by the embarrassments of the last 10 days, it
| probably was indeed madness to invade.
| sremani wrote:
| The most vociferous against Russia today are the ones that
| predicted Putin is not a gambler and would not attack. These
| are not Putin's puppets. These are the people considered well
| respected International relations people.
|
| To call everything and everyone Putin's propaganda and
| disinformation is simplistic. Hindsight is 2020, it always
| feels like we missed the obvious signs.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Being an willing or unwilling participate in propaganda
| makes you a tool regardless.
| Eupolemos wrote:
| As it has indeed turned out to be.
|
| It is very worrying to me that China tones down the invasion
| in their media (if that is indeed true, I don't follow
| Chinese media myself).
|
| Better to let people know what war really is. Unless you want
| it.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah he puts these videos on Youtube designed to make him
| look bad on first blush, but then you think it over and what
| he responds to crappy questions makes perfect sense, so
| because it occurs to you the viewer "spontaneously" it makes
| these thoughts more convincing. But that's a double-bluff you
| see, in some cases quadruple-bluffs, I think I even saw one
| sextuple-bluff, even-numbered bluffs.
| jmull wrote:
| Were there very many people who didn't think Russia's buildup
| was almost certainly a precursor to an invasion?
|
| I hadn't heard of that before.
| FpUser wrote:
| I originally thought that Putin was trolling Ukraine and
| West with this buildup for the sake of winning some
| concessions.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Zelenskyy himself was telling people to calm down with the
| invasion rhetoric, indicating that there is no evidence of
| an imminent invasion, and that the rhetoric is counter
| productive.
|
| Personally, I thought Putin would establish a stronghold in
| the Donbas and _gradually_ improve position from there.
| This full on assault of the entire country is shocking and
| seems wildly aggressive and overly ambitious.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are still people who believe that today. It all
| depends on what you want to believe. People believe that
| Russia was forced into this, people believe that Ukranians
| secretly long to be liberated and saved. People will
| believe the most crazy stuff.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Absolutely, feel free to peruse my comment history for
| examples right here on this site.
| DennisP wrote:
| But for some reason, China is massively expanding its navy,
| with lots of amphibious ships along with advanced weaponry that
| would be a serious problem for the US.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Russia waltzed into the Black Sea with it's navy without a
| hitch.
| stickfigure wrote:
| And what did they do with it? How is that related to Taiwan?
| BbzzbB wrote:
| They partook in an invasion with it maybe? Do you think
| Ukrainians scuttled their own ships for fun or because they
| wanted to slow down whatever role Russia's navy can have
| with access to ports?
|
| "You couldn't hide all the ships" implies that would stop
| or deter them from moving in if they wanted to. Russia's
| navy getting to the Black Sea no questions asked has shown
| you can make obviously aggressive military repositioning
| without repercussion (unless the West gets more proactive
| with sanctions after this).
| dixie_land wrote:
| It goes both ways. The current supply chain crisis already
| demonstrated how reliant EVERYONE is on Chinese manufacturing.
| No politician would dare to sanction China when it means
| immediate runaway inflation.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I'll keep posting this list every time this subject comes up:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa.
| ..
|
| China is 15-25% of the trade for those countries, but the
| west-aligned countries represent 80% of China's trade. A
| coordinated trade war would be _vastly_ more devastating for
| China than the rest of the world.
|
| I don't say this gleefully - I hope it never happens.
| coryrc wrote:
| Every electronic thing made has parts from China. I can't
| build a car in Germany and export to America without having
| done trade with China first. Who cares if I could still get
| Irish butter if I can't get replacement parts for my MRI
| machine?
| narag wrote:
| This sounds pretty much like good cop, bad cop.
|
| Also the bottom line: is it wise to have deals with someone
| that's not accountable to their own people?
|
| What about Xi being replaced by someone with a different
| personality? While it's about a country's interests, there's
| another kind of stability.
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