Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Good2Golf]

If China ever tries to invade Taiwan, I expect it's fleet-in-being to cease being.

Establishing a lodgement is a problem; supporting it is a greater problem. Dunkirk-style fishing boats landing supplies over the beach after the bulk carriers are wiped out isn't practical.

So long as PRC can’t interfere with ROC’s BIP order to scuttle TSMC’s chip fabrication facility, an occupied Taiwan is a hollow victory for Beijing, and they would screw themselves in their effort to pivot the world from the US Dollar to the Yuan.

 

[JLB50]

Pick the US Inauguration Day - all focus will be on the planning/security of the event and those surrounding it. The new President will not yet be installed or fully in tune with their advisors, the processes/procedures and the sequence of what must occur in the correct order. Their Allies (not us) will not have had a chance to establish relations with the new administration and will be unsure of how much to support the US or how little to support them. Indecision and doubt will be the first order of business and that hesitation will be the death sentence of quickly and decisely countering the CCP actions and it will be the death sentence for Taiwan. Add to the mix, the Russians will then scramble large numbers of bombers/fighters over the Arctic to tie down US aircover over Alaska and Canada. The scrambling of their nuc subs from the White Sea will further tie down US and British air and sea assets.

Tell me if I’m correct in understanding you. At first I thought you were supposing that both Russia and China would essentially be attacking U.S. assets. But on second reading, you could be right in that those countries don’t have to necessarily physically attack the U.S. forces but simply overwhelm them and, with a certain military sleight-of-hand, misdirect the Americans. Otherwise, an actual attack on Americans would be World War 3…which we’re basically in now except it’s not being fought by the militaries. So Inauguration Day could be a plausible date for the Chinese.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I'd suggest that the possibility of success of the former is equally questionable as well. Airborne/Amphibious invasions are extremely difficult and risky. Especially against an enemy that is prepared/preparing for invasion. Taiwan has limited suitable landing beaches which I'm sure have lots of defences in place. Plus the island itself is a difficult target to take with large, dense urban areas as well as extremely mountainous terrain.

I think you drastically overestimate our (The West's) capabilities and drastically underestimate China's.

The Taiwan strait is small and almost wholly less than 200ms deep. I would suspect it would be a death sentence to send an opposing Sub in there. In the opening stages of scenario.

Any land invasion will only be taken when the sky's and approaches are secure and the island has been pounded into submission. Not to mention I would expect a massive cyber attack shutting down all communications and possibly all grid power generation.

Supporting an invasion from China to Taiwan will only become untenable if the west can break the encirclement. And at that point we're at war with China, taking in all the possibilities of that.

 

[OldSolduer]

IF we are speculating this in a somewhat open forum, I think the big brains who war game this will have a better insight.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Anyone unsure how much to support the US in countering an invasion of Taiwan isn't much of an ally, nor much of a stalwart when it comes to contributing to whatever passes for "IRBO".

A lesson driven home repeatedly, recent: wars are costly.

A purely numerical observation of long standing : people who start wars lose them more often than they win.

Whatever China might choose to do in Taiwan comes at the cost of whatever else might be at the top of its "honey-do" list; writing down lots of major equipment for a small prize might not be a good investment.

 

[RangerRay]

Potential leaders of influential B.C. groups undergo Chinese ‘political review,’ recording reveals

Chinese consulate allegedly plays a role in requirements for leadership of associations that promote candidates for Canadian political office

www.theglobeandmail.com

Still, political screening for leaders suggests the Chinese consulate is acting like a board of directors for certain groups, said Cheuk Kwan, co-chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.
“This is direct evidence of China’s interference,” he said.
It raises particular questions for Canadian politicians who attend events hosted by those organizations, said Kenny Chiu, a former Conservative MP who believes he was targeted by a Chinese interference campaign in the past election.
“Elected officials must realize who these people are,” he said.

 

[JLB50]

Potential leaders of influential B.C. groups undergo Chinese ‘political review,’ recording reveals

Chinese consulate allegedly plays a role in requirements for leadership of associations that promote candidates for Canadian political office

www.theglobeandmail.com

Good article. Intelligence experts and whistleblowers have been warning about this kind of thing for years now. But especially in the last month or so, a trickle of reports about China’s influence and control of our society has turned into a flood. One would think that the current government would treat this as the extremely serious issue it is.

Instead, the prime minister has chosen to kick the can down the road, first, by appointing a family friend of his as rapporteur to investigate what most everybody already knows (including much of the Chinese-Canadian community who feel pressured by the Beijing government) and then making sure that the results of said investigation is delayed until the end of the year, if not later.

The way I see it is that our house , metaphorically speaking, is dirty and contaminated. The problems need to be addressed now and not some time in the vague future. We need someone who can act decisively to make it habitable. Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau has proven himself to be not up to the task, either due to inability or his awe of the descendants of Maoism. I only hope that the LPC or NDP members will rise up against him and either force decisive action by him or demand that he resign. But I suspect that Trudeau’s MPs are so intimidated by him (unlike Jody Wilson-Raybould and a few others) that they may end up bringing their House down with them.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Chinese Government influence been going on for so long in BC, it is embedded in the very culture. It will be very difficult to unwind this.

 

[JLB50]

Chinese Government influence been going on for so long in BC, it is embedded in the very culture. It will be very difficult to unwind this.

Difficult? Absolutely. But it must be done.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Not likely to be done. Notice how fast the "election interference" stopped being daily news?

 

[JLB50]

Not likely to be done. Notice how fast the "election interference" stopped being daily news?

Sadly, you’re probably right.

 

[dimsum]

Not likely to be done. Notice how fast the "election interference" stopped being daily news?

Is that because of the GoC, or from the news agencies themselves?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Both. Politicians deny, obfuscate, and delay. Media typically don't cover a story they don't want to, or that doesn't hold public interest. If politicians are successful, the public loses interest and the story dies. There aren't that many tenacious investigative reporters in any event - aspiring young journalists want to shape the world on the opinion page, not report the dirty details of how it really is.

 

[JLB50]

Both. Politicians deny, obfuscate, and delay. Media typically don't cover a story they don't want to, or that doesn't hold public interest. If politicians are successful, the public loses interest and the story dies. There aren't that many tenacious investigative reporters in any event - aspiring young journalists want to shape the world on the opinion page, not report the dirty details of how it really is.

Or could it be that maybe, just maybe, the Americans have had enough of Canada turning a blind eye to what’s happening beneath our noses for decades? And they’re putting pressuring on Trudeau to do what he and his predecessors have long failed to do regarding China’s subversive influence here?

In a similar vein, NATO is reportedly preparing to do some badly-needed ”arm twisting” to get laggardly Canada to up its defence budget to 2% as a minimal level ongoing commitmen.

So although the media, the politicians and Canadians in general are largely either (take your pick): ignoring, obfuscating, delaying or forgetting what China has been doing, perhaps, the Americans and NATO may finally force us to face certain unpleasant realities and actually do something meaningful to deal with them. Otherwise, Brad, you would definitely be right and we could end up being in dire straits.

 

[Kirkhill]

Is that because of the GoC, or from the news agencies themselves?

Yes.

 

[Kirkhill]

Or could it be that maybe, just maybe, the Americans have had enough of Canada turning a blind eye to what’s happening beneath our noses for decades? And they’re putting pressuring on Trudeau to do what he and his predecessors have long failed to do regarding China’s subversive influence here?

In a similar vein, NATO is reportedly preparing to do some badly-needed ”arm twisting” to get laggardly Canada to up its defence budget to 2% as a minimal level ongoing commitmen.

So although the media, the politicians and Canadians in general are largely either (take your pick): ignoring, obfuscating, delaying or forgetting what China has been doing, perhaps, the Americans and NATO may finally force us to face certain unpleasant realities and actually do something meaningful to deal with them. Otherwise, Brad, you would definitely be right and we could end up being in dire straits.

Question:

To which Americans do you refer?

cf: A Deeply Fractured US.


Suppose the prime purpose of the Middle Kingdom is to put Guizi/Gweilo back in their place and humiliate them to recover the face lost since the Opium Wars?

We see differences between Yanks and Brits. Not so much between Cantonese and Han. I bet the Chinese suffer from the same blindness.

A situation made harder to refute by the maintenance of organizations like ABCANZUS, Five Eyes and references to The Anglosphere.

All round eyes look the same.



Some times we see what we want to see. We hope that differences are about things like policy which can be debated rationally and resolved amicably.

But some times it is just the Hatfields and McCoys. Campbells and MacDonalds. McDonnells and U'Neils. Rus and Cossacks. Slavers and Abolitionists.

 

[Kirkhill]

By the way, to take the sting out of the above, the reason "the west - ie Anglosphere" did so well in its colonizing efforts was, that while it antagonized ruling classes everywhere it split the rulers from the ruled/enslaved and made friends with the underclasses.

The Popes had to deal with Garibaldi. The Warlords had their Sun Yat Sen. India had Nehru and Gandhi - both highly Westernized while being fervent Nationalists.

Our problem is, everytime you smash a rock you never know what the pieces are going to look like. And history is a tale of lots of rock smashing.

 

[JLB50]

Question:

To which Americans do you refer?

cf: A Deeply Fractured US.


Suppose the prime purpose of the Middle Kingdom is to put Guizi/Gweilo back in their place and humiliate them to recover the face lost since the Opium Wars?

We see differences between Yanks and Brits. Not so much between Cantonese and Han. I bet the Chinese suffer from the same blindness.

A situation made harder to refute by the maintenance of organizations like ABCANZUS, Five Eyes and references to The Anglosphere.

All round eyes look the same.



Some times we see what we want to see. We hope that differences are about things like policy which can be debated rationally and resolved amicably.

But some times it is just the Hatfields and McCoys. Campbells and MacDonalds. McDonnells and U'Neils. Rus and Cossacks. Slavers and Abolitionists.

I still haven’t decided in my own mind whether Biden’s slip (saying ”China” when he meant to say “Canada”) was really a slip or if he really wanted to say in public what was on his mind (but for diplomatic reasons could not say it publicly. I also think that much of the intelligence Canada has gotten so far on China’s activities here have come from American intelligence and government sources. Thus, my reference to “the Americans“. If so, is the intelligence better than the intel the CIA got on the WMDs prior to invading Iraq? I suspect so.

 

[Good2Golf]

Instead, the prime minister has chosen to kick the can down the road, first, by appointing a family friend of his as rapporteur to investigate what most everybody already knows (including much of the Chinese-Canadian community who feel pressured by the Beijing government) and then making sure that the results of said investigation is delayed until the end of the year, if not later.

 

[dimsum]

Not so much between Cantonese and Han.

To clarify, Cantonese are a Han sub-group.

China has 56 ethnic groups - Han with about 92% of the population in the PRC, and 55 minorities.