International Events IX: I feel like a mushroom

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

If China invades Taiwan and the West responds and China digs in, that will be the end of the current Chinese government. The entire economy of China will collapse in short order and the internal upheaval will be unlike anything we've ever seen. 

China will likely make the calculus that the reverse is also true. Soaring inflation and collapsed supply chains within the United States especially (Europe to a lesser but still significant degree) would also cause a lot of political upheaval.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Well the question is whether China's aims extend to Taiwan or basically creating it's own area of influence further out. I suspect the later. It will never be able to do that while China is essentially acting like the factory of the world, because now it seems like the West has less appetite for just rolling over and letting countries do what they want to keep the trade flowing. 

It is going to be interesting to see what happens as countries slowly try (and maybe fail) to disentangle their supply chains from being so reliant on cheap Chinese labour, and how China is going to adapt to that. 

Yes, I think China's recent attitude towards India, Australia and Japan shows that it wants to be the regional hegemon and ultimately it wants the United States and all of its military bases and political influence out of Asia altogether. How likely it is to achieve that is questionable, but if the United States does suffer a large-scale internal meltdown and possible retrenchment into isolationism (and that's a very big if), China is willing to step into the breach.

[Maithanet]

I guess I don't really see what is so provocative about Pelosi visiting Taiwan, other than the fact that China said not to do it.  I expect China will respond with some sort of exercise, but whatever.  It is hard to see how or why this would make any meaningful change in US/China relations.

I fully admit to not being a China expert, but to me any invasion of Taiwan right now does not make a lot of sense.  Time continues to be on China's side.  Their military and economic power vs the US continues to grow.  Any confrontation will go better in 2025 than it would today, and probably better in 2030 than in 2025.  So it very much benefits China to simply wait until the US is weaker or entangled elsewhere or elects an isolationist leader and act then.  In many ways triggering a confrontation in 2023 seems like the worst possible time to pick.  If Trump or Desantis take power in 2025, there's a good chance either one of them would abandon Taiwan rather than risk the economic and military calamity of a full on confrontation with China. 

[Werthead]

22 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I guess I don't really see what is so provocative about Pelosi visiting Taiwan, other than the fact that China said not to do it.  I expect China will respond with some sort of exercise, but whatever.  It is hard to see how or why this would make any meaningful change in US/China relations.

I fully admit to not being a China expert, but to me any invasion of Taiwan right now does not make a lot of sense.  Time continues to be on China's side.  Their military and economic power vs the US continues to grow.  Any confrontation will go better in 2025 than it would today, and probably better in 2030 than in 2025.  So it very much benefits China to simply wait until the US is weaker or entangled elsewhere or elects an isolationist leader and act then.  In many ways triggering a confrontation in 2023 seems like the worst possible time to pick.  If Trump or Desantis take power in 2025, there's a good chance either one of them would abandon Taiwan rather than risk the economic and military calamity of a full on confrontation with China. 

That seems reasonable but there are other considerations. The first is Xi Jinping's age: he is 69 and appears to be in robust health, but there is no telling. He seems keen to cement his legacy by reunifying China and Taiwan under his leadership. He is unlikely to be in post past 2032 (though who knows) and of course anything could happen before then. An early resolution to the Taiwan question may therefore be preferable.

In addition, Trump took a very hard line with China and would have almost certainly responded with force to any military action around Taiwan. DeSantis has been fairly hardline on China as well, sponsoring bills to curb Chinese investment in the United States and trying to reduce the Chinese presence in buying property in Florida. I would suspect both would respond to a Chinese invasion with force, unless the domestic situation in the US made such a move untenable.

The American government's position towards China seems to be that China is much less likely to use nuclear weapons in a confrontation over Taiwan than Russia is in a direct US-Russia confrontation (and Russia is probably still less likely to use them as long as the Russian heartland is not attacked), and the overwhelming superiority of US nuclear forces to Chinese ones makes such an exchange even less likely. In the event of a cross-straits invasion, it's even unclear where China would even think of using them. So they see a clash as using conventional forces only, where the US continues to enjoy a moderate superiority at present (but that will not remain the case for too much longer, unless the US expands its military).

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I guess I don't really see what is so provocative about Pelosi visiting Taiwan, other than the fact that China said not to do it.  I expect China will respond with some sort of exercise, but whatever.  It is hard to see how or why this would make any meaningful change in US/China relations.

I fully admit to not being a China expert, but to me any invasion of Taiwan right now does not make a lot of sense.  Time continues to be on China's side.  Their military and economic power vs the US continues to grow.  Any confrontation will go better in 2025 than it would today, and probably better in 2030 than in 2025.  So it very much benefits China to simply wait until the US is weaker or entangled elsewhere or elects an isolationist leader and act then.  In many ways triggering a confrontation in 2023 seems like the worst possible time to pick.  If Trump or Desantis take power in 2025, there's a good chance either one of them would abandon Taiwan rather than risk the economic and military calamity of a full on confrontation with China. 

What if China turns around and decides to give military aid to Russia? That would be the worst immediate effect of China being pissed off at the US.

[Proudfeet]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I guess I don't really see what is so provocative about Pelosi visiting Taiwan

Ostensibly its because she is the highest ranking official to visit for some time and it lends Taiwan legitimacy and that kind of stuff. 

No idea how it was decided that the Speaker of the House was the red line on the doublethink with regards to the One China issue. Surely there's someone lower that would also have been the highest ranking official that has visited Taiwan before this.

[Maithanet]

14 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

What if China turns around and decides to give military aid to Russia? That would be the worst immediate effect of China being pissed off at the US.

China undoubtedly has tools to express their displeasure with the US, and that is one of them.  But I don't see China stoking a confrontation at this time over this issue.  They are having some economic challenges domestically and US/China strife almost always hurts the bottom line for both countries. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

China undoubtedly has tools to express their displeasure with the US, and that is one of them.  But I don't see China stoking a confrontation at this time over this issue.  They are having some economic challenges domestically and US/China strife almost always hurts the bottom line for both countries. 

Yeah, but Taiwan is one of those things, that rank pretty high on China's political agendas. So Pelosi visiting the rogue province can really piss off the Chinese enough to take the economic hit.

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Proudfeet said:

Ostensibly its because she is the highest ranking official to visit for some time and it lends Taiwan legitimacy and that kind of stuff. 

No idea how it was decided that the Speaker of the House was the red line on the doublethink with regards to the One China issue. Surely there's someone lower that would also have been the highest ranking official that has visited Taiwan before this.

Newt Gingrich visited when he was Speaker, apparently 

[DMC]

Really hard to see how this is not just sabre-rattling.  China's not gonna invade Taiwan because of Nancy Pelosi.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Probably not. They are not some American yahoos doing some weird dancing with wolves wannabe revoltuion crossover LARPING in DC.

However, China flexing their financial muscle or offering somewhat more support to Russia, that isn't out of the question. Personally I think the risk-reward ratio for that trip wasn't worth it for some headlines at home. 

 

[Fez]

Azerbaijan has apparently started a military offensive into a breakaway region partially(?) controlled by Armenia since 1988. Russia has had peacekeepers in the region and is officially a mediator, though there's a quite a bit of evidence that they at least somewhat favor Armenia in the conflict. 

Presumably Azerbaijan has decided that Russia no longer has the capacity to project force into the conflict and that they're free to try taking on Armenia. It'll be interesting to see if this will be a one-off, or if any other parties anywhere will also decide that Russia has weakened to the point that they can be ignored in regional conflicts.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Azerbaijan has apparently started a military offensive into a breakaway region partially(?) controlled by Armenia since 1988. Russia has had peacekeepers in the region and is officially a mediator, though there's a quite a bit of evidence that they at least somewhat favor Armenia in the conflict. 

Presumably Azerbaijan has decided that Russia no longer has the capacity to project force into the conflict and that they're free to try taking on Armenia. It'll be interesting to see if this will be a one-off, or if any other parties anywhere will also decide that Russia has weakened to the point that they can be ignored in regional conflicts.

Other way round I think.

The Azeris took Nagorno-Karabakh last year (or was it this year?). I think, I mentioned it in one of the Ukraine war threads. Russia has been the peacekeeper/mediator in that conflict, that has been boiling ever since the SU broke up. Russia has been more favourable to Armenia than other former Soviet Republics. So a lot of mercs from Ukraine and Belarusk fought for the Azeris in this conflict over the years. When the Azeris decided to retake Karabakh, they had another regional power to back them: Turkey. Turkey felt strong enough to challenge Russia's sphere of influence in their backyard. That was the on a political level the real kicker imo, Turkey being able and willing to stare down Russia. 

Fast forward a couple of days ago Armenia apparently tried to launch a counter-offensive in the region, trying to retake it. That was repelled, and now the Azeris claim to have launched some drone strikes in retaliation.

Edit:

Small addition. Now that Russia has reduced their gas supply to Europe significantly to up pressure on the EU to lift the sanctions, the Azeris are in the comfortable position of sitting on the Southern pipeline to the EU. That's the real bit, where the Ukraine war comes into play. 

[Werthead]

57 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Small addition. Now that Russia has reduced their gas supply to Europe significantly to up pressure on the EU to lift the sanctions, the Azeris are in the comfortable position of sitting on the Southern pipeline to the EU. That's the real bit, where the Ukraine war comes into play. 

Yup, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have apparently been doing some back-door deals to open up energy supplies into Europe. They can't make up for the loss of Russia, but they can take the sting out of it.

More striking is Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan both being willing to break with Russia on this matter. They both apparently signed an agreement with Russia in February agreeing not to supply Europe and now are both looking like they're going to break it.

[The Anti-Targ]

11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If China invades Taiwan and the West responds and China digs in, that will be the end of the current Chinese government. The entire economy of China will collapse in short order and the internal upheaval will be unlike anything we've ever seen. 

And the world economy will go to shit along with it. China is a huge trading partner with, basically, the world. It would be impossible to build or re-tool factories to replace Chinese manufacturing in short order, and we all collectively sell a shit load of products to China (75% of our infant formula exports for just one example), and then there is the services and financial sector too.

When was the last time in history that we had the collapse of the economy of a nation or empire comprising 17% of the world's population? It's maybe happened a few times I guess, but this would be a first during a time when the entire globe is economically interconnected.

If China invades Taiwan, the US really has to think about how much self harm it would inflict upon itself by going to war with China and causing its political and economic collapse. Their planning really needs to be focussed on how to take down the Chinese govt but keeping the economy from collapsing.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

And the world economy will go to shit along with it.

Yep, no one is suggesting anything otherwise, but keep in mind China is more inward looking than outward, and the most important thing to party leadership is stability. It's one big game of chicken really and from my perspective China loses in every scenario if they invade Taiwan unless the collective West does nothing, which I cannot see happening. 

[Zorral]

Well, the Chinese histories going back into the B.C.E histories is that collapse comes, and then goes, and China rebirths, and reunionfies.  This is how it is.

The sky is falling.  Why, yes, it is.  As it has fallen many times, but it always returns.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Well, the Chinese histories going back into the B.C.E histories is that collapse comes, and then goes, and China rebirths, and reunionfies.  This is how it is.

The sky is falling.  Why, yes, it is.  As it has fallen many times, but it always returns.

Until the first time it doesn't. Starting WW3 seems like a good way to test that hypothesis. 

[The Anti-Targ]

A large area of land comprising most of the eastern side of the Eurasian continent inhabited by a large number of mostly ethnically east Asian people will continue to exist into an indefinite future. I think that is not in any serious doubt. And as with almost every economic collapse in history some kind of socio-economic order has arisen afterwards. I think that is also a pretty non-controversial statement. The question is how much suffering, by how many people (mostly people who are not responsible for the cause of the collapse), and for how long as a result of a war over Taiwan, which may ultimately be overtaken by an even greater world engulfing climate-based economic collapse.

Fun times ahead. In the mean time, COVID and Monkeypox.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The question is how much suffering, by how many people (mostly people who are not responsible for the cause of the collapse), and for how long as a result of a war over Taiwan, which may ultimately be overtaken by an even greater world engulfing climate-based economic collapse.

You're right, the US should just pre-emptively abandon Taiwan right now.  That'll ensure a safer and more prosperous world.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

You're right, the US should just pre-emptively abandon Taiwan right now.  That'll ensure a safer and more prosperous world.

If you say so.