Breaking News China-US War?

[xizhimen]

Antony Blinken calls for cooling of tensions between US and China over Taiwan​

 

[xizhimen]

US Uses Taiwan to Contain China Purely Pipe Dream: FM​

 

[xizhimen]

Taiwan TV: Government didn't warn the public with air raid sirens and asked the public not to look up to the skies, Taiwan public had no idea of what's going on above their heads in the sky, they only learned the truth after Japan reporting that Chinese rockets landed in the waters near to Japan.
The Taiwan public got furious saying we had many air drills in peace time but when something really happened , the government did nothing to warn the people, if not for Japan's reports, we have no idea of what's really going on up there, the public are accusing the Taiwan government of 掩耳盗铃, burying head in the sand.

 

[Xenon54]

also possible that taiwanese simply wont fight and let them get annexed in a much smoother process.

I seing resistance in Ukraine i believe that Taiwanese will resist even harder.

 

[xizhimen]

I seing resistance in Ukraine i believe that Taiwanese will resist even harder.

They won't, I guess you don't know this issue much, Taiwanese are also ethically Chinese, we are exactly the same people, this is why you see many Taiwanese are actually pro unification with the mainland.

 

[xizhimen]

China launches long-range airstrike drills around Taiwan on fourth day of military exercises​

By Wayne Chang and Simone McCarthy, CNN

Updated 0836 GMT (1636 HKT) August 7, 2022

(CNN)Chinese forces took part in drills focused on land attacks and long-range airstrikes around Taiwan on Sunday, its military said, on what was expected to be the final day of extensive exercises rolled out in response to a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese military said on Sunday around noon local time that it conducted live-fire drills in the waters and airspace around Taiwan "as planned."

"The drills focused on joint fire land strikes and long-range air strike capabilities," the command said in a statement posted to its official account on the social media platform Weibo, without specifying whether the drills have ended.

China launches long-range airstrike drills around Taiwan on fourth day of military exercises | CNN

Chinese forces took part in drills focused on land attacks and long-range airstrikes around Taiwan on Sunday, its military said, on what was expected to be the final day of extensive exercises rolled out in response to a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

edition.cnn.com

 

[Bogeyman]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1556198145176248321

 

[xizhimen]

China moving toward use of force, Blinken says​

 

[Glass🚬]

I seing resistance in Ukraine i believe that Taiwanese will resist even harder.

i dont think u can compare taiwanese to ukrainians, completely different.

 

[Gary]

For those who has been saying that Taiwan won't fight please do remember that Russian propagandist spew the same lies right before the invasion.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1502033067506126851

 

[Glass🚬]

For those who has been saying that Taiwan won't fight please do remember that Russian propagandist spew the same lies right before the invasion.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1502033067506126851

would be wrong to assume that taiwanese would fight just because ukrainians are fighting as well lel

could be also a very smooth take over.

 

[Gary]

would be wrong to assume that taiwanese would fight just because ukrainians are fighting as well lel

could be also a very smooth take over.

Like how smooth? PLA sends their paratroopers and occupy the Taiwanese Yuan ?

I do hope the PLA share this opinion.

 

[Glass🚬]

Like how smooth? PLA sends their paratroopers and occupy the Taiwanese Yuan ?

I do hope the PLA share this opinion.

ye, chinese shock and awe, taiwan is also a very small country.

just bcuz the ukrainians are keeping up with the russians its very naive to assume that the same thing would happen once the chinese decide to make their move in 2026

 

[xizhimen]

Ukrainians and Russians are different peoples who had historical feuds, people from both mainland and Taiwan are Han Chinese, this is why you see many pro mainland and pro unification people in Taiwan.

 

[Gary]

ye, chinese shock and awe, taiwan is also a very small country.

There will be no shock. Everyone knows this.

just bcuz the ukrainians are keeping up with the russians its very naive to assume that the same thing would happen once the chinese decide to make their move in 2026

I'm not naive there exist a real issue in which the PLA are hampered in its move against Taiwan.

First lets talk weather. There's only 2 months in a year where the weather allows the PLA to realistically mount an invasion on Taiwan and those 2 months are separated by months in between.

And those 2 months are already known. Heck even I knows when.

So no there's certainly not going to be any Shock if the PLA decided to mount an invasion.

Then there's the issue of logistics. To invade Taiwan the PLA will have to mobilize their entirety of available ship trying to cross that 100+km Taiwan strait. The current PLA navy sealift could only handle a weee tinyy bit of what the PLA would need to support just a landing (not yet conquest) of the island nation.

If the Taiwanese could blow just 1/4th of those ships using any available means (mines, submarines, anti ship missile barrage) the chance of a successful landing dropped exponentially.

There's only 7 landing sites in Taiwan. And all of those are known and fully defended. D-Day in Normandy would look like a walk in the park for comparison.

Then there's the issue of terrain. Taiwan is a defenders paradise. All militaries agrees with this (even a Singaporean reserves who trained in Taiwan as part of Starlight program admitted it). Not only it's surrounded by water, its also covered either in thick forest vegetation or thick urban concrete, add that to the mountains surrounding the area.

Anyone who has seen the brutal urban warfare of Aleppo, Mosul, Al-Bab, Damascus, Grozny etc would have easily guess just how hard it will take for the PLA to just reach Taiwan's megalopolis outskirt and try to defend those place. Taiwanese cities unlike that of Ukraine are in conjunction, forming a massive urban sprawl.

So yeah I hope the PLA leadership share the view on such walk in the park because supposedly Taiwanese wont fight.

Heck we're not even talking if the US or Japan decides to get involved.

 

[xizhimen]

China now likely to call America’s bluff over Taiwan, chances for US to win are very low, US allies won't make much difference

HUGH WHITE
11:00PM NOVEMBER 21, 2021

The question no longer seems hypothetical. Last year the Prime Minister compared the dangers today to those of the late 1930s. This year Defence Minister Peter Dutton has repeatedly warned of the risk of war with China over Taiwan. Whether war breaks out is now, he has said, “a question for the Chinese”. If China attacks Taiwan, there seems little doubt – at least in Joe Biden’s mind – that America will go to war. If America goes to war, Dutton says he thinks it “inconceivable” that Australia would not follow. So it seems the decision is already made: if China attacks Taiwan, we will follow America to war with China.

One hopes our political leaders are taking this as seriously as they should. We are in an acute strategic crisis. They acknowledge that the risk of war between America and China over Taiwan is quite high, and they seem to understand that the implications for Australia are exceptionally grave. Why aren’t they doing more to try to reduce the risk?

The answer lies in a deeper understanding of the source of the current crisis, which lies much deeper than the Taiwan issue itself. The future of Taiwan, important though that is in itself, has become the focus of something much bigger – the strategic contest between America and China over which of them will be the primary strategic power in East Asia over the decades ahead. Last week’s virtual summit between presidents Xi Jinping and Biden did nothing to resolve this contest. Beijing wants to take control of Taiwan to assert its position as the leading power in East Asia, and America wants to assert its claims to that position by preventing Beijing from doing so. The one that backs down or loses over Taiwan will concede the contest for regional leadership.

China has ceased to accept America’s longstanding position as the primary power in Asia. It wants to push America out of the region and take its place. China is doing precisely what rising powers throughout history have done.

China’s ambitions raise big, and in some ways unprecedented, questions for Australia about the international setting in which we operate, and about what we can do to shape it. Since 1788 our place in the region has always been framed by the predominant power of our Anglo-Saxon allies – first Britain then America. For the first time now we face a future in which the region’s, and indeed the world’s, most powerful state is not Anglo-Saxon, and is not our ally. It is the biggest shift in Australia’s international setting since British settlement, and it makes new demands on our foreign and strategic policy making.

For as long as Australia has had a foreign policy, our first priority and primary focus has been to do whatever we can, in peace and war, to support the regional preponderance of our “great and powerful friends”. That has been, overall, rather successful for us in the past, and so today our political leaders – on both sides of politics – are seeking to take the same approach. Behind the talk of “the rules-based order” and “a free and open Indo-Pacific” is a simple, almost primal objective – to resist China’s growing power and ambition by encouraging and supporting Washington to defend and perpetuate its regional primacy. If necessary, it seems, by going to war with China.

Of course, no one in Canberra or Washington wants a war, or expects one. They hope and expect that the mere threat of war will make China back off. But China is playing the same game, hoping that its threats of war will make America back off. Both sides assume the other is bluffing. That is a dangerous assumption. Probably neither side is quite sure whether they themselves are bluffing or not, but in an escalating crisis countries often find it harder to admit that they have been bluffing than they expected, and decide that going to war is the less-bad option. Usually this turns out to be very wrong. This is how wars between great powers have often started in the past, when neither side wanted to fight.

So we in Australia would be unwise to join this game unless we are clear in our own minds whether we are bluffing or not. We need to ask ourselves whether going to war with China to defend the US-led order in Asia would be the right and prudent thing to do. And just to be clear, the question is not whether we prefer to live in a US-led order or a Chinese-led order. I think it is perfectly clear that we would and should prefer US leadership. But should we be willing to go to war with China for it?

There are different ways to approach this issue, but let’s start with the quintessential policymaker’s question: will it work? Can Australia secure a stable regional order conducive to our interests and values by going to war with China at America’s side? And the first step to answering that question is to ask what kind of war would it be and will we win it?

If it goes beyond a mere skirmish, a war between America and China over Taiwan would be the first between major powers since 1945, and the first between nuclear-armed states. It would be primarily a maritime war and, until quite recently, America would have been sure of a swift, cheap victory because maritime war is America’s forte. But in the past 25 years China has developed formidable air and naval capabilities specifically to counter US forces in the Western Pacific, so now the most likely outcome is a costly and inconclusive stalemate.

The scale of forces on both sides means it would swiftly become the biggest war since 1945. After a few days or weeks both sides would have lost a lot of ships and aircraft and suffered a lot of casualties, but neither side would have inflicted enough damage on the other to force it to concede. Both sides would then consider threatening to use nuclear weapons to break the stalemate, and no one could be sure whether or when those threats might be fulfilled. On balance one would have to say that the chances of the war going nuclear are quite high. The chances of America winning such a war are very low – and whether Australia, or even Japan, joins the fight makes very little difference.

That has two implications. First, going to war with China will not work to preserve US leadership in Asia; indeed, it will more likely destroy it. That means we in Australia cannot expect to preserve the regional order we’d prefer by going to war for it. Once war starts that order would probably be utterly destroyed.

Second, America’s dwindling chances of winning make its threats to fight less credible in Beijing, which makes it more likely that the Chinese will provoke a crisis to call America’s bluff. All this means that threatening war is not a prudent policy, and actually going to war would be a very big policy mistake. The cost of such a war, in both blood and treasure, would be almost unthinkably large. The costs of war would probably be far higher than the costs of living under a new Chinese-led regional order.

But what of our values? A Chinese-led order in Asia would put at risk fundamental moral precepts which many would argue should never be compromised at any cost. It is credible, for example, to argue that Taiwan’s robust democracy should not be subjugated to Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule under any circumstances. But those who see the question this way should be clear about the scale of the costs involved in acting on that basis. There is a mortal imperative to avoid war, and perhaps especially to avoid nuclear war, which must be balanced against the imperative to support democracy against authoritarianism. We have not yet begun seriously to debate the competing claims of these seemingly incompatible imperatives.

Australia today needs to start debating these questions, which are perhaps comparable to the challenge of climate change in their importance for our future, and may prove to be even more urgent. Things are moving fast, as the recent AUKUS decision shows, and events could force a once-and-for-all decision on our governments literally at any time.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/china-now-likely-to-call-americas-bluff-over-taiwan/news-story/286511e9587c240c05901a6d1d504a8e

 

[xizhimen]

Conflict fear: Beijing outguns US in 'war games' simulating Taiwan invasion - ex-official
CHINA'S splurge on defence spending and military arms has caused US officials and experts to raise concerns they will not be able to defend Taiwan in a war.
By DYLAN DONNELLY
PUBLISHED: 00:49, Sun, Mar 28, 2021

David Ochmanek, former senior Defence Department official and war games assistant for the Pentagon at the RAND Corp think tank, said the US often loses in simulated conflicts with China. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunited with mainland China, and has threatened to do so by military force.

Mr Ochmanek shared the sobering results of simulated conflicts between China and the US over Taiwan, with America serving as ‘the blue team’ versus Beijing’s ‘red team’.

The official said simulations of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan often see the island’s Air Force wiped out within minutes.

Mr Ochmanek also said the simulations held US air bases across the Pacific will come under attack and American warships and aircraft will be held at bay by China's vast missile arsenal.

He added: “Even when the blue teams in our simulations and war games intervened in a determined way, they don't always succeed in defeating the invasion.”

Speaking to NBC News, Mr Ochmanek added China’s military strength has been progressing dramatically for the last decade.

He told the outlet: “You bring in lieutenant colonels and commanders, and you subject them for three or four days to this war game.

“They get their asses kicked, and they have a visceral reaction to it.

"You can see the learning happen.”

Admiral Philip Davidson, outgoing head of the US’ Indo-Pacific Command, recently warned Senator’s the US is losing its military edge over China.

He told the Senate Armed Services Committee: “We are accumulating risk that may embolden China to unilaterally change the status quo before our forces may be able to deliver an effective response.

"Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions. ... And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years."

Adm. John Aquilino, a potential successor to Adm. Davidson, also told Senators on Tuesday Taiwan is Beijing’s “No 1 priority”.

He added: “My opinion is that this problem is much closer to us than most think and we have to take this on.”

China’s defence spending this year is set to rise by 6.8 percent, slightly up from last years increase.

Premier Li Keqiang said the funding would strengthen China’s forces “through reform, science and technology and the training of capable personnel”.

He added, according to a read out from the Chinese Government: “We will boost military training and preparedness across the board, make overall plans for responding to security risks in all areas and for all situations, and enhance the military’s strategic capacity to protect the sovereignty, security and development interests of our country.:

Xi Jinping, Chinese Communist Party chairman, has also repeatedly told People’s Liberation Army troops to be ready for war “at all times” this year.

US President Joe Biden has acknowledged China as America’s biggest rival.

In his first phone call with Mr Xi as President, the White House claimed Mr Biden "underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing's coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan".

Taiwan said on Friday they had recorded the largest incursion yet reported by the island’s defence ministry from China.

The ministry said 20 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, and added the air force deployed missiles to “monitor” the incursion into the south-western part of its air defence identification zone.

US official warns China beats US in 'war games' over Taiwan

CHINA'S splurge on defence spending and military arms has caused US officials and experts to raise concerns they will not be able to defend Taiwan in a war.

www.express.co.uk

 

[Glass🚬]

There will be no shock. Everyone knows this.

I'm not naive there exist a real issue in which the PLA are hampered in its move against Taiwan.

First lets talk weather. There's only 2 months in a year where the weather allows the PLA to realistically mount an invasion on Taiwan and those 2 months are separated by months in between.

And those 2 months are already known. Heck even I knows when.

So no there's certainly not going to be any Shock if the PLA decided to mount an invasion.

Then there's the issue of logistics. To invade Taiwan the PLA will have to mobilize their entirety of available ship trying to cross that 100+km Taiwan strait. The current PLA navy sealift could only handle a weee tinyy bit of what the PLA would need to support just a landing (not yet conquest) of the island nation.

If the Taiwanese could blow just 1/4th of those ships using any available means (mines, submarines, anti ship missile barrage) the chance of a successful landing dropped exponentially.

There's only 7 landing sites in Taiwan. And all of those are known and fully defended. D-Day in Normandy would look like a walk in the park for comparison.

Then there's the issue of terrain. Taiwan is a defenders paradise. All militaries agrees with this (even a Singaporean reserves who trained in Taiwan as part of Starlight program admitted it). Not only it's surrounded by water, its also covered either in thick forest vegetation or thick urban concrete, add that to the mountains surrounding the area.

Anyone who has seen the brutal urban warfare of Aleppo, Mosul, Al-Bab, Damascus, Grozny etc would have easily guess just how hard it will take for the PLA to just reach Taiwan's megalopolis outskirt and try to defend those place. Taiwanese cities unlike that of Ukraine are in conjunction, forming a massive urban sprawl.

So yeah I hope the PLA leadership share the view on such walk in the park because supposedly Taiwanese wont fight.

Heck we're not even talking if the US or Japan decides to get involved.

we will see lel

 

[xizhimen]

Former US Defense secretary says China ‘could bring Taiwan to its knees’ without invading​

BY LEXI LONAS - 06/23/22 1:00 AM ET

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates discussed China’s chokehold on Taiwan amid rising tensions between the two on the most recent episode of the “One Decision” podcast.

Gates talked to former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove and international journalist Julia Macfarlane about major international concerns for the U.S., saying he does not believe China will invade Taiwan.

“I personally think the likelihood of a full-scale invasion is very low. The Chinese have never undertaken an amphibious operation. It would look something like D-Day and it would have to be huge, and it would require a lot of softening up,” Gates said.

Concerns of an invasion rose after Russia attacked Ukraine, with some afraid the action would embolden China to take its own measures against Taiwan.

Taiwan says it is an independent country, while Beijing insists the island is part of China. The U.S. has supported Taiwan with weapons and training but does not formally recognize the island as independent from China.

However, Gates says there is more to be concerned about than just an invasion.

Chinese President Xi Jinping “can bring enormous pressure on Taiwan without ever firing a shot through cyber and through economic measures. He could bring Taiwan to its knees and create huge incentives for Taiwan to have a very different attitude toward China.”

The podcast discussed multiple international affairs, including the invasion of Ukraine.

“Just to illustrate expectations, we now know that the Russians who actually came down from the north and were headed for Kyiv had five days’ logistic support and actually had packed their ceremonial uniforms for the victory parade in Kyiv. That’s how confident they were,” Gates said.

He continued to say Russian forces were so confident in the support they would receive that they paid off local governments and trusted them to follow Russian orders, but that was not the locals’ plan.

“Someone told me that the Russians had paid off a lot of the local governments, but that the people that they had paid off, who they expected, as it were, to side with them immediately, were under the control of the Ukrainian services and had been told to act as though they were accepting the payoff and that they would get the balance of the money later. In fact, the Russians were really suckered into thinking that a lot of the local administrations north of Kyiv would welcome them,” he said.

Russia and Ukraine are going into their fourth month of war as Russian forces were unsuccessful at taking Kyiv, but are making up ground in the eastern Donbas region.

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...d-bring-taiwan-to-its-knees-without-invading/

 

[Gary]

China now likely to call America’s bluff over Taiwan, chances for US to win are very low, US allies won't make much difference

HUGH WHITE

Ahhh another Ukraine vibe

The West’s Weapons Won’t Make Any Difference to Ukraine

U.S. military equipment wouldn’t realistically help Ukrainians—or intimidate Putin.

foreignpolicy.com