Yet didn’t a report come out a while ago that when the US war gamed this, it looked really bad regardless of the outcome?
Yes, in most scenarios the US and Taiwan came out on top or in a situation where they would do so eventually, but the losses were pretty staggering. And that's just the immediate ones - shifting to a world where China isn't everyone's factory is going to be painful to adjust to. The main issue is that America does a show of force if someone looks like they are going to invade. And that's a good thing, I think, because there's a chance you avoid conflict all together. But bringing in a couple aircraft carriers and populating Japanese bases with Air Force aircraft makes some inviting targets for long range missiles and China has a lot. This recent video goes into much more detail about the wargames.
Another issue is that the level of training and ability among Chinese soldiers and sailors is pretty dismal. There are many reasons for this, but one important one is that China simply has not fought in a war in a long, long time.
If there is a revolution maybe, the CCP has a lot of ways to control this, but it can always get out of-hand. But a good thing going for China is that there is no single country or single market big enough to replace China (as cheap as China). Having all kinds of factories in one country had the advantage that if you were some inventor that wants to manufacture a product quick and cheap, Chinese business would hook you up with all the needed supplies for your product, from metals, to fabrics, to motors, ect. China made the production supply chain very simple. That will be practically impossible to replicate.
No, because what's important are missiles. If you have more (correctly working) missiles than the other side, you win. So you need a ship big enough to carry lots of missiles. But more importantly, you need to be big enough to carry the radar that guides those missiles, and those things are massive, heavy, and very power hungry. So a big ship carrying 96 missiles with a very powerful radar is much, much more combat effective than a group of smaller ships with a dozen or two missiles each and weaker radar. But now you have your eggs in fewer baskets. A hit on the big ship will make it combat ineffective, a hit on one small ship does not effect the other small ships. So you have to decide how to balance that out.
As the population drops and the economy implodes, the CCP’s control is going to slip. Particularly as Xi has made anyone competent disappear or leave the country. This includes China btw. China’s labor costs are already quite a bit higher than a lot of countries (including Mexico) and that’s only going to get worse as the labor pool shrinks due to their lack of babies. All very true, but, again, that is largely a thing of the past for China.
FWIW China is realising the same supply risks as the US and the need to onshore key industries War in Taiwan would be bad for them too. I think they were more interested in the Trumpian years when they cracked down in HK with no consequence.
Russia can but dream to aspire to the staggering incompetence and corruption of the modern CCP bureaucracy.
Do you mean lately or historically? China has come quite far in the last decades and created powerful industries and competencies. Russia really has not done that. I agree in recent times Xi's regime is getting much worse
The CCP admitted to fabricating the entire current population of Russia. These guys aren't even in the same league as each other.
We don't know exactly what happened to them, but it looks like everyone that took part in these protests has been quietly disappeared. We've never had this level of personal tracking in an authoritarian regime before. East Germany couldn't have imagined the level of knowledge the CCP has of every individual. It's now clear no one thing, no matter how big, can push this government over. If it isn't obliteration at the hands of an external military power (which is what it took to bring fascist Germany down), it has to be multiple simultaneous collapses in society. The way China is going, I'm pretty sure that will happen, but these things always take far longer than one expects.
US 4 star general has gut feeling of war with China in 2025. “Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.” Not the position of the Pentagon, but.., https://www.reuters.com/world/us-four-star-general-warns-war-with-china-2025-2023-01-28/
Come back in three years to tell me I'm wrong but this China cannot conquer Taiwan and will not invade.
here is my fun theory, the polar vortex occurring has pulled the balloon off track and into Canadian and US airspace.
this intrusion clearly demonstrates the ‘balloon gap’ that now exists in our ‘conflict’ with Communist China Biden has let the Red Chinese develop more and better balloons Congress needs to investigate this sad state of affairs where the US has once again fallen being our Communist adversaries
********ing GERMANY is way ahead of us in the balloons race. If they had 99 as of 1983, imagine how many they have now.
but seriously... why don't we try to gather it and find out what it is? the Pentagon said it violated our air space, what are we waiting for?
How do you know they aren’t doing that without taking it out of the air? You think we don’t know exactly what it is doing yet not doing anything about it?
You’re right, I don’t And we might too but this is an opportunity to put China on the defensive, let them explain and apologize