What if Taiwan is the next Ukrain? What will be the global impact of that?

China is again rattling their anti-ship missiles. They have been doing naval blockade drills and are moving a lot of weapons to the coast.

As much as a full blockade or invasion of Taiwan would destroy the world economy, it would destroy the Chinese economy too. The primary qualification for them going ahead is recognizing their economy is doomed either way. I don't think they think that yet.

 

These drills were cut short on the 24th in a humiliating and possibly tragic way. The 4000 ton Chinese utility ship Lianhe Qirui, not very close to Taiwan but possibly partaking in the maneuvers in some indirect capacity, sunk. It is claimed that it was run into by a Chinese submarine, sinking that as well and killing all the crew. Official channels are very quiet, which tends to imply the worst.

The first day also saw Taiwan claim their air force got the better of the Chinese planes in the almost-but-not-quite-combat sparring that cold war opponents sometimes do, gaining position on them and locking on forcing the Chinese to withdraw. There were no Chinese responses to these claims, which again is telling.

 

Good to hear

 

Hopefully China is learning some lessons from Russia that it probably wouldn't go well for them.

 

I dunno if that is the lesson China is learning. Seems to me the lesson is that the West can’t spin up its military industrial complex very quickly, that they can easily be pushed to the right and isolationistic and that as long as they are willing to sacrifice human lives and equipment, they can outlast the West.

 

Another lesson is that that we have a limit - the West will only act to the point of hurting our own economies. A war, or even a meaningful set of sanctions would ruin the US economy and might make certain Presidents wary of acting.

Then again, we need those chips coming out of Taiwan. A Chinese blockade will stop them for a while, an invasion will force the Taiwanese to blow up the fabricators. Might be a doomed if you do, doomed if you don't scenario.

 

The question remains, how will the Trump administration blame the Democrats?

 

No, they learned that they have to continue to leverage their highly educated and motivated workforce to continue to build capabilities instead of what Russia did, which is send money to build capabilities that were funnelled away to oligarchs who put it into Swiss Bank Accounts and the occasional Megayacht.

There is no lesson from Ukraine holding it's own against China other than "Russia sucks at manufacturing and logistics" and "US trained personel are pretty good."

But yes, China did learn that you can roll into a neighboring territory, call it de-Nazification, and the chickenhawks of the US will hold their punches because reasons.

 

China isn't that much better when it comes to graft and their military. Put to the test, I'd fully expect them to crumble the same as Russia, certainly at first. Maybe their dictator can turn it around better than Russia's?

 

You need a hyper competent and well-supplied army when the "border" you are crossing is 50 miles of open ocean. The United States wouldn't attempt this kind of invasion lightly. So I doubt the midlevel officers grifting supplies will help China's military.

 

China, like Russia has put out much propaganda over the years about the effectiveness of their military but I remember that the vaunted Spetsnaz crumbled after being deployed to Ukraine.

 

While this is 100% true, it is also worth noting that Taiwan being an island makes it almost impossible for them to be resupplied and China cares even less about casualties than Russia does.

 

It's true but casualties are easy for China, fuel for vehicles is not. If the first landing force gets there and don't get resupplied because the quartermasters sold off half the inventory on the black market, the invasion fails.

 

The guy on the left would sell them fuel. He'd sell to anyone for the proper inflated price. Unfortunately for China he has been sentenced to prison and may have already reported.