Major and possible dangerous change in US doctrine. President says US would affirmatively defend Taiwan
Well, the Chinese invasion will not happen during a Biden administration, unless Biden does not run in 2024 and somehow wins in 2028, when he is 86. China needs a lot more ships to transport the 1.2 million troops that are estimated to be required to successfully invade Taiwan. An invasion before 2028 is highly unlikely.
China is apparently struggling with Covid and their economy is faltering because of it. So they had a teleconference with 100,000 government officials. China zero-Covid: 100,000 officials attend emergency State Council meeting to revive economy - CNN
Also, I view you personally as inferior to me. Although that’s obviously true, you may like to challenge that. Fine by me, since I’ll win. Unless of course, I don’t.
I think it'll happen during Xi's rule. I suspect that his insistence for becoming the president for life is more than just a power grab, I suspect that he's looking to make history and he knows it'll take longer than 2 terms. I can't think of anything that'll more surely give him a place in Chinese history than taking Taiwan. From shortly after he took over in 2012, he said that that the Taiwan issue cannot stay unresolved forever (I'm paraphrasing). I thought then that it was a change in rhetoric compared to previous administrations, and that it was pretty alarming. His actions since then have IMO continued to lay the groundwork for an invasion, and I can see him launching it within the next 5 years. Recently I believe China said that visits by high-level politicians from the US to Taiwan would be considered crossing a redline, I think that was in reference to talks of Pelosi possibly visiting. That to me is moving the redline and further laying the groundworks for a pretext for an invasion. As for whether China has the capability to invade Taiwan, let's be real here, none of us really knows. The best examples we have are from 70+ years ago. There hasn't even been a major naval war since then let alone a contested amphibious invasion. IMO, their limitations will be tactics and experience, but not materials. It's silly to think China doesn't have enough ships to invade Taiwan, they're the #1 ship-building nation in the world. They don't need a large number of LSTs/LHDs/LHAs etc. like the Wasp or America class to sail <200 miles to drop off troops across the strait. Those types of ships are meant to sail with CBGs and land troops on far distant shores. They have a humongous fleet of civilian Ro/Ro ships within their STUFT fleet that can be used in a cross-strait invasion, and they've been exercising with them lately. Personally, I don't believe Biden said what he said unintentionally. I think our government is aware of Xi's intentions, and wants to step up the rhetoric in a still deniable way to deter him from acting on it. I just hope the world isn't so fatigued with Russia and the turmoil that accompanied it to deal with China when it happens. Let's not forget that Nazi Germany's rise was in large part due to war fatigue from WWI.
I think you have an up-to-the-minute example. Turns out that poduck versus a superpower isn’t the slam dunk it appears.
The logistical challenges of decoupling It’s been three years since U.S. officials sounded the alarm: Citing national security threats, the White House, Congress and federal agencies began ordering that certain Chinese-made equipment had to be ripped out from telecommunications and security networks. But delays, deferrals and a serious funding shortfall have left that threat largely unaddressed, and Chinese technology remains in place throughout America — including in some surprising places. More than 100 telecom providers are still connecting mobile phone calls for hundreds of thousands of customers with gear from Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. Chinese-made equipment is also still serving Department of Defense facilities, the corporate jets of some of the largest U.S. companies and the biggest commercial airlines. “It’s striking that it’s taking people so long to wake up to this reality,” says Isaac Stone Fish, founder and chief executive officer of Strategy Risks, a New Yorkbased consulting firm that helps companies mitigate their exposure to China. “As U.S.-China tensions continue to worsen, and growing numbers of people in the U.S. national security establishment view China as an adversary and likely future combatant in a hot war, certain types of Chinese technology pose clear and present national security threats.” China tech’s grip persists in US long after orders to rip it - Tampa Bay Times
A Chinese aircraft makes an attack (or a potentially deadly prank) on an Australian P-8 aircraft making a routine surveillance flight above the South China Sea. The Chinese aircraft flew close to the P-8 and sent chaff towards the engine of the P-8. This is the second incident with dangerous Chinese pilot behavior in a week. A Chinese pilot buzzed a Canadian aircraft monitoring North Korea. Chinese fighter jet 'chaffs' Australian plane near South China Sea, Canberra alleges - CNN At some point, it would make sense to have an F-35 in the vicinity to shoot down the reckless Chinese pilot and send a message to Beijing.
Saw that. Two think making the Chinese reckless. First is just always looking for opportunities to defend “their” seas of the 9 Dash line that no one else recognizes as sovereign waters. Plus the Aussies are really a target commercially. But in this case they may have had something specific they were hiding, though they are usually pretty open about what they do there.
They may feel that because Australia has a smaller military than the major powers, they can push them around and convince them to stop watching and listening at their borders. I would be surprised if China were necessarily hiding anything worth a potential military conflict, they just don't like being monitored on general principle. They are doing a lot of illegal fishing, building reefs illegally into bases, and bullying of their neighbors, and they don't want those things publicized. They may be looking to start something as far as a minor military conflict. If one of these countries shoots down the offending Chinese aircraft, China would immediately send out propaganda of how this foreign nation attacked one of their innocent pilots, to stir up Chinese nationalism and divert attention from a less-than-stellar economy. They would pretend to take military action against the other country, and maybe down one plane from the other country, but then would back down in favor of a diplomatic solution. They may feel they need to probe to find out what actions incite western countries to a serious response. I don't know if it would be smart to take on Australia as an opponent.
I was talking more economic like this Australia Shows the World What Decoupling From China Looks Like Militarily, Australia is already part of the Quad defensive alliance U.S., Japan, Australia, India begin joint naval drill amid China rise
An interesting article on China's theft of computer chip technology: Engineer Who Fled Charges of Stealing Chip Technology in US Now Thrives in China My question is: why do business with a country committed to theft and deceit?
Why does any company do anything? It's always the same answer, money. ASML made over $2 billion in China last year, which could've been a lot more had the US not forbid them from selling their most advanced machines to China. Perhaps China will be closer than they would've been otherwise by stealing in 10, 20 years, but do you think the current ASML execs will be punished for it? They would've already made many millions by working with China now and will probably be chilling on a private island in the Mediterranean by then. Also, stealing high tech is not easy, you can give China all the blueprints for ASML lithography machines and all the software codes and they won't be able to catch up in 20 years. High tech is constantly evolving, so if you only know how something is designed but you don't know why it's designed that way, you won't be able to effectively build on it to maintain your position. After the USSR dissolved, they sold some of their best fighter jets (e.g. Su-27 series) including ToT to China. A top Russian aerospace engineer was asked if he's concerned about China copying Russian technology, he scoffed and said "what's technology? I'm technology." China did spend decades absorbing the tech and ended up making copies of those Russian jets, even making some incremental improvements on them, but it was an evolutionary dead end. While Russia built on the Su-27 series and built their next gen jet, the Su-57, based on it, neither of China's 5th gen fighter jets was based on it. What's more, even if China knows how ASML's lithography machines are built, how will they get lenses from Carl Zeiss? How will they get lasers from Cymer? How will they get EDA tools from Synosys or Cadence? Every nut and bolt needs to be developed, and they're all constantly evolving, you can't steal the secrets to all of them at all times. Stealing tech can only go so far, to compete with the cutting edge, you need to develop them yourself. This is why these hard tech companies are the real treasures, not the likes of FB, Amazon, Netflix, Uber, etc. which are easily emulated with tech and business models that are easily copied.
China basing in Thailand agreement. More reason to implement the “updated” non TPP, TPP China secretly building naval facility in Cambodia - Tampa Bay Times
I want to stop it is possible, but let’s not imagine emerging power trade secret theft is some new development exhibiting unique Sino-deviousness. Long before the United States began accusing other countries of stealing ideas, the U.S. government encouraged intellectual piracy to catch up with England’s technological advances. According to historian Doron Ben-Atar, in his book, Trade Secrets, “the United States emerged as the world's industrial leader by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations from Europe.” Among those sniffing out innovations across the Atlantic was Harvard graduate and Boston merchant, Francis Cabot Lowell. As the War of 1812 raged on, Lowell set sail from Great Britain in possession of the enemy’s most precious commercial secret. He carried with him pirated plans for Edmund Cartwright’s power loom, which had made Great Britain the world’s leading industrial power. The Spies Who Launched America’s Industrial Revolution
Eh, don't fall for the propaganda, it's not an unusual practice: U.S. Warplanes Chase off Russian Jets in Dangerous Syria Standoff "The F-22s conducted multiple maneuvers to persuade the Su-25s to depart our de-conflicted airspace, including the release of chaff and flares in close proximity to the Russian aircraft and placing multiple calls on the emergency channel to convey to the Russian pilots that they needed to depart the area," Pickart added. Right, no point in looking at these things through a moral-ethical. Countries have to do whatever that's needed to be done to get an edge over their competitors. We need to stop the IP stealing by China not because what they're doing is unethical, but because it gives us an edge.
They might learn that lockdowns that threaten starvation of their populace has a negative effect on their economy
China is having a run on some of their smaller banks. Or they would be having a run on them, if they allowed customers in. Turns out, some of their bank management personnel have been walking off with the deposits. Much of the deposits came from people from across China, due to the popularity of on-line banking. Many customers have been locked out of their life savings, and responded by traveling across China to protest at their bank's physical location. China responded to their response by declaring a "code red" on them, identifying them as high Covid risks, and putting them into quarantine and deporting them back to their home town for further observation. (A code red status means that you cannot use public transportation and other vital services.) China does have a national insurance policy for banks, but has the option of declaring any bank deposit to be illegal. Banks are only supposed to collect deposits from local customers, but for some reason, the government has allowed on-line banking to proliferate, so people deposit money in banks hundreds of miles away. Small banks in China are running into trouble. Savers could lose everything - CNN This could destroy the Chinese economy, if it really is widespread across smaller Chinese banks, which handle 25% of the nation's savings. The normal response to disappearing funds is to take your money out of the smaller banks and put it into larger banks, or keep it at home. If you can't trust the banking system, you may not want to trust other parts of the economy, so you stop buying anything other than necessities. If the entire nation does that, you go into recession, or even a depression. It sucks for the lower income people in China, because they will be hurt the most.
In modern times, it really is a unique Sino-deviousness. In most cases, a developed world power will overlook the occasional I.P. theft from a developing third or even second world country. Once the two countries become economic equals or rivals, there should be less tolerance for I.P. theft. The U.S. had a lot of potential in 1812, but was not the economic equal of Great Britain at that time, especially when considering all of England's other colonies and possessions. The Chinese are allowed to participate in trade and economic competition with western economies, but are not required to abide by the rules of free trade. And they don't. Part of the problem is that China does not have the ability to monitor or regulate the business practices of all of their companies. They spend far more effort identifying and eliminating critical voices and protests against the government--basically, anything that threatens the Communist Party in China. The bigger part of the problem is that the I.P. thefts benefit China, and they can get away with it, so why bother to make an effort to stop it? The legal system in China is almost impossible for a foreigner to win a case in--the deck is 99% stacked against him. A ruling against a Chinese company is regarded as a ruling against China--why would a judge do that? China even has a massive government program to put academics and students into U.S. universities and corporations with a clear mandate to steal technology. Communist governments have a long history of lying, cheating and stealing to get what they want, and their businesses are as likely as not to follow suit. To stop it, western countries would have to stop buying products from China, and pay more to buy them somewhere else (or pay even more to make those products themselves). China has a long history of imperial rule (and now, something between an oligarchy and a dictatorship), but very little history of "rule of law". Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton put enormous trust in China when they concluded that a prosperous China would automatically revert to democracy and western-style governance. Both were too gullible and ignorant to foresee what China would become.
