Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "What Would a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Look Like? | Ret. US Admiral James Stavridis | GZERO World" video.

  1.  @TWE_2000  The people of Taiwan will be much better served to peacefully reunite with the mainland. In that scenario they may be able to negotiate some of the things that matter to them most, and avoid a war on their soil in the process. But alas, I agree with you that the BS in Hong Kong has made that path extremely unlikely.
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  2.  @TWE_2000  I guess it's a matter of values. If the people of Taiwan feel like a few years of provincial independence is worth a bloody war, the post-war slaughter of those who advocated for independence, and a few decades of seriously hardcore repression in an effort to root out any inkling of separatism when the alternative is a gradual and relatively painless reintegration into the most dynamic economy on the globe without leveled cities or the aftermath of a global cold war structure that leaves them unable to trade or travel in the West, then yeah it's worth maintaining their independence for a little while.
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  3. America would not benefit from PLA military assault on Taiwan. The U.S. might set China back twenty years by destroying her navy (if things indeed went that way) but it would be at huge cost, militarily and economically. Also, there is no guarantee of victory, although I do think that right now the American military is the stronger of the two. And even if the United States drove back the Chinese military, it would just be kicking the can down the road, and the second time round the world would be seeing a ferocity of rage unlike anything the world has seen in since the Germans marched their butthurt armies across Europe in response to Versailles.
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  4. I agree. China's not ready for this yet and they know it.
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  5.  @bigwildcat2020  I agree. From a preparedness standpoint you should always assume that your adversary is both stronger than you think and crazy enough to attack even if they can't win. This is the viewpoint of the American military and it is the appropriate viewpoint. My personal assessment is that the Chinese are viewing the Taiwan resistance and their allies, including the United States, the same way. Hence, they're not ready, and I don't think they will attack in the next fifteen years. That does not mean one shouldn't be prepared in case China's assessment does not match my expectations of it (their assessment, not China).
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  6.  @bigwildcat2020  You may be right. I don't think that China thinks they are ready yet though.
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  7.  @bigwildcat2020  China can walk and chew gum at the same time. The issue with Taiwan is deeply personal to China and while they may be trying to accomplish other things in other parts of the world their heart is always on reunification. China is taking a decidedly non-interventionist approach to foreign policy which allows them to have decent relations with countries that are sworn enemies to each other. It's kind of like how the British dealt with the continental Europeans during the nineteenth century.
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  8.  @bigwildcat2020  The idea that China is stealing everything from the West is a political tool used to get support from people who are angry or frightened because they are no longer competitive and those who are sympathetic to them. Just for the record, I have sympathy for them myself, but it stops short of my feeding into the China blame game. Nobody succeeds at anything without taking advantage of the accomplishments of those who came before. Anyone who tries to reinvent the wheel is doing a great disservice to themselves and to those who depend on them. China used what they had, primarily a promise of access to a huge potential market, to bargain for technology with international manufacturers, and they've done so quite successfully. China and Chinese firms have undoubtedly engaged in some industrial espionage. Of course they are not alone in this pursuit. I recently read the Chernov biography of Alexander Hamilton where he laid out a program that the Treasury Secretary established that paid British engineers to smuggle in factory plans which the British very much considered illegal at the time. I guess the fruits of espionage would be stolen, but not to engage in a little spy work, especially if you're behind technologically, would be stupid. While there are still a few places where China lags behind, at this point it's more efficient and effective to invest in Research and Development than in Industrial Espionage, and China has made that shift. China is investing a great deal of resources into the minds of coming generations and their accomplishments at this point can be considered genuinely Chinese, at least as much as any other countries' accomplishments can be considered theirs.
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  9.  @bigwildcat2020  Thank you. I try to be fair.
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  10.  @bigwildcat2020  The world needs more of those.
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  11.  @bigwildcat2020  I don't know how utopian liberalism is. The absence of government participation is hardly likely to lead to an orderly society.
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