Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "WION" channel.

"Damage peace and stability", meaning against the CCP's interest in isolating and eventually conquoring Taiwan, but seeing how badly Russia is doing against Ukraine recently, then somehow i think that a PLA invasion of Taiwan might go just as badly. Worse, because Taiwan is a well-armed island; even harder to conquor. So, unlike Putin, the CCP are unlikely to carry our an invasion for the next 5 years or so, seeing that they would likely loose a war invading Taiwan, even without US support to Taiwan. Or this would logically be the case, except Xi has a weak grasp of strategic reality and his government is facing more diplomatic basklash and economic decoupling from the world by the month; Poof (wolf) warrior result.
83
The Great Wall of China is even a dubious military stucture. Dubious, because it does not work military in the main historically; in the gunpowder and even pre-gunpowder era. While it's cheaper to garrison foot troops than cavalry in a fortress, it is most militarily effective to make a keep (or fortress) and garrison it with mixed archers (crossbowmen) or musketmen (in a later era) with an additionalmobile cavalry force inside. The cavalry controls the lands around with mobility and counters other attacking or roving bands of cavalry. Easier and cheaper too to build a line of independant forts than also a massive wall connnecting them.The Great Wall was primarily an expensive political border symbol rather than an effective military counter to the northern cavalry mounted tribes incursions south (e.g. the Mongols and Jurchens tribes that both conquored and ruled China, at different times, and the purpose by which the Great Wall was built). These cavary mounted tribes were massively outpopulated by China, even in that remote history, but the Great Wall was hardly a barrier to them.
28
Remember, the human species worldwide is going to have to live with Covid19, and its subsequent mutations for the next thousand years at least. Adding to our burden of existance that was not there until 2020.
9
If you were a US investor, would you invest in China now, with all the interference risks (by the CPC) involved? Is there going to be a return on your capital investment, or will you watch your money haemorrhage away to nothing?
3
It seems that the Solomons could become a bloody battlefield between great powers. Again. All in the name of corruption, perceived mistrusts, a lack of accountancy, weak democracy and criminal conspiracy by elites of both Solomon Islands and China.
2
Why we now have a supply inflation on many goods and some services.
2
Message to Taiwan; don't try appeasement of a totalitarian dictatorship, it didn't work (Hitler and Chamberlain Munich 1938). Worse, it provides the totalitarian more political and territorial leverage over your perceived weakness. This is the logic of such expansionist dictatorships. Don't provoke by flying your own warplanes into mainland Chinese territory, but don't use appeasement or appear weak and vacillating towards their territorial military plane and ships incursions. Ask allies to assist with your fighter defence; you don't have to be Britain in 1940.
1
This is "gray zone" warfare, to invade Taiwan's airspace over and over. To counter this, Taiwan (and more importantly the world), needs to support pushback in these incursions by adding their own fighter jets to be stationed temporarily or permanently in Taiwanese air bases so they they can assist Taiwan in interdicting these incursions and give the Taiwanese air force some recuperation space.This support will cause the CCP to utter threats and retributions (so what else is new), but are they prepared to follow-up with actual shooting? I doubt that the CCP wants to launch a world war against themselves (the chance of defeat and downfall is high for them, the geostrategic situation alone for China is much worse than the USA by location) and if more countries support Taiwan, this eventuality of armed conquest of Taiwan by the PLA will become more and more remote (not more likely as other appeasement types incredibly posture), as the cost of military conquest over Taiwan becomes too costly and risky even for the PLA. Whatever the CCP wants or expects is no longer relevant by their territorially aggressive outside and genocidal acts inside their borders. They the CCP, not Taiwan, have to take a step back or two if they wish to re-engage diplomacy and regional security talks, or possibly lose Tibet to the Indians, an aggressve blockade of Chinese ports and loss of shipping, wealth and resources, bombing of their cities and transport hubs, and so on. Which would be a whole lot worse than the sticky situation the CCP is in now.
1
Somehow, i don't think the Chinese are as fearsome as the Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany), or the Showa Japanese in waging war. They are not a warrior culture (unlike the Germans and Japanese), so fighting them on the battlefield will be not as tough. The CCP are currently run by idiots. The CCP pushes both West (India), South (Taiwan and South China Seas) and East (Japanese Senkaku Islands). Waging simultaneous theaters of war in all these 3 places, will speed their (CCP) demise. So let them dig their own graves, rather like the Germans having 3 fronts in World War 2.
1
Practise live fire on these PLA warships, so they leave the EEC of the South China Seas nations. The CCP armed forces are corrupt and cowardly. They don't have a professional warrior culture, unlike the Germans and Japanese in the early 20th century, so don't expect too much tough fighting. They (the CCP) won't declare an ultimatum in a war anyway.
1
Sorry, EEZ
1
I think Rudd is wrong about Taiwan. How can someone who speaks Manderin fluently get it so wrong? The CCP have never recanted their claim over this island. Mao Zedong fought 2 failed battles trying to take the Kinmen Islands (the Taiwanese held small islands off the mainland China coast). For 25 years, (in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s) the Communists and Taiwanese (the Kuomintang or Chinese nationalists) were shelling one another on a regular basis. The CCP makes regular threats throughout the history of Taiwan in invading it and false claims of it, "returning to the motherland". Why false? Taiwan was never part of CCP held territory. As long ago as 1997 (long before Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen came to power) the CCP cried foul and threatened to invade Taiwan because the Speaker of the US Congress, Newt Gingrich, like Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. The war is probably unavoidable because the CCP want to reunify Taiwan unilaterally without negotiation. This is a long-standing issue of 70 years, and Xi Jinping has made a publically stated ultimatum about it repeatedly, as a non-negotiable source of national pride. The issue really is that Taiwan has radically changed over the past 70 years, including politically, whereas China is still ruled by a one party dictatorship. Furthermore, Taiwan is geostratigically and economically more important to the world now than any time in the past. If Xi gets another term, then you can almost guarantee that there will be a war within the next 5 years when the CCP do finally get around to invading Taiwan in force, and that will drag the rest of the world into a global conflict started by China.
1
Play an aggressive game back; liberate Tibet. This is not just an emotive call to arms, Tibet has vital rivers flowing India's way that China wants to dam. A Casus Belli if i ever saw one. The CPC (like Saddam Hussian's Bathists) will fall over when confronted by a defeat in their Western section of their country. Put the pressure back on them.
1
Need a prohibition international treaty on biological warfare, including a moratorium on researching these microbial agents for warfare purposes similar to the 1925 Geneva Convention Protocol on chemical warfare and weapons (with extended clauses).
1
It's about getting the more long-range and stealithier capabilities of nuclear subs, rather than the earlier planned conventional subs to replace the aged Collins class subs of the RAN. Submarines are vital warships, used defensively and offensively in the (attack sub role, not nuclear missile strike) in defending a island nation (which is Australia) sea lanes from hostile fleets, and to bring attack close to the shores of a hostile country against shipping. Geostrategically, Australia heavily relies on free trade in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans, via shipping, so a long-range silent vessel, like the nuclear subs, are highly useful in this role of defending Australia and also assisting in a naval blockade of a hostile country (now most likely China) during a global coalition war.
1
There is diplomatic action that civilzed democratic countries can (and should) immediately proceed with Taiwan that can and will counter the ramped up military aggression that the CCP is unilaterally projecting daily at Taipei and Taiwan. The likilihood of a full-force military invasion by the CCP of Taiwan is unfortunately high within the next 6 years. While the CCP will hate and attempt economic blockade of commodities and trade of countries that support Taiwan (like Australia for not supporting Taiwan, but asking a simple request about the origins of Covid19), they will not succeed if this is done in concert with dozens of countries at once because of the high cost of trade sanctions to themselves by blocking all these countries and choking trade supply chains. The next stage is to move quickly to a defence treaty of Taiwan. Taiwan is majority Chinese, so hysterical statements by the CCP that support of Taiwan is "racist" will simply be ridiculous and a diversion from the case in point. A loss of Taiwan to the CCP is far more serious than "prestige". Taiwan is important economically and would be a very useful base for the CCP to project military power into the South China Sea permanently and to threaten an invasion of Japan, which then it has a better chance of pulling off, and to directly project military power across the Pacific Ocean.
1
I don't necessarily agree with this analysis. The Jinping dictatorship is desperate and dangerous; it blames the West for all it's faults, historical or otherwise. The CCP created museums of hate against the Opium Wars, which were waged over a hundred and sixty years ago. In other words, it takes a revanchist, not rational view of the present times. Furthermore, it launches hostile actions against several countries simultaneously; how does that make any geopolitical sense? You draw your attention to one adversary at a time surely, or you disperse your forces which is highly risky. China is large and quite powerful but it does not have any allies to do the fighting for it's interests elsewhere (unless you count the Taliban as allies; a poor choice). As you take unilateral hostile actions (as China does), countries can counter very effectively against you without allies. As China goes backwards at home with this particularly aggressive idiologically driven socialist government, it becomes more desparate and dangerous abroad. The revanchist reunion of Taiwan by force by the PLA is now a definite possibility in the not so distant future. Despite the doubters about the United States commitment to Asia (as it's disasterous withdrawal from Afghanistan seemed to demonstrate), it takes particular hubris to believe that the US will abandon Taiwan to a military takeover by force by the PLA; far too many political and economic issues are are stake in abandoning the fate of Taiwan, which was simply not there with Afghanistan. In other words, Afghanistan was too damaged (from four decades of war) to repair. Hence, you cannot compare apples with oranges, which is what the doubters lump-together foolishly.
1