bclemms
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I think we can actually discuss this without politics since it seems to be the one topic that both parties are on the same team.
Quick overly simplified history
Taiwan has a functioning democratic system, acts as an Independent country but China still claims Taiwan as a state of the PRC. Some countries recognize Taiwan as an independed countries, most do not. China has warned if Taiwan tries to claim full Independence they will invade. Very similar situation to Honk Kong but on a much larger scale.
Taiwan has blossomed into the world's 20th largest economy and rising quickly with the 13th highest GDP per capita in the world on the backbone of it's booming tech manufacturing and chip sector.
The US has a treaty with Taiwan that requires the United States to have a policy "to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character", and "to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan." This is where the USA and allies have basically drawn the line in the sand. If China invades, we go to war.
In the last decade, the PRC under President Xi has sworn to take Taiwan back in under China. Taiwan has basically vowed to fight to the death. China has been expanding across the South China Sea very aggressively ignoring many treaties, peace agreements and claiming a whole bunch of disputed land, islands, territories, mineral rights, etc. Basically they have been doing whatever they want while using money and trade as both incentive and weapon against the rest of SE Asia while undergoing the largest military build up in history. China claims it is essential to protect the country since the US and allies have completely surrounded China with military bases. In Obama's pivot to Asia those military bases have the support of a fairly large fleet of US naval ships.
Trump vowed to protect Hong Kong along with the UK and even made some pretty detailed threats during a UN speech a couple of years ago. China took Hong Kong and did so with almost no effort and no reprocussions essentially calling the bluff. The tension between US and China has been high, particularly in trade, financial and IP matters and has trickled well into individual companies and now stock exchanges. The tensions have continued to escalate under the Biden administration as they have been absolute on a tough stance with China.
Last month, the US and UK entered an agreement with Australia to provide the most advanced nuclear submarines available. Technology that US has only sold/shared with UK. Australia has a huge interest in US-China relations since they have such a close proximity to China as well as massive trade. This angers China since they see it as an expansion of US military power in their region and puts even more nuclear subs in their neighborhood.
For years, China has been flying military aircraft over Taiwan. Last week they went big sending two waves of 52 aircraft including a variety of China's most advanced fighters, nuclear capable bombers, advanced anti-submarine and anti-ship planes. Taiwan scrambled fighter jets. Each time China does this, Taiwan doesn't know whether it is an actual attack or just a show of military force increasing the risk of an accidental encounter and leaving Taiwan very vulnerable because it delays their response in the event of an actual attack. China would love nothing more if Taiwan accidentally fires a missle or engages because they can then claim Taiwan was the aggressor and turn it into a full on military takeover. While China vs Taiwan seems like a mismatch and China could win it would have to come at an extremely high cost.
Today, reports that the US military has had troops in Taiwan for over a year. Despite it only being a small group of 24 troops, they are there to train the Taiwanese in advanced warfare special ops. China has long threatened that US troops in Taiwan would bring military retaliation. The Chinese are likely just going to return fire with rhetoric and some type of postured response since it is only 24 troops but it once again increases tension.
What's at risk?
1. The good ole, never ending battle between communism and democracy. If China takes over Taiwan it would be a massive loss to democracy in Asia. It would remove a very important foothold of the US into Asia in terms of military strategy and finanicil markets. If China were to take Taiwan it would leave the rest of Southeast Asia vulnerable to Chinese expansion.
2. Economic and military might- More importantly for the USA it could cripple financial and tech markets since Taiwan produces 60% of the world's computer chips including a huge sum of the chips used in our military weaponry. Making high end computer chips takes a lot of time, huge and very complex factories that can't just be quickly built. The countries for chip manufacturing are Taiwan, South Korea, China (Hong Kong produces a lot), Singapore and Malaysia. The computer chip is quickly replacing oil as the most important "resource" in the world. Without it, weapons can't be buit and economies can't function. China has long thrived off of US IP theft. When a US company goes overseas to China the technological advances go with it and China quickly steals the technology. This is why every high end computer chip with the latest technology are manufactured in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, not China. Computer chip speeds are a function of control from weapon technology, green energy capabilities, AI, space, machine learning capabilities and Cyber Warfare. Cyber warfare is quickly becoming the most important aspect of military power from spying to being able to completely shut down a country's infrastructure without firing a single shot. There is also a race to space that includes the militarisation of space. All of this revolves around computer chips.
3. Cold war with China- This is a likely path we are headed towards and may already be in the early stages. Unlike the cold war with Russia, this has so many tentacles due to US-China economic interactions.
4. Full on conflict- Something I think everyone would want to avoid.
5. Nuclear threat- China has greatly expanded it's nuclear production capabilities in the past few years including building a new plant, new silos, new and increased ICBM's, expanding nuclear capable submarines, ships and planes.
While this is a long post, it just starts to scratch the surface. Would love to hear some thoughts.
Personally, I think this entire thing is a symptom of the commercialization of America with cheap goods. It is the US consumer and the US voter that allowed American industry to leave the country for cheap labor. It is the American consumer that has allowed the huge explosion of China's economy which they immediately began using the proceeds to build military strength. As if the pandemic and global supply chain disruptions haven't been enough, we have done almost nothing to increase manufacturing capabilities at home. The Trump administration vowed to stop companies from going overseas but in reality, the number of companies that left (and returned to the US) were almost identical to the Obama administration, so once again more rhetoric and no action. Manufacturing companies continue to site lack of skilled labor and high costs make it impossible to stay (or come back) to the US. This was likely fueled even farther with the push to get everyone higher education combined with the disregard for trade schools and skills. The wages and regulations are always going to produce higher costs but there has been nothing to help offset or any sort of real incentive programs created. I also feel like this is the long term answer to the US-China solution.
As for the short term. We have without a doubt surrounding China with military and have a really long history of abusing China. If roles were reversed and we had Chinese nuclear capable submarines and aircraft carriers off our coast as well as Chinese Navy bases all over Mexico, Canada, Bahamas and Cuba we'd be upset too. China likes to use the line that they don't invade countries and built the biggest wall in history to keep other countries out. It's true, China has a long history of not invading countries and the US has a long history of being the aggressor. However, it sure looks like China is adopting many US policies of global expansion with the use of financial power as well as a massive military build up. This is all coming to a head in Taiwan and China really has us in a no win position. Give up Taiwan and China controls us. Defend Taiwan and it risks everything while sending the economy into the dark ages. Cold war could put the entire globe in the poor house since both are running extremely high levels of national debt and the two countries combined equal more than half of the world's GDP.
Quick overly simplified history
Taiwan has a functioning democratic system, acts as an Independent country but China still claims Taiwan as a state of the PRC. Some countries recognize Taiwan as an independed countries, most do not. China has warned if Taiwan tries to claim full Independence they will invade. Very similar situation to Honk Kong but on a much larger scale.
Taiwan has blossomed into the world's 20th largest economy and rising quickly with the 13th highest GDP per capita in the world on the backbone of it's booming tech manufacturing and chip sector.
The US has a treaty with Taiwan that requires the United States to have a policy "to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character", and "to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan." This is where the USA and allies have basically drawn the line in the sand. If China invades, we go to war.
In the last decade, the PRC under President Xi has sworn to take Taiwan back in under China. Taiwan has basically vowed to fight to the death. China has been expanding across the South China Sea very aggressively ignoring many treaties, peace agreements and claiming a whole bunch of disputed land, islands, territories, mineral rights, etc. Basically they have been doing whatever they want while using money and trade as both incentive and weapon against the rest of SE Asia while undergoing the largest military build up in history. China claims it is essential to protect the country since the US and allies have completely surrounded China with military bases. In Obama's pivot to Asia those military bases have the support of a fairly large fleet of US naval ships.
Trump vowed to protect Hong Kong along with the UK and even made some pretty detailed threats during a UN speech a couple of years ago. China took Hong Kong and did so with almost no effort and no reprocussions essentially calling the bluff. The tension between US and China has been high, particularly in trade, financial and IP matters and has trickled well into individual companies and now stock exchanges. The tensions have continued to escalate under the Biden administration as they have been absolute on a tough stance with China.
Last month, the US and UK entered an agreement with Australia to provide the most advanced nuclear submarines available. Technology that US has only sold/shared with UK. Australia has a huge interest in US-China relations since they have such a close proximity to China as well as massive trade. This angers China since they see it as an expansion of US military power in their region and puts even more nuclear subs in their neighborhood.
For years, China has been flying military aircraft over Taiwan. Last week they went big sending two waves of 52 aircraft including a variety of China's most advanced fighters, nuclear capable bombers, advanced anti-submarine and anti-ship planes. Taiwan scrambled fighter jets. Each time China does this, Taiwan doesn't know whether it is an actual attack or just a show of military force increasing the risk of an accidental encounter and leaving Taiwan very vulnerable because it delays their response in the event of an actual attack. China would love nothing more if Taiwan accidentally fires a missle or engages because they can then claim Taiwan was the aggressor and turn it into a full on military takeover. While China vs Taiwan seems like a mismatch and China could win it would have to come at an extremely high cost.
Today, reports that the US military has had troops in Taiwan for over a year. Despite it only being a small group of 24 troops, they are there to train the Taiwanese in advanced warfare special ops. China has long threatened that US troops in Taiwan would bring military retaliation. The Chinese are likely just going to return fire with rhetoric and some type of postured response since it is only 24 troops but it once again increases tension.
What's at risk?
1. The good ole, never ending battle between communism and democracy. If China takes over Taiwan it would be a massive loss to democracy in Asia. It would remove a very important foothold of the US into Asia in terms of military strategy and finanicil markets. If China were to take Taiwan it would leave the rest of Southeast Asia vulnerable to Chinese expansion.
2. Economic and military might- More importantly for the USA it could cripple financial and tech markets since Taiwan produces 60% of the world's computer chips including a huge sum of the chips used in our military weaponry. Making high end computer chips takes a lot of time, huge and very complex factories that can't just be quickly built. The countries for chip manufacturing are Taiwan, South Korea, China (Hong Kong produces a lot), Singapore and Malaysia. The computer chip is quickly replacing oil as the most important "resource" in the world. Without it, weapons can't be buit and economies can't function. China has long thrived off of US IP theft. When a US company goes overseas to China the technological advances go with it and China quickly steals the technology. This is why every high end computer chip with the latest technology are manufactured in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, not China. Computer chip speeds are a function of control from weapon technology, green energy capabilities, AI, space, machine learning capabilities and Cyber Warfare. Cyber warfare is quickly becoming the most important aspect of military power from spying to being able to completely shut down a country's infrastructure without firing a single shot. There is also a race to space that includes the militarisation of space. All of this revolves around computer chips.
3. Cold war with China- This is a likely path we are headed towards and may already be in the early stages. Unlike the cold war with Russia, this has so many tentacles due to US-China economic interactions.
4. Full on conflict- Something I think everyone would want to avoid.
5. Nuclear threat- China has greatly expanded it's nuclear production capabilities in the past few years including building a new plant, new silos, new and increased ICBM's, expanding nuclear capable submarines, ships and planes.
While this is a long post, it just starts to scratch the surface. Would love to hear some thoughts.
Personally, I think this entire thing is a symptom of the commercialization of America with cheap goods. It is the US consumer and the US voter that allowed American industry to leave the country for cheap labor. It is the American consumer that has allowed the huge explosion of China's economy which they immediately began using the proceeds to build military strength. As if the pandemic and global supply chain disruptions haven't been enough, we have done almost nothing to increase manufacturing capabilities at home. The Trump administration vowed to stop companies from going overseas but in reality, the number of companies that left (and returned to the US) were almost identical to the Obama administration, so once again more rhetoric and no action. Manufacturing companies continue to site lack of skilled labor and high costs make it impossible to stay (or come back) to the US. This was likely fueled even farther with the push to get everyone higher education combined with the disregard for trade schools and skills. The wages and regulations are always going to produce higher costs but there has been nothing to help offset or any sort of real incentive programs created. I also feel like this is the long term answer to the US-China solution.
As for the short term. We have without a doubt surrounding China with military and have a really long history of abusing China. If roles were reversed and we had Chinese nuclear capable submarines and aircraft carriers off our coast as well as Chinese Navy bases all over Mexico, Canada, Bahamas and Cuba we'd be upset too. China likes to use the line that they don't invade countries and built the biggest wall in history to keep other countries out. It's true, China has a long history of not invading countries and the US has a long history of being the aggressor. However, it sure looks like China is adopting many US policies of global expansion with the use of financial power as well as a massive military build up. This is all coming to a head in Taiwan and China really has us in a no win position. Give up Taiwan and China controls us. Defend Taiwan and it risks everything while sending the economy into the dark ages. Cold war could put the entire globe in the poor house since both are running extremely high levels of national debt and the two countries combined equal more than half of the world's GDP.
