I’m very sure he didn’t. But most people generally don’t follow politics in-depth and take things presidents say at face value. When the head of the most powerful country in the world says something, he needs to watch what he says.
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Agreed. Considering how much the US spends on their military, I’d be VERY ashamed to live in such an economically inefficient country if pat’s claims were true
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Vietnam in 1979 and India in 1962?
What does number 1 mean? The US hasn’t been number 1 in a lot of categories for decades. Education, healthcare, etc. we ain’t half bad in the obesity category though.
But the whole idea of our military which has spent money like crazy for decades at rates much higher than other countries not being ready is absurd. But that doesn’t matter because China doesn’t want to go to war with the United States and neither does the US. Pat’s had a lot of China topics before this is nothing new under the sun in here.
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Can’t even remember them tbh. IIRC I think the one with India wasn’t really a “win”.
But there’s probably a reason why the CCP has never trumpeted these “victories”. If they were clear wins, they’d never let the local population forget them. In textbooks, the CCP was still the one that drove the Japanese out of China, at least for people over 30. Or maybe it’s still the same, I don’t know. The A-bomb leading to the surrender of the Japanese and their withdrawal from China is considered a “rumour” to everyone I’ve spoken at that age.
I won’t say @pat is right, but I will say there are some legitimate concerns about China. For one, they’re an emerging superpower, and history has shown the two-superpower dynamic isn’t the most stable geopolitical structure. I’m not saying we’re on the verge of war, but if global economic conditional deteriorate, people become desperate, and the right catalyst is ignited, all bets are off.
If anything, this speaks to the importance of strengthening our alliances with the Britain, the EU, Canada and Australia. I wouldn’t say China is ahead of us militarily, but our armed forces have spent decades focused on counterinsurgency and are only now refocusing on near-peer threats.
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Good to know, I can disengage now
Exactly!
I don’t know enough to comment. I’ll trust you
One of the key things to remember with military might is that its REAL easy (comparatively) to fight a war on home soil, or near home soil. It is another thing completely to bring your war machine to bear 5k, 10k, 15k miles away across oceans and continents. America is totally unparalleled in our ability and experience bringing war to any and all corners of the globe (not necessarily something to be proud of). The US hasnt fought a war on home soil since the spanish american? And america has bases and naval fleets with airpower all over the world. That is to say that China has to worry about war being brought to their homeland, while American does not have to worry about war being brought to our homeland (unless nukes are used in which case fuck it all to hell. ICBMs are too expensive for conventional warheads to be used on anything but a small scale). So, a war with china would almost certainly be extremely limited and likely fought by proxy a la cold war.
I agree with just about everything you wrote here except for this. This is not a given.
Taiwan is the most likely flashpoint for the next great power war in my opinion. I don’t believe we’re under treaty obligation to intervene, but we have long-standing diplomatic ties that were re-affirmed by the Trump administration. I’m unsure of Biden’s official position, but if there was ever an administration under which China could invade Taiwan with the least amount of risk from the USA, it is right now.
I’ve got nothing but love for Chinese people, culture and history but the CCP can eat a bag of dicks as far as I’m concerned. There are few starker examples that showcase the different long-term outcomes between totalitarian one-party rule and liberal democracy than Taiwan and China.
If China invades, the world will have to answer the same basic question they did in 1939 with Poland. Is the freedom of 25 million people worth fighting over?
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agreed
However
The Taiwanese government isn’t exactly a paragon for efficiency or democracy
There’s massive bureaucratic inefficiency and it really isn’t as “free” as many ppl in the West think it is
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Few governments are.
The outcomes are not as starkly different as they once were, but Taiwan didn’t need to endure government-induced famines that killed millions on their way to the present situation.
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Oh, pre- Deng CCP was shit- politics > economics.
The economy only started taking off when they stopped assuming that central planning everything is a good idea
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Taiwan still has the record for the longest running martial law ever declared. 38 years.
They won’t attack Taiwan. Their leaders are working on building economic ties and every other day they invite Taiwanese university professors on the news to give their analysis on different ways they can strengthen them. The recent military flexing wasn’t for the Taiwanese. It was for the rest of the world and their own citizens to see.
EDIT:
The US has always been perceived as the aggressor in the last couple of decades. They know this. Look at how much ammo Trump’s mouth alone gave them. Don’t take the bait and make them look like the “good guys”.
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I hypothetically know a guy who was sent to China to speak with Deng Xiaoping way back. He had nothing but good things to say about the man’s actual vision of a real free market but knew he had to take small steps because not only would there be economic and social chaos, during that era, his position might be in jeopardy if he went too far. Hypothetically.
#imadethisallup
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In context, I believe Trump was referring to:
We should bear in mind that he is a 70-something man with no medical background who retains 30% of what he’s told and then takes 5% of the remainder to crunch into pithy, bumper sticker soundbites.
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Yea, I’m not concerned with Chinese boots on American soil. Plenty of people die in proxy wars. I imagine conflict with China will start with, “limited military action to contain Chinese aggression” somewhere in the world and escalate from there.
It’s not just a matter of which country has the more capable military. It’s a matter of how quickly the US and its allies can deliver a quick and decisive victory in order to limit loss of life. US forces, as formidable as they may be, are just not optimized for that fight right now. The focus has been on special operations and drone strikes. Rather than comparing capabilities in absolute terms, maybe we should consider rate of change. I bet China’s military will look very different in 20 years. But, what may matter more than anything is US public opinion. Unlike China, the US will have to build some degree of consensus for a prolonged, large-scale military conflict. Don’t underestimate America’s ability to half-ass a war.
Specifics aside, my concern is that geopolitical tensions rise when there is an incumbent superpower and a challenger. Throughout human history, that setup has often led to human suffering.
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US has freaky asymmetrical advantage in naval and air power comparable, maybe exceeding the rest of the world combined. Whether the leaders have the will (and someone doesn’t have an unknown cloaking device or death star) is the huge variable.
After India’s last skirmish with China, calls were made to cut imports from China. India (even freaking India) realized they have lost too much production to China, to get too hasty on that idea. This is basically true world wide and in every goods production area.
The US has been instrumental in creating this Frankenstein, but hey cheap goods for the win.
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Agreed. I don’t think a lot of ppl understand how shit China’s navy is not do they understand how unwilling parents will be to send their only child to die. Attitudes have changed quite a bit
@dt79
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Do you think there are any set of conditions where China might attack Taiwan? As I understand it now China would roll over Taiwan’s military in less than a week. That’s relatively new capability that didn’t exist 40 years ago.
If, say, a modern Moltov-Ribbentrop Pact of sorts was in place that assured USA non-intervention do you think they would cross the straight and occupy the island?
The question is, does China want to destroy Taiwan or unify the two countries? We could have destroyed Iraq but we didn’t and how did that work out?
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