Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Chinese leader would 'try to use other ways to do this.”

  • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Sounds reasonable, even under very generous assumptions regarding the expansion of the Chinese army, there’s no way they can take Taiwan within the next few decades (unless big, but unlikely, changes in alliances in the region), according to military strategists. And by that time, those generous assumptions might no longer be tolerable for the Chinese economy.

    • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Taking Taiwan would lose so many lives it’s absolutely absurd. It’s complete unviable, especially when the US has already clearly demonstrated an alternative solution (just “not blockade” them like Cuba).

      • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I should spend the time to assemble my sources to oppose yours once I get on a computer, but one thing I found telling was that China’s current landing capability for infantry is in the low thousands whereas they would need in the high hundred thousands for minimal strategic goals, and this is the easy part in terms of shipbuilding. If they expect to invade opposed, they would need a whole fleet with anti naval and air capabilities which they don’t have and does take decades to build.

    • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well, there have been a lot of war games that currently show China losing but by a small margin. It’s likely that in less than a decade China would win by a small margin. According to many US generals.

      So while your wrong, China almost certainly could take Taiwan in less than a decade, I would argue that there’s no chance in hell they would do it. Winning by a small margin here means millions if deaths if not nuclear war. This would be massacre that would make both Israel and Russia’s violence look down right peaceful.

      And it’s not like China hasn’t shown it’s hand in what it would do. War is not China’s goal, a blockade is.