I don’t think they’re stable at all. They’re trying to physically relocate hundreds of millions of rural folk into new middle class illusions, re-educate them to toe the Party line, put them to work in State run and funded factories making cheap crap that they themselves will have to buy and keep their savings in the Central Bank o’ China so the great subsidizing continues perpetually. It is, how we say in The West, a deeply flawed system. But it’s big and will take time to shake apart.
Didn’t the new mayor in K town just announced he was going to let Chinese people buy real estate and the central committee could go fuck themselves? In essence he is Selling Taiwan to the Chinese
And he is doing it right in what once was DPP heartland. Stranger things have happened but not many! Going by what is happening in K Town I doubt there would be much resistance from local Taiwanese in the case of a genuine Chinese attack. However, looks like an invasion won’t be necessary if the Chinese can start buying up the land in once what were extremely pro independence areas of Taiwan. Money talks I guess.
Any attack on Taiwan will destroy China’s economy. Meager tariffs by Trump are having crippling effects. If China actually attacks Taiwan, they will lose the huge foreign investment by Taiwan, Japan and the US at the very least. Add siginificant trade barriers and sanctions that will be put into place by the west and the cost of war and I just don’t see it happening unless the Party’s grasp on the country slips to the point they fear a revolution or something, at which point they might try to instigate a war to shore up nationalistic spirit.
A tussle is playing out in the market for so-called light oils, which have a lower sulfur content and are less dense than heavier varieties. When processed, these grades typically yield a higher amount of fuels like gasoline and naphtha. And now, American supplies are weighing on prices for such crudes as well as fuels made from them.
Light oil pumped in U.S. shale fields is increasingly making its way to Asia, undercutting sales by the likes of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, America is exporting a record amount of refined fuel, contributing to a global glut in gasoline and naphtha. That’s hurting some of the biggest members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as they prepare to curb crude output in a bid to stabilize the market.
Middle East producers – still the dominant suppliers to Asia – are being forced to tackle American crude competition by lowering their oil pricing to defend their market share. The refiners, meanwhile, are contending with booming U.S. fuel shipments dragging down their returns from making processed products.
“It is no surprise that Middle Eastern producers are having to cut light crude prices,” said Virendra Chauhan, an analyst at industry consultant Energy Aspects Ltd. Over the course of 2018, the key sources of global oil-output growth have included light crude from U.S. shale fields and Saudi Arabia, he said.
While Middle East producers such as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi are reducing the pricing for their lighter crudes, American exports to Asian nations such as India and South Korea are surging. Even a temporary halt by China due to its trade war with the U.S. hasn’t significantly dented overall flows this year.
So, shale oil boom, plus refined exports undercuts OPEC, halt on refined product sales to China, flood India and South Korea. There are many ways to defang the tiger.
You know, this is just as much a media narrative as Trump are dumdum is. Putin’s cards are on the table. He’s played out. His superduper hypersonic nuke is nonsense. Russia has oil to Europe. But they have no real industry, horrible demographics and a real threats of Islamic fundamentalists eating away its southern border like a cancer. He’s a KGB tyrant who consolidated power like , er a KGB tyrant would have. He would sh8t his pants if the US put nukes in say, Norway or Poland. I mean come on, his “big play” in the mid-term election here was to use the US fascination with identity politics to turn Blacks against voting. Wow man, that’s 3D chess right there.
This idiotic display was allowed to pass unassailed because he so smart an scary. gftooh.
It would be very destructive , still nationalism has caused multiple world wars in the past.
We don’t think some things can happen until they do.
Bit like during the cold war. There were at least a couple of times the world could have fried. It’s just rather fortunate that we didn’t. Folks look back and say mutual assured destruction and the arms race worked. It did work but it might not have.
So, TL;DR: Taiwan will be able to hold itself from China for a good enough while where it would gain international attention (assuming there is no initial ally involvement) to the point where it ruins the whole attempt. Interesting. What we aren’t seeing is how the international perspective there will ultimately be on China given they attempt this; they will probably lose allies (save maybe Russia) and it would only harm the economy.
Has anyone read Three Body Problem by Liu CiXin? An alien race creates a VR game so that human scientists can solve the conundrum for them.
The game could be open-sourced, it would be a cluster, but I bet we’d get some radically effective alternatives to the ‘wait and see’ complacency strategy in place now.
Oh… was this a serious thread?
This thread (videos) is hilarious:rofl:
20th Century warfare tactics applied to a 21st Century scenario.
Anybody hear of cyber warfare??? If the Chinese decided to “attack” Taiwan all they would need to do is activate the system “viruses” (which are probably already in place) and turn off all major services.
No electricity
No water
No MRT
No communications
etc.
They would probably send a couple of subs to cut the undersea internet cables and…
GAME OVER!
No way to rally the troops and worst of all - NO FACEBOOK - panic in the streets!! It would be over in a matter of hours.
I know I’d follow Freddy Lim into battle 
