For me sports betting will still go on 
20,000 troops dead in a matter of months to capture a destroyed minor city wouldnât qualify as doing well in any normal circumstances.
Certainly Russia is far from being a normal country.
1 Like
The Wagner group seem to be doing better than Putinâs military. Of course, we donât know for sure.
They didnât do so well in Syria when 200 Wagner troops attacked a US post. They all got killed with no losses on the US side.
I have a sneaking suspicion Prigozhin doesnât give a fuck about fatalities.
2 Likes
Publicly?
Yes Abe warned them publicly.
1 Like
@TT @Mick maybe a bit of a clean up and all the China invading Taiwan be moved to the appropriate thread before it becomes a distraction here.
Thanks
Imagine if the US and the west seized assets of CCP members abroad like they did with Russians.
I would have to think this would be a far more powerful tool to stop a war compared to Russian. Hopefully china seeing that happen will make them reconsider such a war.
I think thats one of the weaker financial weapons and one they are already expecting.
The stronger financial weapons would be stopping any company doing business in the US doing business in China. And really banning them, no excuses.
Chinese planes need german parts,. I think their hsr is 70% foreign components.
US has a lot of financial weapons at its disposal. In the case of a US aircraft carrier being sunk, I think US government would be able to push a 5% cut in GDP to push them through
Iâve said this before. But canceling student visas would also really put pressure on China.
Hate to see countries using that educational tactic though. When Taiwan sent back African scholarship students from diplomatic partner countries because of their hiv status, during A-bianâs term no less (the champion of human rights 
), it was Banana Republic tactics.
This is like elementary level.
Iâm talking about stopping china get access to food, technology and cutting them completely out of the US led system
It wonât be like sanctions against Russia
If China is an actual hot war with the U.S. , of course student visas are cancelled
You are talking about ww3
What happened to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny?
Claims he was seriously injured in a bomb attack in early May, and has been in hospital/recovering ever since.
Interesting video clip:
Film director Vladimir Bortko talks about Western and Eastern Ukraine.
Bortko has lived in Kiev for 28 years and knows firsthand that Western Ukraine is very different from Eastern Ukraine. Vladimir does not believe that there is a Ukraine separate from Russia, but notes that its western part is an absolute national entity, a different country.
He is doing just fine.
They made a video just to embarrass Russian propaganda.
Or maybe Ukrainians cloned him in the bio labs. 
Reddit - Dive into anything
2 Likes
This should be in another thread, but this article is good at going through scenarios
A conflict over Taiwan would devastate the global economy, but the costs would be especially high for China. The negative economic impact would be felt as soon as hostilities begin. Commercial shipping through the war zone and nearby ports would collapse, supply chains for many goods would seize up, and financial markets would panicâpotentially even more so than during the 2008 global financial crisis. Beijing would likely impose emergency economic measures such as even stronger capital controls, selling Chinese assets abroad, stockpiling emergency supplies, suspending critical exports, rationing key imported goods, or restricting foreign travel.3 Early resistance by Taiwanâs military would compel China to take economically disruptive measures to protect its military assets in its eastern provinces and population centers from air or missile attacks from Taiwan or U.S. forces. Even a minimal level of U.S. military involvement would significantly disrupt this vital region.
- The two most important determinants of the warâs intensity and durationâand thus economic impactâwould be the degree to which Taiwan resists and whether the United States is engaged militarily. Neither condition is certain, but both are probable. To assume Taiwan would not resist, one must have a bleak view of Taiwanâs civil society. To assume the United States would not engage militarily, one needs to at least assume that Beijingâs military operations would be extremely effective and quick while also not targeting U.S. forces in the region. Beijing would have an official pretense for any military action, but unless Taiwan took reckless actions, such as declaring independence, it is unlikely that leaders in Washington and other Western capitals would find them convincing. In the early days of the conflict, global firms and investors would assume that U.S. military intervention and general escalation pose high risks, absent extremely unlikely statements by Washington that explicitly disavow Taiwan.
- A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that a year-long war between the United States and China would reduce Chinaâs GDP by 25â35 percent and U.S. GDP by 5â10 percent. However, the study did not examine the implications for global supply chains or estimate effects from sanctions, infrastructure damage, or cyberattacks.4 Given Chinaâs subsequent economic growth, the economic damage ratios now are probably somewhat more in Chinaâs favor, but the overall costs (considering all factors) could be considerably higher. A war would have an immediate impact on the three Chinese provinces nearest to TaiwanâGuangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiangâwhich together account for 22 percent of Chinaâs GDP and 17 percent of its population. Damage would not be limited to coastal provinces, however, because interior provinces are part of an intricate network of domestic supply chains.
- Most maritime trade and air freight within range of the war zone would be disrupted. International shipping and logistics firms would try to reroute traffic around the conflict zone and would avoid entering ports in or near Taiwan. Shipping insurance premiums would surge. Chinese ports accounted for roughly 40 percent of shipping volume among the worldâs 100 largest ports in 2020; six of Chinaâs largest ports are near Taiwan and would likely be directly impacted by a Chinese attack. Nearly half of the global container fleet and five-sixths of the largest ships transit through the Taiwan Strait, most of which would be rerouted.5 A complete disruption of Chinaâs trade would reduce global trade in added value by $2.6 trillion, or 3 percent of world GDPâand this figure, based on peacetime valuations of global supply chains, only captures the first-order effect on trade.6 In the short term, however, existing inventories of goods or supplies would mitigate the effect on global firms and consumers.
- Even in the early stages of a conflict, multinational corporations (MNCs) would face significant pressure to begin unwinding operations in China. Managersâ foremost consideration in the hours and days after a Chinese attack would be employee safety, and many foreign MNCs would seek to exfiltrate foreign passport holders. Companies operating near the eastern coastline would likely halt operations even if they encounter no supply chain disruptions. MNCs exporting from or sourcing parts from China might try to shift production or inputs to other locations, although this would be expensive, and there would be competition from other firms doing the same thing with limited alternative capacity. MNCs operating in China for access to its domestic market would be the least likely to try to pull out because direct investments, such as factories and retail locations, are difficult to liquidate in a crisis. Such firms might conclude that even in dire scenarios, the Chinese market would still be enormousâat least after the conflict. However, they would fear the appropriation of their assets by Chinese authorities and the reputational costs in other markets if they remain in a China hostile to the West.
- China would face significant capital-flight pressures and a massive selloff of Chinese assets. Chinese citizens, companies, and investorsâas well as foreign firmsâwould seek to jump the queue and avoid having their international capital ensnared by Western sanctions. While China already maintains stringent capital controls, the central bank would likely issue additional unofficial âwindow guidanceâ to Chinaâs major state banks, directing them to halt outgoing transfers. Unofficial and illicit channels exist for motivated parties, but they are relatively narrow owing to regulatorsâ efforts to diminish their effectiveness. In addition to selling off onshore Chinese stocks, many investors would also dump their holdings of Chinese stocks listed on overseas exchanges. The exchange rate of the onshore and offshore renminbi would plunge, necessitating heavy interventions by the central bank to arrest the slide. As during other periods of heightened risk, global investors would flee to assets perceived as safe, especially U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. bank deposits.
The United States would impose at least some economic sanctions on China in any scenario. But if U.S. forces were engaged, the sanctions would be severe, and Washington would probably coordinate withâor even compelâmajor allies to join such sanctions. U.S. politicians and the public would likely not tolerate continued direct trade or investment with China if U.S. forces suffer even a low number of casualties fighting Chinese forces, although indirect economic linkages would remain. Financial sanctions on major Chinese banks would have a devastating economic impact, including for U.S. firms and consumers. The expected costs of such actions suggest they would only be used in full once a conflict breaks out and the United States becomes militarily involved. If U.S. personnel start dying and the public sees bloody images of Chinaâs attack on Taiwan, Western sentiment would likely turn swiftly and decidedly against China. A Western sanctions coalition could coalesce quickly, as happened after Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, in part because of lessons learned and coordination mechanisms established in response to the sanctions against Russia.
- Major U.S. allies, even if not engaged militarily, would likely support Washingtonâs efforts to punish China economically. While Chinaâs market and supply chains are critical for many international firms, overall, the United States is even more important as a consumer market, investment destination, and financial market. The European Unionâsâeven just Germanyâsâeconomic and financial ties to the United States are far deeper than those with China. Perhaps more importantly, Europeâs political, cultural, and security ties with the United States would present European leaders with a binary choice they might otherwise hope to avoid. Washington would exert significant pressure on its allies to join its sanctions efforts; if the United States were engaged militarily, those requests might become ultimatums, which Western leaders would need to weigh against the expectation that Chinaâs economic growth and liberalization has peaked.
Taiwanâs economy would be shattered and cut off from most trade, losing the ability to export the majority of the worldâs semiconductors and microchips. Much of its infrastructure would be damaged during combat or from sabotage by local actors, and Taiwanâs ports would be well within the combat zone. This would halt Taiwanâs microchip exports, of which roughly 60 percent go to China as inputs into electronics that are then exported to the rest of the world.7
- Global supply chains for consumer electronics would be particularly damaged. Chinaâs exports of consumer electronics, such as smartphones and laptops, have accounted for nearly 40 percent of the global total since 2014.8 Because of shipping disruptions and possible suspensions of trade with advanced economies, Chinaâs domestically produced microchips would also probably not be exported.
1 Like
1 Like