China has been conducting military maneuvers very close to Taiwan on a daily basis.
The Taiwanese military has doubled its budget. (But double a very small number, and you get…)
Now, the US Congress is discussing authorizing the POTUS to use military force to resist China’s potential invasion.
https://yoho.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/yoho-introduces-taiwan-invasion-prevention-act
Is China only bluffing? Will the US really send troops here? Or, are both sides filled with hot air?
I haven’t seen any counts on support from the house or Senate. Is this likely to pass?
China has a red line when it comes to Taiwan, who really knows exactly where that is, but having foreign troops in what even America by the way recognizes as part of China for some reason, would most likely be it.
It may even already be too late to prevent and Taiwan will unfortunately become another Ukraine, serving its purpose to the West as destabilising China, and brining them down a few pegs as an economic competitor.
If China learned anything from Ukraine, it’s not to do things half assed.
They will most likely bomb Taiwan into oblivion, and focus on shutting down any retaliatory measures. Then continue bombing them until Taiwan has had enough.
Hopefully Taiwan learned from the Ukraine situation also and doesn’t go full retard like Ukrainians had.
Not exactly, as far as I know this is unclear. America acknowledges “one China” but doesn’t explicitly state that Taiwan is part of the PRC. It is up to the PRC and the ROC to decide what “one China” is, and neither side should unilaterally change the status quo. Is my understanding.
By the way, there are small numbers of US military and ex military in Taiwan as trainers and advisors, now.
Never too late to not invade your neighbors
If that is true, China could avoid it by simply not invading. The Taiwanese government hasn’t declared independence, announced a US military base, or otherwise done anything that would remotely justify an invasion.
For those of us living in Taiwan, this is good news
No, this makes zero sense
It think it makes sense if China is able and determined to prosecute a larger-scale war. Suppress Taiwan as a threat, bypass it, and worry about it later.
This doesn’t make sense though 
This is Taiwan and it doesn’t want to be absorbed by China. You’ll have more luck selling sand in the desert than selling that crap here.
How do you interpret bomb into oblivion ?
Maybe not actual oblivion I can imagine large scale missile and bombing strikes against military and political centers. It could be tremendously destructive.
Makes no sense to be sure, but it’s been known for well over 60-70 years that strategic bombing (referring specifically to the bombardment of civillian targets and factories in an attempt to literally terror bomb a country into peace) isn’t a functional method and, unsurprisingly, bombing peoples’ familes and homes ends up making their will to fight go up, not down, and by and large acheives none of the strategic goals that it sets out to. At the end of the day, any army trying strategic bombing usually ends up just wasting time morale bombing or, if they’re smart, ends up doing normal bombing of military targets after targeting the limited amount of relevant strategic objectives.
But that still didn’t stop @Rather from making his/her comment stating that this would be a tactic possibly employed by the Chinese in the case of an invasion (bomb into oblivion), and hasn’t stopped the Russians from doing so as recently as within the last year. Should the Chinese choose to invade, should the initial tactical bombardment and amphibious invasion fail, I think it’s almost certain that they’d just resort to the same old strategy of trying to bomb Taiwan into submission. Now mind you, in Taiwan’s case there are some aspects of strategic bombing that are perhaps more relevant - given that it’s a largely non-self sufficient island, targeting industrial food production and power would likely create a massive humanitarian crisis, but it would certainly not bomb them all the way into surrender, and ultimately no strategic victory will have been won through such a campaign. Just an immense waste of their all too limited munitions and a much more difficult invasion, should they target the infrastructure. If the Taiwanese are like basically every other people who have been strategically bombed in the past, they’ll want to fight even harder after that.
A pitiable and “retarded” statement, the meaning of which in the context of Taiwan I am totally incapable of even grasping beyond thinking that you’re just suggesting Taiwan should give up and get annexed. And if this is you’re opinion, it’s just a really, really awful one and I urge you to reconsider it 
Me, too. That’s obvious. I interpreted “bomb Taiwan into oblivion” as being more than that.
This is why i think they’ll wait until they have no choice or very high expectations of success
Opening the campaign by destroying the entire island makes no sense
I’m not sure it would be much different. “Bomb x into oblivion” is obviously hyperbole. The Chinese would probably figure the more destruction the better.
Oblivion would, to me, include infrastructure such as dams, power generation, highways and roads, hospitals, urban areas that can be fortified (I rode the coastal plains from Taichung to Kaohsiung once, not the tollway), etc., and thus involve a lot of civilian casualties.
The CCP doesn’t want to bomb the country into oblivion for the same reasons Putin didn’t want to. So why would they do that if they don’t have to?
If they wanted to win that way, they could do that any time. They haven’t, for reasons.
They might well go after infrastructure like that. Creating the maximum chaos poossible.
This seems less likely, but I wouldn’t totally rule it out.
OK, I partially agree. They can’t win in the sense of achieving the limited objective of returning Taiwan to mainland control that way. They wouldn’t do that and I agree it makes no sense. Actually, there is apparently no reliable path to achieving that kind of objective at present, and without some major change in the strategic situation it will continue to be very dicey at best.
I was thinking ahead a bit to a time when the situation has changed and China finds itself with the capacity to, let’s imagine, wage a wider war for hegemony in East Asia. In that case invading Taiwan and preserving it in as intact a state as possible may not be the best strategy.
This in short is why I don’t really buy the “Taiwan as unsinkable aircraft carrier” or “first island chain” lines of reasoning. Invading Taiwan as an end game that opens up possibilities for China to exert its power doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
They might, but I still don’t think it is likely they would want to destroy all that before they move in
Bomb Taiwan into oblivion would include everything I listed, at least, in my mind. Hence, no sense
What they are currently doing makes sense. Build up their capacity to seize the island quickly without destroying it, use gray zone tactics to wear down Taiwanese defences and willingness to fight, position the KMT to return to power so they can slowly move towards a peaceful takeover a la Hong Kong. I think the 2024 election is going to be the next forced major change in the strategic situation.
How far ahead do you think that would be?
I don’t know why people think they need to land on Taiwan itself. I think the would be the wrong move. Much better to just get rid of Taiwan’s military assets and whatever else China decides is appropriate. Block their airspace, block their ports, then they can just leave it at that for a while and do it again if need be.
Once the line to attacking Taiwan is crossed, China can send a few missiles whenever Taiwan does something they don’t like.
By the way,.did you notice America focusing on computer chip production? Almost as if they don’t expect Taiwan to be a competitor for too much longer.
Just remember, you never go full Ukrainian.
They always have a choice.
Any corners they find themselves in are created by themselves.
Guy
If they want to “reunify” with Taiwan, they need to land here.
Again, this makes no sense to me. They could do that now, but they don’t for reasons.
Yeah, for example TSMC fabs in the US. Do you know what the T stands for?
If it were easy to just make those chips, China would have already done so. Another reason why bombing Taiwan to “oblivion” makes no sense
What does this mean?
Ok, but they might not see it that way if for example Taiwan declares formal independence