If the leader of China at the time is only concerned about saving his own hide, then that could be a possible scenario, but that kind of decision making probably means he won’t stay in power for long.
If China attacks Taiwan now, it has to be prepared to go all the way, or Taiwan would have a perfect reason for formally becoming independent.
Don’t be dismissive so quickly.
We are 2022 far away from the 1996 missile crisis. However, are you not aware that barely a few year after 1996, the majority of IR community, journalists, all blamed LTH’s Cornell speech for causing the crisis? Taiwan’s international standing actually fell drastically since then, contrary to conventional wisdom that the victim theoretically should gain sympathy and win more support.
For example, if you ask even ostensibly pro-Taiwan diplomats and scholars such as, say, Bonnie Glaser, I bet she will tell you that it was a mistake to invite LTH to US and US should not repeat the same mistake.
Look at the overall long-term net gain China gets by acting aggressively. China knows it can make outrageous claims and draw ever more red lines and the IR scholars and diplomats will always be there to explain why China is upset. Big win and easy win for China always.
Historical revisionist much? The crisis happened because Taiwan held the first presidential election.
Is that a joke? China is extremely unpopular now exactly because it’s been acting very aggressive.
Replace China with Russia and it still tracks.
The speech at Cornell took place back in 1995, and China was pissed. It was so intent on stopping LTH from being elected and remain as the president, that China misjudged how democracy works and fired those missiles.
By the way, China knows very well how to manipulate elections now, even if their need for internal propaganda sometimes gets in the way.
I think people are a lot less susceptible now. It was much worse in the 2010s.
They’ve got two pawns in Taiwan politics instead of just the KMT now. The new one practices strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan’s status and has massive internet army smearing the DPP.
They are performing terribly in polls.
So did Trump back in 2015.
All countries de-recognized Taiwan not because China promised these countries that it will not resort to military coercion on Taiwan. These countries de-recognized Taiwan because of the principle of “International consensus”.
There is no policy on the entire planet. not even any proposed idea that if China attacks Taiwan then so and so country will recognize Taiwan’s independence, however way Taiwan declares. Show me otherwise.
Therefore there is no rule and no reason to believe that China has to go all the way. That doesn’t even fit CCP’s behaviour pattern or their way of thinking.
The international consensus is that the government in Taiwan does not represent the people in China.
Well Taiwan doesn’t have electoral college. And DPP candidates will never be as unlikeable as Clinton. Trump lost the popular vote and people hated Clinton. The fact that DPP is still polling decent numbers during the pandemic outbreak shows that voters are more mature than 10 years ago.
https://i.imgur.com/mvH1GmK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XWEiHi5.jpg
These are extremely accurate. The highs and lows 100% correspond to election results.
Other countries obviously give small victories to China to ensure peace, if China pulls a Russia there would be no need for such appeasement.
Anyway I’m done here. What a waste of time.
China was briefly unpopular immediately after the 1989 Tianmen massacre and quickly became popular again.
Same thing happened in 1996. Bill Clinton was very pro-active in mending relation with China and distancing Taiwan. IR community shunned LTH and even today they pretended t LTH never existed, except when referencing the 1996 crisis.
Let me remind you that Russia did to Ukraine in a piecemeal way, starting in 2014 annexing Crimea, destabilized Ukraine, and got away with it just fine.
Ukraine, unlike Taiwan, is a full UN member state. Despite all the sanctions, Putin is even more secure in his power and Russian support for him ever higher.
There are many options at China’s disposal, including those you are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. However ridiculous you think my prediction is, I guarantee you that they don’t think like you do, and they are actually more comfortable in executing the scenario I describe above.
If Russia stops bombing today, sanctions will be lifted, and in 6 months German will be buying Russian gas. Russia walks away with de-facto territorial gain. Rinse and repeat every 6 or 8 years, until a South Vietnam -like collapse is achieved. Totally feasible.
35000 KIA and economic sanctions is just a price to pay and frankly just temporary pain.
Perhaps start thinking like a Communist will help you understand better.
I really don’t gaf about your predictions. Keep talking to yourself.
Are you shorting Taiwan stock market index or some shit?
Not at all. Not my cup of tea. But your concern of a stock market crash or capital flight will definitely be an intended secondary objective of CCP, that goes without saying.
We can learn a lot from the 90s, where at first glance Taiwan’s status seemed to be on the rise from 89 to 95, and China managed to turned it completely opposite by acting aggressively and kinetically. Counterintuitive, yes?
As much as I support a Lai 2024 presidency, there is absolutely not a good idea to linearly extrapolate Tsai into Lai, especially if CCP is fairly certain that Lai will win anyway. CCP will consider double down on their 1996 playbook, turn it up a notch by inflicting casualties on Taiwan but avoid hitting US military. You can go even further back to 1958 (aka 2nd Taiwan Strait crisis).
TLTR. I dont’ know who Lai is, but forget all that…just look at Ukraine. Heresy Financial, a well know financial youtuber is shorting the hell out of Taiwan’s stock index after Ukraine, and if you strongly believe your position, then shorting is what he called “the biggest black swan of 2022.”
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