Probably, but I don't think it matters. Taiwan is not important enough to US national interests to risk going to war there. I guess the best argument in favor of our continued support is that it will undermine the US's credibility to dump Taiwan.

Taiwan is not important enough to US national interests to risk going to war there. — T Clark

Taiwan produces around 90% of the world's most advanced ICs. It is very much in the iinterest of the US and other countries that such manufacturing capabilities are not taken over by China.

The real question is if China would try to occupy militarily Taiwan, which other countries would assist the US, if the US opted to intervene. Would Japan commit? Would South Korea commit? Apart from those two, the other countries have not much to give in sea warfare. What would Australia do?

Japanese Navy is back with combat aircraft...

Is China really willing to start a war with Taiwan in order to make it part of China? — dclements

Yes, it is. Chinese culture is a Warrior culture to the core. We cannot understand it because, in that sense, we are barbarians compared to them. The East has been civilized for far longer than the West, and they have had many more wars.

Yes, of course. Taiwan is, after all, "a part of China", but the political class in Taipei are just living in denial. Like Cuba (or Canada :sweat:) in relation to America. I think the more germaine question is: Will the US abandon Ukraine (& Eastern Europe) to Russian aggression and thereby give the PRC a green light to invade Taiwan without risking a catastrophic (world) war? :monkey:

Taiwan produces around 90% of the world's most advanced ICs. It is very much in the iinterest of the US and other countries that such manufacturing capabilities are not taken over by China. — wonderer1

Hey, no fair knowing more than I do. But still, I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to go to war with China. Will China having control of Taiwanese chip manufacturers be more disruptive than a war with the US's active participation? I don't think they have any more interest in the world economy falling apart than we do.

I've changed my mind - I'm pretty sure it's not a good enough reason.

I think the more germaine question is: Will the US abandon Ukraine (& Eastern Europe) to Russian aggression and thereby give the PRC a green light to invade Taiwan without starting a wider (or world) war? :brow: — 180 Proof

I think the most germane question is "What could possibly go wrong?" The US doesn't seem to have a good record of figuring that out in recent decades. Maybe no one has.

I think the most germane question is "What could possibly go wrong?" The US doesn't seem to have a good record of figuring that out in recent decades. Maybe no one has. — T Clark

No one has. Indeed. Think of that, this way: everyone involved in that problem is operating with partial information. No actor there has complete information of the overall situation. Therefore, they make guesses, to the best of their ability. And, like any guess, it could turn out to be wrong. And in fact it has, many times.

Exactly!

And, like any guess, it could turn out to be wrong. And in fact it has, many times. — Arcane Sandwich

I find I am almost always wrong when I try to predict what will happen next in politics or foreign affairs. The lesson I take from that is not to do much, which may be a brilliant strategy or a highway to hell.

:up:

I find I am almost always wrong when I try to predict what will happen next in politics or foreign affairs. — T Clark

I believe that is because we, the public, are also trying to think through this problem under complicated conditions, because we don't have all of the information of the overall situation either. We make educated guesses, but sometimes we get it wrong. It's understandable, given the nature of incomplete information relative to a situation that involves us.

China is probably willing to use military force (aka war) to force Taiwan into union with the PRC.

True, Taiwan produces a large share of advanced chips. (The Netherland produces a large share of the advanced machines which make the advanced chips.). Presumably, the PRC would find the equipment blown to bits and of no use to them.

We could preemptively move Taiwan's industry to Wisconsin -- machines and necessary personnel.

Outside of chips and dips, how much does anyone in the US care about Taiwan? Know anyone from Taiwan?

How committed to Taiwan's defense is the US? Japan? Korea?

I'd prefer to see Taiwan continue on as an independent country.

It's understandable, given the nature of incomplete information relative to a situation that involves us. — Arcane Sandwich

It's not primarily incomplete information. The best informed of us don't know what's going to happen and to get to the position of being a decision maker in these situations you have to have bought into your country's nationalistic ideology.

you have to have bought into your country's nationalistic ideology. — T Clark

Or on the payroll of a multi-national corporation.

If China Invades Taiwan, It Would Cost World Economy $10 Trillion

A China-Taiwan War Would Start an Economic Crisis.

China will in all likelihood not resort to military means to incorporate Taiwan. It probably feels there is no immediate need to force the issue, and over time political options will become available to reach unification without bloodshed.

However, if Taiwan were to declare its independence a Chinese intervention is all but a guarantee.

I wonder opinions and thought people on this forum have in regards whether or not China is willing to invade Taiwan or not in order to make it part of China. — dclements

They certainly want Taiwan, but they might end up destroying all they've accomplished in the last 50 years. Trying to predict what China will do is difficult. I think the chances of a war in the next five years are about "50 50," but that's just a guess. I'm sure China would like to have TSMC, but that factory will probably be blown up if they invade. That said it's probably a matter of pride for them to get Taiwan. China could do a blockade because Taiwan imports just about everything. However, if they blockade Taiwan, the U.S. and its allies would have time to bring more force to bear.

If I was China, I would attack before the U.S. had time to build up long-range missile inventories. The U.S. is trying to build inventories as we speak. The carriers are going to have to stay about 1000 miles away or risk getting sunk. China could be stopped but the price would be high in lives and ships. Is it worth it? If the U.S. does nothing, then Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, etc., are going to start wondering if the U.S. will protect them if China wants to expand its influence. I hope it doesn't happen, but who knows?

Something actually quite historic happened that directly has an effect also on the potential Taiwan crisis. In the 2025 skirmish between India and Pakistan May 7th to May 10th, modern Chinese aircraft and weaponry were used extensively and what seems to be quite successfully against the Indian French/Russian weapon systems.

This was the first time that Chinese J-10 fighters armed with PL-15 missiles were used extensively in a beyond visual range fight were both air forces operated from their own airspace and didn't venture into enemy airspace (that was left to missiles and drones). With both India and Pakistan having engaged with hundreds of fighters, this was the first large air battle of this decade. The Pakistani's (who have 80% of the weapons systems from China) did shoot down French Rafale fighters and Russia Flanker and Fulcrum fighters used by India. What is evident that both countries got their air forces fully committed, yet held back from an all out war. This is also crucial to understand as both sides have nuclear weapons. Even if the Indian Air Force isn't equipped with US technology, the IAF is a quite modern and large air force. This is actually important to China, because it has now shown that it's fighter aircraft are up to fight modern Western aircraft.

(If you are interested in this subject, here's a good overview of just what happened in the air war in the four day skirmish between India and Pakistan, seen from the Pakistani side. Especially the commentary of the Pakistani Air Force commander is interesting.)


Chinese J-10 fighters in Pakistani service armed with four PL-15 missiles:


Prior to this engagement Chinese modern weapon systems have not been used in war. For the Chinese, this brief skirmish was a very important lesson.

, no dogfigts, but close call nonetheless.

They (or some) say Rafale is the better plane overall, yet PL-15E is the better missile. China won the skirmish, if you will.

I can't help but wonder what the chance is of real escalation between the two nations, how volatile the situation is. The Chinese (allegedly) and Americans both moved to de-escalate, successfully. :sweat:

How to stop rolling the dice on the destruction of human civilization (archived)
^{— Kelsey Piper · Vox · Sep 22, 2022}

no dogfigts, but close call nonetheless. — jorndoe

BVR fights. Basically a lot of aircraft firing beyond visual range missiles and hoping that they will hit. Just as in Ukraine, there both sides don't dare anymore to fly over territory held by the enemy. If you fly low, then MANPADS systems like SA-18 or the Stinger plus the traditional AAA can shot you down. If you fly high, you are a target to S-400 or Patriot systems.

It's been said that originally the Pakistani PL-15's had a range of 145 km, while the Chinese versions are 300 km and the PL-17 missiles have a range of 400 kilometers. The old F-14 had it's Phoenix missiles developed in the 1960s with a range of 184 kilometers (C-model), which was for long the longest range missile in US inventory. Once the great F-14 was retired, so were the Phoenix missiles (in 2004). AIM-174 Gunslinger missile that has originated from the SM-6 surface to air missile has a range of some 240 kilometers, is only coming now to the field to replace the Phoenix's role of very long range interception missile. The F/A-18 Superhornet has had the ability to carry the missile from 2024. AIM-260 is only coming up and has a planned range of at least 200 kilometers. The US and the West wasn't at first so interested in long range missiles as usually BVR means that you can easily hit accidentally own aircraft. But if the strategy is simply to shoot at anything moving in the air, then it's different.

F-14 with six Phoenix missiles. No other US fighter could use the missile.



An interesting and informative clip on the new AIM-174 missile and how it would be used against China. The fighters fire the missile and then the targetting information is given by other means:

I’ve been reviewing YouTube documentaries on current Chinese technology and architecture and it seems to me they’re streaking ahead. Of course some of them might be CCP made or backed, it’s often hard to tell nowadays, as the voiceovers and probably the script are AI generated. But there is a huge amount happening. I’m sure Chinese EVs, BYD in particular, are going to eat Tesla’s breakfast any day now.

I have the depressing thought that if China does decide to move on Taiwan, what will happen is, the Internet and most of the public utilities in many countries will suddenly go dark. Electronic payment gateways and so on. Social paralysis and anarchy would quickly ensue. The invasion, or re-absorption, of Taiwan would be done and dusted before anyone could know about it. Then it would be, ‘hey let’s negotiate and we might turn the lights back on.’ As for military action, I think Trump and his dim witted anchor man will have very little traction against any such hostile action from the Chinese side, they’re too preoccupied with infighting and culture wars.

Taiwan is too important to the world to just let an invasion slide. The diplomatic pressure on China to not do it is pretty strong.

What we see China doing is pretty much in line with what authoritarian governments do all the time; they bloat their ability to show strength. You can basically go back to the art of war and find strategies they follow;show weakness when you are strong and strength when you are weak.

A key point to remember about China is that there's no such thing as private companies. All companies have shared ownership in some form or another with the state and the state influence company policies. And since China has been aggressively investing in other nations, they have massive influence over western nations dependence on China.

At the same time they have lots of power over social media, able to effectively conduct information war much better than for example Russia. Strategies involving spreading conflicting information to undermine people's ability to do critical thinking around news, while promoting Chinese interests and appearance.

A key point have been media and films. Conditions for many Hollywood productions to receive funding from China involves changing plot elements to make China look better. One recent example that was extremely obvious was an episode of Love Death and Robots that basically used a Chinese main character who teamed up with an African character under the umbrella of "shared background and interests" to then combat western looking people. Which clearly speaks to their recent interest in investments in Africa and portraying that relationship under a good light.

The best way to make sure China doesn't invade Taiwan is to make sure they depend on the world more than the world depends on China. There's lots of naive politicians in the world who seem oblivious to the strategies China use to gain power.

- Ban Chinese investments as such investments comes with the Chinese government influence and insight.
- Ban Chinese investment in western media.
- Ban TikTok.
- Put further diplomatic pressure on China with earmarked trade deals that if China moves on Taiwan they immediately gets cut off from world trade.
- Help build up Taiwanese defenses with automated anti-air and anti-sea defenses around the island, making a large scale invasion extremely unlikely.
- Support the people in China with technology that bypass Chinese censorship.
- Invest in heavy cyber-defense and counter-cyber operations.

All I can see is a world that is as oblivious to China's intentions as they were to Russia's before the invasion of Ukraine. Better to prepare for what is needed to counter China before they invade Taiwan and make sure Taiwan has enough support so that if they get cut off from the world geographically, they can hold their own while the world diplomatically push China away.

While China can do lots to hurt the world if the world helps Taiwan, if the world is ready they can cut China off from so much trade that their economy collapse instantly. They already have huge problems with their national economy that if trade gets affected, it would crush them.

And with how important Taiwan is to the world when it comes to components for computers (semiconductors), the impact on the world would be extreme if we just let China take Taiwan. An economic and infrastructural chaos we're not even imagining. Regardless of what idiots in politics say, you can't just "start up a new fab lab". Intel has been trying in the US, but they're no where close to the capacity of TMSC. We already saw a disruption during the pandemic in which just a slight pause in production the economy of semiconductors created absolute chaos in the world industry. It's not just computers, it's EVERY thing that has semiconductors in it, which is basically everything that exists around us.

People don't realize the impact the destruction of Taiwan's semiconductor business will have on the world and it's in the worlds interest to defend Taiwan. Politicians and the public are too oblivious to all of it.

Is there pressure on the ruling party to take back Taiwan? Does the average Chinese citizen care?