China after Ukraine

Great Debates
61

I would have agreed with this 2 or 3 years ago. But now, I think Xi is getting Mao (or Putin) disease. China winning isn’t enough anymore, they have to win while Xi is leader. He has fallen into the trap of the cult of personality. He, and he alone, must be the victor and the hero of China. And he ain’t no spring chicken (68 yrs old as of this post).

I think this means that China will be less patient then they have been in the past. The “long game” is now only as long as Xi thinks he’ll live to see it - “L’Etat c’est a moi” is a natural endgame for any dictator.

62

They’re definitely upping the pressure on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (and Macau is next) but there are no real consequences to that beyond diplomatic objections, whereas trying to take over Taiwan with military force would result in massive casualties on both sides and potentially an international conflict if the US decides to intervene and brings in AUKUS. I’m sure Xi would take Taiwan if he could, and he has certainly concentrated his power within the Communist Party of China to be a genuine autocrat but there is no way that goes well for China or his legacy. Then again, I didn’t think Putin would actually invade Ukraine beyond Donetsk because of what an economic disaster that would be even without international sanctions, so my crystal ball is clearly cracked.

“Professionals are predictable, it’s the amateurs that are dangerous.” — Murphy’s Rules of Combat

Stranger

63

Agree 100%. I wouldn’t have said Putin was an amateur (or Xi), but here we are.

"“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” - Lord Acton

64

Maybe I’m misreading the political situation in Beijing but I don’t think Xi has the same kind of personal power that Mao had or Putin has (had?). China has gone more for collective leadership since Mao left the scene and whoever is the top guy in China needs to get a consensus from other top officials.

65

Xi runs a purge every couple of years to get rid of “corruption”. Originally, that may have actually been the target. These days, it seems to be to remove the non-loyal.

I don’t know that he has the fanatical support that Mao did, as an ideological leader. But, similar to Putin, he’s clearly established himself as the undeniable ruler of all and your ability to continue to live and work in his country is purely at his allowance.

I don’t know that he could summon the same level of havoc as the Cultural Revolution but, for anyone working in government, I feel like the prospect of simply disappearing one day to never be heard from again is probably scary enough to keep you pretty obedient.

66

Many people here in Taiwan were very scared initially with the war because they felt that China would be emboldened and that no one would stand by the defenders.

Many Taiwanese are concerned if people here would be as brave as what we are seeing in Ukraine, or would they give up too easily.

The older conventional thinking was that as long as Taiwan didn’t declare independence, then China would be happy to let it be in peace. It can’t really let Taiwan go without thinking about the effects on other separatist movements and its international reputation, so it cared more about the effects of Taiwan leaving than about the leaving itself.

Of course, that same conventional thinking also entailed China not cracking down on Hong Kong, lest they upset Taiwanese people and make more people want to push for independence.

The latter has obviously been proven wrong and many people are questioning the former.

67

This has to remind Xi that conquering a country is nothing like cowing a city. The PRC isn’t seeing quite what happens in a major amphibious operation, but it gives an idea that they might want to avoid it.

As a friend of Taiwan, I think the history of China being the least warlike superpower should be a bit comforting.

I’m not sure this is the way to look at things, but:

China’s reaction to Islamic terrorism – Destroy China’s mosques and forcibly re-educate Muslim citizens

U.S. reaction to Islamic terrorism – Proclaim Islam to be a religion of peace while invading Muslim countries

Of course, there are reasons for the differences noted above other than national character, but there may be something to the idea that China isn’t, relatively speaking, warlike.

68

A lack of opportunity should not be confused with a national character.

China is aggressively pursuing its interests and rabidly building up its military capabilities. It’s been quite clear that it regards Taiwan and an integral part of China.

Being a small nation next to a giant is not a lot of fun.

69

ISTM that China’s best play is to now publicly and privately threaten restrictions on their help unless Russia halts advances and accepts some ceasefire.

Russia will of course feel stabbed in the back but they will still have no choice but to comply as they are completely screwed if China leaves them hanging.

So they still get Russia in position as a client state and they position themselves as the world leader in influence, the strong peacemaker of the planet.

70

Plus the whole genocide thing. You are missing several keys (harsh) aspects of China’s crackdown on Uyghurs (and also other religious groups…let’s not forget those Tibetans), which include forced sterilization, aggressive colonization of their regions with Han Chinese, an aggressive police state, etc etc.

Well, as long as well don’t include all of the times they weren’t so peaceful, right? Invasion and conquest (then ethnic cleansing) of Tibet, their own participation in the Korean conflict, their invasion of Vietnam, India (as well as their continued salami-slicing efforts in that region that have caused several conflicts), their various border dustups with the former Soviet Union and others, their land (or I guess sea) grab in the South China Sea region.

What you are taking for peace is basically a combination of military in-ability to pursue a regional hegemony through force of arms and the US Pax-Americana holding sway until fairly recently. As with Russia’s move in Ukraine, that Pax is coming to an end, so I wouldn’t hold my breath for China to be the ‘least warlike superpower’. This is a country that has spent the last 20 years, especially the last 10 specifically building up its military power to take Taiwan as well as to become the regional military hegemon once the US is out of the picture. Most of China’s neighbors are well aware of this, and are either looking to get in early with China or are seriously worried.

71

I’m just not sure yet if it qualifies as genocide.

My post was written after reading this article by Nury Vittachi, about a half dozen books of whose books I have read:

Seven things I got wrong: a journalist owns up

Since he wrote those books I read, fiction and non-fiction, Vittachi has gone from being a delightful-to-me advocate of tolerance, peace and social democracy to the Chinese equivalent of a Trumper (or you could say the Chinese equivalent of Candace Owens, since he’s not ethnically Chinese).

So how would I counter such views if a Chinese patriot popped up here? Say he’s all wrong? That’s one approach. But then, it would not be be completely true, and then there’s nothing to build on.

So — China has not launched a real war since 1979. And they have had continuous opportunity to take Kinmen and Matsu with little risk of losing. Chinese can be legitimately proud of how that compares with the two other great powers.

Admittedly, if instead we welcome a Uyghur poster, I may have a problem, since the PRC treats Uyghurs abominably.

As for Taiwan, hope for the best, but keep conscription.

72

Not sure what would convince you, since they have basically breached every convention on what genocide at this point is, but if you don’t think it qualifies ‘yet’ then you don’t.

No, they haven’t because the US was there. Plus, they haven’t had the ability to do it for more than, maybe a decade. So, you could say that they could have done it since, oh, maybe 2012 or so…but they didn’t because America, and because they weren’t ready. They could today, at least those two islands, but I think they weren’t really prepared to pull the trigger until fairly recently, and, you know, that whole covid thingy kind of put a crimp in their plans. They wouldn’t go for those island unless and until they were ready to do the whole thing…and they STILL might not be able to do it. It will depend completely on the US’s response. Will we or won’t we? With strategic ambiguity no one really knows what the US will do. Hell, I doubt we really have a clear idea, though personally I think it will be political suicide for a US president to not defend Taiwan. But with someone like Trump in the WH? Who knows what that idiot might do. Biden? I think he’s on record with his take, which is we’d fight for Taiwan.

It’s illegal for most Uyghurs to even post to social media in China without permission (unofficially of course), and it’s illegal for any citizen of China (outside of authorized trolls, $.50 army types, etc) to use a VPN and post on this message board or most other places. Anyone posting here has special authorization or is using an illegal VPN to do it. The only ones I know of in that situation are all foreigners who I’m fairly sure are either the authorized types or the authorities are turning a blind eye. JMHO of course.

Sorry, I didn’t click the link to the article. I can guess what it says though as I’ve seen stuff like that before. Just saying it’s a Trump equivalent is enough for me to be turned off, but Chinese trolls or expat Chinese fanboys/girls are the worst.

73

To be fair, if you’re saying that you got it wrong because you predicted the future incorrectly, then you weren’t practicing journalism.

Journalism is writing down how you found people to talk to, what you asked them, and how they answered. That’s record taking not prognosticating.

74

I don’t see why they wouldn’t try easy first, or how Taiwan could stop them. The Crimea example can not be scary to Xi. It suggests it wouldn’t much change the balance of forces to bite off an easy piece where Americans are told that the people don’t strongly identify as Taiwanese:

This last is from the Washington Post, perhaps the leading American-agenda-setting newspaper.

The U.S. isn’t gong to have our soldiers killed for places right next to China that were arguably (much complexity hidden in that last word) attacked before without the U.S. doing much, and where it seems locals don’t want us.

I hope that the U.S. would defend Taiwan itself (and of course hope even more we won’t need to). It’s a little scary how many Americans can’t distinguish Taiwan and Thailand, but I think the David vs. Goliath narrative would be extremely influential.

75

Well, your article is from 2020, but the islands are a lot closer to the mainland than Taiwan is. They have a bit of history wrt being shelled and fired on by the mainland, but I can’t say I’ve got a lot of experience with the folks who live there. The people I know live in Taiwan itself.

As for the Crimea example, I think the takeaway from what you seem to be missing is the sanctions the US and Europe imposed and continued to impose when it happened. I don’t think the Chinese would have been too keen, even if the sanctions didn’t bite all that deeply. Also, they don’t know what the US response would be…or the Taiwanese response for that matter. Finally, as with Putin and Crimea, it would have reshaped how China was viewed internationally.

As I said earlier, another point is when this invasion of the two closest islands would have taken place. China simply didn’t have the ability to take those islands unless they were literally handed to them much before the 2010s, even if they wanted to face the wrath of US and other countries sanctions (at a time they were wanting to increase trade and influence and rebrand their image globally). Then there was the Trump presidency where he seemingly had a love/hate relationship with the CCP and Xi…not really much opportunity then. Then there was covid. Now everything is going to be put in the light of Ukraine…and the earlier Crimea. So, if China tried that today, regardless of whether the Washington Post did an article in 2020 that quoted some guy saying he likes the mainland I don’t think the world would just allow China to take those islands consequence-free. They would be thinking about Crimea and the current Ukraine invasion and putting two and two together to make 4.

We wouldn’t be…we’d be defending territory Taiwan possesses from a military take over by another power. Basically, if the locals wanted to get together and vote to leave Taiwan, we’d probably be ok with that, no matter what Taiwan says…but is China actually invading and taking them? I don’t think we’d be ok with that, though, as I said, strategic ambiguity means no one really knows what the hell we’d do.

Many Americans have trouble finding countries in Europe, let alone in Asia. But many Americans like trade and computer chips for their stuff, so I’m confident that even those who are clueless would understand the realities if they were pointed out to them. And the fact that China was invading and conquering Taiwan, with all the death and destruction that would be associated with that would get a very similar response to what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine…probably more since it would hit the global economy even harder, cause even more economic woes and trouble, and it would be because, again, a major power decided it simply wanted to take something because it thought it could. I think that after this Ukraine thing concludes, however, that might be, Americans are going to be even less tolerant of other countries doing these sorts of adventures…especially as the death toll in Ukraine continues to mount.

76

It’s very interesting that you consider only actions taken outside a country’s borders to be “warlike.” I would submit to you that there are plenty of opportunities for a government to commit violence and mayhem, and ruin people’s lives, without engaging with an external enemy.

77

True, but even the external threats are changing wrt China. I mean, China isn’t spending the equivalent to the US on its military (from a PPP perspective, China spends as much as the US does) because it has such peaceful intentions. It might have been possible to make this argument, if one squinted hard and handwaved away a lot of things, in the early 2010’s that China was really just in it for the business, and was not ‘warlike’ (especially if you didn’t look hard at what they did internally)…but it would be complete denial at this stage to try and make that same argument today.

78

I thought I implied that. What China is doing to their own citizens, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, might be worse than what the U.S. did to Iraqis. Each superpower is deficient in its own way, and perhaps even admirable in its own way.

And least warlike doesn’t mean least bad.

I allow the theoretical possibility that China has rarely gone to war, despite being warlike, because of objective weakness, as, if I understand correctly, claimed by XT. I don’t think China was that weak in actuality, but it is a hard point to prove.

If I was going to point to a factor that worries me, in terms of China being about to launch wars, growing military power might not be number one. What worries me more is Xi’s cult of personality. Authoritarian regimes run by committee are, I think, safer than those with a personalistic dictator liable to be surrounded by yes-men. The example of the moment is of course Russia.

79

Interesting article about how China is walking a fine line between its Russian relationship and concerns about the West:

80

Thanks for that link.

Timing for China is also interesting. Covid rates going up and they are actually a bit economically vulnerable. Xi planning to change the rules to allow himself a third term later this year.

China is economically enmeshed with the West and if economies of the West begin to stagnate they hurt.

A quick war resulting in a Russia somewhat reliant on them afterwards would have been fine. Something that impedes global economic growth? Something that gets them having pain too? Does Xi have the stomach for that, especially right now?