So, for a while now, China has had an open secret that they plan to essentially bring Taiwan back into the fold by 2020 by whatever means possible. This includes military, but a lot of it has hinged on subversion of several of the Taiwanese political parties and politicians, their media, and their economy, as well as political pressure applied to any sort of international support as well as in various UN agencies that China, um, influences, shall we say.
I know most people don’t take this very seriously, but a poster in another thread said (to paraphrase as I don’t want to quote them here) basically that Taiwan is next on the list, with Hong Kong so obviously going down with the new CCP laws going into effect sometime soon. For debate, what do you think will happen? China (and by that I mean the CCP if it’s not clear) pretty obviously is unhappy about the re-election of Tsai Ing-wen. They are also very unhappy with the recent push by several countries for more inclusion of Taiwan in the UN and things like the WHO, as well as several recent arms sales as well as other high tech moving forward despite Beijing’s push to stop them. China has also gotten more aggressive lately in their military posture in the region.
On the other side, several countries, including several regional powers, ARE pushing back against the CCP. Several more are on the fence, which is actually an improvement from them being more on the CCPs side and willing to toe the line.
For debate, what do you think will happen? Will the CCP back down? CAN they back down? Or do you think they really aren’t serious about this in any case? If they don’t back down, what do you think will transpire? I’d say at this point, they aren’t going to meet their 2020 goals as stated by them years ago, but let’s say in the next 5 years what do you expect? More pressure on ‘international cooperation’ (with Chinese characteristics, meaning toe the line and do what Beijing says or else)? And actual military push to retake Taiwan through force of arms? Attempts at continuing to subvert Taiwanese political parties until they get the election results they want? Or nothing at all, this was all just for fun and laughs, the CCP never really meant it? I’m curious what (if anything) 'dopers think about this or where it’s going.
And while I would like to see the discussion stick to the actual topic of the thread, feel free to talk about the US and Trump and the Republics or Biden and the Democrats or whatever.