I think that the real sinicization of the Manchu’s came post revolution. During the Qing dynasty, the Manchu’s basically were overlords and let the Han civil service run the country down into the Opium Wars and eventually faded away. At that time, though, the language and culture of the Manchus was still Manchurian rather than Mandarin. It was the post-WW2 and post-revolution time when the Manchu’s saw their population diluted by the Han. Very quickly the population percentage dropped to less than 3% of the population, and the critical mass of Manchurian language and culture died.
The wiki article here: Manchu language - Wikipedia has some interesting information. Especially that Manchurian essentially lives on still in Far Western China.
Well, that’s Bush for you. The man was an idiot and foreign policy was where he was at his dumbest.
You quoted the first three paragraphs of the article. Here’s the first four paragraphs:
The Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, at the Monterey Institute for International Studies, in 2004 held a lengthy seminar on the subject of a Taiwan/PRC clash, and how to avoid having it turn nuclear with the United States. A book, Strait Talk: Avoiding a Nuclear War between the United States and China over Taiwan came out of that seminar. The book is available for free as a pdf at the above link. Within it, the authors concluded that, in their professional opinions, one of the three major factors that might spark an armed conflict between the PRC and Taiwan would be Taiwan’s development of WMDs. Their opinion was that Taiwan did not currently have any nuclear weapons, and that developing them would not make military sense:
Reading this, my observation is that a nuclear exchange is suicide for damned near everyone, but whatever. Also, just because the weapons are stored on Taiwan—and I do not believe that is still the case—does not mean that the Taiwanese can use them.
An executive summary of that seminar (or another one: it’s a popular topic in international military affairs’ discussions evidently) is here, and from it I quote:
A brief google survey of the subject hasn’t revealed anything official from the PRC on the subject. However, plenty of unofficial warnings from members of the Party apparatus in the PRC are out there. See, e.g., this survey of 2004-era articles. Here’s what the FAS have to say on the subject of Taiwanese nukes. FWIW, Taiwan has a lengthy of history of secretly starting and attempts to develop nuclear weapons. These have usually been abandoned when either the U.S. or China got pissy about it, the latest stoppage being in 1988, IIRC. An interesting archive at GWU on U.S. governmental cables concerning Taiwan’s nuclear weapons development in the late 1970s may be found here. Finally, an article talking about Taiwan (and South Korea’s) history of nuclear weapons development and why both nations eventually officially decided not to keep them, is here.
The consensus is that Taiwan does not currently have them, but could make them in a short period of time. How short, is the question. My personal opinion of whether they have them or not, is more towards China Guy’s. They’d be silly, if push came to shove, to rely on the U.S. to bail them out. IMHO, I think relations with China, Taiwan, and the U.S. will play out in a manner similar to that described by the late Dr. Stephen Possony:
Quick addendum. The Straits book I cited above (at page 487 of the pdf) , cites to the Report to Congress made by the Department of Defense mandated by the Fiscal Year 1999 Appropriations Bill. Within that Report is a section on the “Security Situation in the Taiwan Strait.” Within that section is the following quote:
Unfortunately, the report doesn’t give a cite or a quote for this assertion.
OK. Whatever.
Going back to my original statement which started the exchange, I said that the US’s intent is clear. The US will support Taiwan if China tries to force a military solution. America’s actions speak loudly enough, regardless of what is formally written or not. The US sending not just one but two carrier groups during China’s missile testing saber rattle spoke loudly enough.
Thank you for the link. I liked their thoughts on one how a conflict could occur. Interesting too was was their quick dismissal of an armed invasion. I think that’s pretty much the consensus, which is why China would like to deny access to the area by the USN and the US does not want to allow this.
I’ve paid a lot more attention to this in the last seven years after I met my Taiwanese wife, and the situation is fairly complex. I don’t know. I’ve talked to many of her friends who are very opposed to the idea.
Certainly it’s a real possibility, but there are a lot of Taiwanese who are dead set against it. In many ways, it maybe like the US, where the conservatives and liberals each command a percentage of the voting populate with an other significant minority in the middle.
I think that the US intent is *far *from clear. Everything on the subject is ambiguous. Your big example came from 1996, and the world has changed immeasurably since then.
One major US political point to make. The big anti-communist Congressional leaders that used to be staunch Taiwan supporters have all died off.
Depending on the circumstances, provocation and who might be in the White House, do you really think the US would unequivocally engage in a real war with nuclear China over the 20 million people in Taiwan?
I think they would. It’s been a consistent American policy stand since 1949.
It’s not just an issue of Taiwan. Taiwan is only one country that the United States has made a commitment to. If America abandoned Taiwan in a crisis, all of those other countries would begin wondering if they could rely on America in a crisis.
I agree that the American policy is clear. But it’s also unspoken.
It’s a delicate balance between strong American and Chinese interests. China maintains that its relations with Taiwan are a strictly domestic affairs issue and it will not accept any outside country telling it what it does in its domestic affairs. The United States doesn’t have an interest in challenging this Chinese position but at the same time it doesn’t want China to invade Taiwan. So the American position is this carefully worded policy that makes it clear that it would oppose Chinese occupation of Taiwan while not actually saying it.
If they wanted to nuke it they could, but would pay a very high price in a zombie strike long after they’d forgotten about it .
Successful convential conquest, even without foreign intervention ?
Not a chance.
Ooh..We could declare them a US territory! Not an independent country and they wouldn’t have to attempt to develop nukes! LOOPHOLE!
Hah?
If China declared that it was taking over Hawaii, how do you think that would go over?
Regardless of how many missiles fly, how many subs are sunk and who winds up one which soil, no one wins if there is a war over Taiwan. Pretty much everyone but a few [del]crazy Taiwanese politicians[/del] even crazier than what passes as normal for Taiwanese politicians doesn’t want to provoke the other side.
China gains nothing with an unprovoked invasion. It would only respond to moves toward independence by Taiwan. The problem, of course, is that what China considers “moves toward independence” are completely different than what Taiwan and/or the US consider as moves. If Taiwan takes steps which the US considers acceptable but China does not, and China attempts to bully Taiwan into stopping or to the bargaining table, then we could see saber rattling which could lead to war.
I can’t see China doing a Pearl Harbor on Taiwan. Everyone is watching everyone else too closely. Without a surprise, there will be a build up. And the US will again send one or two carrier groups into the neighborhood.
If we fail to show the flag, we’ll let China know they can safely ignore us whenever they want in addition to losing our credibility with all our potential enemies. The Chinese are annoying enough to deal with now, if they think the US will run away from conflict then we’ll never hear the end of them. There’s going to be increased pressure from China on all the disputed territories, including the Spratly and Senkaku rocks.
Also, the potential downside of being seen weak by North Korea by backing off would vastly overwhelm any concern about any risks, especially as no shots have been fired.
This is where miscalculations by the various parties could result in someone starting to shoot. This could be more like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but with all sides believing there is less at stake. Once someone fires a missile at someone else by mistake, or one of the sides believes that it can push things a little harder, a miscalculation could escalate into a shooting war.
I would hope that the three sides would confine their missiles to military targets. Have a huge exchange of blows, sink and shoot down what can happen and then go back to each other’s corner and count up bodies.
There is no reason to assume a MAD nuclear exchange with China. Their nukes are for keeping the war from going too bad against them, although this is a point which people who know better then me could disagree.
There are six major players in East Asia: China, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, the US and Japan as well as the once and possible future Asian power, Russia. No two countries’ interests align completely, although Japan passively goes along with the US more than any other of the other countries follow each other.
I believe a strong reason for the US’s deliberate vagueness is to keep Taiwan in line. We don’t want a war except as a last resort, but there are factions within Taiwan who would be willing to risk war and declare independence. Keeping the US’s response vague weakens their arguments.
And another reason for not playing too much hardball is that we want/need China’s help on their [del] client state [/del] nutcase neighbor North Korea. How hard can we rub Taiwan into China’s face when we turn around to plead with them to keep Pyongyang from lobbing nukes over the fence just because it’s Monday.
That is another tripwire for the Chinese.
Also, no one actually wants Taiwanese politicians.
Been gone for a while, and the thread is moved on, but figured I’d respond to this just for fun.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
XT and I have had this debate before and we disagree. I think that without American assistance, it would be possible for China to conquer Taiwan if they were willing to pay the price for it.
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Anything is possible…but I don’t see it as being a very probable outcome.
They talk about it that way because that’s pretty much the text book of how to do this sort of thing with a modern army when you expect to be facing modern weapons.
No, you can’t. Or, I should say, you COULD do that…but not if you expect many of them to actually make it to the beach. You could load up your troops on barges or civilian fishing boats…or even cruise ships…and then attempt to send them across the straights, but not many of those ships are going to make it. Then what? Have your troops magically hold the beechhead (in the face of a well equipped and trained army that outnumbers you by a large amount) while you, what? Magically find more ships to do it again?
Going from memory here, but those islands were pretty close to the mainland (less than a mile between the mainland and the beech?), there was a significant communist gorrilla campaign already going on there, the Nationalists had not built up their defenses or had modern heavy weapons (like tanks, large scale artillery, APCs, or attack fighters)…and the beechhead was pretty much uncontested.
Pretend for a moment though that the Chinese COULD move that same 100k lightly armed and lightly supported troops to a beech in Taiwan totally uncontested though. Do you suppose that those troops could hold out with their rifle and whatever ammo and food they had on their backs for any length of time in the face of a modern Taiwanese army using prepared defenses, artillery, tanks and APCs…and a regular army (not even counting the reserves) that’s over double the number of troops you magically moved to that beech uncontested? Really?
The differences are so overwhelmingly vast that it’s not comparable.
No, Hainan is at least ten miles from the mainland at its closest point. And the actual invasion fleet traveling a route that was around twenty miles of open water. I’m not claiming this means they could transport troops to Australia or California. But across a hundred miles of open water to Taiwan? That’s possible.
And the Hainan attack occurred when the People’s Republic of China was only a few months old. They’ve now had several decades to make preparations. China’s built nuclear weapons and launched men into orbit. Do you think it hasn’t also been improving its military? The People’s Liberation Army has five divisions designated as Amphibious Assault and two over-sized Marine brigades - their mission isn’t fighting in Tibet.
I’ll grant that Taiwan has also spend the last few decades building up its defenses. But China has put a lot of effort into developing the ability to knock out an opposing country’s defense network - launching precision strikes against an enemy’s C3 systems. Again, the ability to defeat a high-tech C3 network isn’t the kind of capacity China needs for fighting insurgents.
The big problem is the 800 pound gorilla nobody wants to admit is there in the room. While the official position that everyone is supposed to agree to is there is only one China with a temporary disagreement over which government runs it, the reality is that China and Taiwan are two separate countries by any reasonable definition of the term. Taiwan is an independent country and has been for decades (I can say this out loud because I’m not a government official).
So we have a situation that requires everyone involved to pretend to believe something they all know isn’t true in order to preserve stability. It’s an inherently unstable situation.
There is a pretty big difference between moving 100k troops even 10 miles and moving them 100 miles across open water, LN. And, again, even leaving that aside, and pretending that they could magically transport their 100k troops directly to the beach without loses, how could they push inland from there to conquer the island in the face of prepared defenses and modern weapons? They would be facing modern (and dug in) tanks, APCs, and troops backed up by modern artillery and air local air support.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I’ll grant that Taiwan has also spend the last few decades building up its defenses. But China has put a lot of effort into developing the ability to knock out an opposing country’s defense network - launching precision strikes against an enemy’s C3 systems. Again, the ability to defeat a high-tech C3 network isn’t the kind of capacity China needs for fighting insurgents.
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I have no doubt that China would attempt that, but as I mentioned earlier they would have to be unbelievably lucky to take out enough to allow them the sorts of air and sea superiority they would need to even attempt this…ESPECIALLY if we are talking about the ‘load a bunch of light troops into some civilian ships and jam them on the beach until they can make a big enough ramp of bodies to squash the enemy’.
I KNOW it’s been improving it’s military. They just spend a metric butt load of money changing out their tank gun barrels in the past 5 years, have brought into service some actual modern fighters, and have been making strides to build up their navy (including adding that fierce retread carrier, as well as building several home grown carriers). But what they haven’t really done is build up a large enough sea lift and logistics capability to even seriously consider a forced entry assault on Taiwan…or any other nation with a large and modern military.
As I said, we continue to disagree on this issue.
My main point is that China has been thinking about Taiwan for over sixty years now. They’d have to be pretty incompetent not to have been working on some real plans. And the development of things like amphibious assault troops and a counter-C3 force are the kinds of things they would need to attack Taiwan - and wouldn’t need for most other likely military scenarios. Who else is China going to use five amphibious divisions against? The Spratlys wouldn’t hold that many troops. And I don’t see China invading Japan.
As for the follow-up to a landing, Taiwan is not in a good strategic position for long-term resistance. It’s a 14,000 square mile island - there’s not a lot of space to fall back to. (Especially when most of Taiwan’s population lives within twenty miles of the west coast.) Taiwan has 290,000 men in its armed forces. China has that many troops stationed in just the Nanjing Military Region facing Taiwan.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
As I said, we continue to disagree on this issue.
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Sure…that’s what makes it fun. 
They haven’t though. They have been rattling their sabers at Taiwan for that period of time, but realistically they haven’t really done the things they would need to in order to make it a reality. They have built up their sea lift capability, for instance, but not to the extent they would need it to be in order to realistically invade Taiwan. They would need many times the current number of heavy, medium and light weight military grade transport ships, for instance. More landing craft, especially to land heavy equipment. They would need a more powerful navy, and a more powerful air superiority air force as well. They would need a much larger logistics capability, and a more substantial airborne assault capability as well.
What they HAVE built up is their heavy ground units (though oddly not their external logistics…they still rely a lot on rail transport), their heavy rocket and nuclear capabilities (which wouldn’t be all that useful in this, unless they are planning to use nukes). The rest has been efforts to modernize their existing force structures.
Again, it’s getting them to the battlefield that’s the issue, not the overall size of the respective forces. Taiwan is in a perfect strategic position to bleed any realistic Chinese assault force heavily just getting to the island and then meet whatever is left on beach and wipe it out. I know you disagree, but thus far I’ve seen nothing that changes that equation, even in the unlikely event that the US doesn’t lift a finger.
The other thing I think that you are ignoring is that China today isn’t the China of the 50’s…and I can’t see the people being willing to throw away 100’s of thousands of Chinese soldiers lives on something like this, regardless of the outcome. My guess is that any attempt to do this would have large portions of the population in revolt. The folks in charge are increasingly having a hard time keeping the lid on things as it is, without something like this on top of that.