Agreed. You hope for the best, and plan for the worst. I do think that there is quite a bit of pressure on the CCP and Xi wrt to this subject that doesn’t really make it into the news much and loses a lot of context in the translation, but I concede that the risk would be enormous…if the invasion failed, or even if it was a pyrrhic victory, destroying much of Taiwan and costing the PLA(whatever) vast numbers of killed and equipment destroyed, it might be the final straw not just for Xi but for the CCP…they might not recover, especially if the rest of the world reacts badly, even if non-militarily.
We need to help the Taiwanese to build up their forces to deter the CCP, to make the cost so great they won’t pull the trigger…to help the Taiwanese defend themselves. They can’t compete with the PLA’s budget, but they don’t really need to…they merely need to have a great enough deterrent to make the cost of the juice not worth the squeeze in no uncertain terms. THEN if the US remains on the fence wrt to will we won’t we, it will put the equation over the top. IMHO of course.
Part of the risk is also just how important Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is to the whole world, and to China itself, if Taiwan is conquered but a burning pile of rubble China likely has just caused itself a major recession and serious long term economic issues.
All in all, it seems a lot of things are coming to a moment of reckoning. Bankruptcies are a normal part of life in the West. China has prevented them until the have become huge problems. Frankly I am afraid a lot of the books are cooked. The population is starting to age, with all the problems that causes. People who now have cars and all the rest may soon also want to have votes.
I am not concerned about any one of these. I am worried about a whole constellation of things stressing the ability of the nation to work its way out.
Yes, exactly…it’s the aggregate of issues that are piling up that has me concerned. Any one of these issues, while serious, is probably not a threat either to China or the rest of the world wrt major economic impact…in the aggregate, however, they are…concerning. There are an awful lot of issues piling up on the CCP’s ledger right now…
Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed.
In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin.