Either we’re pissing off China and we are bluffing, which seems pointless. Or we’re pissing off China and we’re not bluffing, which is insane.
The South Korean President is facing impeachment.
There are vast gulfs between South Korean thinking & North Korean views.
North Korea may interpret this as the SK Government collapsing, & storm the border, expecting to be “welcomed as liberators”.
I’m going to with Russia. Gotta stick with the classics.
It might be Russia by proxy, but I think we’ll see by Valentine’s Day how much of a Putin puppet he is.
I fully expect the comb over clown to put all of us into a major world of hurt within the next 12 months.
Having Melinia blueball him for his “just grab their pussy” policy.
I don’t think anyone here expects Trump to handle ANY sensitive international situation properly. He’s incapable of doing so and too f’ing stupid to take the advice of those who could. He’s Mr. Magoo leading a boy scout troop through a minefield when it comes to foreign policy.
Republicans have majorities in both houses of congress. They need to step up and install President Pence.
It doesn’t really matter how many people China has, in terms of population or in their military. What it needs are ships and / or aircraft (and to a lesser extent, missiles). If Taiwan / USA defeat the PLAN and PLAAF, they can’t conquer Taiwan.
They are a competitor, but not at this point really an enemy. They are US’s third largest trade partner. Fucking up that relationship is likely to cause a recession in the US and probably the rest of the world.
Trump is so extremely inexperienced and incompetent in foreign affairs that he’s very likely to fuck things up. He’s already committed three or four significant diplomatic faux-pas and he’s not even inaugurated yet. I expect we’ll be seeing a diplomatic crisis of the month once he is.
I hope the Dems are smarter than that. We might have a modicum of hope that Trump won’t be a simple rubber stamp for some of the crazy crap that’s most assuredly to come across his desk from Congress … particularly in relation to Social Security, Medicare, and the ACA. I’m pretty positive, though, that Pence would be more than happy to pass these on through like last night’s wet burrito.
I find it entertaining that Democrats can’t seem to decide among themselves if Trump is the crazy one or if they’re more scared of “regular Republicans”.
How about DF-26 anti-ship missiles? China has those. They’re designed to sink aircraft carriers. China started deploying them last year.
Is the United States going to send a carrier group into the Taiwan Strait if China has the capability of sinking it?
Trump is the crazy one AND what “regular Republicans” will do is just as scary because the ones in charge are utter assholes.
Trump is the crazy one, but I’m much more scared of “regular Republicans.”
The “regular Republicans” can do the most damage here at home.
The crazy one can accidentally (or through sheer stupidity and ineptitude) cause an international incident of some kind. Which I suppose could lead to WWIII and the destruction of the planet… nah, I’m still more scared of the regular Republicans.
HurricaneDitka, the fact that you compare the “crazy one” to “regular Republicans” perfectly expresses my point about “normalizing” Trump’s crazy behavior. I just wrote you a massive post on another thread in response to your question about the normalizing thing. But I see you already do have a perfect grasp of the concept.
Well, its true that in history, geniuses are often mistaken for batshit zealots. Unfortunately, the truth is more often the other way round.
Really? Try being in business where the Chinese are a ‘competitor’. They will try to hack you.
Standing up to them now is better than having to smack them later.
Guess who was Germany’s largest trade partner before WW2?
I’m not sure that means what you think it means. The US didn’t go to war with Germany during WWII until we were attacked by the Japanese, two years after the war began. Our trade relationship may well explain that extreme reluctance, despite some knowledge of the atrocities that were occurring and the special relationship between the US and Britain.
If you’re referring to what crisis he’ll cause, probably none. Talking to Taiwan is a big nothing, it’s just making explicit what already exists in reality but we don’t talk about. We are allied with Taiwan and we’ll defend them, and we sell them arms. A taboo on talking to them is stupid, especially coming from the side that said “What possible harm could there be in just talking? It’s stupid to not talk to countries.”
China is far stronger, in the sense of military hardware, than you think they are.
They could roll over Taiwan before the US could turn a carrier around. Same thing in Korea. If NK mobilized its 8 million reserve and active troops, they could roll over SK before the news hit the US.
If Trump has any brains at all, he’d apologize to the Chinese for his indiscretion, whether he believes it or not. He’d do this before he pisses them off again. (and again…)
I’ve watched a Vblogger from China for about a year now. I’ve learned there are two things the average Chinese find distasteful. Talking about politics, which they do not do, and not simply because some of that talk could land them in trouble. And the China Taiwan problem. 2 areas to avoid if you don’t want to piss off a Chinese person.
No, this depends heavily on what kind of war is being waged. People frequently point to China’s 2-million-strong military and think that on a bean-counting basis that that alone will overwhelm Taiwan, but in order for an invasion to succeed that 100 miles of water of the Taiwan Strait needs to be crossed. The parallels to Operation Sea Lion and how difficult it would have been for Nazi Germany to conquer Britain in WWII, are very real here. China has very limited amphibious capability. Islands are historically difficult to invade - the British Isles have not been successfully invaded since 1066, nearly a millennia ago, for instance - and as long as the defender can sink sufficient ships or shoot down sufficient aircraft, the invasion cannot succeed. The coastline of Taiwan is in many areas inhospitable for amphibious landing and it would be much easier for Taiwan to muster reinforcements to the point of attack than for China to do so; and compounding the issue for Beijing is that often tactics favor the defense, and the attacker must muster greater forces in a favorable ratio at the point of attack, relative to the defender, for the beachhead to even last long.
Now, if on the other hand, China utilizes a blockade, then that stands a significantly higher chance of succeeding - Taiwan has very limited ASW capability, for instance. But since many people believe that an invasion of Taiwan would be a piece of cake for China since “numerical superiority” - it just doesn’t work like that, not with the geography and logistics involved. Wars are not fought these days on a bean-counting basis.