Good post, and I just wanted to make sure that nobody less familiar with Chinese history is scratching their heads over this sentence, it’s obviously a typo that should read “Taiwan is now occupied by…”
Marx is irrelevant.
China has abandoned Marxism, except on their office stationary.
Yes. Thanks. I saw the typo long after the window closed. A proper 
moment.
China currently has a rather fragile economy. The possibility of something similar to the current sanctions applied to Russia would give them serious pause for thought. The danger of the entire hyper-leveraged real-estate structure failing is real enough now without damaging sanctions to contend with.
So much real estate is serving as the retirement fund for the middle classes that China’s government would risk seeing a significant fraction of its population suddenly facing an old age in poverty. That isn’t conducive to stable government of a happy populace. I would recommend buying shares in pitchforks and flaming torches.
I think this is key. I read that 90% of “advanced” semiconductor chips are manufactured Taiwan. It wouldn’t surprise me if China wants this capability.
Reading the posts upthread, and looking at Putin’s crap, and MAGA, and the Brexit drive for some sort of old greatness, all I can say is FFS is it really that critical to be “great again”? There are probably a few hundred other countries who aren’t great and couldn’t give a rat’s ass and a lot of us are fairly happy campers who aren’t about to start a fucking world war. Rant finished.
Not wants; needs. They aren’t going to get it by invading Taiwan but might believe they can pressure the ROC into economic concessions and eventually a “common market” merger leading to an eventual de facto takeover.
An obsession with recapturing the nostalgic spirit of supposed-“greatness” is a very typical characteristic of an imperial power on a downward slide. I don’t think anybody in the immediate post-WWII era really had to boast about the “greatness” of the United States because it was a self-evident conclusion (for both good and bad, depending on where you stood with respect to benefit from or being the focus of covert unrest of America’s foreign policy, or domestically what color and class you were). The same is true for other would-be reborn empires.
As it says in the Bible:
”Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” — Proverbs 16:18
It’s a pity that some of those self-proclaimed evangelical supporters of a would-be demagogue aren’t more familiar with the book.
Regardless of the PRC’s official policy of being “Maoist” (even though their economy is now as corporate-capitalist as it comes) the “Mandate of Heaven” is deeply entrenched within the culture, and they most definitely seek a return to being the regional hegemony that they were prior to the British coming in and destroying the nation with the opium trade and grabbing territories like candy.
Stranger
Of course they want it, but I think one of the biggest reasons that wars of conquest have steeply declined post-WWII is that the modern world just doesn’t work like that.
In the middle ages, you could invade your neighbor and put his populace to work in the iron mines, the grain fields, the lumber camps out in the forest. The value of your neighbor’s land was in the raw resources that could be harvested, the fertile soil, and the manual labor of his peasants. You may have to force them to work for you, but he was probably forcing them to work for him too.
His cities, if you were lucky enough to capture any, were mostly sources of material wealth. You’d sack his city and take the gold, the silver, the weapons, the armor. You’d take the populace of the city, too. If you occupied a city, you’d mostly be doing so to exploit the existing wealth and populace, or to tax trade passing through the city (and the traders wouldn’t really care who owned the city so long as they facilitate trade). You wouldn’t be occupying the city for the knowledge or skills of its occupants, is the point.
Compare that to occupying Taiwan for its semiconductor chips. What does that get you? Some factories with some machines? Well, either the machines themselves are more advanced than whatever you have, or they aren’t, and it’s something else that gives Taiwan its edge in these chips.
If the machines aren’t anything special, then their value is trivial compared to the cost of the invasion. If they ARE, well then, first of all the Taiwanese will probably make sure they’re destroyed rather than fall into China’s hands, and second, even if you capture them, they’re of limited utility. You don’t have anyone familiar with them, so operating and maintaining them will be difficult. You can certainly reverse engineer them and boost your own chip tech, but that seems like a very small prize when compared to the cost of invasion.
So, you can try to capture Taiwanese engineers and force them to run your factories. But it’s very difficult to force people to provide that sort of labor unwillingly.
The point is, you can’t capture Taiwan’s advanced indystry intact, like you could a gold mine or a fertile river valley. The act of conquest will destroy the very thing you’re trying to capture.
Now, will that stop China? Probably not. Hong Kong is only valuable as a financial center for exchange with the West. Cracking down on Hong Kong destroys that value. Yet it hasn’t stopped China.
All, those are great thoughts. So it seems like there is not much rational reason to invade Taiwan.
I don’t see how anyone inside China can say the government is not legitimate if it doesn’t control Taiwan though. They haven’t controlled it for 70 years, and the government has seemed sufficiently legitimate during that time.
I have heard this, but I am pretty sure that the Taiwanese will not let that be a carrot. If I was Taiwan and if there was any hint from China that that is what they want, I would let them know (under no uncertain terms) that those factories will be reduced to dust before China holds it.
I realize that you didn’t mean this literally (!), but just to add a comment on investment prospects. I agree that the economy is in a fragile state, but in terms of investment you have to consider the market consensus degree of pessimism, and thus what’s already priced in. There has already been a massive exit from Chinese equities over the past year, they have crashed 50% since the Feb 2021 high (although granted that only puts them back to where they were pre-COVID). I think for those with a strong constitution and a long investment horizon (at least 10 years), Chinese stocks are a buy. The best two ETFs are MCHI and CXSE. Although they are passive broad market funds, neither have more than a few percent direct exposure to real estate, just because real estate investment in China has not been implemented via the stock market. Of course they would still go down further if real estate completely implodes, but I prefer the risk-reward of not having direct exposure to real estate, and just betting on the potential upside if the economy as a whole weathers this and recovers.
The Chinese government do some reprehensible things with regard to human rights, but they are pragmatic and not insane. They are concerned with keeping a tight grip on power, and that imbues Chinese stocks with considerable political/regulatory risk (as in the Jack Ma / Alibaba saga). They are capable of doing stupid things with regard to the economy, as are Western nations. But the Chinese government will not deliberately tank their whole economy, because (as you say) that’s a certain path to massive political unrest. So to come back to Taiwan - their approach will remain stubbornly determined but pragmatic. Xi is not another Mao. China is not a potential dictatorship that could go the way of Russia. People don’t get to vote, but public opinion still matters, and “It’s the economy, stupid” applies as much to China as it does to the U.S.
Apologies, but in the interests of fighting ignorance, this is factually incorrect. Taiwan is not occupied by the descendants of the old Qing Dynasty (last Emperor) Imperial Government.
The Qing and even prior Ming dynasties had minimal presence in Taiwan in a couple of ports, and certainly did not manage the entire island. Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1894 well before the decrepit Manchu (eg, barbarians from the north) Qing Dynasty fell in 1912. Post 1912 had the warlord period in Mainland China, Japanese invasion of China, and a decades long civil war that ended in 1949 when Generallismo Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan with the remnants of his KMT army. The KMT government is what took over the Taiwanese government. And the “congressmen” from provinces in China remained representatives until they finally all died of old age. Chiang Kai-shek by the way was a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen, who were over throwing the Qing dynasty and remnants rather than being detritus of the Qing.
Why does China want Taiwan? Reasons.
Reason the first, is remember that in Chinese history anything part of China is still considered part of China. Outsiders can argue that Genghis Khan was a Mongolian invader from the North that took over much of the world including China. The Chinese view of history is that by being invaded and subjugated by barbarians from the north, “the Chinese” actually civilized them and thus the empire was a “Chinese empire.”
Ceeding Taiwan means ceeding the South China sea claims including the Spratleys and Natuna oil fields, as well as the Diaoyutai islands claimed also by Korea and Japan. Potentially could give rise to independance movements in Hong Kong, Tibet, Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang (more than 1/2 of China’s land mass). That would also call into question Chinese terrertorial claims in the Himalayas. (Look at a map, the claims to the Natuna oil fields would be akin to the US claiming not only the gulf of mexico but probably all the way to the mouth of the Amazon.
Taiwan didn’t help itself politically by claiming to be the rightful leader of all of greater China (including outer Mongolia) until after Chiang Kai-shek’s son and heir Chiang Qing-kuo passed on in 1989.
Taiwan has a lot of technology including semiconductors. Taiwanese led companies dominate multiple industries in china including PC manufacturing.
Xi Jinping has been rattling the nationalistic card his entire time in office. Earlier in the pandemic made noises about needing to invade Taiwan to save it from inept government management of Covid. It will be interesting to see if Taiwan ends quarantine requirements for visitors in July after the current Omicron wave passes whilst China is committed to pursuing a zero covid strategy until Xi’s anointment to a 3rd term in October.
True, but most invasions are irrational, yet happen anyway. There wasn’t much rational reason for America to invade Iraq in 2003, but it did. There was little rational reason for Russia to invade Ukraine, but it did. So a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is totally possible/probable despite the fact that it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best and a disaster at worst.
Ignorance fought. (I will admit that I knew I was hazy about this part of Chinese history, that makes it a lot clearer.)
I believe the Nine-Dash Line (originally an Eleven-Dash line, and there are a couple other variations in use) was originally a product of post-WWII jockeying for position by the KMT-led Republic of China. There may be an older map or two indicating Chinese exploration of the South China Sea that is used to bolster their claim, though the relevance of such is minor in a technical sense but important to feed internal nationalism.
The South China Sea is important to China both for the sea’s own resources and for control over the shipping lanes from areas like the Middle East and Africa where much more of the resources China needs to keep its economy going come from.
And if you want another reason why China wants Taiwan, it would help them in a pinch to put the squeeze on their old adversary Japan.
They may want it, but an invasion would likely result in them destroying it. Cf. what is happening in Ukraine.
After you (collectively) have answered this question, perhaps you can explain why Argentina attacked the Falklands.
Don’t all countries secretly want lost territory though? I know Mexico has over the centuries made veiled threats about the entire American Southwest still being “Theirs” even if they have absolutely no way to actually make good on that threat.
Sure, but some of the Chinese claims go back to 1271 and the time of Gengis Khan. Or they are based on voyages (which may or may not have actually occurred) by the Eunich Admiral Zhang He starting in 1405.
It’s kinda like Danes claiming parts of the United Kingdom, because, well, Vikings. At some point, you have to call bullshit. Remember Taiwan was a japanese colony from 1894 until 1945. The KMT controlled Taiwan by force after Japan surrendered from 1945 and now it is an algamation of those originally in Taiwan and those that fled from the mainland (and there has been a ton of inter-marriage in the past few decades so it is really getting blurry who is a “mainlander”). And the Taiwanese are not real happy with the living memory of being invaded by China, nor want to repeat that experience. The CCP have never ever not even for a minute had any kind of control of Taiwan.
Americans don’t seem to want the Philippines.
Irredentism requires a popular elite pushing the theme. If Trump or Cruz were to start pushing the idea that evil Democrats gave up the beautiful Philippines islands, the sickness could come to my country.
Really disturbing to me is China including scenes from Taiwan in its passports, in a likely successful attempt to convince their people that Taiwan is a crucial part of China.
The Danelaw will rise again!
That notion that “what was once ours should always be ours” is called irredentism and/or revanchism.