Why Would the US Get Involved the China Taiwan Thing?

Great Debates
21

Not at all really. Russia is now a ‘democracy’ and not the USSR you remember. Even if the good 'ol USSR was still around and kicking they never did get along very well with China. In fact, the border between the USSR and China was very heavily guarded.

Certainly both countries viewed the US as enemy #1 but they were a close 2[sup]nd[/sup] to each other. They actually practiced different versions of Communism that were only marginally more compatible with each other than they were with Capitalism.

For the USSR it was hard to be comfortable with 1 billion people antagonistic people on your doorstep. Even with improved mass destruction devices that would be VERY hard to stop. China always felt the USSR was holding out on them keeping them from the good stuff as well as anger at having to play second fiddle to the USSR.

Today things are FAR different. I seriously doubt Russia would do anything if China and the US got into a tussle over Taiwan. In fact, they’d probably enjoy the show. Russia might only care if we actually invaded China and that would be REALLY stupid on our part.

So, no worries on that count. You’re girls are safe in this regard (at least, I think there are many other more likely threats to sweat over than the US and China nuking each other).

22

Agreed; however, generally it’s expected that the Chinese are just as- if not more so- truly unwilling to enter into World War III over the matter. Not only are they handicapped by a lack of technology, but they’d always be worried about how much the peace movement might link up with the anti-government movement. When your power is based on keeping the people in line, you don’t want to give them any reasons to start getting out of line.

Actually, not necessarily. Sino-Russian relations have been seriously strained from the early ‘60’s, and there are still major border issues between the two countries. It’s most likely that Russia will just stay the hell out and try to scavenge pieces where they fall (and maybe gain some prestige as a peace-broker); I think Russia joining China is less likely than Russia joining the U.S. against China. (Think about it- what can Russia get out of fighting the U.S.? Maybe some prestige, maybe some money in ‘reparation’, more likely to get its’ ass kicked by NATO. What can Russia get out of fighting China? Lots of money in aid and loans from the U.S., maybe some of the disputed territory.)

Jeff_42 said:

But the point is that Chamberlain started the re-arming programs in response to Hitler’s threat; his capitulation at Munich was a matter of stalling for time to give those programs some chance of success before finally engaging Hitler. Chamberlain’s failure was not at Munich; it was at not re-arming Britain much earlier than he did.

23

Actually, I just checked the assassination thing, because I was doubting it’s a clause in the Constitution… It’s not there, but I’m pretty sure it’s still technically illegal. Just not if you’re CIA.

24

This is some very interesting stuff you people over here at the staight dope are pretty smart. What about this. Didn’t China buy two anti carrier destroyers from Russia? What else has Russia sold them?

25

One more question would Corpus Christi be on a missle Target list? And if not I know Houston or San Antonio would be. So how big of radius is the kill zone including radiation on a nuclear warhead? I just want to know if I am going to die fast or slow? I don’t know what y’all think about Einstein but I don’t think he was a genious I think he was a idiot.

26

I believe a law was passed during the Carter administration making assasination of heads of state illegal. This was mentioned frequently during the conflict with Sadam Husein.

27

“I think the US meddles in everyone’s affairs. It’s just what we do.”

– Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ)

28

Corpus? You’re kidding right? Dude, I went to highschool in San Antonio, ninth largest city in the U.S. but third biggest in Texas, and people I’ve met outside the state wonder what part of California San Antonio is in.

Unless Corpus has a strategic military role or China has more missile than it knows what to do with, I think you’ll be OK.

Now, Amarillo, that’s mentioned in Country music. They’d better watch out.

29

Without doing research I’m not sure what all China has bought from Russia. I will say that the majority of China’s blue-water navy is either bought from Russia or of Russian design. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, you name it. This, however, does not argue for friendliness between China and Russia. Russia has been strapped for cash of late and will sell pretty much anything for enough money (it’s one of the few marketable industries they have).

Even though these items can be had ‘cheap’ from Russia they are still very expensive. China’s blue-water navy is nowhere near the quality of the US navy. In fact, I think it is safe to argue no navy in the world is up to taking on the US. The Brits and French have some good stuff but not our numbers.

So, if China has a few guided missile destroyers I wouldn’t fret. A US Carrier Battlegroup is an exceedingly tough nut to crack. Given the cost and number of men on just one carrier we protect the hell out of them (2 Aegis Cruisers, several destroyers, some frigates and a nuclear fast attack sub or two). On top of all of that our sailors are a helluva lot better trained than their Chinese counterparts would be not to mention we’ve been sailing half-a-dozen of these things round the clock for a lot longer.

Last but not least China is quite aware of the threat a carrier battlegroup poses. Merely sailing said battlegroup within 1,000 miles of China makes them pause which is exactly what the US wants. It may piss off the Chinese but for the near future it is something they’ll have to put up with.

30

I do believe I forgot to mention the Marshall Plan in my earlier post, hey ho.
FWIW, MrBlue I believe the Constitution is affected indirectly. It is a duty of the President or Agency to keep the Speaker (and therefore Congress) informed of all covert operations (hmmm, like with Iran-Contra). If you don’t tell ‘em….it amounts to pursuing foreign policy outside the provisions of the Constitution. But I stand prepared to be corrected by ya’ll.

You know Jeff, I’ve never really settled this one in my head. For a long time I fully accepted the view you express but now I’m not so certain. A couple of things that made me think:

Firstly, some argue that the British Government recognised by 1938 that a war was inevitable and that Britain was unprepared. I’ve never come across released Government papers that confirm this but as most papers are restricted for at least 50 years perhaps that’s not surprising. It would seem possible, given Hitler’s rhetoric, that such a conclusion was not entirely fanciful.

In addition, the Spitfire and Hurricane were technically no match for the Messerschmit 109’s until late in 1939.

Also, Chamberlain was a peace time prime Minister and so the policy (unlike Churchill’s wartime cabinet) history has assigned to him alone was, in fact, the product of collaboration. I think it entirely possible that we have succumbed to an over simplification of the Governments position…

Government in general doesn’t pursue one option at the cost of all others. It would seem reasonable to me, therefore, that even if the (analogies being required in this thread) duck was passively swimming around on the surface, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t going bananas under the surface.

Finally, by the time the Germans did invaded Poland and we had to declare war, it was late summer 1939 – too late in the year to be a direct threat to Britain.

Of course, none of that explains why so much of the Army was risked in France. Certainly the French believed until quite late in the day that Britain would not contribute meaningfully to a land war in Europe (Britain promised only two divisions with the possibility of two more). However, that policy clearly slipped as pressure and urgency intervened (or it was designed to encourage the French to build up their own land forces)

Frankly, I just don’t know

31

A recent article from The New Republic by Gregg Easterbrook, “Apocryphal Now: The Myth of the Hollow Military”, has some relevant points. For example, whatever the Chinese have bought from the Russians, it doesn’t include aircraft carriers, since the Russians only have one themselves, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which Easterbrook describes as being “widely viewed as a fish reef looking for a place to sink”. Also, I think Corpus Christ would be safe: according to Easterbrook, China only has 18 single-warhead ICBM’s, and I think Wildest Bill’s home town would be rather farther down the target list than 18th place. Furthermore, these warheads would purportedly require “hours or days of launch preparation”, which would seem to make a Chinese first strike pretty hard to pull off–if it really looked they were going to launch, we would seem to have ample opportunity to pre-emptively take their missiles out.

32

Off to Great Debates.

33

MeBucner,

Thanks for the info.

I am just totally confused on what you said on your sig line mind explaining it?

34

Oddly enough, Taiwan is the single largest source of investment capital for the PRC (don’t know if this is still accurate given the recent liberalization of US policy, but the ROC is still up there on the list, anyway), which does a lot to explain why the PRC would never invade in the first place. Granted, the US military presence over the last 50 years has helped protect the Taiwanese economy, but at this particular point in time, the PRC wouldn’t risk shooting themselves in the economic foot even if they had the military capacity.

On the other hand, if this were 1980 rather than 2000, I might be inclined to agree with Bill’s assertion that we should let them duke it out… Taiwan was by no means “democratic” by any stretch of the imagination… more like the world’s richest banana republic.

35

Close. It was actually an Executive Order by Carter, which does make it illegal. However, in theory, any President currently in office could decide to make a new Executive Order allowing it again.

From Wildest Bill:

This has been covered pretty well, but I would like to say that Russia would probably be more than happy for us to fight China. I know I would be a bit ansy if I had the world’s largest standing army on my border.

36

Mr Blue:
Yeah, it is illegal for US citizens to kill foreign heads of state. However, I’m pretty sure (although I have no cite to back this up, unfortunately), that there is nothing legally (i.e. letter of the law) against the US hiring foreign nationals to do the dirty work. The way I always heard it was the US hires the British, and vice versa. Probably not true, but rather interesting nonetheless.

Now, you are fully entitled to your opinion, but I just wanted to make it clear that Einstein regretted his decision to approve work on the atomic bomb quite deeply. Just about everybody involved with the bomb eventually (if not immediately) regretted it.

37

Good points, London! I think I might have an explanation for you–nobody expected the French army to fold like a house of cards, not even the majority of the German General Staff. (Say what you will about Hitler the tactician, but he did do well for himself '39-'40.) Poland should have been an alarm to the French that WW2 would not be fought like WW1, but hindsight is 20/20. The French Army was larger than the Wehrmacht, had more and better tanks, and had some strong defensive positions. But the French were basically deployed in the wrong places, had their tanks tied down in infantry formations, and did not have the leadership to adapt to blitzkrieg.

Incidentally, the Russians did the same thing as the British. I think Chamberlain gets a bad rap because of his well-publicized “peace in our time” quote. Stalin was shocked when the Germans attacked in '41 and went into seclusion for weeks; depending on the source, it seems he either expected the German attack in '42, or he actually trusted Hitler.

38

The posters who have pointed out that our China policies are a Cold War leftover are right (IMHO of course). There was a lot of support for Chiang Kai-Shek in the US in the '30’s because his people were fighting the Japanese invaders (when they weren’t pillaging their own people), and because Madame Chiang (who is still alive, btw - get her in your Death Pool) was a fine lobbyist in Washington. Then, when the Communist revolution took over in China, driving the Nationalists to Taiwan, it was easy to keep up the alliance.

Not that it was “supporting democracy” in Taiwan - that place has been recognizably democratic only in the last decade or so (the Nationalists were basically the same authoritarian thugs they’d always been). Nope, US policy was still based on Acheson’s theory of “containing communism”, no matter the reasons for it taking hold where it did or what it really meant on the ground. That same philosophical approach got us into Vietnam, too.

But in recent years, or basically since Nixon re-established mainland relations, our policy has been just a matter of constant rhetorical finessing to keep both markets open and trading with us without having to make any real commitments. It’s worth noting that Taiwan and China have heavy and growing trade with each other, a lot of businesses in both countries are working across the strait, and there is a lot of economic reason not to imperil those relations. The 2 governments have close working relations behind the scenes, little of which has any US involvement, but are constrained by their own history to keep making belligerent proclamations to each other while quietly making more deals. IOW, don’t worry about anything really happening, just smile wryly at the bombastic speeches - from the 2 governments themselves, as well as from our own clueless demagogues.

Not that China could really capture Taiwan even if they wanted. They just don’t have the military strength to do much of anything except keep their own population intimidated against more Tiananmen-type revolts.

FWIW, Taiwan was a part of China only from the 1600’s to 1895, and 1945-49. It has its own aborigine oopulation, which had the whole island until the Dutch and Portuguese captured it and they took to the hills, where they stay today. It became Chinese only after a successful attack by a mainland warlord against the Dutch and Portuguese. Japan took over in 1895 around the time that everyone else in the world was grabbing hunks of China for themselves, including us.

39

>> Taiwan was a part of China only from the 1600’s to 1895, and 1945-49

Yup. Most Chinese people are quite brainwashed that the mainland has a right to take Taiwan back. I always confound my Chinese friends when I tell them that a) Taiwan has belonged to China for only about 5 years during the last 100 years and b) since it was the communists who revolted, the government of Taiwan should be the one claiming the rest of China, and not viceversa. Add to this the fact that Taiwan has a much higher standard of living and a better economy and it is clear things would be much better if Taiwan ruled China than the other way around.

I know it’s not going to happen but at least it is a good argument against all the Chinese who talk about taking Taiwan back.

While China will not attempt to use force in the near future, I am concerned that they are rearming fast and they keep their people quite excited about this issue. Rulers have a way of painting themselves into a corner and I can see that it could happen that 10 or 15 years down the line, China would see no other way out of this than to use force. IMHO that would be disastrous for both China and Taiwan and probably would affect the rest of the world too.

The only way to prevent these things is with good and open communication and I hope China will open up more to the outside. I see the people there still very closed and today I have no doubt the majority would support their government in using force.

Regarding Russia, I am not sure what they would do because things change fast but one thing is clear: In general, in any conflict, most second rate powers would support the enemy of the USA for the simple reason that they do not want the USA to have more power but less. It is not because it is the US, just that nobody wants to see one country running the world and this is the only way to keep a balance of power. I am sure that in any conflict in which the USA is involved, both Russia and China will find a good reason to support the other side (as happened in Yugoslavia).

40

blink

Um, Dude. The Russians and Chinese have hated each other since, oh, the late 1200’s. It took 3 generations and one heckofa battle (The Battle of the Bloody Lake, where so much blood was shed the frozen lake was red) to convince the Golden Horde to retreat.

I doubt seriously Russia would help China. They would help the US in return for some mineral resources and land, I’d bet. In this modern age, there is a chance that they’d help, but very small.