Better to say, it is more an authoritarian state than a totalitarian one. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian.
Rjung, I rarely find myself in agreement with xtisme on political issues, but I’ve got to side with him (her?) this time. Not only about the Taiwan situation but about your responses on this thread. You don’t seem to be offering any reasons why Bush wouldn’t defend Taiwan. Instead, you just seem to be saying he would choose to do the wrong thing just for the sake of doing it.
And you don’t care to give a reason why Taiwan is not worth risking a nuclear war over? “I just don’t”, ranks right up there with “I wish”.
And you also presume something the US Government doesn’t. Would you also care to explain your presumption? Especially considering most of the comments on this board detailed refutations of your claim.
Hmm…dunno about you, but my preference is that Taiwan isn’t worth a nuclear war over. Nuclear war would tend to suck big time. As for what the US would actually do, no way of knowing unless China invades Taiwan. What the US government says publicly it would do is untrustworthy. If the US government had decided that there is NO way we’d use nuclear weapons if China invaded Taiwan, d’ya really think they’d publicly announce this?
Again, what is worth a nuclear war over. Seems that any time we go into a conflict witgh a nuclear power that we risk nuclear war over it. The entoire COd war was a nuclear war risk.
What if China invaded Thailand , or India, or even Australia? Do we sit on our hands to not risk a nuclear war? What if they decide to take all of the Pacific Islands incliding Hawaii with promises not to invade the mainland? WHat if they invade the mainland?
If any of these you would risk nuclear war over…what makes Taiwan so different?
And I do not share your contempt for the US government. I beleive the US usually keeps it’s major public promises and I can’t recall one time it abondoning it’s allies out of fear.
So sorry.
Seems that any time we go into a conflict with a nuclear power that we risk nuclear war over it. The entire Cold war was a nuclear war risk.
China at least has a somewhat credible claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. As opposed to say India.
Says who? You? The US doesn’t say so, but then again you don’t beleive anything the US says. So it all boils down to what your personal convictions are. Wich are irrelevant and as uselss to this debate as my little girls nap time. I’m sorry we wasted each others time.
As I wrote in my first message in this thread, the US has too much at stake with China (financially and otherwise) to risk pissing them off with a shooting match. Defending Taiwan is a nice idealistic goal, but on a pragmatic level, the downsides vastly outweight the benefits. That trade deficit alone is a big reason right there. And the laughability of xtisme’s naive assertion that the Bush Administration would defend Taiwan out of a commitment to American pledges is just icing on the cake.
Umm the trade deficit is our deficit. They would be losing out on well over 100 billion US dollar surplus and we would have to buy from somewhere else. Who’s the big loser there? And I don’t see Bush backing out of the commitment to defend one of our allies from attack. That parallel hasn’t presented itself, so I don’t know where you would find it implausible.
Actually , china has four ICBM’s with the capability of reaching some where on the west coast , plus a submarine that carries nuclear missiles , which for some reason is permanently docked, so we are not talking the same kind of nuclear shootout that the US faced with the old soviet union.
Having said that , the chinese are not stupid by a long shot , they keep the heavy nukes for political capital and influence , but their generals can do the numbers as well as anyone elses, launch and lose a civilization thats six thousand years old , and have it regenerated by offland chinese educated and raised in other parts of the world.
In todays world they have a lot of friends and influence , but in the event of a military clash between the US and China, this would vanish like the will of the wisp , the only real friend that they can count on , even if it meant twisting arms , is North Korea.
Which is where the problem lies , with military commitments in Iraq not abating anytime soon , add some sort of north korean invasion of south korea , into the mix and washington is suddenly faced with the real possibility of deciding who to support , taiwan or south korea.
The USN may be able to repulse one invasion , but that really depends on what china is willing to throw down on a full court press invasion.
I really can’t see them doing that , but its pretty much the reason that any argument over Taiwan has to be nuclear heavy in the retoric.
Declan
In other words, you don’t have a clue and its simply your blind hatred of Bush that allows you to spin such fantasy. The US has too much at stake with China? Where do you GET this stuff? Its pretty laughable all right…but whats laughable is that you think that Bush, who is the master of all evil after all, wouldn’t simply use a Chinese attack to get out of paying off that debt. Hell, you make a BETTER case for Bush to go after China then I could have.
See, if we get into a shooting war with China over Taiwan we don’t HAVE to pay that debt off any more. As to the money they hold of ours (I’m assuming that somewhere in your mind you are thinking of all the dollars China has that are helping prop up the price of the dollar)…what do you suppose they’d do with it? Burn it? Its not paper you know, and even if it were, it would be like trying to get rid of a pimple by shooting yourself in the forehead. Sell them off? To who? Oh, it might hurt the US financially in the short term (IF the other nations of the world allowed it which I seriously doubt…THEY all have a stake in the US economy too you know).
It would hurt them a hell of a lot more than us though, especially if they attacked Taiwan first…and China and the US wouldn’t be the only nations hurt financially. What do you suppose such an attack would have on China from an international perspective? Do you suppose the Europeans (and others) would see this as a good oppurtunity to cut China’s trade (after all, there would be a rather large hole to fill in imports to the US that China would no longer have…not to mention imports to Europe) and capture some of their markets for themselves? What about Japan, India and South Korea? What do you suppose China makes that is indespensible to the US or Europe or anywhere else…and that couldn’t be made somewhere else? And what effect, long term, do you suppose this would have on China’s manufacturing? Do you suppose that after the shooting things will just go back to normal and China will just get its old markets back??
You seem to be under the impression that the US is somehow dependant on China because they bought up some of our dollars, or because Walmart buys cheap clothes from them or something. I guess its not occured to you that perhaps China is more dependant on the US (who can, after all, buy cheap clothes, electronics, etc from other countrys who would be MORE than happy to sell them to us and take China’s markets) than the other way around.
You need a serious reality check rjung…you seem to be getting wilder as time goes on and the longer Bush is king…er, President. Take deep breaths and calm yourself…only 3 and a half more years to go. 
Well, there really is no sense in continueing this. Pragmatically it makes a HELL of a lot more sense for the US to support Taiwan if China attempts to invade than to ignore our treaties with them and leave them hanging in the breeze. I can’t even twist my mind far enough to see how abandoning Taiwan is a good thing…and you’ve certainly done nothing to make your case. The bottom line is: China won’t attack Taiwan anyway. Taiwan won’t try and declare independence either…at least not in the forseeable future. If China DOES attack for some reason, the US will support Taiwan…even if its Bush at the helm (hell, I’d say ESPECIALLY if its Bush at the helm). The war won’t go nuclear as all sides have nukes, China kind of defeats the purpose of taking Taiwan if they glaze the island, and what they’d get back would repay any nukes they launched 10 fold at least, so it will be conventional. The Chinese would lose in a conventional invasion of Taiwan (they would probably lose even if the US didn’t support them)…badly. And on more than the military front.
-XT
If China attacks Taiwan, you can bet that the U.S. will intervene with whatever means necessary. What kind of message would it send to other threatened U.S. allies if we didn’t? If China attacked Taiwan and the U.S. did nothing, it would send a very clear message to the rest of the world. It would say, “Your treaties that you made with the U.S. are worthless. Please seek alliances with a major regional player instead.”
Stop trying to bring reality into this. Bush wouldn’t support Taiwan because he’s evil and stupid…he wouldn’t think about such geo-political ramifications or ‘idealism’. Besides, I’m sure China would give him a big cut on the takings…
-XT
Actually, I think Bush wouldn’t get into a shooting match with China because he’s smarter than that.
And vice-versa, no?
For the forseeable future, China will not have the force-projection capability to guarantee a successful invasion of Taiwan. That could change in 20 years, sure.
For an invasion of Taiwan to “succeed” they need to take Taiwan relatively intact, with the population willing to go back to work as usual but now under Chinese political rule. A flattened Taiwan where most people have lost loved ones in the invasion, factories are destroyed, capital markets ruined, etc, is worse than useless.
China’s military would have to be so overwhelming that they could jump in, defeat the Taiwanese defense forces within days, round up the political leadership, and present Taiwan and the world with a fait accompli. That’s not going to happen any time soon. What shape China will be in 20 years from now is merely speculation, however, George Bush surely isn’t going to be president in 20 years.
As for the contention that George Bush would abandon Taiwan in a second, I thought he was a crazy cowboy, intent on starting as many wars as possible? Why wouldn’t crazy George be pleased as punch with a chance to kick Red China in the nuts?
**And vice-versa, no?
For the forseeable future, China will not have the force-projection capability to guarantee a successful invasion of Taiwan. That could change in 20 years, sure.
For an invasion of Taiwan to “succeed” they need to take Taiwan relatively intact, with the population willing to go back to work as usual but now under Chinese political rule. A flattened Taiwan where most people have lost loved ones in the invasion, factories are destroyed, capital markets ruined, etc, is worse than useless.
China’s military would have to be so overwhelming that they could jump in, defeat the Taiwanese defense forces within days, round up the political leadership, and present Taiwan and the world with a fait accompli. That’s not going to happen any time soon. What shape China will be in 20 years from now is merely speculation, however, George Bush surely isn’t going to be president in 20 years.**
I tend to agree. I doubt that the US would respond militariy if China invaded Taiwan. However, I doubt that China would care to try. China has little interest in a flattened Taiwan.
As for the contention that George Bush would abandon Taiwan in a second, I thought he was a crazy cowboy, intent on starting as many wars as possible? Why wouldn’t crazy George be pleased as punch with a chance to kick Red China in the nuts?
Bush is bloodthirsty, but he knows enough to attack nations he knows he can quickly beat, like Iraq. US personnel losses would be huge if they had to take on China in their neck of the woods. In a conventional war China might kick the US in the nuts. Remember Vietnam? However, at that point they’d just have “won” a wasteland Taiwan.
I agree with you on the result – that Bush (or any other US President) wouldn’t get into a shooting match with China – but for different reasons. That is, it isn’t in Corporate America’s best interests to rattle their biggest trade partner that way. The howling from Wal-Mart alone is enough to make the politicians take pause.
The notion by Bush Apologists that George would do the right thing and step up to boldly defend innocent li’l Taiwan from Mean Ol’ China is right up there with the fantasy that Saddam’s mobile WMD labs will turn up behind a Baghdad outhouse Any Day Now™.
Um…I have to ask this, though I might get into trouble with the mods on it. Are you insane? Exactly what kind of a war do you expect if China invades Taiwan? I assume you realize that China (the mainland) and Taiwan (an Island) aren’t physically connected…yes? Do you suppose the US/Taiwan would try and invade China??? Why for gods sake? The US take huge casualties?? Man, you are just out there.
Let me lay it out for you briefly. IF China attacks they have to figure out a way across the straights. That means boats and/or planes to transport the troops. They’d have to stage a major air/sea battle first (the major place the US COULD lose personnel…pilots and sailors perhaps). In the HIGHLY unlikely event that China could defeat the US fleet AND Taiwans airforce/coast guard (and probably US airforce sorteed out of Japan or Korea), China would have to stage a forced entry assault…right into the teeth of some fairly substantial defenses, not to mention Taiwan’s modern and well equiped army. They won’t be bringing their several hundred million man army to Taiwan but a significantly smaller portion…and the US won’t be very involved with the ground combat on Taiwan in any case. Again, IF China could actually get across the straights and land on Taiwan.
What this has to do with Vietnam is FAR beyond me. Why you seem to think the US/Taiwan would, after pounding China’s airforce/navy into scrap then INVADE China is…well, its beyond even that. Again, some little bit of reality is needed in these discussions. To put it simply, the US won’t be invading mainland China even if China attacks Taiwan.
The ONLY way China could defeat Taiwan would be to make it a NUCLEAR wasteland…which, again, defeats the purpose…and sends several of their major cities into the fire to boot.
-XT
**Um…I have to ask this, though I might get into trouble with the mods on it. Are you insane? Exactly what kind of a war do you expect if China invades Taiwan? I assume you realize that China (the mainland) and Taiwan (an Island) aren’t physically connected…yes? Do you suppose the US/Taiwan would try and invade China??? Why for gods sake? The US take huge casualties?? Man, you are just out there.
Let me lay it out for you briefly. IF China attacks they have to figure out a way across the straights. That means boats and/or planes to transport the troops. They’d have to stage a major air/sea battle first (the major place the US COULD lose personnel…pilots and sailors perhaps). In the HIGHLY unlikely event that China could defeat the US fleet AND Taiwans airforce/coast guard (and probably US airforce sorteed out of Japan or Korea), China would have to stage a forced entry assault…right into the teeth of some fairly substantial defenses, not to mention Taiwan’s modern and well equiped army. They won’t be bringing their several hundred million man army to Taiwan but a significantly smaller portion…and the US won’t be very involved with the ground combat on Taiwan in any case. Again, IF China could actually get across the straights and land on Taiwan.**
I am quite aware Taiwan is an island. My assumption is that with the huge Chinese military, they could launch an attack that would be unstoppable by Taiwan. And the PRC could do this faster than the US could get sufficient naval forces in the area to prevent it. The US would have to take Taiwan back from the Chinese.