this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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China still fears economic and military repercussions in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.
As long as its economy is ill due to current factors like inflation, banking instability, and the inflated real estate market, we can assume that a war would be an economic and political shock right now that even Xi might struggle to navigate.
Edit: for everyone disagreeing, every foreign expert is expecting a war, and even the current US deterrence (criticized here as escalation) is not enough for most experts.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/08/us-military-deterrence-china-taiwan-war-east-asia/
Are you kidding, this is when China is starting to be most dangerous.
Internal strife of a country has always been the biggest factor on when that country goes to war. Creating a distraction for the populace and a bogeyman for them to hate is part of the autocratic playback.
Look back at the trump administration and how eager he was to bomb Iran and start a war. Or the current invasion of ukraine and the economic issues in Russia before the invasion.
It's not the sole driver but it's a big one.
I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. An internal strife alone doesn't necessarily lead to military action.
A military conflict involving Taiwan would have global implications, affecting regional stability and the world economy. Xi is fully aware of that and knows that his political power extends only as far as his economy remains stable. Looking at the last BRICS meeting, we see that China is eager to compensate for any economic embargoes with a stable structure and demand from its partners – which, as of today, is still a work in progress.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian war has shown, the West can swiftly mitigate major impacts on its economy (see Germany moving completely away from gas exports from Russia). China is aware of that too and knows that while devastating, the west will work closely together to compensate such an economic distaster and cut ties with China completly.
While the current situation requires vigilance and preparation for the worst, we can at least see that China remains in absolute need of its Western allies, and a military intervention would be a complete disaster, even for Xi.
That's likely why he's consolidating power by eliminating political opponents and critics, but history has shown that being blinded by power, as Putin is in the case of Ukraine, leads to devastation.
It's not even internal strife. It all comes down to it's now or never. If they let this opportunity slip by they will never get Taiwan.
Their population is declining and there's nothing that can be done about it in any meaningful way. Nothing has worked to get people to have more children. As they get older people of military age will decline.
Right now this generation the males outnumber the females. Which means expendable soldiers. These people will never marry and benefit the state in anyway.
The leverage China has is it's consumers it's one of the largest markets. But the Chinese buying things to support international companies is quite minuscule as a percentage of the population and will decline as time goes on, they get all the media attention that's all . They've been struggling to boost internal consumption for years.
And it isn't that surprising. Chinese people are one of the most tightarse people ever. They haggle everything and that's even if they get to the point of actually going to buy it. Spending money to make money usually doesn't factor in.
These are unhinged fantasies. You psychos can't wait to start another war.
Mask off there.
Yes, all the foreign policy experts in the linked story are unhinged. So, tell us where you got your foreign relations degree and field experience.
These "foreign policy experts" are all Americans and their puppets right? And the policy they're expert in is their warmongering on the other side of the planet from their settler colony, right?
I know anything at all about American blood soaked history which makes me an expert in geopolitics.
Do you honestly think America wants WWIII with their #1 trading partner? The partner with, arguably, the 2nd most powerful military on the planet?
This isn't like the CIA taking over a banana republic in the 50's.
I know, it's stupid isn't it? But this is America.
American imperialism in modern history has always been the biggest factor on when that country goes to war. Same as Ukraine.
How much worse is their internal strife going to be once they lose a war? Russia was tooling along before attacking Ukraine, but now they might actually for real topple within a few years.
I doubt you will see a major shift in policy after the Ukraine war.
We will probably see putin fall but the goverment he built and is responsible for what's happening in Russia today will still be there.
Financially Russia is largely fucked
Their economy is booming. The sanctions are largely meaningless.
Lol, I'd be surprised if any of the jets China flies in its "airforce" are even capable of firing weapons without falling apart. Their military infrastructure is a joke, relying on technology far above their manufacturing capabilities.
Agreed. They'd also have to be pretty sure they'd make up the deficit from potential sanctions/lost exports. [https://trendeconomy.com/data/h2?commodity=TOTAL&reporter=China&trade_flow=Export,Import&partner=World&indicator=TV,YoY&time_period=2021,2022](20% of their GDP is exports ) with the US, Japan, and Korea making up close to 25% of that.
It's probably why they are watching Russia so closely and investing in Africa heavily.