I know: actually having lived in the place you are talking about is so lame. If you can just have a whole bunch of feelings and talk about kicking ass, that's gonna be way better, because . . . all those feelings. You were like a Political Science major in college, right? No? Not even that? Big reader of websites, are you? China can bomb and fire missiles at Taiwan all day everyday with minimal casualties. On top of which, China will absorb massive casualties without batting an eye. The people of China will rabidly go after Taiwan if it comes to that, and they can stomach more country-boy casualties than you would believe. We didn't win the Korean War, you know. Then there's the naval blockade. . . . Oh I forgot, Rambo's gonna ride in on an aircraft carrier and kick ass! Yeh.
I think the true issue here isn’t so much that Trump is doing this with Taiwan, but rather how little incentive he needs to create international gaffes like these. He’s essentially doing this cause he wants to do real estate in Taiwan. Now, imagine if he gets into office and China tells him they will give him prime real estate to build his hotels, golf clubs, whatever, and in return all he has to do is reduce trade relations with Asian countries, and to back off on China’s claim in the South China Sea. Which isn’t even that difficult, since he ran against the TPP and all that. It wouldn’t take much more for him to tear out some more treaties so China can get spread their influence more. And his supporters would love that the US is “keeping jobs in America.” That will be our next 4 years. Trump using American foreign policy as a means to make himself richer, which getting great press in the meantime for keeping American jobs safe away from those pesky Asian workers.
We haven't given/sold them nearly as much military hardware as we could have, or should have, in my opinion. As for China having an "easy" time taking the island, I disagree. They could do it if we didn't step in and help, but it wouldn't be easy. Not at all.
That was true 20-30 years ago, today Taiwan have 0% chance of repelling a PRC invasion and the Taiwan government have even said so as much publicly. In a 2010 parliament session, when Taiwan's legislator asked their military how long they can hold out against a PRC invasion, Taiwan's military official said 2 weeks. In 2016, when Taiwan's legislator asked the same question, Taiwan's Defense Minister is now saying a little over 1 week. China used to have a quantitative advantage over Taiwan while Taiwan held a qualitative advantage, today PRC not only still enjoys a massive quantitative advantage over Taiwan but also they have a large & growing qualitative advantage.
What does the PLAAF have that comes close to F-16Vs with AMRAAMs and ground radar and sam support? Nothing? thanks defense ministers giving pessimistic predictions is as old of a trick as there is. 100 falcons over an airspace 50% bigger than houston metro isn't something a bunch of combat virgins in soviet jets walk over.
I recommend reading this excerpt from Rand's 2016 assessment for Taiwan. " Over the past 25 years, China has made investments in ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, antiradiation weapons, and increasingly sophisticated fighter aircraft to thoroughly threaten Taiwan’s air defenses from end to end. In these 25 years, Taiwan has gone from having a qualitative advantage over the PLA in the air, to its current situation, which we assess to be grim indeed. Looking first at threats to aircraft and then to SAMs, we explain why we come to that judgment. In the age of precision weapons, aircraft operators need to be concerned with threats not only to their aircraft while flying but also to their aircraft while on the ground and to the air bases that allow them to generate high sortie rates.1 Air bases are obviously fixed targets, so an adversary with weapons that can range an air base is likely to know, in great detail, the attributes of each base and be sure to have a diversity of systems able to target their key attributes. For example, an adversary could target fuel to limit the capacity of a base to sustain operations, or it could target runways to immediately cease flight operations. Alternatively, the aircraft themselves could be the targets of attack while on the ground. Although these attacks could be quite devastating on their own, China also has the capacity to capitalize on them in several ways. For instance, it could launch pinning attacks against fighter bases to cut runways and strand aircraft. These could be followed by sweeps of fighter aircraft targeting stranded aircraft on the ground.2 The PLA’s airto- ground weapons are accurate enough to be reliable in such attacks. Taiwan does have some concrete aircraft shelters, but, as the Iraqi Air Force learned in previous conflicts with the United States, cruise missiles and other precision-guided munitions (PGMs) can defeat aircraft shelters. One weapon with a 3-m circular error probable (CEP) can destroy a standard shelter. Five Su‑30 aircraft, each with ten PGMs, can potentially attack 50 shelters if they are left unmolested to attack multiple target areas. Under such conditions, the PLA fighter-bomber force might have success comparable to that of American aircraft over Iraq in 2003, where targets were struck at low cost and to great effect. The aircraft themselves could also be targets for ballistic missiles, and Taiwan faces equally grim prospects in this regard. Using submunitions to cover parking areas, two to three dozen short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) could hold at risk all aircraft parked in the open at an air base. This would require more missiles overall to attack all ten military air bases (240 to 360, compared with a demand of 40 to 310 for the runway attack case, depending on missile accuracy); however, it holds out the prospect of permanently removing those aircraft without the aid of fighter sweeps, rather than just the temporary suspension of operations that runway cuts would achieve. Although, for the future, we see a potentially increased role for SAMs in defending Taiwan against air threats, they too have vulnerabilities, which China has made investments to exploit. Radar is the Achilles’ heel of SAMs. A SAM needs radar to identify, track, and attack air threats, but an emitting radar is like a bright neon sign and will quickly draw the attention of attack systems. China has numerous options to target located radars. Loitering antiradiation missile (ARM) weapons, such as the Harpy, in the area could attack on detection. Fixed-wing aircraft in the area could also detect and engage SAMs with air-to-ground ARM weapons. Alternatively, numerous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems could detect and locate the radar, cuing longer-range strikes from cruise missiles or even ballistic missiles, when the most sophisticated radars, and thus high-value targets, emit. If Taiwan employs its air defenses in what we would characterize as a stalwart defense—that is, actively and persistently, defending a fixed area—those radars will not survive long once the adversary has decided to take them out. Without radar, the battery cannot operate. But we see that, unlike with fighter aircraft, Taiwan could adapt concepts to employ SAMs in ways that could make them survivable enough to make important operational contributions to Taiwan’s defense."
J-10B/C with PL-12D/PL-15, J-11D/J-16 with PL-12D/PL-15, J-20 with PL-12D backed up by a much more robust AWAC & electronic warfare fleet, much larger shore & sea based SAM support, thousands of ballistic & cruise missiles etc etc etc.
It greatly over estimates PLAAFs fighter superiority and cruise missile effectiveness against a modern integrated air defense that Taiwan has and Iraq didn't. J-10 J-11 vs F-16 LMAO PL-12 vs AMRAAM LMAO J-20 doesn't exist NEXT
The brilliant part is Israel has done wonderful things with the range of the falcon. Literally no reason why they all sit at home.
Haven't read the whole thread, but this is not a congratulatory call on a whim by Trump. This is a calculated move from his hard right wing camp. This is some cold-war power stuff. This is the game he will be playing. He doesn't really care about Taiwan. Remember the stuff he said about Japan and Korea. That's how much he values East Asian allies. He is sending a signal of power play.
It's fun to play war games but we can all agree that: Any conflict would kill many chinese on both sides result in a horrible future with far less cooperation between them sirbaihu is a white monkey the best thing is to leave it to a generation many years ahead of us
I: China can bomb the crap out of Taiwan and win in a day. Bandwagoner: Our hardware kicks A! hlcc: Rand 2016 says Chinese air power would end a war in one week. Bandwagoner: that would be horrible. sirbaihu is a white monkey
it's a two-way street. to the extent that China has been the US's largest creditor, to the tune of ~~$1.2 Trillion, it can be the biggest bully around in that arena, When the US needs to borrow — which is more or less perpetually — it very often borrows from China. Any hint of China dumping all the US treasuries that it currently holds, and not buying anymore, could catapult the US economy into an inflationary spiral. can you imagine no more "interest-free' loans on new autos and appliances, no more inexpensive imports, a lot less people qualifying for mortgages, etc., all the ingredients that make for a long period of excruciating / painful / frustrating economic stagflation.
This isn't totally true. China dumping its US treasuries would likely cause a sharp revaluation in the Yuan by making it appreciate. The whole charge behind China's "currency manipulation" is that they're not allowing the Yuan to rise as their coastal regions become more prosperous. From macro econ, exchange rates tend to reach an equilibrium when national currencies appreciate/depreciate in relation to the relative goods they trade each other. By hoarding hundreds of billions of dollars, this allows Chinese exporters an edge by trading against a stronger currency while running up more manageable amounts of debt to a cheaper Yuan. Technically this policy hurts the overall Chinese economy because the wealth is not spread out and quality of living doesn't rise in proportion, but they're viewing this as a transitional bootstrap phase to break out their manufacturing capacity that many other countries have failed. And even if China dumps its treasuries, it would only cause panic if other large debtor nations dump theirs as well. Japan and Saudi are largely committed to whatever we do (which is why our involvement in the ME is sickening and hollow moralistically). The other large Treasury holder is Social Security, which should ramp down more gradually. We'd definitely face decline in quality of living but it'd be more manageable rather than an overnight shock, and it could play in line with boosting national manufacturing capacity (if said companies don't go bust from a completely different supply chain and lending environment) China would stand to lose a lot because its currency would take two or three andrenaline shots and overheat an economy already stressed out by zombie banks and companies that owe more debt than they should with a middle class that doesn't really save enough for said zombie institutions to raid. They can't even do much with the money because they've already built the **** out of their infrastructure (they could dump it in social welfare and more artificial propping), so holding that trillion dollars as a currency reserve is a good hedge and backer for its Yuan that they've managed to prop up as an official world currency. tl;dr We're more likely to recover quicker than they would. On our end, that whole period of QE is pretty much a similar policy of devaluation and weakening of the dollar that many countries would charge as currency manipulation if they themselves wouldn't sound hypocritical. But you won't see anyone tweet about that at 3 am .
