China - Taiwan

[Asturias56]

In the light of President Xi's latest speech what is the current position of the US and it's various local allies to the eventual incorporation of Taiwan into the PRC?

Hope it goes away? Hope the Taiwanese will go for HK status?? Start a fight with China????

[tartare]

Said it before and will say it again - the landing craft are scheduled to arrive in 2020.
China have been salami-slicing the US for years and getting away with it.
Question is whether Xi would cut off a really big slice of salami before November or after.
Either test the incumbent idiot who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery and who would certainly throw Taiwan to the wolves.
Or test a new President early in their first term.

[Lyneham Lad]

Said it before and will say it again - the landing craft are scheduled to arrive in 2020.
China have been salami-slicing the US for years and getting away with it.
Question is whether Xi would cut off a really big slice of salami before November or after.
Either test the incumbent idiot who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery and who would certainly throw Taiwan to the wolves.
Or test a new President early in their first term.

You seem to be suggesting that the biggly genius will not win a second term... ;)

[Fareastdriver]

Having worked in China over some fifteen years I would find it incredibly difficult for the leadership in Beijing to convince their people that it is the right thing for the Chinese to attack Chinese.

The economic miracle that has been China over the last four decades has been possible in a very large part because of the Taiwanese, who speak the same language, have guided them on the right way to build on the expertise and labour available in China.

This. will not be forgotten by the billionaires in China who, like every other country in the world, call the shots.

[Barksdale Boy]

As always Fareastdriver, your points on China are well made. However I am not as sanguine as you about China's intentiions towards Taiwan. The extension of Xi Jinping's term as president is worrying. All those admitted to the pantheon of Chinese leaders over thousands of years, in particular during the Han, Tang and Qing dynasties, are credited with having reunited the nation. Xi aspires, I think, to that level of immortality and now that Hong Kong and Macau have been recovered it only remains to restore Taiwan to the fold. I believe that he made the calculation that, given current American power, he could not achieve this by 2023 when his second term would have expired, but sometime thereafter......?

[megan]

View of recently deceased Prof. Alex Kerr, WWII bomber pilot and Stalag POW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2762&v=RnJ3C7wcPcc

[Asturias56]

Having read Xi's speech it seems to be more of a warning (for now) about the long term- remember China doesn't think 99 years is a long time to wait. I see it as an attempt to re-start a dialogue with Taiwan on some form of re-unification. It doesn't have to be full on nor the same as HK and Macao but it does have to happen sometime.

One issue of course is what do the Taiwanese want - they always seem torn between "One China" and independence - bit like Puerto Rico in a way

I'd bet on serious talks starting around 2030 with the aim of "Re-Unification" by 2048

[Kerosene Kraut]

China would finally ruin all it's trade with the west if it attacked Taiwan. And the chinese themselves have businesses there and they need the money and the growth first.
Below the line: Too costly.

[Asturias56]

I think they'd (they being everyone but the US) boo and hiss and then just keep going on with the trade.

China is FAR too big to stop trading with - where would all the stuff we buy come from? Turin??? Pittsburgh???? And cut off a market of 1.4 Bn people???

The USA has a sentimental tie to Taiwan because of Chang Kai Shek but the rest of the world? I don't think so

And I think you underestimate how emotional an issue this is to the Chinese - both on Taiwan and the Mainland. They are manic about it - logical win/loss calculations don't get a look in

[VictorWatcher]

The Taiwanese don't seem that bothered. They have heard it all before and nothings happened so why should things be different. In 2yrs time they have another election and if they vote for the non-separatist party then China will be pleased again.

No-one here is under any pretence that if China decided to invade that it would take them any more time than a week to take over. As long as you don't poke the bear with a stick then you can all co-exist.

Virtually zero of the Taiwanese want China rule but they all want to be able to trade with them and co-exist. The interesting thing is that something like 10% of all Taiwanese under 50s are working in China in management positions at the moment and no-one wants to mess that up.

[Jackonicko]

I've always been just a little uncomfortable with the fact that we 'recognise' the PRC, despite it being a rather nasty totalitarian regime, below the superficial gloss, while not recognising the RoC, which is at least a functioning democracy.

What Communist China has done in Tibet, what it does to various minorities and opposition groups, and its terrible record on executing 'criminals' and harvesting their organs is frankly monstrous, and its bullying and sabre-rattling in the South China Sea (and on the border with India) really ought to be stood up to.

And yet we kow tow to the Chinese, suppress any demonstrations when their leaders visit the UK, and bend over backwards not to upset or offend them. It may all be necessary, for trade reasons, but I don't have to like it.

[Barksdale Boy]

I find interesting the report in today's South China Morning Post of several very popular historical dramas being taken off mainland TV, allegedly because the genre promotes extravagance and has a "negative influence on society". The two series that have particularly incurred the wrath of the authorities are 'Story of Yanxi Palace' and 'Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace'. This has an uncanny echo of the severe criticism that the play 'Hai Rui Dismissed from Office' by Wu Han attracted in 1966 and which was seen by most observers, in and outside China, as the trigger, but not the root cause, of the Cultural Revolution.

Fareastdriver, any thoughts?

[Asturias56]

There was an Article in Friday's Economist about the Taiwanese military options

they're going for a lot of drones and mobile surface to surface missiles it said