As neither Mod nor Admin That's certainly a limiting factor, and since America is an election year economic pain becomes an issue in getting votes.
Timing seems to favor China.

https://apnews.com/article/china-jap...4f6c864c68fd61

China orders a Japanese fishing boat to leave waters near Japan-held islands claimed by Beijing

"As with the Senkakus, China largely bases its claims on vague historical precedents."

Almost all disputed claims are like that - the Indo Chinese Border, Falklands, Beagle Channel, Gib., Guyana................... both sides claim "historic precedents":(

China Is Quietly Expanding Its Land Grabs in the Himalayas

….The Chinese expanded in the Beyul to coerce Bhutan into ceding control of a more strategic area near India, the Doklam plateau, but it has since expanded in both regions and upped the ante without any repercussions or costs.

“It’s not surprising that China is claiming Khenpajong and Doklam areas,” Sangay said. “China is implementing what it said in the 1950s, that Tibet is the palm and Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal are five fingers. First occupy Tibet, then we occupy five fingers,” he added in reference to Mao Zedong’s imperialist vision for three Indian states and Nepal and Bhutan….

In 2017, India and China nearly went to war as Chinese soldiers tried to extend a road from Chumbi Valley in the TAR to Doklam, all the way to the Jampheri ridge, which offers a direct view to the Siliguri corridor—India’s Achilles’s heel.

It connects the rest of India to seven federal states in the northeast and is just 14 miles wide, which makes it militarily easy to sever. If China gets access to the Jampheri ridge, it can better surveil the Siliguri corridor, often dubbed the “chicken’s neck,” and have huge leverage over India.

The tense standoff finally subsided as the Chinese stepped back, but that didn’t stop China from further expanding in Doklam. China built a whole village called Pangda inside the plateau, at a distance of just a few miles from the key ridge.

“There is a stalemate with a large number of Indian troops stationed in the area,” Sangay said. “But the Chinese have built major infrastructure with a permanent helipad and army camp. They are there to stay. Bhutan is under tremendous pressure to compromise, which means to give strategic advantage to Chinese troops.”…
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Indian sources aren't exactly bias -free .:(

Interesting that the Indians want to keep their control over Bhutan

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-over-senkaku/

Chinese ships warn Japan SDF planes to leave airspace near Senkakus

BEIJING – China Coast Guard vessels began last month to issue warnings for Japanese Self-Defense Forces planes to leave airspace over and around the Japan-controlled, China-claimed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, sources familiar with the matter said.

The warnings via radio communications are based on Beijing's claim that SDF aircraft could violate Chinese territorial airspace around the islands, called Diaoyu in China, and have been made several times since January, the sources said Saturday.

They said Tokyo has refuted the claim and told Beijing through diplomatic channels that such warnings are "totally unacceptable," without publicly announcing the move in an apparent effort not to damage bilateral relations further.…

While I agree Britain's acquisition of the Falklands was dubious once people live there I think the politics changes somewhat. You have to accept that people living somewhere sets a precedence that cannot be overulled by force especially when a long period of time has elapsed.

Tell that to the Normans - didn't stop them!

Another week…

Taiwanese chip giant TSMC has announced plans for a second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, investing $7.4 billion

The new fab, built by a TSMC subsidiary, is scheduled to come online at the end of 2027.

Taiwanese chip makers expand into other countries, just in case..........

Chinese ships harassing Vietnam's gas fields in the South China Sea

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I think China is all bluff and bluster. They simply cannot take Taiwan, much less hold Taiwan. Anyone who has studied D Day in 1944 will understand why. But..............they CAN make an awful mess.

Every day, China is getting poorer and poorer. You just have to look at video shot by average Chinese citizens. Shopping malls and cities are ghost towns.

nomorecatering

While I"m not saying it will necessarily apply in this situation, quite often (dictatorial) leadership in a country will use an external situation/threat that it hopes/expects will unify the populace to distract from internal woes.

So China being in a bad way may not actually be good news.

Read the Argentine Junta and the Falklands in 1982.... maybe Xi and Taiwan in 202?....

https://fortune.com/asia/2024/02/06/...escue-markets/

China’s $7 trillion stock rout is getting so bad that officials are briefing President Xi Jinping on how they plan to rescue markets

It's a huge personal risk though. The moment he rolls the iron dice he loses control of events, as Putin is finding out. If he tries and fails they won't just take his power, money, villas and yachts away. They'll kill him.

As I said, it may not apply in this instance.....but then again....

How much of a gambler is Xi, and if the internal situation deteriorates sufficiently will the gamble seem more attractive?

Unanswerable with no knowledge of the man. Given the evidence of how the careers of dictators often end, personally I’d find an excuse to hand the problem over to a successor/fall guy while I still could and try to enjoy a comfortable retirement somewhere.

That's a thorny question.
Only Xi knows the answer to that.

Well it's a lot easier to pose thorny questions than to answer them. But I'm sure some people on here will have, and share, their opinions/answers.

I guess only time will provide the ultimate answer.

Historically, then DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and even bits 'o Jordan would have a claim to the SCS, Taiwan, and Qin, Mongolia, Senkaku's Vladivostok, Kamchatka etc, and Moscow.... and St Petersburg etc. That is where we all came from apparently, that gives those areas more of a claim than China has.

As Peter Zeihan put it (much more elequantly than me). Chairman Xi order of prioroties is 1, preservation of himself 2. the party. He will sacrifice the entire country if it preserves the power of the CCP to rule over what ever glowing piles of ash there is left of China. That's the main worry.