The food fucked me up too for the first few days. Different bacteria on the other side of the planet or some such
I was in Seoul prior to Taiwan. Gwangjang Market is now responsible for some of my worst moments in existence so far.
TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company, is spending $40 billion to build factories in Phoenix in the event of seizure of Taiwan. Intel is also spending $20 bn in Phx for chip manufacturing. The dod is heavily invested in bringing this capability stateside to avoid a chip shortage in the future.
more like PRC vs. Philippines (but it used to be part of ROC, see wikipedia entry below) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thitu_Island
This is a very contested region of the world. PRC, ROC, Vietnam and Philippines all claim this island. The Chinese (PRC) have built several artificial reef islands nearby and claim it is their territorial waters. In the past few weeks, the Chinese Coast Guard has been effectively blockading nearby shoal islands from Filipino resupply by shooting water cannons at their ships.
oh I was just laughing about the quality of the satellite imagery, not about the severity of the conflict. Should probably be clearer in my post.
The most conservative estimates I’ve seen showed that China would need a landing force of 500,000. That’s something like four times bigger than D-Day.
Or slightly smaller than the hypothetical invasion force needed to invade Honshu had we needed to invade Japan
I think Taiwan would have a very tough time defending themselves and I question whether they'd be willing to fight a suicidal defense if the US doesn't get involved militarily Day 1. To that, I question how willing the US would be willing to risk so much (thousands of lives - military and, potentially, civilian, several aircraft carrier groups, the economy) over Taiwan. Might depend on who is president. Like, no chance Trump fights China. None. Zero. I don't think either mainland China or Taiwan is ready militarily. Both of them have corruption issues. Taiwan's military has all these ties to the old ruling party - it's a big problem.
taiwan’s entire military is based around defending an invasion. Invading Taiwan would be a suicide mission for China. One thing from watching Russia and Israel fight is that people presume other countries know how to fight like America….they don’t
I think the Ukrainian response to invasion kinda answers your first question, and I can’t imagine China would invade out of the blue - in other words, an invasion would come at the end of some sort of political escalation in which the will of the Taiwanese had been demonstrated. It would be truly horrific, in any event.
Also, I'm guessing the PLA strategy would involve a naval blockade first, and if that fails, just saturating Taiwan with thousands and thousands of missiles and, once Taiwan's air force and air defense capabilities are neutralized / exhausted, months of bombs on civilians until they surrender. Basically, do to Taipei what Israel is doing to Gaza. They might not need a naval invasion.
This is something I hadn't considered. Yes, they'd have to basically sacrifice their entire economy to find enough fuel for their planes and ships.
I believe they produce 4 million barrels of oil and use 16 million barrels per day during peace time. If the US can get any of its allies to cut or disrupt any of those imports they aren’t going to be able to meet their fuel needs in peacetime let alone the fuel that is required to begin and then supply a naval invasion over 150 mile of open ocean
I presume they would rely heavily on the Russians. But again, it will depend on who is president. If it's Trump, he's not lifting a finger to stop oil sales to China. That includes oil from the US.
What would this do to my ability to consume unnecessary products and materials made under unethical working conditions?
What happens if China stays on the mainland and just launches missiles at them? I know nothing about military logistics.
they get really tough sanctions put on them and don’t make any meaningful headway towards an invasion and occupation
I would also imagine they don’t want to risk catastrophic damage to the fabs which are the primary economic driver for the invasion.
Guess sending everyone on the mainland back to Taiwan for the election didn’t work out as they’d hoped.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Pacific Island nation of Nauru said Monday that it is switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, a move that reduces the dwindling number of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to 12 around the world.
OH NO But seriously, China courting all these places makes intelligence stuff interesting, I'd imagine.