As the New Cold War shifts from the US prioritizing Russia’s containment in Europe to China’s containment in Asia, so too is the trend of the US gradually revising the results of WWII in order to give it an edge on that front too.
It is a bit more complicated than "Taiwan is China" or "Taiwan belongs to China" as one has to ask "which China" and "what kind of China". If you cannot read Chinese, I would recommend my own "A Brief History of Taiwan's History, 1624-2023" on substack https://nakayama1.substack.com/p/brief-introduction-to-taiwans-history.
No, you cannot completely trust Google on this kind of subject because of CIA's involvement in this trouble and troubled spot. To simplify the problem a bit too much, I would say people in Taiwan want free trade and travel relationship with China, protection from the US nuclear umbrella, European-style social welfare, Japanese style education, and no tax. But when one cannot get all the goals, then the vast majority will accept the fate of Hong-Kong - although they would not get it. A key for national independence is the willingness to fight and die for it. That is what people in Taiwan do not have. People in Taiwan will surely try to fight for what are good for them individually, but not necessarily for the good of whole Taiwan. The remaining Chinese nationalism in Taiwan is a dying species, and few of them are true believers of China. More of them simply want to avoid military conflict.
My mid-to-long term guess: The US will have a brief conflict with China, then either sell Taiwan to China, or sell Taiwan to Japan and plod Japan to fight against China. The former will be a short conflict fought over ocean. The latter will be much more brutal if it does happen due to the arousal of Chinese nationalism in China's military and the Taiwan Independence movement (with Japanese descendants at its core). However, Japan is not ready to take on this hot potato. The US is not ready to fight China. The US may have problems giving Israel more bombs due to the recent TNT factory explosion. Taiwan is not ready to fight (significant amount of weapons but not enough morale).
China is not ready to fight -- power vacuum will start to disappear AFTER the fourth Central Committee meeting (to decide the power transition after Xi) and will not settle until the new power circle has consolidated power (can be fast, as Xi faction is already being washed out) and the coming regime will be more concerned about domestic affairs (for CCP survival) rather than outward expansion during the Xi era (because China was NOT ready to challenge the US hegemony). Had the US not pressured Ukraine to move East, the US might have successfully bluffed China into a better trade deal. But the outcome of the Ukraine War essentially says the Empire is made of paper, and the events in Palestine say the Empire has neither shame nor sovereignty. Both China and the US are crumbling from the inside, but who will reach bottom first? Note that the depths of shock needed to wreck a nation differ between the two due to their respective social, economic, and financial structures.
Of course, few, if any, war occurs when at least one side is ready. More often than not, conflicts being negotiated about over and over without resolution will burst out of control. If all the involved parties have something to be afraid of, people in Taiwan will have peace. If one of the parties believes "we can win this" like one of the world-class leader recently said, then Taiwan will see war, sooner or later.
You say that the next chinese leading faction will be most bothered by internal stuffs that international expansion. In saying that, you make, I think, the same mistake that all the Valdaï jesters.
Chinese international expansion is not an option or just a will. It's the fundamental condition of the internal serenity. If China don't care about international strength, USA and friend will care of it.
It's not like if China could live it's life peacefully.
History is dynamic. With such a rival that USA, or you are up-out or down-in.
Each step back will be immediately taken by rivals, seen as a weakness and call for more pression.
In the Thucidide trap, you don't have two power which fight for hegemony, you just have to power with converging path.
China didn't want to defy USA, just grow peacefully but that thwarted the US fate.
With a foe like USA, China had just two way: fight or submission.
And I can swear to you that to the point where China frightened USA, if China give up, there will be no mercy till China be split in ten harmless parts.
And you speak of nationalists faction among army. They know that exactly.
In general, considering the historical or at least the last 300 years of China, I agree with you more or less. But for China under the control of Chinese Communists party, it is different. The origins of Chi-com, USSR, VietCom and KorCom are all slightly different, but only Chi-com had a component of plain bandits. Vietnam is already starting to morph, they want to become more like today's Russia before they figure out where to go next. Vietnamese are historically pragmatic in diplomacy since ancient time. USSR was able to change due to various reasons, but its change was not smooth so it has to revert back to its current style. If Xi is out, China may have a chance to follow Vietnam's blue print IF the Americans don't push. The harder the US push, the more life to the Chinese Communist Party.
I do mean that the harder the US push, the more life to the Chinese Communist Party. The same can be said about NK. If they don't have an external threat, the bulk of the justification for such centralization and government control becomes unreasonable.
Other than the good old USSR, the USA is the number two contributor to the prosperity of the Chinese Communist Party (I did not say China here, but the Party).
I think that I will answer about several point in separate posts.
You say that key of national independence is the will of defend it even to death. And Taiwaneses have not this will.
In west europa, how many countries have a population to defend it with its life? And in Japan? South Korea? Australia, New Zealand? Canada?
And even USA?
Even in the armed force of those countries where folks enter more for social reasons than for patriotism. And worse: it's particularly true for officers more obsessed by their career than by the fate of their country.
Perhaps but I only thought demography. In front of the hundreds millions of Chinese( and I think Chinese can die for their country) how many men in age of fighting have Japan and South Korea?
If the 15 years of Xi rule was changed to someone like Hu, Jin-Tao (his predecessor) or Xi's own prime minister, Li, Keqiang, China probably can reach a state in 2027 that cannot win militarily against the US but will not lose to the US in conventional military. Xi's work pushes China back by 10 years or so. Allowing RMB to be an international reserve currency allowed major capital flight (the real reason of China's current economic problems) and has not enabled China to borrow in the international market by much. After Xi, China needs another 25 years to reach that state. If China somehow gets a good leader after Xi, that time might be shortened to around 15 years in the most favorable condition (unlikely to happen). Russia cannot attack USA and win, but Russia has reached the state that the USA cannot defeat Russia.
As for the US empire decline, I think it will be due to an implosion and over-stretch, not because of a military defeat. Well, the defeat in Ukraine allows everybody to see who is the paper tiger, but not enough to blow the paper tiger down. The paper tiger will collapse on its own weight.
I think the one child policy makes China very afraid of a hot war.
When you have only one child, having them come home in a body bag is going to really hurt. At that point, being too old to have more children, it's the end of your family line.
At that point people would really question if that war was worth it.
To some extent. The short but sharp conflict related to Taiwan will be mostly fought by the PLA Air Force, Navy, and the Rocket Force. The casualty will be high for the Navy, but not too high. When the PLA Army goes on the stage, it would be mostly a parade in Taipei. In Suntze's point of view, the best policy for China is to achieve its goal without using military actions. But if CCP feels it has to, it will use military force.
As for the declining birth rate in China, I definitely have a minority opinion that China can reasonably sustain about 700 million people, max. China needs the one-child policy for another 20 years to reach that stage. Note that the baby count limit has been officially raised to 2. With the current bulge of senior population fades out, China's economy will become more sustainable. The unemployment rate for young people is still too high. Ditto for Taiwan, Japan, and SK.
Wow, Nakayama, you're harsh with Xi. I think he don't deserve such a severe opinion.
The rise of China those 15 last years is breathtaking.
I'm not specialist but it seems that your acrimony is based on nothing serious . 15 years ago, China was a minor power, without international weight, with an army of another century.
And Xi succeeded in it with the constant agressive pression of USA.
The only and best way I know to evaluate objectively a head of state is how he took his country compared to how he let it .
When you see that, you can think that Xi is one of the best leader of world history.
After you can imagine that others would have done better but it's based on nothing tangible .
And I have to say that I'm not at all a China fan and even less a Xi fan.
Predicting the fall of the US is a fool's errand and 15 to 25 years gives the ZioAmericans plenty of time to accomplish their goals. Venezuela is the final test for the BRICS if its allowed to fall we will see who the paper tigers really are. I applaud you for your honest take on China which isnt the typical fan boy adulation.
Venezuela will fall. It is beyond the strategic projection range for Russia and China, and it is not well integrated into BRICS yet. Ditto for South Africa and Brazil. The surviving BRICS or "global south" will be mostly on the Eurasian continent.
Andrew, excuse me for this off-topic but it's to delicious and just made this morning.
It's about AMC.
Today, in an article, Simplicius is glad because he says that Russians have such new drone tactics and growth of building that it can overwhelm ukrainian AD.
And where that become funny is when he said that last year, Ukrainian AD was able to destroy most of russian drones and cruise missiles ...
But, if I remember well, last year, all pro-Russian-non-Russian AMC, and Simplicius among it, mocked Ukrainian AD in laughing that it was unable to repel russian attacks and 95% of russian strikes was effective.
As real world scenarios change Zanons story has to change accordingly and no matter what happens the RF is Mickey mouse and everything they do also is just grand and Putin is soooo clever and always one step ahead, They always trivialise the destruction of Russia's refining capacity and tell you how huge the strike have been on the Ukrainian infrastructure etc.
Simplicius is too wishful. Southfront gives a good overview of where the battle lines stand. Everything else is fog of war. For example, neither the Russians nor Ukrainians release their own data on their own soldiers killed in action.
Anglo-saxons has always been revisionist. Five centuries ago, the famous english "black legend" about spanish empire is astonishing of pure lies, omissions and manipulations. The english vision of Napoleon wars is full of bullshit and bad faith.
But USA , with bullshit-factory Hollywood, shattered all records of revisionism of all History. And that's worked
And that still work with morons, specially graduates morons everywhere in the world.
And one knows how much morons can exist on earth.
The big troubles appear when not only morons believe those bullshit but when the leaders end in believing themselves in their own craps.
It's what happened to French in 1812.
To the British at the beginning of the 20th.
And now, it's happening to USA.
Karl Rove said that USA will invent his own reality and the time that others debunk it, USA will have invent a new.
It's possible only when you enjoy an absolute power.
It's no more the case of USA.
You can lie to a lot of people, you can lie to one person a long time but you can't lie a lot of people a long time.
Remember the reputation and international credibility of USA before W. Bush and look at it now.
When credibility is gone, authority is impossible and authoritarism is required. It's what Trump do. But authoritarism needs a big strength and the ability of crush your rivals and ennemies.
Have USA still the ability of crushing the world under its brute force?
Whatever the history and interpretation of 70 year old document suggest the pragmatic thing to determine now is what the majority of Taiwanese want for their future. Do the majority of Taiwanese prefer to be incorporated within the governance of the mainland Chinese government or not? It is clear that mainland Chinese would prefer this. This is not a decision for USA to either resolve or determine.
At some point, the 80+ year old order is going to fall apart. So the treaties will probably go the same way as the order. How the new order is going to emerge is still a guess. However, I think one man one vote liberal democracy is going to go into a retreat, because in many cases it no longer ensures good governance.
WWII in Europe comes down to this number. 95% of the Geman/Axis troops killed got killed fighting Russia. Today, Russia= USA militarily, each has 39% of the worlds nuclear weapons. China=USA economically. Russia + China >>> the USA. America get smart and take Russia as an ally. Russia + USA >>>> the whole world. Russians looks like America's European people.
Not going to work because Russia is a NatCon country. EU isn't and the DeepState in the USA is longing for the midterms when Dems take over Congress. Then Donald is lame duck, game finished.
It is a bit more complicated than "Taiwan is China" or "Taiwan belongs to China" as one has to ask "which China" and "what kind of China". If you cannot read Chinese, I would recommend my own "A Brief History of Taiwan's History, 1624-2023" on substack https://nakayama1.substack.com/p/brief-introduction-to-taiwans-history.
No, you cannot completely trust Google on this kind of subject because of CIA's involvement in this trouble and troubled spot. To simplify the problem a bit too much, I would say people in Taiwan want free trade and travel relationship with China, protection from the US nuclear umbrella, European-style social welfare, Japanese style education, and no tax. But when one cannot get all the goals, then the vast majority will accept the fate of Hong-Kong - although they would not get it. A key for national independence is the willingness to fight and die for it. That is what people in Taiwan do not have. People in Taiwan will surely try to fight for what are good for them individually, but not necessarily for the good of whole Taiwan. The remaining Chinese nationalism in Taiwan is a dying species, and few of them are true believers of China. More of them simply want to avoid military conflict.
My mid-to-long term guess: The US will have a brief conflict with China, then either sell Taiwan to China, or sell Taiwan to Japan and plod Japan to fight against China. The former will be a short conflict fought over ocean. The latter will be much more brutal if it does happen due to the arousal of Chinese nationalism in China's military and the Taiwan Independence movement (with Japanese descendants at its core). However, Japan is not ready to take on this hot potato. The US is not ready to fight China. The US may have problems giving Israel more bombs due to the recent TNT factory explosion. Taiwan is not ready to fight (significant amount of weapons but not enough morale).
China is not ready to fight -- power vacuum will start to disappear AFTER the fourth Central Committee meeting (to decide the power transition after Xi) and will not settle until the new power circle has consolidated power (can be fast, as Xi faction is already being washed out) and the coming regime will be more concerned about domestic affairs (for CCP survival) rather than outward expansion during the Xi era (because China was NOT ready to challenge the US hegemony). Had the US not pressured Ukraine to move East, the US might have successfully bluffed China into a better trade deal. But the outcome of the Ukraine War essentially says the Empire is made of paper, and the events in Palestine say the Empire has neither shame nor sovereignty. Both China and the US are crumbling from the inside, but who will reach bottom first? Note that the depths of shock needed to wreck a nation differ between the two due to their respective social, economic, and financial structures.
Of course, few, if any, war occurs when at least one side is ready. More often than not, conflicts being negotiated about over and over without resolution will burst out of control. If all the involved parties have something to be afraid of, people in Taiwan will have peace. If one of the parties believes "we can win this" like one of the world-class leader recently said, then Taiwan will see war, sooner or later.
You say that the next chinese leading faction will be most bothered by internal stuffs that international expansion. In saying that, you make, I think, the same mistake that all the Valdaï jesters.
Chinese international expansion is not an option or just a will. It's the fundamental condition of the internal serenity. If China don't care about international strength, USA and friend will care of it.
It's not like if China could live it's life peacefully.
History is dynamic. With such a rival that USA, or you are up-out or down-in.
Each step back will be immediately taken by rivals, seen as a weakness and call for more pression.
In the Thucidide trap, you don't have two power which fight for hegemony, you just have to power with converging path.
China didn't want to defy USA, just grow peacefully but that thwarted the US fate.
With a foe like USA, China had just two way: fight or submission.
And I can swear to you that to the point where China frightened USA, if China give up, there will be no mercy till China be split in ten harmless parts.
And you speak of nationalists faction among army. They know that exactly.
In general, considering the historical or at least the last 300 years of China, I agree with you more or less. But for China under the control of Chinese Communists party, it is different. The origins of Chi-com, USSR, VietCom and KorCom are all slightly different, but only Chi-com had a component of plain bandits. Vietnam is already starting to morph, they want to become more like today's Russia before they figure out where to go next. Vietnamese are historically pragmatic in diplomacy since ancient time. USSR was able to change due to various reasons, but its change was not smooth so it has to revert back to its current style. If Xi is out, China may have a chance to follow Vietnam's blue print IF the Americans don't push. The harder the US push, the more life to the Chinese Communist Party.
More the...???
??? I am not sure what you meant.
I do mean that the harder the US push, the more life to the Chinese Communist Party. The same can be said about NK. If they don't have an external threat, the bulk of the justification for such centralization and government control becomes unreasonable.
Thank you. I understand.
Without taking to much risk, I can say that you can rely on USA to guarantee this threat . :)
Other than the good old USSR, the USA is the number two contributor to the prosperity of the Chinese Communist Party (I did not say China here, but the Party).
Good post.
I think that I will answer about several point in separate posts.
You say that key of national independence is the will of defend it even to death. And Taiwaneses have not this will.
In west europa, how many countries have a population to defend it with its life? And in Japan? South Korea? Australia, New Zealand? Canada?
And even USA?
Even in the armed force of those countries where folks enter more for social reasons than for patriotism. And worse: it's particularly true for officers more obsessed by their career than by the fate of their country.
You underestimated SK and Japan. And China, if foreign power is introduced into the mix.
Perhaps but I only thought demography. In front of the hundreds millions of Chinese( and I think Chinese can die for their country) how many men in age of fighting have Japan and South Korea?
" (because China was NOT ready to challenge the US hegemony). "
Why not ? Why is it that every nation on the planet is forever " not ready" to confront the US ? Additionally, when will a nation ever be ready?
If the 15 years of Xi rule was changed to someone like Hu, Jin-Tao (his predecessor) or Xi's own prime minister, Li, Keqiang, China probably can reach a state in 2027 that cannot win militarily against the US but will not lose to the US in conventional military. Xi's work pushes China back by 10 years or so. Allowing RMB to be an international reserve currency allowed major capital flight (the real reason of China's current economic problems) and has not enabled China to borrow in the international market by much. After Xi, China needs another 25 years to reach that state. If China somehow gets a good leader after Xi, that time might be shortened to around 15 years in the most favorable condition (unlikely to happen). Russia cannot attack USA and win, but Russia has reached the state that the USA cannot defeat Russia.
As for the US empire decline, I think it will be due to an implosion and over-stretch, not because of a military defeat. Well, the defeat in Ukraine allows everybody to see who is the paper tiger, but not enough to blow the paper tiger down. The paper tiger will collapse on its own weight.
I think the one child policy makes China very afraid of a hot war.
When you have only one child, having them come home in a body bag is going to really hurt. At that point, being too old to have more children, it's the end of your family line.
At that point people would really question if that war was worth it.
To some extent. The short but sharp conflict related to Taiwan will be mostly fought by the PLA Air Force, Navy, and the Rocket Force. The casualty will be high for the Navy, but not too high. When the PLA Army goes on the stage, it would be mostly a parade in Taipei. In Suntze's point of view, the best policy for China is to achieve its goal without using military actions. But if CCP feels it has to, it will use military force.
As for the declining birth rate in China, I definitely have a minority opinion that China can reasonably sustain about 700 million people, max. China needs the one-child policy for another 20 years to reach that stage. Note that the baby count limit has been officially raised to 2. With the current bulge of senior population fades out, China's economy will become more sustainable. The unemployment rate for young people is still too high. Ditto for Taiwan, Japan, and SK.
Wow, Nakayama, you're harsh with Xi. I think he don't deserve such a severe opinion.
The rise of China those 15 last years is breathtaking.
I'm not specialist but it seems that your acrimony is based on nothing serious . 15 years ago, China was a minor power, without international weight, with an army of another century.
And Xi succeeded in it with the constant agressive pression of USA.
The only and best way I know to evaluate objectively a head of state is how he took his country compared to how he let it .
When you see that, you can think that Xi is one of the best leader of world history.
After you can imagine that others would have done better but it's based on nothing tangible .
And I have to say that I'm not at all a China fan and even less a Xi fan.
you see the outside painting.
As everybody, I see the numbers.
And they are astonishly good.
Predicting the fall of the US is a fool's errand and 15 to 25 years gives the ZioAmericans plenty of time to accomplish their goals. Venezuela is the final test for the BRICS if its allowed to fall we will see who the paper tigers really are. I applaud you for your honest take on China which isnt the typical fan boy adulation.
Venezuela will fall. It is beyond the strategic projection range for Russia and China, and it is not well integrated into BRICS yet. Ditto for South Africa and Brazil. The surviving BRICS or "global south" will be mostly on the Eurasian continent.
Yes, it's the dominos.
Russia and China can't protect their friends. So those "friends" won't die for them.
Next step, China and Russia will not be able to protect each other.
Stampede.
Or....or a big angry black swan which cause the walls of Satan temple to collapse.
Maduro will be replaced by an American asset. Venezuela will fall just the same.
What is XI ? What is Kim Jong Un ?
Arigato gozaimashita, Nakayama sensei.
;-)
Andrew, excuse me for this off-topic but it's to delicious and just made this morning.
It's about AMC.
Today, in an article, Simplicius is glad because he says that Russians have such new drone tactics and growth of building that it can overwhelm ukrainian AD.
And where that become funny is when he said that last year, Ukrainian AD was able to destroy most of russian drones and cruise missiles ...
But, if I remember well, last year, all pro-Russian-non-Russian AMC, and Simplicius among it, mocked Ukrainian AD in laughing that it was unable to repel russian attacks and 95% of russian strikes was effective.
Surprising, no?
😂
As real world scenarios change Zanons story has to change accordingly and no matter what happens the RF is Mickey mouse and everything they do also is just grand and Putin is soooo clever and always one step ahead, They always trivialise the destruction of Russia's refining capacity and tell you how huge the strike have been on the Ukrainian infrastructure etc.
Simplicus calls himself a "thinker". Mostly he's a wishful thinker.
Simplicius is too wishful. Southfront gives a good overview of where the battle lines stand. Everything else is fog of war. For example, neither the Russians nor Ukrainians release their own data on their own soldiers killed in action.
No, it's not thinker but sinker.
He tells his cult what they want to hear.
It's good farming of morons.
BTW, I sent you a message concerning recent developments in french politics.
Since you are a professional frenchman, I am genuinely interested in your view.
I'm not professional at all. :)
And I'm very bad with all those web stuff. I received something but I don't understand what I have to do. Sorry.
Anglo-saxons has always been revisionist. Five centuries ago, the famous english "black legend" about spanish empire is astonishing of pure lies, omissions and manipulations. The english vision of Napoleon wars is full of bullshit and bad faith.
But USA , with bullshit-factory Hollywood, shattered all records of revisionism of all History. And that's worked
And that still work with morons, specially graduates morons everywhere in the world.
And one knows how much morons can exist on earth.
The big troubles appear when not only morons believe those bullshit but when the leaders end in believing themselves in their own craps.
It's what happened to French in 1812.
To the British at the beginning of the 20th.
And now, it's happening to USA.
Karl Rove said that USA will invent his own reality and the time that others debunk it, USA will have invent a new.
It's possible only when you enjoy an absolute power.
It's no more the case of USA.
You can lie to a lot of people, you can lie to one person a long time but you can't lie a lot of people a long time.
Remember the reputation and international credibility of USA before W. Bush and look at it now.
When credibility is gone, authority is impossible and authoritarism is required. It's what Trump do. But authoritarism needs a big strength and the ability of crush your rivals and ennemies.
Have USA still the ability of crushing the world under its brute force?
Treaties, agreements and accords are meaningless. Enforcement is the only thing that matters.
A cynical french politician said: " Promises only bind those who believe in them.".
Accurate.
Whatever the history and interpretation of 70 year old document suggest the pragmatic thing to determine now is what the majority of Taiwanese want for their future. Do the majority of Taiwanese prefer to be incorporated within the governance of the mainland Chinese government or not? It is clear that mainland Chinese would prefer this. This is not a decision for USA to either resolve or determine.
Why?
If Taiwan was incorporated to China by treaty, Taiwan is China.
In 1918 have we ask population of Alsace-Lorraine if it wanted to come in France or to stay in Germany? No.
In 1948, have we ask the Palestinians about creation of Israël?
No.
Have we ask for partition of India? No.
He was ask to the population of Sakhalines Islands or Kaliningrad in 1945? No.
We absolutely refuse this kind of election to the Serbs of Bosnia, why allowing one in Taiwan?
Two easy. You can buy or cheat a population.
What you say is ", democracy when it's alright with me".
USA rottened the world for 60 years with this kind of use and abuse of "democracy".
This isn't how it's going to work. If Taiwanese vote for independence, PRC will reserve their right to intervene. Then what?
China will intervene as soon as noises of an election to come for independence.
Very probably. If they don't, everyone will say: Papertiger, papertiger!
At some point, the 80+ year old order is going to fall apart. So the treaties will probably go the same way as the order. How the new order is going to emerge is still a guess. However, I think one man one vote liberal democracy is going to go into a retreat, because in many cases it no longer ensures good governance.
WWII in Europe comes down to this number. 95% of the Geman/Axis troops killed got killed fighting Russia. Today, Russia= USA militarily, each has 39% of the worlds nuclear weapons. China=USA economically. Russia + China >>> the USA. America get smart and take Russia as an ally. Russia + USA >>>> the whole world. Russians looks like America's European people.
Not going to work because Russia is a NatCon country. EU isn't and the DeepState in the USA is longing for the midterms when Dems take over Congress. Then Donald is lame duck, game finished.