this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Assume that it wouldn’t, though - I could just as easily say “with the right incentives, the United States could elect a communist president and transition to a people’s republic”, so let’s take them at their word that never means never and go from there, shall we?
Okay, then China could peacefully try and fail for a million billion years. That still doesn't actually necessitate invasion.
But also that assumption is kinda nonsense so I think it can be safely discarded. Forever is a long time.
You’re not engaging with my argument because you know fine well what the outcome would be. I think we’re done here.
I definitely answered your hypothetical? If the Taiwanese state would never capitulate and reintegrate peacefully with the rest of China, then China could peacefully try and fail to reintegrate for a million billion years. That's it. Nothing else has to happen.
I think your argument is dumb, but that definitely addresses it.
Oh, my apologies, you’re quite right, I initially misread your message, sorry about that - thank you for your answer and I appreciate your consistency. I appreciate you arguing in good faith and I understand your position.
I disagree with you, I think you have an altogether a bit too optimistic perspective of the CCP, but I understand why you would be inclined to feel that way.
My point is, I think it’s pretty clear that Taiwan stands no chance whatsoever in a hot conflict with the Red Army - I hope that’s something that we agree on. I am sure that Taiwan is also very aware of that fact.
So what threat is posed by providing conventional munitions to Taiwan? If they were used in aggression, they would guarantee their own demise. Do you really think that they would be so desperate to strike a meaningless blow against the CCP that they would trade everything to accomplish that?
If so, why would these weapons change anything? They could have sacrificed everything for a single meaningless act of violence long before now. It’s not like Taiwan is being supplied with nuclear weapons, is it?
Providing Taiwan with conventional weaponry only accomplishes one thing: making an invasion of Taiwan less compelling.
Taiwan stands no chance right now, but how many billions of dollars in weapons would it take to change that calculus? Ukraine is fighting off Russia despite being in a much worse position because of the endless funnel of weaponry from the West, so it seems that if Taiwan can dig itself in and arm itself to the teeth it can become a legitimate threat. China will be forced to deal with having a hostile enemy as a neighbor, and even if Taiwan didn't openly invade they could still become a serious regional threat to China and Chinese interests.
Think about the Korean peninsula for what the future might hold.
A threat to CCP interests it may be, but that wouldn’t justify a military invasion that would kill a shitload of people, would it? It would have to be sinking food or medicine shipments with coastal guns or something equally abhorrent to justify such an act. And again, that would absolutely be valid justification for an invasion, so they wouldn’t do it. How can you claim to be one of the good guys when you justify a military invasion and the deaths of thousands of innocents as “just a fact of how things will turn out”.