Is China Preparing to Attack Taiwan?

[Nevilledog]

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David Rothkopf
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Is China Preparing to Attack Taiwan? by @talk_spy

Is China Preparing to Attack Taiwan?
Experts fear Beijing will exploit U.S. election chaos to move on Taiwan's outlying islands—and more.
spytalk.co

https://www.spytalk.co/p/is-china-preparing-to-attack-taiwan

Worries are growing that China is going to take advantage of U.S. election chaos and seize islands belonging to Taiwan, raising the spectre of a military clash with the U.S. Navy that could quickly escalate into a larger military conflict—one that war-gamers say Washington cannot win.

Analysts consulted by SpyTalk point to Beijing’s growing impatience with Taiwan’s support for Hong Kong’s democracy movement, Washington’s decision to bolster the island’s defenses with advanced weaponry, and the Trump administration’s recent dispatch of high level delegations to Taiwan, a move that tears at the fabric of a nearly 50-year-old agreement between Washington and Beijing to downgrade U.S. diplomatic relations with the anticommunist republic.

Chas Freeman, a preeminent expert on China, says Beijing may well attempt to seize the lightly defended Dongsha islands, (also known as Pratas atoll), 276 nautical miles southwest of Taiwan, or the Pescadores islands in the Taiwan Straits, or the even more vulnerable Quemoy and Matsu islands, which lie just off the Chinese mainland.

Sensing the danger, Taiwan reinforced its Dongsha Coast Guard contingent in August with several hundred marines, but they would be no match for a naval, marine and air force armada assembled by Beijing.

*snip*

[Klaralven]

1. It is prepared, but not committed to an attack at this point

[The Magistrate]

2. Only If All Else Fails, Ma'am

Mention of Quemoy and Matsu certainly does take me back

From the Beijing government's point of view, Taiwan is analogous to a government maintained by the Confederate States in Cuba, exacerbated by the fact that Taiwan was in fact under Chinese rule during the imperial period, and was only separated by Japanese occupation as a spoil of war around the start of the twentieth century.

For some while, Taiwan served as a sort of laundering station for Chinese goods, back when there was some trepidation about buying from the Chinese Communists. This was the utility of Hong Kong as well. It is no longer necessary, in the present state of world trade and political development. The 'communist' government of China is seen most widely as just one more authoritarian regime, with some odd iconography, and a fairly prosperous one controlling a large market.

A fair key to the long-range goals of the Chinese government on the world stage is to look up the boundaries of the old Ming Dynasty, the last Chinese ruling house, overthrown by the Manchu interlopers. These were quite extensive, and include much of Trans-Baikal Siberia, which was seized by Czarist Russia quite recently, by Chinese standards..

[paleotn]

3. Very doubtful....

Their economies are tightly intertwined and neither would risk damage to the other. We've been arming Taiwan for a long time and they pack significant bite. Way too much money at stake for both to ever risk a shooting war.

[Baclava]

4. The India-China nuclear war scenario is getting more real, I'd watch that one.