Why China is Running out of Time to Invade Taiwan
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ธ.ค. 2023
- Unlock the geopolitical secrets of China's potential invasion of Taiwan!Dive deep into demographic challenges, economic uncertainties, military complexities, and more. Why is invasion riskier than ever? Watch now!
→ Subscribe for new videos at least twice a week!
th-cam.com/users/biographics...
Love content? Check out Simon's other TH-cam Channels:
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
MegaProjects: / @megaprojects9649
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
Casual Criminalist: / @thecasualcriminalist
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
XPLRD: / @xplrd
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
Simon's Social Media:
Twitter: / simonwhistler
Instagram: / simonwhistler
![ตรงที่เดิม - ฝน พรสุดา [ต้นฉบับ : เบส ขวางหวัน]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/c5YnbGEztI8/mqdefault.jpg)
As Taiwanese, in additional information, I can say that there are less than 20 geographical points that are suitable for invasion in certain seasons. But those points are not designed for massive landing operations, imagine that a place maybe 5 to 10 times minor than Normandy if you were a western person. And our defense administration prepared for the invasion based on those hot zone. But I hope there’ll be no war at all cost.
@@TexanIndependence The point of this video, is demographic issues take a few generation to reverse, unless you solve it with immigration. It's not like turning on a light because you willed it.
@@kurtwinslow2670 South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany have worse demographics than China. Only 11.55 percent of Japan’s population is age 14 or younger while China’s is 17.5%. Most developed countries have low birth rates because women are going to school, get married later and when they have children it’s only one or two kids.
Taiwan has been preparing for the communist invasion since the time the refugees landed in Taiwan 1950's. The KMT generalissimo's first order was to fortify Taiwan's defenses. The underground tunnels are everywhere as safety against air raids or now missile bombings. Fighter jets are also parked under ground. For sure, modern weapons are more sophisticated to repel the invasion. It is illogical for China to go ahead with the invasion knowing the cost of lives and destruction and the consequence of war which will destroy China itself.
@@TexanIndependence which China can reverse, it is a dictatorship after all🤣Being able to explain everything in one or two tags, I envy you for your carelessness
@@kurtwinslow2670immigration is the worse thing to solve fertility problem as we can see in western europe...
Countries need to focus on supporting families.
For example i expect second child. I cant think of having third with my wife not because only of economic reasons, but also working whole day and having very low time to actually spend with kids is bad.
Ofc iam no economist so i have no idea how to achieve that.
But importing different culture, is a recepy for future civil unrest and possible civil war.
Lived in Holland for 12 years, its kind of a sh** show there now sadly..
Something pretty war-like that you missed: Taiwan has always been considered an absolute nightmare to invade. The waters are shallow between China and Taiwan, limiting troop transport sizes. That results in more of a logistical nightmare on an already difficult maneuver that China (as you said) hasn't been proven capable of doing well.
Amphibious assaults are already plenty difficult to do. The rest of the fighting would come in two, equally unsavory flavors: urban warfare or mountain warfare.
A stout, porcupine defense from Taiwan would make this potential invasion a bloodbath. China's likely inexperience with any of these elements would likely make the these FAR worse.
The depth of the Taiwan Strait is not that shallow; about 60 meters deep or more. It is too shallow for submarines to safely operate in but ships will do fine.
D Day showed that landing troops was relatively easy. Soon after they had to land war machinery and auxiliary supplies, which requires the need to build temporary harbors.
@@floxy20 That only worked so well because of deception operations. I don't think that will work for an island. Look into it, it could have gone so wrong.
Yeah, an amphibious invasion is the most complex and difficult military operation there is, and this would be _by far_ the largest since the D Day landings in WW2. D Day took years of planning and preparation with a massive build up, and years of softening up the German defences during war time. I don't think China's military is currently prepared for such a large amphibious operation, and getting ready would require a mega project scale investment and years of work. China also won't be able to spend years wearing down Taiwan before the invasion. They'll need to launch the invasion force in the first few days of the war while Taiwan's military is still at full strength. A national scale amphibious invasion against an advanced military on day 1 of war has never been done before. It may not even be possible.
@TonboIV Taiwan's air force has already been severely worn down by years of aerial harassment. Taiwanese land units are antiquated, ill trained and still thinking in the 1970s. Its navy is about in the same shape.
What I am impressed about is that China managed to have a housing bubble and shortage at the same time
Shortage? Housing bubble was 'investment' not to live in
The Chinese housing bubble has been famous for having buildings with nothing inside them to actually house residents. This even extends to Cities,
Because in China the buyer first puts down a high down payment 30-50% and then the developer builds it. When completed the buyer obtains a mortgage for the remainder. Developers though in a hyped economy are always borrowing creating that bubble. The bubble bursts when demand slows. Another point not made is the debt problem. The federal government runs a relatively low ratio,75% but the state governments run a very high debt ratio. In the US combined federal and state runs $36.5T on $27T gdp,135%. China's combined debt is over $40T on $18T gdp,210%. Throw in the monkey wrench of deflation, stock and housing bubble and massive debt and it won't end well.
Yeah... i think they were able to enforce very high 'minimum prices' (even on empty / excess houses) up unitl the CCP decided to restrain lending to the construction industry, at which time, the buble burst.
lol - Australia achieved this too!
Thank you for your videos: concise, direct, and packed with information rather than just opinions.
The timeline for when invading Taiwan is/was a good idea: Never. It's always been a bad idea.
Uggh simon went full neocon and spewed a pack of lies. AFU was a massive army, far bigger than the SMO army sent to force them to peace(which they did!) , AFU was built , trained and supplied by 451!!! nations!
And guess what, Russia won, defeated the "neocons"
Simon, stop spreading lies
Never a great idea agreed, it was probably an acceptable idea though back in the 40s when the receipt first fled to Taiwan... Once they were given time to properly set up defenses it made considerably less sense
@@jaykoernerthat's not correct either. When the nationalists lost the civil war and retreated to Taiwan, they had an air force and navy, the communists did not. The communists were never able to invade Taiwan. Not then, and still not now.
Though the communists can probably pull off a blockade now
Yeah but when have communists ever had a good idea?
@@jaykoerner When you said 40s, I was expecting a reference to when Imperial Japan was occupying the island in WW2. USA decided that naval invasion wasn't worth the cost. Against 30k starving occupiers.
There is another issue; China is extremely dependent on foreign foodstuffs, fertilizers and farm equipment in order to feed itself. By far, the vast majority of these goods go through the Strait of Malacca. Moreover, something along the lines of 70% of the petroleum products it needs to keep the power on come through that same sea lane. To say that the country is vulnerable to a blockade really doesn't even begin to touch the issue.
Plus to more straits up north, plus what they can conjure up with Russia even further up north for easier access to the ocean.
A blockade is not one-sided anyways.
This is why China has spent billions to try and get alternate import routes set up through Pakistan and Myanmar, plus borrowing naval bases closer to the Persian gulf so its brown water navy has a chance of covering the sea routes. A move that India counters by setting up its own set of alliances to keep those bases in check.
To say China is "vulnerable to blockade" almost misleads: it's addicted to foreign investment funds which are starting to dry up. No active blockade needed.
@@2005jes2005 For China, a blockade is one-sided. In a war, their situation is even worse than Ukraine's. The entire sea that China relies on for its maritime access is hemmed in on all sides by enemy nations. And no, Russia does not provide a solution.
Nevermind that one of the most important supply lines between the two countries was just blown up; the port of Vladivostok is already working at over 100% capacity as it is.
There's also the simple issue of range; The US has a blue water navy, and China doesn't. For more than 90% of the Chinese fleet, 1k km is the maximum range, and that assumes going slowly in a straight line and not trying to come back. China simply doesn't have any way to project the sort of power needed to enforce a blockade on other nations.
Whereas, for the US, simply sinking a ship in a couple strategic spots will make the most important waterways for China literally impassible, and the simple threat of nuclear submarines will do the rest.
@@Psieye You're not wrong, but a blockade or the lack of one is the difference between an Ethiopian style famine or a slow but at least theoretically controllable descent.
@@2005jes2005ah yes, they can get help accessing the sea from Russia, a country well known for always having great access to the sea and never encountering any issues with that during war time 🤦
"If you want peace, prepare for war. -- Vegetius" which is a blueprint that is engraved in the hearts of every Taiwanese.
然后你们军队训练也不认真，军费开支也不多。供肖小
Thank you for your well presented and interesting talk.
One of the things that I don't see often in these discussion of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan is that the vast majority of any invasion force will consist of single only child men thanks to the One Child Policy. The lost of several thousand of these men would be a social disaster as it would mean the end of several thousand family lines in a country where family lineage is greatly revered.
Good point, but at the same time, look at previous wars China fought and the casualties they endured. Vs Japan, lost upwards of 20 million people. Civil War, right around that time, around 10 million. Taiping Rebellion, upwards of 30 million.
China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent. Whereas we haven't lost ANY in Ukraine, and support is breaking. Lost hardly 5k in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lost interest. We could very easily wipe out 2 million Chinese troops, but have 20 casualties of our own, and decide we should pull out, and China win. Are the American people ready to commit to a war with China? Cuz as it is, I see a lot of people who would rather shop with Temu than fight a war over Taiwan.
I recall reading that many of the young men in China are like "little emperors" who don't really want to get their hands dirty or bloody.
@@shaunholt Yes, they lost millions. But those losses occurred when families often had six, eight or more children.
That why China is spending billions on AI and robotics. They wouldn’t invade Taiwan with soldiers but instead with drones and missiles
@@shaunholt "China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent" Not modern generations. The last 3 generations of Chinese don't know war at all.
A very balanced and insightful video on a complex topic. Thank you for a job well done! 👏👏👏
Balanced? Why would they want to "invade"??? They have stated many times over the years that a peaceful reunification is their goal.
@@MetaView7 And North Korea says the same thing about South Korea. The commies simply want to take over and enslave them without a fight. And besides, Taiwan was never ruled by the CCP. There is no unifying to do with Communists. We must resist them and their slavery system at all costs.
oh wait you're serious@@MetaView7
very biased
@@MetaView7 peaceful is not a possibility.
Thank you for the great video.
One particular problem for China is that particularly among the Han, children are concentrated as single children. Drafting soldiers to send to war will be much harder when you are drafting the only child from an entire family. If people were having 3 or 4 children per couple, then they would only need of several siblings, which would make potential losses more tolerable.
@@TexanIndependence It will take longer than 10 years for them to get where they need to go. Even if they force people to have babies at gunpoint, it will be a long time before this "crop" of soldiers is ready for harvest. Time they may not have. A lot can happen in 18 years. They are making poorly thought-out superficial changes, but not addressing the real problems facing young adults. Banning boy bands and making barren women suffer is NOT going to turn this around. They've been digging this hole for decades and can't just brute force their way out. Some things can't just be waved into existence.
@TexanIndependence haha dumb Texan. You can't force people to have kids. The single key to having a higher fertility rate is to stop educating females. Once females are educated ánd integrated into the general workforce they simply seize having lots of kids.
@@TexanIndependence That was mentioned among many factors and certainly wasn't highlighted as the major one.
@TexanIndependence literal CCP copium, you can't just fix the massive aging population problem in just 10-15 years😂 assuming they have any success at all implementing those changes with all the other social/economic issues plaguing the country
@texanindependence It's fairly obvious you have no real idea about life in China. The idea that feminism is to blame for this is just silly. My mother in law was running the schools in a city of over 1 mln people in 1955. And she wasn't a real exception. But children are unaffordable - you literally need an extra income per child in order to be able to afford the education and medical costs.
China could increase the population, but not by trying to force women out of "modern feminism", whatever you think it means.
The Chinese military is really, really good at standing and marching in very straight lines. Their ability to fight is less known.
So what? Thanks to its hypersonic missiles, no invasion force will get within 2000 kilometers of the place.
I read that they tried to invade Vietnam in the late ‘70s and got whooped by the NVA (or I guess it’s just the VA at that point). Edit: it was mentioned in the video, hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
And they are known as a huge kleptocracy, just like Russia. Their readiness is probably compromised by that corruption. Some estimate that one of the secretly richest billionaires in the world is a chinese general. I don't know if he and his cohorts got cracked down on though. I heard that Xi was cleaning house.
You must have skipped history course often... Korea War and Sino India war? Selective history is bad for your brain... I forget, you might be a bot. :)
@@IronChef60 Yes and mighty US invade Vietnam and successful defeat NVA, is it? LOL... What u mean US military is paper tiger, right? 🤣
When it comes to Taiwan's production of chips and SCs, it's not just the factories that the PRC needs. It also needs the technical skill to operate them. At the moment it does this at a premium by paying exorbitant rates to bring in foreign workers. That takes a long time to fix as it requires a lot of things to have been in place for a few decades to build domestic capacity.
The bigger problem is on the back-end. Taiwan may produce the chips, but it's America, Canada, and the Netherlands that pioneers the designs.
Well those chip factories are not going to be saved if Tiawin get attacked. Which is one reason why Biden had invited several of those companies to come to the USA and set up shop here. Several companies have excepted the offer. I am sure China is fuming over that move. Right now China is getting chip by buying gaming consoles that are made in Vietnam since they have been santioned from buying directly from the chip maker. The other issue is China cannot build anything without the blue prints. There education is not set up to use your knowledge to come up with new ideas, there education is all about how much you can memorize.
AND purchases. Let's not forget where the real power resides. It's with the consumer. If the USA or others decides to boycott anything related to an invasion, their assault will become even more costly.
Taking over Taiwan could allow it to enslave the workers who know about how to make chips.
@deadpirateroberts9937: Taiwan cannot make the advanced chip-making equipment. It only uses them to produce advanced chips designed by their customers, such as the US. If war starts, the equipment is easily destroyed. The Taiwanese workers cannot build chips without that equipment. They have the knowledge on how to operate it, and convert a chip spec into a chip layout using the software tools that come with the equipment, but it cannot recreate the chip-making equipment.
China has the previous generations of the chip-making equipment, and can make less advanced chips to their hearts' content, until the equipment needs to be serviced. Then, the equipment isn't useful, even for spare parts because they don't fully know how to service the equipment.
News: they don't need to produce chips from TSMC. Just destroy Western access to those chips..... The West no longer produces cutting edge chips either.
Good video Simon & Co.!
I didn’t think Russia would invade Ukraine so I have no idea wether China will attack Taiwan. 🤔
I think what will happen is China will actually go after Russia, Vladivostok used to be Chinese back in the day and China already posted a lot of things on social media that they want it back
A Russian governor I think posted something celebrating the anniversary of Vladivostok and China was very quick to comment that they shouldn't be celebrating the anniversary as it was once their own territory
A very fair admittance. It is way to hard to be sure about anything like this.
You didn't know? 😂😂😂 You must not follow much news. Nato did many things following up that provoked Putin into war. I feel for Ukraine and Ukrainian people but they kinda have nato to thank for that.
@@elitepauper7400
Ukrainan people through Euromaidan showed Russia and Putin that Ukraine didn't want to stay in Russia's leash anymore. Ukraine wanted to be an EUROPEAN country. That is something Kremlin couldn't allow. Nato had nothing to do with that. Bs narrative .
@@elitepauper7400 Russia wanted Ukraine back, one way or another. Sure you can blame NATO, but it was going to happen regardless.
Having worked in the semiconductor industry for a long time, just taking over a factory without the brains to run it means almost nothing...maybe a few days of production.
china already able to make their own chip, in a few yr tsmc mean nothing
@@jetli740 With global food supplies constricted because of the wars, China may not last 2024. And 2025 is likely worse.
@@msimon6808Global food supplies are no where near bad, infact we waste 1.3billion tons of food a year.
@@jetli740 China are still 2 or 3 generations behind Taiwan and even the US
@@msimon6808 food is not a problem
china have 3-5yrs food reserve, their top trading partner with over 150 country, also russia is a huge grain supplier right at china back yard.
your need to change your china expert
Nice piece Simon. Thank you.
This information has calmed some of my anxiety. Thank you for the content Simon.
Unfortunately the more desperate the situation in China becomes the more likely they are to lash out. China isn't as different from Russia as they'd like you to believe. They're just as likely to do something stupid at the expense of their male population and their country's future. Remember, whatever it takes to stay in power, regardless of the cost.
Russia just proved that starting any war in the 21st century is totally pointless. No matter how outmatched they are.
I think Russia is very happy about how things are going…They made their… point..
我认为俄罗斯干的不错，西方废物天天被洗脑，这次战争彻底撕毁美元霸权 直接绕过美元交易
@@johneeeemarry34on top of that other countries who dislike USA are taking inspirations from Russia like Iran and Hamas, now Venezuela and soon China, North Korea the USA hegemony is slowing breaking
@@JDDC-tq7qm been saying that for 50 yrs now, eh? 😂😂
Very interesting video. What I think that is not mentioned but quite relevant is that an economic turndown is often a trigger for dictators to start a war.
And with a huge surplus of males that aren't getting any younger....🤷🏼♂️
I was thinking the same actually, if things go bad at home, find an external opponent...
@@Rossco139 The flip side of that is that most parents have only one child to take care of them in old age (a big deal in Chinese culture - so I've read). This means that even a small number of casualties is politically unacceptable.
unfortunately, sad but true
Russia and Venezuela are already in the chat room. :/
As Karuna mentioned below, China imports 80% of it's energy and 50% of its food. They are incredibly vulnerable to anything drawn out beyond 1 month.
And it wouldn't even take active interdiction of this shipping. The shipping companies' insurance companies would just say 'nope, not going there'.
Depends on who you depend.
Russia is under heavy sanctions yet is lasting way longer than what the american warhawks were forseeing...
China is a major partner for many countries, including their energy/food suppliers.
They even bought farms in africa, own most of the fishing boats etc..
They ll be even harder to cut off than russia was.
@@etienne8110 No, they won't, because it's not a political barrier, it's a geographical one. Russia is not as constricted to a single international shipping lane for the majority of their energy needs. If the Strait of Malacca closes to Chinese shipping traffic, it's over. There is no other path for the amount of resources China needs. Russia has no equivalent.
@@rednyte6155 you don t need 100% of usual to keep running.
If anything, russia is the living proof of that, not even mentionning iran, venezuela or cuba.
They just need enough passing through russia to hold for a couple months.
Anylonger would also be a big hurt to both oil producers and europeans countries.
China is a major economy (n 1, some would argue), you can t just blockade it forever...
China has been hoarding food and fuel for a long time now. They definitely have plans but the world is moving to intercept.
@@etienne8110bro a nation at war absolutely cannot stand having moat of their population starving. Take a history lesson.
Very astute analysis. I also believe the fear of failure is the real reason China has stayed it's hand. Ukraine giving Russia a whole load of what-for has been a gift to the whole world.
Ukraine has been destroyed, millions dead, 25% of its land confiscated. Ukraine has debts it can never repay. Russia is growing in influence and financially. I have no idea what you are talking about. If anything, the Ukraine situation has shown the weakness of the West.
Even Russian puppet rulers are calling it a bloody stalemate that needs a ceasefire. The fact a relatively tiny country militarily is still holding out is astounding.
@@bassmanjr100 what fucking planet do you live on? Millions dead? Where? You Russian 🤡
@bassmanjr100 wrong it is only 17 percent not 25 percent. And Russia is not growing in any way either financially or in influence. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Just since bot probably @@pigbearcub
Excellent Episode 👍
The fabrication process of a CPU ("chip") is painstaking and arduous. To give a general idea, the room it is fabricated in must be cleaner and more sterile than an operating theater. You have to be in full gear, mask, suit, everything. A CPU can take up to 3 months to go from base material to CPU. So even an explosion near one of these facilities renders it threatened or inoperable.
USA: I have the high ground.
China: you underestimate my power
USA: don’t do it.
China: ……
China : Now, you had tasted my power, kneel.
USA : .....
@@DreamyCheshire-up9rf Wow, you totally killed that star wars joke. nice going.
@@DreamyCheshire-up9rf these chinese are so dumb lol
@@brockb4452 He's chinese, they are probably prohibited from seeing the movie lol.
@@bassyeynope, everyone knows star wars in China😂
Best analysis I have seen on the issue. Well done!
Perun has also done a war economics video on this.
A lot of pictures you used in this video are from Hong Kong. As a HongKonger myself, I'd suggest using pictures from the mainland China to represent China. Example: 1:46 is a scene from one of Hong Kong's famous night market, 6:07 is from the Central district of Hong Kong, 6:33 is Hong Kong International Airport
HongKong isnt China yet?
Hi Gaza 废青
Yeah, HK is in China though.
@@graemehindshaw4221 But it is not fully Chinese. It is still an autonomous region partially outside Chinese Communist Sphere of influence.
I am deeply sorry about what happened to Hong Kong. A fusion of the best of Chinese and Western cultures, it was one of the most amazing cities in the world. But mainland China has total control over it now. Hong Kong is China.
With semiconductors being so important for just about everything, it is in world's best interest to protect Taiwan as much as possible.
it's moved to the States and China has its own advanced semiconductor industry now, so not that many people cares.
Or other countries would think it's in their best interests to kidnap the scientists working in those labs or steal the schematics on making semiconductors for their own benefit than risk going to war for another. We humans are selfish beings after all
@@whz1991not really tbh. China is still 2 to 3 generations behind in semiconductor tech and the new Us fabs for TsMc won’t have the most advanced chips.
what if china took taiwans edge over the semiconductor manufacturing?
@@SrCoxas as long as ASML and western tech companies support the patented tech that goes into fabs(remember even China mostly relies on these to do the actual production) I don’t see them getting anywhere near as competitive as Taiwan considering that even their labor advantage is now mostly gone.
Taiwan has some surprisingly good anti ship missiles with the hf3 being supersonic (mach 3.5) and a range of 250 miles and have cheaper sub sonic hf2 with newer ones having a range long enough to cover the entire straight. The also have been rapidly taking note from Ukraine with their drone use and build up a drone army
But one thing is Taiwan military and government is corrupt. There is unknown number of spies currently holding office that are in chinas side and this lowers military readiness.
And Russia and China is taking notes on drone use too
@@whm_w8833 Well we are taking note that Russia and China are taking notes from the other notes alright?
Taiwan's military is also incredibly corrupt and full of Chinese spys.
And Taiwan being much richer than Ukraine means they can easily buy the very same weapons that Ukraine has to ask for.
Brilliant and insightful as always!!🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇧❤️
Thanks!
Beautiful facts and analysis!!!
A news happened a few months ago involving an accidental explosion in one of the armory in Taiwan, meanwhile some politicians citing the danger of having an armory within residential area however the local residents said otherwise: "Don't move the armory away, we know where to get our guns if PLA are coming.".
People of Taiwan aren't afraid of war, intimidation doesn't work against Taiwan. They will just simply ask to "bring it".
Didnt it occur to u that explosions happen coz us export their out of warranty date fire arms to taiwan and cause such havoc😂
This is really ironic news. Residents are protesting that the arsenal is located in a residential area. Request to move out immediately
@@tcguanz Out of warranty weapons don't explode. The fuel oxidizes and becomes useless. They don't fail up, You don't build a missile whose end game could be blow up on the pylon when it's too old. Some Chemistry classes will help you with that.
@@bcomp12 lol, you dont need a missile, you just need a 30 years old grenade
lol Sure, sure 😆
Outstanding documentary! Very thought provoking and well thought through! I enjoyed all of it immensely. Thanks for taking the time and effort to put this out there.
Don't think so.
There is a book "Sunzi:The Art of War" which was written back to 2000 years ago. I read the book when I was young in school.
The book clearly stated, invation or war is never the best approach to achieve a strategic target. There are always two better ways.
I mean, that's a very famous and popular book in China.I read it and know it as a normal Chinese.
and.... the China goverment leaders have much more information than me, and are much wiser than me. I believe they always know what should be the best way to take Taiwan back. But for sure, it is not anything about time out as this video says.
excellent analysis and interesting
Excellent analysis here, and I hope you're 100% right. Otherwise this on could get very messy.
Excellent analysis only if you lazy to fact check... he wrong on most of the subject
@@jetli740 Any examples?
@@miroslavdusin4325 china invade taiwan in 25 or 27, there is zero evidence of it, it purest western
propaganda. the only red line china will attack is if taiwan declare independent's or allow usa military base there. there millions of taiwanese work/have family or business in china. logic.. if china want to invade taiwan why would they let taiwanese work/live and open business in china? anyone of these could be a spy
china and taiwan have a freeze civil war, no shot fire for over 40yrs ..think about that
@@miroslavdusin4325I would bet money they are a Chinese wolf warrior.
You've done a really good job on this episode.
This is excellent! I study China on a daily basis and have to say this production was bang on. Well played, I'll be checking out more of the channel
I can relate, as I find myself reading news about North Korea almost daily.
Okay, you study China on a daily basis, so that means you should be well versed to understand that China has no intention of invading Taiwan.
@@alectang1614 I hope you do ry lil weak wumao
I love your voice! Resonant and expressive.
Looks like we dipped into Econographics for part of this video, lol. Great video on the subject, as ever.
Goddammit I want an Econographics channel now
Spot on
I got a few minutes in and shut it down. If I wanted an economics lesson on China I would dial up a video of Jefferey Sachs or another actual famous economist.
One of the major key objectives would be to capture the microchip processing factories intact. As stated this would be highly unlikely, wether it be from erroneous attack or sabotage, it's highly unlikely these facilities would remain intact.
biggest thing would be keeping them from getting their hands on the EUV machinery.
The factory itself is only a small part of the entire production chain, a chain that has the entire world taken parts in
You need to be more specific about whose objective is it to keep chip fabs intact.
Because Huawei and SMIC just demonstrated China the right now the only country that does not need TSMC intact.
And since losing TSMC will result in collapse of all western technology, it's very much China's objective to make sure TSMC does NOT stay intact.
You're right that its very unlikely TSMC will remain intact, so what does that means for western technology?
@@ryankappel1245 China already developed their own EUV technology, both traditional laser-tin and next gen SSMB.
Between this and the China blowing up TSMC, you have no idea how f*ed the west is.
@@vlhc4642 alot of TSMC manufacturing is starting to move to other countries. Also China kind of sucks at creating its own IP. They steal it and either reverse engineer and build a hack replica or fill in the gaps and build a janky replica. They think if they can take over Taiwan they can absorb everything that already exists and will have the pathway to keep advancing. They also need the EUV technologh which Taiwan is one of a few countries has.
Outstanding analysis
Great analysis.
Keep up with the uploads Simon!!
Insightful and well-researched as always.
Good show!
Awesome video with great information, but the cultural Chinese music in the background was a bit distracting. But again, love this channel and the insights that you put out!
You are one of the best with a relentless pace and quality content. Bless you Simon. May things go your way :-)
It's easy to keep a relentless pace when you get your scripts from the U.S. State department.
@@Ivanna_Jerkovhe most definitely doesn’t. Some of his Content was wildly inaccurate and assumed the Pentagon hadn’t considered some of the most rudimentary scenarios.
Amazing contenttt!!! hope this channel continues to do good
Won’t be long till it’s shut down to many facts
It’s not “reunite” it is annexation. Taiwan was never “returned” to China. Just look up treaty of San Francisco.
This might be the best video you have created on any of your channels. Great work.
The lost lives in an amphibious assault would be enormous.
There are not many places to land in numbers, the beaches are hard to approach, or so I've heard.
A layered missile defense would wrack an absolute nightmare. I hope China sees that and won't even try.
I doubt they will actually try. An amphibious attack on this scale would take months of build up all being watched from space.. this would give Taiwan loads of time to mine the landing spots and huge areas offshore.. add this to the anti ship missiles and the other defences around the landing spots it is virtually impossible without China being willing to sacrifice at least 2 million soldiers thousands of boats.
"China will get old before it gets rich", Mark Steyn famously said ten years ago: We are seeing that prediction play out, with Simon's chart showing an aging, declining population with a declining GDP.
Declining gdp? They literally grew 5% this year.
Both japan and south korea have higher declining rate than China, especially Japan. Their economy should have been collapsing anytime now if based on your logic.
alot of the economic numbers are fake though. And the "growth" is hilariously because each year the government now tends to revise downward the numbers from two years prior, meaning that the previous year keeps getting a positive "growth rate" from this adjustment
@@papabear90 bahhahahhaa where is that data from you loser ccp wumao hahah
Well presented
Interesting summary.
Capturing the TSMC fabrication facilities intact might not even be enough for China to keep producing. Constructing the machines for chip-production is nearly as complicated as making the chips themselves. There is a supply chain from the West for machine parts that would most certainly be cut.
China already SMIC and their own DUV and soon EUV machines to produce advanced chips, they don't need TSMC.
What they need is for the west to rely on TSMC while not think about how losing TSMC via Chinese missile will shutdown the entire western tech industry,
Having the fabs alone isn't enough. They would also need their Taiwanese engineers to fully cooperate in order for them to be productive; it's way to easy for the fabs to deviate wildly out of spec even through simple neglect.
Quite. The lithography part of the process is Dutch for starters. You can't make chips without this capability.
Also the chip designs come from American companies and engineers. If China could take the factories and the highly skilled workforce and engineers intact, they wouldn’t be getting any new designs from us.
china have smic, they not interest in tsmc, even if china got tsmc what use after 2-3 year it became old and useless. china have their own smic. so they never have to worry about not able to make cpu
9:18 I don't know much about microchip manufacturing, but I really doubt that China can just "capture the factories" and start pumping out chips. A microchip factory isn't something you just own and it produced chips, it's something you continually work to maintain. It constantly needs highly specialized new equipment, parts, software and expertise which is probably coming from companies all over the world. If China could provide all that stuff, then it would be making high-end microchips already. The factories are really just the physical manifestation of a whole network of high-tech stuff constantly flowing in and out of Taiwan, and an invasion and annexation would destroy that network. All that would be left are some factories that would quickly breakdown and become outdated.
Remember when Russia stole all those foreign jetliners and how quickly they started breaking down because Russia couldn't take care of them? A high-end chip factory is a LOT more complicated than a jetliner.
Russia is quite comfortably winning a war… I don’t think they are too bothered about other people’s aeroplanes…The Chinese share the same genetics, I’m pretty sure they are capable of catching up in terms of the microchip manufacturing you know so little about…
What is valuable is denying your adversaries the means to produce the chips.
@@andrewdopple6946 China uses those chips, just like everybody else, and most of their money comes from selling shit to those "adversaries" you mentioned, so hurting the economies of other wealthy nations just hurts China.
@@johneeeemarry34 yes almost two years into a three day "special military operation" Russian is doing fantastically in a conflict that has been notable for how well their equipment has been maintained.
@@johneeeemarry34 Haha, funny troll post.
Some very interesting points to consider. Nothing is ever like it appears on the surface.
My friend works in Taiwan. He told me that he refers to China as “West Taiwan” and his students cheer every time.
there isn't a country called "Taiwan". The country on that island is Republic of China. And your friend is right, ROC claims the west continent theirs in early days and this is exactly the concept the ROC government trying not to mention nowadays. As a mainlander, I highly appreciate your friend's effort in helping us unite under the one China concept, no matter it's ROC or PRC.
@@francis4225 The "government" illegally occupying the mainland is illegitimate. The government on the island of Formosa is the legitimate ruler of China.
@@francis4225I think you misunderstood the meaning behind the word “West Taiwan”. The word is used by younger generations of Taiwaneses as a meme to mock PRC because most of us despise PRC’s non-stop, aggressive shouting of “Unite the motherland by all means.” or “One China policy.” Another reason we use the word is to distance ourselves from the “China” identity, because most of us don’t identify ourselves as Chinese anymore. So no, his friend is not helping to promote uniting China, sorry for breaking your wishful thinking.
@@Joe_Ku888 lmao seems your education system is working really well. In the last century ROC was always holding the idea of reclaiming the mainland as it is the "righteous one" between two Chinas. I as a mainland shouldn't be the one educating you about ROC history but it seems you took in propaganda quite willingly. You really think I can't see It's you guys mocking? I just find it nothing but hilarious. I genuinely don't care what is your opinion towards PRC or the idea of China cuz in the end It's always down to a country's power. ROC lost seventy years ago and let's see if it will lose again in the future, which you nor i can do shit about.
@@francis4225 I see. That's quite unfortunate. I thought you really didn't understand the word, that's my fault for not getting the sarcasm in your words. But I do want to clarify that we do know the history of the stand of one true China ROC took in the last century. But for us younger generations, those are only history.Time has changed, so do our ideologies and thoughts on our own identities, we moved on. Yes, you are correct on the power discrepancy between ROC and PRC or the west, realistically speaking, there's nothing we Taiwanese could do but to hope for the best. But I really do hope you can take a more humane approach on this subject, instead of a utilitarian one. Perhaps this way you can understand our frustrations and aspirations. That way, there will be less unnecessary hostility and cruelty between us people.
This video would be more informative if you compared the demographics and economic challenges in both China and Taiwan.
That was a very decent assessment.
China is in a weird situation where a huge county can’t politically survive significant military casualties. The one china policy has made a situation were the military age males support not just their parents but also grandparent. Imagine sending an army of only children into the meat grinder that would be the Taiwan straits.
They might even use the cannon fodder / sheer numbers approach of USSR in WW2 and China in Korea.
Japan and Korea aren’t exactly having a population boom…Nether is any European country, it’s just mass immigration, so those countries aren’t really even countries anymore, neither the natives or the unwelcome invaders are going to fight for these multi cultural shit holes..The only people on planet earth having loads of kids are in sub Saharan Africa, and they are in business with the China man… You need to get your facts straight before you end up in a weird situation or worse… a meat grinder!
你是有多无知才能发表这种言论的？
有没有一种可能，那就是如果欧洲或者美国人介入，那么进入这个绞肉机的不光有中国人，还有美国人欧洲人…你以为战争只有中国会付出代价吗？你们可以站在边上看热闹？呵呵，可能不会那么符合妳的预计
@@tamagawa8227 Hey dipsh*t, aren't you supposed to be banned from viewing TH-cam? -5000 social credit points for you!
Not to mention that the US is in the midst of completely restructuring its military for this exact situation.
Reminds me of why Operation Barbarossa happened as it did since the Winter War with Finland exposed to both the Soviets and the Germans how flawed the Red Army was at the time (due in a large part to Stalin purging the competent officers) and mustache guy wanted to knock them out permanently, while he still had fuel to spend and before the Soviets managed to finish its own preparations.
The U.S. can't meet its own recruitment quota and is building 13 billion dollar artificial reefs and B2 bombers for nearly a trillion a pop.
“Irregardless” isn’t a word. It’s just ‘regardless’ or ‘without regard’
Love it!
China does things in extremes. I lived there for 5 years 2015-2020 and I watched it in real time. They do one thing at an extreme and then over compensate in the extreme when they GET to the point of breaking. This population crisis is a perfect example. They went from super conservative only 1 child to 2 children to no even promoting teen pregnancy.
This child policy is necessary and not extremism ~ Singapore used to have “Stop at 2” policy but we also need more babies; so we have “3 is better”-we incentivise $$$ for new citizens birth rates. U r shallow
@@angxiang3186Anti-natalism is not really an extreme idea, but the execution China took when enforcing it was what can be considered extreme.
Westerners really want to nitpick China about this policy. But for many decades, Western countries have their own policies of depopulation resulting in their current aging population.
They criticize China for this but the population of the Asian nation ballooned to over 1.4 billion while theirs (Europe and the US) could not even reach that number.
Though China now has an aging population, resulting in a change in policy, the Western countries resorted to inviting immigrants to become their 'modern slaves' as their governments are churning to abate the government decline, albeit at a snail pace, in coming up with effective policies.
@@angxiang3186incentives fail in s korea.
And the fifty cent army rears their ugly heads with straw man arguments. I love it.
The fact that the United States… or for that matter, Singapore, OR Malaysia, OR Indonesia, OR Australia, could block the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda Strait as well, through which China imports 80 percent of their Oil and exports most of the commodities it sells to Europe, which just a few Sea Mines strategically placed in the straits, which would bring China to its knees in fairly short order, I would say that the time for China to invade Taiwan ended around 1950.
don't forget China also is an oil producing country, so the block of strait of Malacca and Sunda strait wouldn't affect too much for the military operations of PLA, but it would affect the civilian life off course.
Oil consumption would soar if China went to war and logistics might not be able to cope for long. @@pipiqiqi4010
@@pipiqiqi4010 China consumes 16 million barrels of oil per day and they produce only 4.5 million of those, without a functioning civilian economy how can the military operate?
@@duduchannel6729 if there is a war and the sea line blocked by the enemy, they can use all of their oil for military, which can satisfy the need and keep the war ongoing.
@@duduchannel6729中国不生产石油不代表没有石油，中国有大量油田，也有页岩油技术，只是买的油更便宜，发生战争时提升产量，而且俄乌战争我们储备了很多俄罗斯石油
well said
Most excellent.
When it comes to China's GDP, that number is "estimated" to be $17 trillion. The one doing the estimation is China. China is not really a good faith actor when it comes to reporting GDP numbers. Independent estimates guess that number is closer to $9-13 Trillion. They're quite far away in the #2 position. However, the gap from the #1 spot is much further away.
I keep saying the same thing. Everything from the CCP has to be taken with a grain of salt. They lie about everything and people fall for it.
希望你继续保持你的观点，这个很重要，哈哈！作为一个中国人，毫无疑问，当然我希望他们继续低估他们的对手
And GDP per capita is even farther behind the US and Europe.
Your 'independent estimate" doesn't happen to be the guy who tried to use night-time light to measure day-time factory activity does it? lol
Chinese industry generates and consumed more electrical power than next 5 countries combined, China's auto industry is 2.7x larger than the US, China's ship building industry is 250x larger than the US, China alone operate 2/3 of all industrial robots on the planet and their solar production capacity just reached 1x total US power generation per year.
You're right about on-paper GDP estimates being meaningless, you can't actually compare your local personal injury lawyer with a factory producing electric motors.
The moment China pulls the plug, that is stop accepting USD as payment for Chinese exports, the real value of USD, and by extension the real scale of US GDP will become very visible.
@@vlhc4642 Lol look at this Chinese shill furiously trying to defend a deteriorating China's honor. Maybe you should worry about how your precious China is busy trying to fill in the holes made by its flailing economy as its various foreign investors and companies are slowly leaving the country. Better yet, maybe you should worry about where you're gonna find your next paycheck when China won't be able to pay your shilling wages anymore.
Good video, Simon. There are far more negatives for China if they invaded Taiwan than keeping the status quo. Taiwan being an island that is armed to the teeth and natural features that would make it a nightmare to invade means it will be incredibly painful for an untested Chinese military. The US, Japan and the Philippines would get involved in some way. Simon didn't even mention India. I doubt China is willing to severely harm its own economy for this.
Simple...if the TSMC fab gets destroyed the world economy will collapse and be put back 5 years....everyday life revolves around semiconductors that can only be made in one place.
In the chip war Taiwan are so far ahead of China and Usa it's almost laughable...yeah best hope is common sense
Japan has no nuclear weapons… The US army is trans and gay… nobody wants to join… Woke people are ‘educated’ to hate America so you can count them out…The Philippines is sadly riddled with corruption and struggles economically…Simon is posh and has bad eyesight, he will read anything placed in front of him, I don’t think anyone’s too bothered about him or the woman who writes his scripts..
India and ROK will not join , India is not gonna send it's soldiers to die for Taiwan....
And that is not even counting the situation in Myanmar right now.
However we shouldn't dismiss the possibly of the CPC to commit to the campaign to salvage their authority over China. Argentina attempted something similar and their government collapsed on that seemingly sure bet for the Falklands.
I've put this commentator on .75 of the speed. Nerve wrecking 150 words/minute. Cheers mate.
have a great TH-cam and I watch it frequently, but do you know that there’s an ad that comes before your video about clearing yourself of stuck poop?
The Chinese army definitely excels at marching though. Their uniformity is impressive.
just sink the food supply to China for 1 month , guess what happen ?
Keep it up fact boy!!
It is my understanding that the chicoms first carrier was a converted Ukrainian casino ship. The second chicoms carrier is a copy of the first. I don’t see them train too often.
"To make war on another is abhorrent, to egg the other on is contemptible" - Albert Einstein".
You have an absolutely incredible channel. Thank you for all the deep research you do to get this to the people
Reading state department memos is not research.
Great video!
I have a sibling who works in the diplomatic core and while they acknowledge the CCP and its leader as dangerous certainly, they also think its reputation and ego outstrips its capabilities by a fairly wide margin and that they aren't remotely as stable as they like to project.
One of the big one's on this front is actually xi xi ping, the man has almost zero stable advisors. Its been noted how there will be a new "Rising star" and favorite every few months who will then vanish into obscurity. This is much the same approach to leadership that Stalin and plenty of other dictators take which doesn't work out well. It minimized collective action and critical feedback as well as insulates the leader from learning where problems are cos no one wants to be the fall guy.
Then there's the fact huge swathes of what is called "China" currently are under semi perpetual military occupation, Tibet and the Uyghur population most of all. That both means that the military cant be pulled up from these areas to fight and in fact may need to reinforce those areas if they rebel.
There's also the fact most of China's allies are not gonna be able to or be interested in helping. Russia is losing its own war, most of the nations in Africa they have in debt to them will have limited ability or desire to stick their necks out beyond speeches and North Korea doesn't actually 'like' China given its been trying to make them a lifeless obedient vassal since forever and keeps its aid extremely limited because they won't give up their nukes and submit.
FInally, there's how the US responds to damages.
The USA is... broadly speaking a prickly, prideful and paranoid beast. Its collective response to attacks or losses has pretty consistently been incredibly destructive and vengeful as opposed to losing willpower. I feel that reactions to any battle based losses will be less, "This is a waste we should call for peace" and more likely to be "Vengeance, raaaaaah!"
NATO & the US are not doing enough for Ukraine but they are doing more than anyone expected and as noted, Taiwan is far more important strategically and unlike Russia won't bleed itself dry trying and failing to take Taiwan without intervention, making it far more necessary from a real-politic angle.
To me, Xi Xi Ping's proclamations reflect a world leader surrounded by an echo chamber who has failed to register that his ambitions are likely doomed. Doesn't mean he won't launch nukes though, the man is notoriously thin skinned and not liable to take well to a defeat which while not inevitable still strikes me as likely.
You correct in some areas but incorrect in others. Russia is NOT losing in Ukraine. It is only a matter of time before Ukraine capitulate. Unfortunately, Ukraine has been led up the garden path by NATO and Biden.
Secondly, NATO has already done too much in Ukraine. Putin is wrong to invade, but one of the major reasons he did is because NATO pushed ahead with Ukraine membership in 2021.
He invaded in Feb 2022.
I agree with all, except nukes; neither China nor Russis would unless invaded directly. So it will be proxy conflict like Ukraine.
The PRC depends on exporting extraordinarily low quality widgets, and all its HI tech is just very sad knock offs, well when China start pissing off all their neighbors but especially the countries that dumped all their tech and money into your economy, the whole world is pulling it's support out of China. Since China has no free internal market, just state controlled currency, companies, and communist owned markets, as long as dumb ji peng is in charge there is no where to go but down hill for China. If Xi had just played nice another 20 years the takeover of Taiwan would have been perhaps a cake walk. I cannot believe that War Graphics does not take note of the lightyear leap forward in progress of defense (using Ukraine as the example) showing how an innovative society can defend themselves from a large clumsy soviet style wave attack. All I see is the bottom of the Strait of Taiwan being littered with crappy unwieldy Chinese water craft, air craft, and bottle rockets. I expect the prc air force will not fair much better than its rust bucket navy. I have yet to see an example of Chinese or Russian tech matching up in a battle to western hard ware since the early 60's. Instead of Russian meat attacks there will be PRC canned meat attacks. Drones cannot occupy Taiwan, but drones will destroy whatever the PRC is dumb enough to send to Taiwan.
明白人，此人不可久留
13:06 "and many more..." brilliant!
Very good video. I missed the current gold purchases by China which, see also Russia, are always an indicator of preparations for war. Nevertheless, this could also just be sabre-rattling by China as mentioned in the video.
These analysts always leave out the fact that the CCP could launch a war out of desperation
I like Simon as a host because usually he gave a very unbiased views on his channel...
Excellent content! I am really impressed by your analysis.
I watched some interviews from Chinese citizen about their view about invading Taiwan. The youngsters are basically not care, the old people care more because they viewed Taiwan as their own territory. However, these old people also emphasized that Taiwan will come to China by their own will and not by war because China would not opted into murdering their brothers in Taiwan.
Young people in China also view Taiwan as a Chinese territory. The difference might be, they don’t view Taiwanese as Chinese (own people).
@@yangz1803 depends on who. I have met plenty of young Chinese who do not even think Taiwan belongs to China, and believes everyone should just focus on making more money.
You can’t “REUNITE” something that has NEVER BEEN “united” !!
Taiwan and the mainland were united for centuries under the Qing dynasty.
@@Xezlecok wumao 😂
@@Xezlec in the grander scheme of the proud Chinese history of 5000 years, those few hundred years are just a flash of time. Only parts of Taiwan was ruled by the Qing from 1683 to 1895, and the Republic of China for a few more years. But Taiwan has never been ruled by the PRC, and hence not a "reunion" with the PRC.
The American journalist William L. Shirer, one of Hitler’s earliest critics, recalled in his memoir many years later that he had “left the Reichstag that evening convinced that Hitler, despite all my reservations about him, really wanted peace and had made the West, at least, a serious offer.”
China's latest high profile political meetings is reminiscent of when Germany tried to convince the world all it wanted was peace while it quietly rearmed itself. German glider clubs for training pilots is no different than the cruisers China as painted up as coast guard vessels. At some point it will become undeniable, and we will enter a phase of appeasement, in hopes of avoiding what was long planned.
Great video, the points are bang on.
How many channels you got? And what are those? Thanks!
What is this, Simon's 30th channel? lol did you know you can upload more than one video?
I heard that Venezuela is getting ready to invade or annex Guyana. Can Simon do a Warographics video on it?
They covered it in the situation room last week
Let's be real though. Most western countries are in the same boat as far as birth rate goes. It will eventually affect many of us.
Western countries recognized this very early and compensated with immigration. China hates the idea of immigration, basically doesn't allow it, expect for rare and exceptional cases, and it's too late to fix the problem even if they started letting a million immigrants a year join their society.
Numbers yes, but quality? Probably not. @@baneofbanes
@@baneofbanes That only helps with unskilled/menial laborers. Doesn't help provide us with more doctors, engineers, or skilled laborers.
Almost like our culture has made a huge mistake by discouraging the traditional family unit. The more conservative people are, the higher their average reproductive rate is.
Except the country which matters the most: the USA, continues to see significant population growth due to migration. China (like Japan) does not enjoy that privilege when they see negative migration flows.
I clicked this not even realizing it was another Simon channel.
Brilliant analysis. Anything on China is fascinating
The Chinese haven't fought a war since getting a bloody nose from Vietnam back in 1979
Ironically, the Democratic USA fought a number of wars, regime changed and many sanctions around the world.
Fuck, my eyeballs are grabbed by your profile portrait.
China lost the battle but won the war; the whole point of Communist China's war against Vietnam was to break their ties to Soviet Russia, this was after the Sino-Soviet relationship fallout.
Did you say something? Sorry... I got distracted by your profile photo and your one video. 🤩
Politics is shit. But porn is the shit. LMAO@@herrunsinn774
When one-child policy was introduced everyone wanted to have kids. Now that it has been lifted no one wants to have kids.
Some policy making simply isn't able to get its dynamic right
The One Child Policy allowed people to realize that the fewer children they have, the higher their standard of living.
@@independentvoter8710 Until they get old. And then standard turns very substandard.
They’ve didn’t want to have kids they needed to have kids to survive
China has more than enough kids to stay prosperous.
Germany was also on the economic rise to be the next dominating power in Europe and didn’t invade Poland until they started to decline. A war would be devastating but if successful controlling TSMC is the only thing that will right a lot of these issues
This is nicholas, heavy haul truck driver in ohio and the company i work for and others we work along side with are building a massive chip plant just out side columbus ohio . Its supposed to he the biggest chip factory in the world
Some other reasons a war is unlikely:
1. Xi would have to give somebody more power than him in order to coordinate the military. An extremely risky move with little benefit when there is a lot of party inter-conflict ongoing.
2. Though an attack seems unlikely to succeed or be effective, there is a chance Taiwan could cause enough damage to the Three Gorges dam. This would be the equivalent of a nuclear attack in terms of destruction with the resulting floods. China would be going for full annexation, but that would eventually trigger this type of attack.
3. They need to be almost fully self-sufficient for the entire length of the war. Their land transportation routes aren't that developed to the middle east, leaving mostly just the ocean. But they have little power projection capability with their military, so they will quickly be blockaded. Plus whatever allies they would have in a conflict, they would not be able to supply China with goods and military supplies like a Western ally.
4. After any type of conflict they would be in a very vulnerable position security wise. With little military hardware left to defend, and will need to trust only nuclear weapons would be enough of a deterrent. While effective, a country like India could take some territory in the mountains, possibility of of Tibet. Which would only become more likely as water becomes a even more valuable resource to secure.
If I may;
1. Xi is likely to exercise great personal control over the military. He will want it to be his victory, not anyone else's.
2. The PLA is aware of this threat and would no doubt layer SAMs around the Three Gorges Dams. Also, they would be looking to destroy those systems in the first wave of the attack.
3. Yes. This is why they are stockpiling supplies. They would have to bet on receiving oil via train/pipe from Russia - but ultimately, in this scenario the war would only last 2-3 weeks. The PRC would certainly be planning on a sharp, short, extremely violent campaign.
4. If they win, China has a good chance of supplanting the US as the world superpower. It's a gamble. And the Chinese are well used to gambling. Someone like Xi has gambled repeatedly over his lifetime, as has won every time.
#2. Destroying a dam is a war crime for the extract reasons you laid out. It's unlikely that Taiwan, with USA backing, would attempt such a blatant warcrime like that and risk loosing US support.
@@-007-2Given what Israel is doing right now, and the fact the US is backing them, I wouldn't be so sure.
China has a manufacturing capacity bigger than the US and EU combined. To think they will run out of munitions like the profit driven western MIC has supplying Ukraine is just silly.
Chinese central planning decided in favor of railways, and they are point vulnerable.
Unlike 🇺🇦, Taiwan is a rich country, well armed, fully stocked, decades of preparation, well trained arm force and unlike flat land, they have ocean and mountains
It's not well armed. Go and do some research.
China is not Russia, China own a dynamics supply chain and Taiwan is just a tiny island, and I doubt they can withstand carpet bombing from China. Hope China don't be as naive as Russia.
Taiwan is an island which means it will have to fight with what ever weapons it has at the beginning of war.