Why An Invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼 Would Be A Horrible Idea
Foreword:
This was originally written on Saturday September 30, 2023. This is the fourth post in my series on China 🇨🇳 and Taiwan 🇹🇼, and it will probably be the last one for a while. You know, until I review Weekend in Taipei, that movie that I mentioned in my Boy Kills World review. We all know that movie won't be getting a Chinese release 🇨🇳. Like, that movie seems like it was practically designed to piss off the Chinese 🇨🇳, and not get approved by the Chinese censors 🇨🇳.
It's not even a particularly political film. It's a movie about a DEA agent who's going after this drug lord who relocated to Taipei after a sting operation against him failed, and is married to an old flame 🔥 of the DEA agent's, who also happens to be a criminal herself. She's a transporter, meaning shes drives criminals around to wherever they want to go. She acts as getaway driver for any criminal doing something illegal like rob a bank, and she also acts as a courier, willing to transport any illegal cargo that's requested of her if the pay is good.
And because of her criminal nature, her and the DEA agent couldn't be together despite how much they loved each other 🥰, and she ended up marrying the drug lord, the same who one that's rivals with the DEA agent, and having a son with him, even if deep down her heart ♥️, she still loves the DEA agent. But years later, in the present day, the DEA agent decides break protocol and go to Taipei to try to apprehend the drug lord himself without any approval from his superiors to do so. Only for that woman ♀︎ from his past to show up at his hotel room with her son, as the two are now on the run from the drug lord after he finds out that she snitched on him.
And the whole movie from then on out is about the DEA agent guy trying to protect his old lover ❤️, his old flame 🔥 and her son from the drug lord that he came to Taipei to try capture in the first place. It seems like it's going to full of clichés, both good and bad, but it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. One of the comments underneath the trailer on Ketchup Entertainment (the distributor)'s YouTube channel said that the movie looks like a throwback to late 90s and early 2000s action movies, and I couldn't agree more. Can't wait to see it.
I really don't see how Weekend in Taipei would even get accepted for a Chinese theatrical release 🇨🇳. The only I could see that happening is if they did extensive reshoots and post-production trickery to make it so that Taiwan 🇹🇼 is explicitly mentioned to be a province of China 🇨🇳 and is under the full control of the Beijing authorities. Basically, turning this crime action thriller into a science fiction movie 😂 because that's what it would take to secure a Chinese release 🇨🇳 for this movie. They'd have to set it in alternate reality that doesn't exist where China 🇨🇳 controls Taiwan 🇹🇼, and where Taiwan 🇹🇼 is indeed the 23rd province. And I don't see that happening. No body's going to bend that further over backwards just to appease the Chinese 🇨🇳 and get some of their money.
The filmmakers involved with that movie had to have known that by making a movie set in Taiwan 🇹🇼, that they'd be shutting themselves out of the Chinese market 🇨🇳, and I think that they accepted that their movie would never reach the Chinese market 🇨🇳 because they were never planning to reach that market.
I mean, the director of the movie, George Huang is Taiwanese 🇹🇼 himself, so there's no love lost between him and Beijing, or the Chinese film market 🇨🇳 overall. It's clear that he's making this solely to appeal to the Taiwanese market 🇹🇼 and appeal to a Taiwanese audience 🇹🇼, since it's set in a Taiwanese city 🇹🇼. It's set in the capital, Taipei. Taipei is even in the title. Though, he is by no means leaving out the American audience 🇺🇸 or the French audience 🇫🇷 since this is ostensibly a French production 🇫🇷.
It was produced by a French production company 🇫🇷, it has French producer 🇫🇷, and it's set to be released in France 🇫🇷 on the same day as it is in Taiwan 🇹🇼, on September 25, 2024. The movie will be released two months later, on November 10, 2024 in the United States 🇺🇸, just 7 days after the US Presidential Election 🇺🇸🗳️, so fingers crossed that we don't end up with a Trump victory, otherwise, we'll all be in trouble 😬🤞. But, I am starting to become a little bit less worried that Trump will win, as it is becoming more and more likely that he won't, and that Vice President Harris will win, as President Biden dropping out of the race to make way for Harris has fundamentally shifted the balance of the election in ways no body thought possible three months ago, or even just two months ago.
Now, Trump is the only old guy in the race, unless you count RFK Jr., who is 70 years old. Younger than Trump or Biden, but still a decade older than Harris or her running mate, Governor Walz. But, I don't count him because he's a third-party candidate, and not a serious contender for the presidency. And he's becoming increasingly irrelevant as the weeks and months go on, until he'll kind of be a non-factor. In fact, if all goes well, and Harris's momentum continues and continues to grow bigger, we could have a situation where RFK Jr. ends up taking more votes away from Trump than he does from Harris.
That is becoming a real possibility now Harris's entry into the race has laid Trump's weaknesses as a candidate to bare, and has only highlighted them further as Trump's mental state continues to deteriorate and he continues to descend into total madness. He already pretty incoherent, but Harris's entry to the race as the presumptive Democratic nominee has only made him even more incoherent. He really doesn't know to run effectively against her, neither does anyone else on his campaign team.
This has kind of lead to a theory of mine about how Trump was even able to win the first time in 2016 and why that strategy may not work this time around that I detailed in a post that I may post sometime this week, or may choose to hold off until Election Day is around the corner. I think I might just decide to post it this week since a lot of what I'm talking about in that post is based on how the election is currently, and some of that may end up changing by the time Election Day comes.
In fact, I have no doubt that it will since the election has been unpredictable and abnormal so far. Things that we thought would never happen, and things we never considered happened ended up happening, the attempted assassination on Trump being one of those things. Although, that failed assassination attempt really didn't move the needle one way or another because this country is so polarized, and also because it's Trump. Despite what you've heard from political pundits, on TV and online, there would've been no love lost had the assassination attempt been successful and Trump had been killed. No body would've missed him except his most dedicated followers, who are basically cultists at this point.
Speaking of nominations though, today is August 18, 2024, and tomorrow will be August 19, the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). I'll probably be watching coverage of the convention from some of the political YouTube channels that I tuned out fairly recently. But, not MediasTouch Network though, I hate those guys. I hate them just as much as I do The Young Turks, or the Daily Wire, or Blaze Media, or any other "independent" media network, right-wing or left-wing. I swear these guys are all just bad as the corporate media that they all rail against.
In fact, Ben Meisalas is kind of the one who coined the term, "corporate media." I know because pretty all of MediasTouch's affiliates, all of the contributors to that network use that term to refer to the mainstream media. They all say, "corporate media." Whether Ben or any other contributors to MediasTouch want to admit it or not, they have their own narrative they're to push. They have their own script that they follow. It isn't just the "corporate media" or the right-wing media 🙄. MediasTouch reels you in by saying that they only care about facts and they only care about the truth, but in reality, they're just the same as every other media network.
It's just that they have this unearned sense of moral superiority over the mainstream media, and they use their independence as a sales pitch. They dunk on the mainstream media so much because they are their competition. Do you really think these people would speak highly of their competition? No, of course. They shit on the media so much because they are effectively competing against it. They want your attention, your clicks, and possibly your money 💵, and they can't get that if you watch mainstream media like CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, or ABC News. Are there things to criticize the media about? Yes, there is. The media gets a lot of things wrong, and ignores a lot of things, they even lie about a lot of stuff, and yes, they are driven by profit 🤑, which is not good for a free press or for journalistic integrity. But, turning to the likes of MediasTouch, or Really American 🇺🇸, Your Daily Politics Fix, or Politics by Tabitha, or Politics Girl, or Luke Beasley won't solve the problem.
I've even stopped watching The Lincoln Project after they posted that god awful ad about Venezuela 🇻🇪, where they tried to compare the current political crisis in that country to Trump's response to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. They actually tried to claim that Maduro got the idea to claim victory in the most recent presidential election in Venezuela 🇻🇪 from Trump, and how every dictator or wannabe dictator that has tried something like that since was inspired by Trump. Which if you know anything about Venezuelan politics 🇻🇪, or know anything about how dictators and wannabe dictators act, you'll know how stupid that actually is.
Trump didn't invent any of these ideas, and he's not the first guy ♂︎ to try any of this. It's just that he's the first guy ♂︎ to do in America 🇺🇸, and The Lincoln Project, like a lot of American political action committees 🇺🇸 tend to be very Americentric 🇺🇸, and believe that the world revolves around the United States 🇺🇸, and assume that if something happens for the first time in America 🇺🇸, then it's the first time that it's ever happened in the world, and every other time it happens somewhere in the world afterwards, then it must've been inspired by what happened in America 🇺🇸.
Even as an American 🇺🇸 this type of thinks annoys me because the world is a lot bigger than that, and things happen in the world that have nothing to do with the United States 🇺🇸. Not everything that happens in the world was influenced or inspired by something that happened in the US 🇺🇸, in fact, in most cases, the people and parties involved in these world events have no knowledge about what happened in the US 🇺🇸 and really couldn't care less.
Also, that Lincoln Project ad got a lot of things wrong about Venezuela 🇻🇪 and its political situation, and ignored a lot of things such as the fact that the Trump administration tried to sponsor an alternate leader to Maduro, Guaidó, and tried to have him recognized as true president of Venezuela 🇻🇪. It didn't work since Maduro is still in power as the de facto president Venezuela 🇻🇪, if the majority of the Western world at least doesn't recognize him as the true president, and sees him as illegitimate.
Also, in 2020, there was an attempted invasion of Venezuela 🇻🇪 by Venezuelan dissents 🇻🇪 and an American security firm 🇺🇸 called Silvercorp USA 🇺🇸 called Operation Gideon with the intended purpose of removing Maduro from power. It went about as well as you would expect, in fact, it went so badly that people at the time referred to as "Bay of Pigs 2.0." Indeed, Operation Gideon was a lot like an even stupider version of the Bay of Pigs. A lot of people forget that Operation Gideon even happened. Probably because there was a lot of other stuff going on in 2020 that caught everyone's attention like the COVID-19 pandemic 🦠😷, the George Floyd protests 🪧, and of course the presidential election 🗳️.
It was clearly from watching that ad that The Lincoln Project really doesn't understand Venezuela 🇻🇪 at all. I mean, The Lincoln Project is run by Republicans, or I guess former Republicans, so this isn't really that surprising. They may hate Trump, they maybe trying everything they can to ensure that he loses, but deep down, they're still the same conservative jackasses that they were before, with the same dogshit opinions and beliefs about things that aren't American politics 🇺🇸, or specifically, things that aren't Trump.
Which makes me wonder what Rick Wilson and other people at The Lincoln Project will do once Trump is gone. Wilson has specifically said his only purpose in life and the only purpose of The Lincoln Project is defeating Trump, but what happens after Trump is defeated and is no longer a factor in American politics 🇺🇸? It seems to me a like a lot of people in the anti-Trump movement and pro-democracy movement will be left directionless and aimless once Trump is gone, and once he's no longer relevant to American politics 🇺🇸 because they're dedicated their whole lives to getting rid of him, and they've based their entire life purposes around him.
Once he's gone for good, and once he fades away, they'll be left without a purpose. Some of them may pretend like they'll know what they'll do once Trump and Trumpism fades, but none of them know. None of them have plans for what they'll do after Trump is gone because they're in too deep at this point, so hyperfixated on achieving this goal that they don't have any time to think about anything else. That's the thing about obsessions, they destroy you in the long run especially when the target of your obsession is gone.
But this isn't something unique to them. Across the political spectrum in the US 🇺🇸, both the left and right have completely missed the mark and misunderstood Venezuela 🇻🇪 and misunderstood Maduro, and just used it to push their own political beliefs. "Socialism good," "socialism bad," that kind of stuff. The only American 🇺🇸 that I've seen that actually understands Venezuela 🇻🇪 and actually did the research to understand why it is the way it is, is the YouTuber, Sarcasmitron. He did an excellent deep dive into that country's politics that I'll link you to his video here and you can go watch for yourself. Keep in mind though, it is kind of an old video. It was made in 2019, during the Trump administration, so some details might be outdated, but a lot of the information in that video is still accurate and still solid.
But, I'll have to swallow my pride for a bit, and watch some of these people to get some coverage about the DNC, so I can learn about what's going on, who's speaking, and what exactly they said. But, no Politics by Tabitha, I hate her 😠. I stopped watching entirely after she started pushing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the failed assassination attempt on Trump's life, mostly that the whole thing was planned and staged by Trump's campaign to distract people from Trump's weak poll numbers and to distract people from Project 2025 as more and more people were starting to look more into it by the time the assassination attempt took place. You can't complain about Trump and the Republicans pushing conspiracy theories if you do it yourself SMH 🤦♂️.
I also stopped watching this other channel called the Belle Kurve which is pretty much exactly the same as Politics by Tabitha, only the woman ♀︎ that runs that channel is even more angry 😡, abrasive, and is a lot more aggressively pro-Kamala Harris. In fact, she so pro-Harris that she kind of pushed a conspiracy theory herself that the reason why the Democrats were dog-piling on Biden, and pressuring him to drop out after the debate was that they didn't want Harris to become the president because they're all secretly racist and sexist.
She had this whole idea that if Biden stayed in the race, and had re-election, then Harris would take his place because he'd be super old and would probably keel over and die before he finished his second term. Then, Harris would be the president for the remainder of that term, then she'd run in the next election and win, and then run for re-election, and also win, therefore giving Harris three terms, and giving her enough to reshape America 🇺🇸 in accordance to the progressives' vision. And the Belle Kurve said that the Democratic elites were trying to prevent that outcome from happening by trying to pressure Biden to drop out.
But, Biden did drop out, and Kamala Harris took his place on the Democratic ticket, and the entire Democratic Party rallied behind her. So, the Belle Kurve was wrong. Just the mere fact that Kamala Harris is running for president now, and the entire party united behind her with no further issue discredits her arguments about why the Democrats were so against Biden staying in the race. And it makes her whole fantasy about Harris becoming the first three-term president since FDR (or rather two and a half term president to be a bit more accurate) by taking advantage of Biden's old age look all the more deranged.
The only channel that I go to for politics nowadays is Christopher Titus, a comedian who does weekly updates called Armageddon Updates about the political goings on in America 🇺🇸, and occasionally around the world. He's really only the guy who I still trust on YouTube to give accurate information about the election, and who is actually entertaining and not annoying 😤. I'm looking at you, Tommy Campbell 🫵. So, I'll be waiting to hear what he has to say about the DNC by the end of the week.
But, enough about American domestic politics 🇺🇸, what about Taiwan 🇹🇼, the thing that this whole post is supposed to be about? Well, this particular post is a lot shorter than the previous three that I posted on here. Whereas my previous post on Taiwan 🇹🇼 was a history lesson about how Taiwan 🇹🇼 became the way it is today, and why the majority international community doesn't recognize it as a legitimate sovereign country, this is about why it would be a really bad move for China 🇨🇳 to invade Taiwan 🇹🇼.
I was inspired to post this today after I saw a video from a geopolitics YouTuber called William Spaniel. He made an hour long video explaining the tensions between China 🇨🇳 and Taiwan 🇹🇼, and why a war may not be as likely as you might think. My current opinion about whether or not a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 🇨🇳🇹🇼 will ever happen is that it's not likely, but we should never rule it out. When people talk about the possibility that China 🇨🇳 may invade Taiwan 🇹🇼, they should never be 100% certain or definitive one way or the other because there's always a chance, however small that you could be in the wrong. We don't want to say that a war will never happen because if it ever does, we'll look like the silly ones. The same goes the other way, we don't want to say that a war will happen because if one never does, then we'll also look silly.
While in retrospect, it does makes sense that Russia 🇷🇺 invaded Ukraine 🇺🇦 to a certain degree, and that we probably should have seen it coming and have been more prepared for it, before it actually happened, there were still plenty of people who believed that it would never happened. And not all of them were pro-Russian people 🇷🇺. There were people who said that Russia 🇷🇺 would never invade Ukraine 🇺🇦 and try to conquer the entire country because it didn't make sense.
It wasn't in their best interest to do so, and it would do more harm than good. It would risk World War III, and possibly risk nuclear war ☢️. There also people saying that Russia 🇷🇺 wouldn't invade because the Russians 🇷🇺 would never kill Ukrainians 🇺🇦. They were too ethnically and culturally similar, and according to the Kremlin, they see Ukrainians 🇺🇦 as their own people, they see them as Russians 🇷🇺 under a different name and a different flag who were just deceived into believing they weren't Russians 🇷🇺. Why would they invade if that meant killing Ukrainians 🇺🇦? Those were real arguments about why the war would never happen, and they were all proven wrong on February 24, 2022, when Putin gave that address that the "special military operation" in Ukraine 🇺🇦 had begun.
And now I see people making similar arguments about why a war between China 🇨🇳 and Taiwan 🇹🇼 will never happen. Especially in the comments of William Spaniel's video. They say that China 🇨🇳 won't invade because it's not in their economic best interest to do so, they're too dependent on Taiwan 🇹🇼's semiconductors to risk to invading, and invading would only endanger the regime.
I've also seen people say that China 🇨🇳 won't invade because Taiwanese 🇹🇼 are too ethnically and culturally similar to Chinese 🇨🇳, and the Chinese 🇨🇳 consider the Taiwanese 🇹🇼 to be Chinese 🇨🇳. They were just deceived into believing that they weren't Chinese 🇨🇳 by their government, which Beijing doesn't even recognize. "Chinese won't kill Chinese," is a phrase that I've heard repeated numerous times whenever this topic is brought up. If you know anything about Chinese history, you'll know why that argument is dumb. Chinese have killed Chinese, and they'd do it again if they felt they needed to in order to achieve their goals.
The People's Republic of China 🇨🇳 is a brutal authoritarian government that has a lot of blood 🩸 on its hands. Granted, a lot of that blood 🩸 was spilled during the civil war and during the Mao era, but still the Chinese government 🇨🇳 has killed and brutalized a lot of its own people in the years after Mao's death. So, the PRC 🇨🇳 is by no means above killing people it sees as its own to achieve their goals, one of which is regain all of the territory that was lost during the Century of Humiliation (except the part controlled by Russia 🇷🇺), to end the civil war for good (since it never truly ended), and to make China 🇨🇳 a world power respected and feared throughout the world.
And if the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 has taught us anything, it's that dictators can be irrational, and they can take their country to war for seemingly stupid or illogical reasons, even there's no economic or military or geopolitical benefit to do so. Putin didn't start the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 over control over natural resources, or to gain some military or geostrategic advantage, or prevent Ukraine 🇺🇦 from joining NATO or even the EU 🇪🇺, or even just to take territory and recreate the Russian Empire 🇷🇺 or the Soviet Union ☭. He started it because he believed in a conspiracy theory, and thought he could replicate it in real life with Ukraine 🇺🇦. It's really as simple as that. He gambled all, and he's currently losing everything. It's getting to the point where he could potentially lose power should he lose the war, meaning that this war has only weakened his regime rather than strengthen it.
So, we shouldn't rule out the possibility that Xi may start a war against Taiwan 🇹🇼 for a similarly impulsive and stupid reason with very little regard for the risks or the consequences. If a war ever happens, it'll happen without any rhyme or reason, no rationality behind it, just pure stupidity and delusion. It'll happen because Xi wanted it to happen, and no body else. And it will happen with no real plan behind it, or no end goal in mind. That's truly scarier. A war with no plan behind it vs. a war with a plan behind it, even one that's pure evil.
The only argument I could see as to why a war might not happen is that it would be too difficult. Amphibious operations are complicated, and difficult to pull off, and the Taiwan Strait is a body of water 💦 that's prone to typhoons 🌀 and is therefore difficult to travel through and navigate to. There are only two months in the year that they could actually carry out such an invasion, and not potentially risk experiencing bad weather ⛈️.
Even the island itself, however small it maybe, is one that would be difficult for any military to take, and would be perfect for an insurgency to emerge should such an invasion be successful and lead to an occupation because of how mountainous it is ⛰️. Of course, we should also keep in mind that military action against Taiwan 🇹🇼 may not necessarily come in the form of a full-scale invasion. It may come in the form of a naval blockade of sorts, which would also create a major international crisis. I think we should keep that in mind when we're talking about the possibility of Chinese aggression 🇨🇳 against Taiwan 🇹🇼.
William Spaniel also made this kind of dumb argument about why all the worries of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 🇨🇳🇹🇼 are exaggerated because well, countries' militaries prepare for war all the time, it's their job, and just because the Chinese military 🇨🇳 says their preparing for a potential invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼 by certain years like 2027 for example, doesn't mean that it will actually happen.
Yes, it is truly a that it's a military's job to prepare for anything, including war, but when a military is preparing specifically for one goal and for one purpose, doesn't that kind of raise some red flags 🚩? Like, if the US military 🇺🇸 said that it was preparing for an invasion of Iran 🇮🇷 by the year 2030 for example, and was actually preparing for that specific scenario and that was their main focus (possibly only focus), would other countries be justified in worrying about that? They would be justified in believing that a US or US-led invasion of Iran 🇺🇸🇮🇷 was actually possible and would actually happen in the near future?
But, besides that dumb arguments, and a few other things I disagreed with, his video on Taiwan 🇹🇼 is pretty good, and I would actually recommend it. I'll link it here for you watch. It's an hour and 32 minutes long, so keep that in mind. He's also one of the few big-ish YouTubers I know of that has actually talked about the Red Dawn remake, and talked about how the enemy forces were changed from Chinese 🇨🇳 to North Koreans 🇰🇵 in order to secure a Chinese release 🇨🇳.
He also talked about how unrealistic the concept is for either country, China 🇨🇳 or North Korea 🇰🇵, to invade the US 🇺🇸. Yeah, well, so was the concept of the Soviet Union ☭ invading the US 🇺🇸 in the original. Especially when you consider that the USSR ☭ was still fighting a war in Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and had experienced one of the worst nuclear disasters ☢️ in history, and was also having economic problems and political problems at home when that movie came out. So they really wouldn't be in any position to invade the US 🇺🇸. The Red Dawn concept in general is unrealistic, no matter which country you make the enemy force because invading the contiguous US 🇺🇸 would be really difficult, close to impossible in fact, and no country would even attempt it, even if we were in a world war.
This is a concept and a premise that relies entirely on suspension of disbelief for you to even remotely go along with it without questioning every little thing. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that they should've just stuck with China 🇨🇳 as the main antagonist for the remake instead of changing it to North Korea 🇰🇵, China release 🇨🇳 be damned. Having North Korea 🇰🇵 be the one to invade the United States 🇺🇸 just makes the premise even more unrealistic and even harder to swallow. I made a video about this on my old channel, the Sci-Fi Dragon, which I have since deleted.
Maybe I might consider reviewing the Red Dawn remake on this post to make up for that. It would help fill the quota I have for posts related to North Korea 🇰🇵 since I really haven't posted that many things on here about North Korea 🇰🇵, where North Korea 🇰🇵 was the main topic. Anyway, William Spaniel's video on Taiwan 🇹🇼 really couldn't have come at a better time because after I watched it, I felt that I had to repost this now.
I would like to mention also that I used the term, "Taiwan Contingency 🇹🇼," which is a term that I first heard from the CSIS YouTube channel. CSIS, for those don't know, stands for Center for Strategic and International Studies. It's an American think tank 🇺🇸 that focuses on foreign policy and geopolitical matters that may or may no affect the United States 🇺🇸 and its interests abroad. They've done numerous videos on Taiwan 🇹🇼, and have even conducted war games to see how such a conflict would play out. In fact, their war games are considered to be some of the most comprehensive and accurate war games that are actually available to the public.
The US military 🇺🇸 has likely conducted its own war games about this scenario, but most of them are classified and not available to the public. You can watch this video that talks about CSIS's war games on Taiwan 🇹🇼. It's by the Wall Street Journal, and while I may not like the Wall Street Journal all that much, this video they put out about the CSIS war games is pretty good. The term, "Taiwan Contingency 🇹🇼" has also been used on the Taiwanese YouTube channel, TaiwanTalks 🇹🇼, which is an independent (I guess) English-language Taiwanese media company 🇹🇼.
They do a lot of videos about geopolitics and foreign affairs, mostly related to China 🇨🇳 and/or Taiwan 🇹🇼. They've been a lot of videos recently about the South China Sea, and the tensions between China 🇨🇳 and the Philippines 🇵🇭, as well as the tensions between China 🇨🇳 and Vietnam 🇻🇳. Though, it should be noted that while relations between China 🇨🇳 and Vietnam 🇻🇳 are taking a nose dive, Vietnam 🇻🇳 still maintains friendly relations with Russia 🇷🇺.
So, even if they may agree with the US 🇺🇸 and the Philippines 🇵🇭 on China 🇨🇳, they don't necessarily agree with the US 🇺🇸 on Russia 🇷🇺. Although, they aren't buying Russian military arms 🇷🇺, and have decided to American arms 🇺🇸 instead. I believe they're buying either F-16s. I criticized this decision to sell them F-16s in my post talking about the YouTuber, TheAlrightyOne's South Vietnam alternate history scenario, but in that same post, I did say, "at least they aren't selling them F-35s."
Why was I against that? Well because Vietnam 🇻🇳 is an authoritarian state. They may hate China 🇨🇳, but their political system and economy is very similar to China 🇨🇳's. They started out as communist state ☭, but then adopted some market reforms and became a pseudo-capitalist state. Plus, as I mentioned, although Vietnam 🇻🇳's relations with China 🇨🇳 are on shaky ground right now, that wasn't always the case. Hanoi has had good relations with Beijing in the past, and could potentially have them again if this territorial dispute between them is resolved. If Beijing drops its claim over the entire South China Sea and the Parcel Islands specifically, then maybe Hanoi will embrace them once again. But I don't see that happening any time soon.
So, for now, they're on our side about China 🇨🇳, they're still an authoritarian state, that cracks down on political dissent, that has censorship of the media that has mass surveillance over its people, restricts civil liberties, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of ethnic minorities, and regularly commits human rights abuses. Everything that we criticize the Chinese government 🇨🇳 for doing, the Vietnamese government 🇻🇳 does in spades, but on a smaller scale since Vietnam 🇻🇳 is a smaller country than China 🇨🇳, both in terms of population and area.
Plus, as I mentioned before, they've maintained good relations with Moscow, even after the invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇦. They chose to abstain in all votes to condemn the invasion and condemn Russia 🇷🇺's actions during the war. Most recently, they accepted a visit from Vladimir Putin, and that was after he also visited North Korea 🇰🇵. A country that no one should want to be associated with.
So make no mistake, Vietnam 🇻🇳 has a horrible government, and just because we happen to share the same adversary, or rival I guess I should say, right now doesn't mean that we should be their friends and we should ignore their authoritarian nature and their abysmal human rights record. But, I guess if the US 🇺🇸 could have good relations with Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 and even have a partnership with them to a certain degree, despite how horrible its government is and horrible its human rights record is, then I guess they could have relations with Vietnam 🇻🇳 and have a partnership with them also 😒.
But, in the videos where they talk specifically about the relationship between China 🇨🇳 and Taiwan 🇹🇼, or lack thereof, they've used that term, "Taiwan Contingency 🇹🇼," to describe the military response to a possible Chinese invasion 🇨🇳 by the US 🇺🇸 and its regional partners and allies like Japan 🇯🇵, the Philippines 🇵🇭 After this, my next post in this series, the true conclusion to this series, will be about North Korea 🇰🇵 and China 🇨🇳's weird relationship with North Korea 🇰🇵. But until that comes, please enjoy this one for now.
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When Russia 🇷🇺 invaded Ukraine 🇺🇦, there was an element of surprise and shock, like very few people were seriously expecting Russia 🇷🇺 to invade Ukraine 🇺🇦 except for the US government 🇺🇸 and the UK government 🇬🇧; mostly because the Russians 🇷🇺 and their shills in the West kept denying that they were planning an invasion, but also because an invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇦 seemed illogical; why would Putin decide to invade Ukraine 🇺🇦, especially now? He has everything he wants or could ever want. If he didn't invade, then he would've come out of it a winner by making the US 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧 look foolish for warning about an invasion that never came. He would only be validating them by going through with an invasion.
So, when the invasion happened, and Russian tanks 🇷🇺 rolled into Ukrainian territory 🇺🇦, and Russian warplanes 🇷🇺 flew into Ukrainian airspace 🇺🇦, it was like, "Woah, Russia 🇷🇺 invaded Ukraine 🇺🇦?! Why would they do such a thing!? This makes no sense, it's completely unexpected." Of course, in hindsight, it's pretty obvious that Russia 🇷🇺 was always going to invade Ukraine 🇺🇦, and no amount of diplomacy was going to convince them not to.
And all those denials from the Kremlin were just apart of a disinformation campaign by the Kremlin to throw off the West, and leave them unprepared for a Russian invasion of Ukraine 🇷🇺🇺🇦. It didn't work since the West immediately took strong action against Russia 🇷🇺 for their actions by imposing severe sanctions on them, disconnecting them from SWIFT, and of course giving military aid to Ukraine 🇺🇦 and continuing to do so to this day.
But, with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 🇨🇳🇹🇼, there really isn't an element of surprise like there for the Russian invasion of Ukraine 🇷🇺🇺🇦. People are kind of expecting now, like if Russia 🇷🇺 went through with an invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇦, then China 🇨🇳 could just as easily go through with an invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼. And if it did ever happen, very few people would be shocked or surprised, or at least as shocked or surprised as they were when Russia 🇷🇺 invaded Ukraine 🇺🇦.
The only real surprise would be that Xi and the Chinese Communist Party 🇨🇳☭ were dumb enough to go through with it, especially after seeing Russia 🇷🇺 fail in its invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇦. A lot of people have said that a Russian defeat 🇷🇺 in the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 would be the best deterrent against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼 because Xi would (logically) calculate that if Putin failed so spectacularly in his attempt to take Ukraine 🇺🇦, then he could just as easily fail spectacularly his attempt to take Taiwan 🇹🇼, and the risk is way too high that it just isn't worth it. But, if China 🇨🇳 invades anyway (which is always possible) despite seeing that clear and obvious failure play out, then that idea will be proven wrong; I hope not, for the sake of the Taiwanese 🇹🇼, the Japanese 🇯🇵, the Australians 🇦🇺, the Filipinos 🇵🇭, and us Americans 🇺🇸.
All China 🇨🇳 would be doing in invading Taiwan 🇹🇼 (despite a Russian defeat 🇷🇺 in Ukraine 🇺🇦, which is pretty much inevitable at this point) is ruining their already struggling economy, and exasperating their preexistent societal issues like a declining birth rate and an aging population. Like, I don't think sending thousands of men ♂︎ (or hundreds of thousands of men ♂︎) to die in a war to take an island nation that you're convinced belongs to you when it clearly doesn't will help your population issues.
Especially when a lot of Chinese families 🇨🇳 only have one son to rely on (because of the One Child Policy), so when one of them dies in combat, or dies from friendly fire, or dies in an accident trying to get to Taiwan 🇹🇼, or dies in some non-combat related way, that family is destroyed and loses its ability to survive and function properly. There would be no one to take care of the elderly members of a family, the grandmas, the grandpas.
And an invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼 would likely hurt China 🇨🇳's image and reputation around the world, an image that they've worked hard to try to cultivate, mostly by hiring shills in the West to parrot their talking points and spread their propaganda. They've tried to portray themselves as "peacemakers," a country that only wants to improve the world through economics and infrastructure, helping less developed countries build roads, railways, hospitals, ports, bridges, or whatever, while the West are a bunch of warmongers will only want to cause chaos and death throughout the world; like the old saying by pro-Chinese people 🇨🇳 goes, "China 🇨🇳 wants to build hospitals and roads, while America 🇺🇸 only wants to build military bases"; I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what a lot pro-China people 🇨🇳 say as to why you should support China 🇨🇳 and not the US 🇺🇸.
But, if they invaded Taiwan 🇹🇼, if they tried to use military force to take Taiwan 🇹🇼, all that would be gone; the veneer of the "peace-loving" China 🇨🇳 that only wants to build economic ties with other countries and wants to work on infrastructure projects would disappear. More and more countries around the world would see China 🇨🇳 for what it truly is, a violent, belligerent regime that bullies and intimidates its neighbors, and is willing to kill just to assert a territorial claim; a territorial claim that most of the world doesn't actually recognize.
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Plus, an invasion of Taiwan 🇹🇼 would likely hurt the regime's own stability, especially if the invasion fails, which it likely would, especially if the US 🇺🇸 gets directly involved; as well as the US 🇺🇸's allies like Japan 🇯🇵 and Australia 🇦🇺; a lot of experts have said that the US 🇺🇸 would not be able to defeat China 🇨🇳 (or have a tougher time defeating China 🇨🇳) without Japan 🇯🇵's cooperation or Australia 🇦🇺's involvement.
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I would also like to add to that, it would also be hard for the US 🇺🇸 to defeat China 🇨🇳 and defend Taiwan 🇹🇼 without the Philippines 🇵🇭's cooperation either. The Philippines 🇵🇭 and Japan 🇯🇵 are the two countries closest to Taiwan 🇹🇼 that would be the most helpful and integral in a potential Taiwan Contingency 🇹🇼, and I personally don't think we need to worry about either of them cooperating. I do think they will cooperate with us, and help us in any way they can, including sending their own military forces to the fight. Although I do think it's more likely that Japan 🇯🇵 would send its own armed forces to the fight than the Philippines 🇵🇭.
So, the Chinese government 🇨🇳 has a lot more to lose than to gain from trying to invade Taiwan 🇹🇼 and conquer it militarily. So, if they went through with it anyway, if they somehow become less risk averse and more risk tolerant just like the Putin regime in Russia 🇷🇺, then it just show that they're a lot more stupid and delusional than we all thought.
Just like Putin would've been better off just leaving well enough alone, Xi will be better off if he just leaves well enough alone, but I wouldn't bet on that, especially with the direction China 🇨🇳's going right now, and its reputation is already falling apart just due to its actions in the South China Sea alone; more countries distrust and dislike China 🇨🇳 now more than they ever have before.
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