China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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raklian
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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caltrek wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:25 pm Anthony Blinken Indicates that Beijing is Speeding Up Plans to Seize Taiwan
by Rebecca Falconer
There is no doubt the US strategic planners are going to adopt a proactive strategy of containment in coordination with Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, and then beefing up Taiwan's defences with US weapons in a bid to show China invading Taiwan will come at a great cost.
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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caltrek wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:25 pm Anthony Blinken Indicates that Beijing is Speeding Up Plans to Seize Taiwan
by Rebecca Falconer
Updated October 18, 2022

Introduction:
(Axios) China's ruling party plans to annex Taiwan on a "much faster timeline" under Chinese President Xi Jinping than previously thought, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.

Of note: Blinken's comments at an event at Stanford University in California come days after Xi said during a Chinese Communist Party congress speech the "wheels of history are rolling on towards China's reunification" with Taiwan and "we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary."

What he's saying: "There has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years," Blinken said at the Stanford forum with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

• "Instead of sticking with the status quo that was established in a positive way, a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline," he continued.

• "And if peaceful means didn’t work, then it would employ coercive means and possibly, if coercive means don’t work, maybe forceful means — to achieve its objectives. And that is what is profoundly disrupting the status quo and creating tremendous tensions."
Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/china ... r-blinken
Disturbing that one of the highest-ranking members of the U.S. government is saying this.
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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A post by "gwern" on Lesswrong.com about the recent American semiconductor sanctions against China and how they could pressure China to invade Taiwan.
It looks like this was only the start. The news from the past few days is alarming at face value: it sounds like a near total ban on everything, TSMC fabbing only the start (!), now all ASML customer support† is gone (!!) not just EUV machines, on top of which all the American-citizen employees (a nontrivial fraction due to education/birth abroad) have halted work literally overnight (!!!), and overall what sounds like the collapse of Chinese semiconductors amidst a Chinese economy already showing serious signs of distress and little capacity to keep an industry on life-support indefinitely as they scramble to survive - and once they go down in a cascade of bankruptcies/liquidations*, each node killing the nodes dependent on it, and everything is sold off and liquidated and employees scatter to the four winds, rebuilding that semiconductor ecosystem (which has already cost $100b+ and decades to build in repeated efforts) years later, when even further behind, will be more like starting from scratch than turning on an idle car. (And how long might that be, if China is entering its 'lost decades'...?)

Or to put it another way, if the CCP tries to invade Taiwan in the next 10 years, historians are likely going to point to 2-3 days ago as the pivot: it is now a razor blade cutting China's throat if AI and high tech in general is the future, with nothing more to lose and everything to gain from destroying TSMC so no one else can have it either. (Meanwhile, the NYT front page story: "Companies Are Hoarding Workers. That Could Be Good News for the Economy." Glad our media is still doing a bangup job of keeping everything in perspective.)

The implications for AI scaling and timelines are also immense: aside from the obvious disaster for Chinese AI research, which will stagnate at present Chinchilla-level runs, any invasion attempt is tantamount to the destruction of TSMC (you can now be sure some cruise missiles will find their way to TSMC chip fabs conveniently set out as hostages on the western side of Taiwan & most definitely not hardened underground in Taiwan's mountains) and will set back scaling by years, possibly decades given the realities of chip fab, capital investment, globalized supply chains, tacit knowledge, experience curves, and risk premia leading to compounding falling behind exponential projections.

So uh... yikes? Is this really what's happening? Is there some ameliorating factor not covered in any of the reporting so far? We should all probably be paying way more attention to this than Elon Musk's latest bipolar antics, or even Putin's nuclear blackmail, because this appears to actually be happening right now, not merely possibly some day. We appear to live in interesting times.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oBTkthd ... cLd83y6pbb

What is the U.S. foreign policy grand strategy? We already have terrible relations with Russia, and NATO's military hardware stocks are starting to run low thanks to all the donations to Ukraine. Why does anyone think this is a good moment to antagonize China? Couldn't the semiconductor sanctions and congressional visits to Taiwan have waited a few years?
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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funkervogt wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 7:23 pm
caltrek wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:25 pm Anthony Blinken Indicates that Beijing is Speeding Up Plans to Seize Taiwan
by Rebecca Falconer
Updated October 18, 2022

Introduction:
(Axios) China's ruling party plans to annex Taiwan on a "much faster timeline" under Chinese President Xi Jinping than previously thought, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.

Of note: Blinken's comments at an event at Stanford University in California come days after Xi said during a Chinese Communist Party congress speech the "wheels of history are rolling on towards China's reunification" with Taiwan and "we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary."

What he's saying: "There has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years," Blinken said at the Stanford forum with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

• "Instead of sticking with the status quo that was established in a positive way, a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline," he continued.

• "And if peaceful means didn’t work, then it would employ coercive means and possibly, if coercive means don’t work, maybe forceful means — to achieve its objectives. And that is what is profoundly disrupting the status quo and creating tremendous tensions."
Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/china ... r-blinken
Disturbing that one of the highest-ranking members of the U.S. government is saying this.
Is it really disturbing to state the obvious? We've known for a while China clearly intends to retake Taiwan by force and made its intentions known in an escalatory fashion. Blinken is just making it official, so that the United States will marshal more resources to help Taiwan while coordinating with its Asian allies to implement a containment strategy. Having a good relations with China at this point is a lost cause, given the President Biden's recent decision to cut off China from semiconductor exports. I imagine we will be escalating with more sanctions on China in the weeks or months to come. President Xi is going to have his hands full of economic troubles, which I think is the intent.
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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Japan Rushes to Rearm With Eye on 2027--and China’s Taiwan Ambitions
October 19, 2022

Introduction:
(The Asahi Shimbun) TOKYO--Between China’s 20th Communist Party Congress, that began Sunday, and the next one in 2027, Japan will undertake its biggest arms buildup since World War Two in a race to deter Beijing from war in East Asia, according to Japanese government officials and security analysts.

Japan identified China as its chief adversary in its 2019 defense white paper, worried that Beijing’s flouting of international norms, pressure on Taiwan and rapid military modernization posed a serious security threat. That anxiety has intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine, weakening Japanese public opposition to rearming, security experts say.

Japan’s government “has the wind at its back and will use that to do whatever it can,” said Takashi Kawakami, a professor at Takushoku University in Tokyo. By pointing to 2027 as the moment when East Asia’s power balance may tip in China’s favor, Japan’s government can rally support for greater defense spending, he added.

In addition to being the next time Communist Party delegates gather in Beijing, 2027 is the next major milestone on China’s military modernization roadmap and the centennial of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. At a congressional hearing last year, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Admiral Philip Davidson said that China’s threat against Taiwan could “manifest” that year.

For Japan, losing Taiwan to mainland Chinese control could be a disaster because it would jeopardize key shipping lanes that supply nearly all Japan’s oil and many of the materials it uses for manufacturing. It would also give the Chinese navy unfettered access to the Western Pacific from bases on the island.
Read more here: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14746548
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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China sends 71 warplanes, 7 ships toward Taiwan in 24 hours
Source: AP

today

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s military sent 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force directed at the island, Taiwan’s defense ministry said Monday, after China expressed anger at Taiwan-related provisions i n a U.S. annual defense spending bill passed on Saturday.

China’s military harassment of self-ruled Taiwan, which it claims is its own territory, has intensified in recent years, and the Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army has sent planes or ships toward the island on a near-daily basis.

Between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 a.m. Monday, 47 of the Chinese planes crossed the median of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.

Among the planes China sent towards Taiwan were 18 J-16 fighter jets, 11 J-1 fighters, 6 Su-30 fighters and drones.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-polit ... osition_04
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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US sells anti-tank systems to Taiwan amid tension with China
5 minutes ago

Taiwanese soldiers are seen holding grenade launchers and machine guns during an operation as part of the 37th edition of the HanKuang military exercise on September 14, 2021. Taiwanese soldiers are seen holding grenade launchers and machine guns during an operation as part of the 37th edition of the HanKuang military exercise on September 14, 2021.

The systems, worth $180 million, "serve US national, economic and security interests," the Pentagon said. The sale comes after China conducted one of its largest incursions into Taiwan-controlled airspace to date.

The US State Department has approved the sale of vehicle-launched anti-tank systems to Taiwan worth $180 million (€169 million), as tensions between Taipei and Beijing continue to rise.

The Pentagon said approval for the sale came late Wednesday and also includes Volcano anti-tank munition-laying systems, cargo trucks, ammunition and logistics support packages, among other services.

The Defense Department said the sale aims to serve "US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability."
https://www.dw.com/en/us-sells-anti-tan ... a-64237356
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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I don't see an invasion this year. China will be too distracted with reopening for the first half of the year after which time you're into typhoon season when its very unlikely you would try to invade.
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Re: China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025

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lechwall wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 7:05 pm I don't see an invasion this year. China will be too distracted with reopening for the first half of the year after which time you're into typhoon season when its very unlikely you would try to invade.
And they have a massive Covid situation they have to deal with.
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