Taiwan vs china...

I found it hard that for most of the time, the USA civilians( no offense) had often underestimated china having the ability to attack taiwan and win it...i believe that china can succeed in this attempt, despite many people believing that taiwan can easily defend herself with her better tech against the larger PLA, what is you guys think of this possible conflict?

 

China will win, of course. Thye must have some kind of interest in keeping the island unfriendly, other wise they would have captured it long ago. China can bring enough soldiers to the Taiwanese beaches to cover the entire island in Khaki, so to speak.

 

True, China definitely has the manpower needed for that. But do they have the navy for landing and supporting beachhead?

 

They could just fill the ocean with soldiers and walk across.

Okay, maybe they don't have that many...

 

I think it is more a question of "how long and at what cost" it would take the PRC to win.

 

China's navy is an amphibious oriented navy, meaning that its primary role is to support and land troops on an island an help out the main army. Sort of like the red airforces mission during WW2 based on supporting the army. Secondary roles include patrol etc.


China not only has the navy to land its troops on Taiwan, it also has the capability to support them with heavy fire.

The question is not wether China is able to invade Taiwan succesfully, it is wether it will be able to win Taiwan if Taiwan was supported by the US and other countries. (Koreas style).

Do you think China will have a chance of doing that? One thing to their advantage is their short lines of supply.

 

it is a touchy situation, mostly political

 

That't why even the "hard-line" and "pro-democratic" George Bush has avoid publicly supporting Taiwan''s pro-independence movement.

Taiwan on its own will not be able to stand massive amphibious and airborne attacks, however, as many of you have mentioned, the US's pacific fleet, should it called upon, is certainly more than capable of decimating any invasion fleets in the Taiwan strait. Thankfully, leaders on both sides are wise enough to avoid military conflicts.

 

true...even many countries in asia did not want to support taiwan because their independence will only cause harm to the enconomy although it is likely that japan are willing to support taiwan...
one more thing i want to ask is...how would taiwan fair aginst the missile threats and submarine threat?

 

Taiwan only still exists because the American 7th Fleet has spent a lot of time cruising up & down the Formosa Strait.

Historically, the USA only supported Taiwan (Formosa!) because it was the remnant of the Nationalist (non-Communist!) government. You had all those amusing years when the US refused to acknowledge Communist China, and behaved as though Formosa was China...
Politics are funny sometimes.

 

Yup, funny how the Taiwanese feel rejected now that theyre not the China :lol:

 

That came about because Jimmy Carter decided to massively change America's China policies. Realistically, I know that acknowledgement of mainland China was inevitable, but I still wonder sometimes if it was really a good idea.

 

Well, who would you rather antagonize - 22 million Taiwanese or 1600 million Chinese? :lol:

 

As always, political stands are all for selfish reasons. Don't think for a minute that the West initially supported Taiwan because it was "democratic". See how quickly former cold-war enemies become trading partners, heck even the US is quick to pour investment into communist Vietnam, a country they "lost" in bittered fightings.
It's inevitable that China will become stronger and will want to increase its influence in the eastern hemisphere as well as the world stage, what will happen then? Will it risk a war with the US? I don't think so, the current (and future) leaders of China are different from the old hard-liners of the past, their primary objectives are how to sustain the economic growth and feed the mouth of 1.6 billion people, at the same time keep both the emerging middle class and the more than 1 billion farmers happy. That in itself is a momentous tasks.

 

People often tell themselves what they want to hear.

For example thousands of people in Britain claim Israel is among the worst law breakers of the world, while Russia's actions in Chechneya (SP) are far worse then those of Israel in Palestine, and far less justified.

People tell themselves what they want to hear, and do it so often that they will believe it is true.

 

Exactly, it's call selective attention, you probably see this in the news all the time. It's call biased reporting.
While CNN is showing the UN coalition forces taking our Iraqui "Terrorists", the Arab news reel shows pictures of innocent Iraquis children killed or manged during the same fight. Talk about 2 sides to every story.

 

The way to counter that is using our brain and eleminate whats obviously false. The truth always lies along the middle road.

 

The problem in determining the middle road is that fact that you need two sides where there is usually only one available. It doesn't help much either that most press companies simply take their news directly from other press companies.

 

Not necessarily.

There are some facs that are always irrelevant, regardless of who says them since I was using Israel as an example I will use more examples of the anti-Israel sentiments people tell themselves.

The fact that a lot more of the world is anti-Israel then pro Israel is at best irrelevant, for example and here is why everyone should just ignore something like that.

At one point a majority of the world believed the Blood Libel which is the myth that jews used the blood of christian/muslim babies to make matza for Passover.

The most recent use of the Blood Libel was by Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

So facts like that wether they are being quoted by Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC or Fox should be discounted as irrelevant.

An example of a fact being reported by Al Jazeera that the vast majority of Arabs can discount is that the jews are on unified nation working to hurt the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.

Every Arab knows better and should be able to discount that.

Sorry for just mentioning one side of the media bias Desert, but it is easier to give examples that way, I know there is obvious media bias on both sides, but as I said it is easier to just mention one.

 

You coulnd't have illustrated my point any better. Indeed certain things are obviously untrue, but 1) they are not equally obvious to all and 2) you yourself mentions only one side, which just underlines that most people lack the two sides needed to form a middle road (and usually true) view.

Actually, the fact or fiction that the majority of the world hates the Jews is irrelevant to an individual's opinion anyway. Why would your opinion be affected by that of the mass of others simply by being told the fact that they are of that opinion.