"China prepares to fly fighter jets over Taiwan" Topic

"China seems set to overfly Taiwan with fighter jets. Such an operation would be designed to warn the United States against increasing its support for Taiwan. And second, to test whether President Tsai Ing-wen is willing to fire on Chinese aircraft.

The latest warning of an impending overflight came on Thursday in the Global Times newspaper. The primary mouthpiece of Beijing's Communist Party messaging to the West, the paper warned that the "Deployment of U.S. forces to Taiwan means war." This refers to recent U.S. military journal articles hypothesizing how best the Pentagon could help Taiwan defeat a Chinese invasion in any conflict. Apparently sensing that the Trump administration may soon send a more senior diplomat to visit the island, the editorial added, "It is not known how the U.S. and Taiwan will make further provocations, but the response of the mainland is certain. If the U.S. and Taiwan raise the level of officials for engagement, the mainland will firmly respond by sending PLA fighter jets over the island of Taiwan to claim sovereignty."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I wonder if the Taiwanese military might have a say in the success of any Chinese over flights!

If they do it could be interpreted as an attack on a sovereign nation. Taiwan has never been a part of communist china.

Don't tell the PRC that.

I wouldn't be surprised, though to be fair, that is less of a concern than my following, hypothetical scenario:

A Chinese jet, or jets actually land at a military airbase, and demand to be refueled for free.

That's when it will REALLY get interesting, though the overflight, especially if they have a bomber or two in the mix could be as well.

Time to ship them some very powerful ground-based lasers, and when their wings fall off the Taiwanese should claim its due to poor maintenance and/or salt corrosion, and refuse all inspections.

This looks like more PRC bluster aimed at home consumption.

China is far weaker than many think [from my reading]. Hence it is talking tough and doing crazy things.

They may well try something out of desperation. It's analogous to Japan in WW2 attacking Pearl Harbour or the Germans kicking off WW1.

This whole China thing needs careful analysis and vigilance from all concerned – which is everyone.

Sadly, many countries have elected clowns into office and China is outplaying them despite its weak hand.

This is all a bit close to home for me since 'I can see the East Sea [SCS] from my house.'

Taiwan should claim that their 'super secret stealth jets' often overfly the Chinese mainland without being detected. Not that they really do.
Or do they…? ;-)

No manufacturer makes modern Chinese ships in 1/3000 scale. I'm thinking Type-52Ds, Type-55s, Type-75s, Type-76s, Type-001, one or two others. I hope someone does soon so we can game this as a hypothetical before it becomes historical.

There are quite a few in 1/2400th, but they are rather pricey. GHQ makes some.

I thought one of the major 1/3000 manufacturers made some of these too, e.g. perhaps Navwar or Skytrex. You might want to check again. There's another 1/3000 scale metal manufacturer, Denian, I think, which might make some too.

I'm sure you can also get some from Shapeways as well, but they'll probably be expensive.

Skarper, I have been comments how China is weak and close to collapse for the last 20 years. It is typical western denialism.

Meanwhile the West is increasingly weak and China is now the world's second biggest economy.

Defeating one's enemy takes more than wishful thinking.

Personally I think it is time for a US preemptive strike on China with every thing that entails. It will be painful for the global economy but so was WW2.

Pre-emptive strike on a nuclear power? Seriously? Sorry, but that's just horrifying no matter how you feel about China.

WWII was horrifying but a necessity.

The question that arises would it be better to strike China now when the west has both a conventional and nuclear military edge or in the future when that edge has been eroded due to western decline and Chinese rearmament.

The alternative is basically the equivalent of Nazi Germany winning the second world war as modern China is essentially a fascist society and increasingly behaving like Germany, Japan and Italy did in the 1930s.

WW2 could have been prevented by intervening in Spain in 1936. Even as late as Munich something could have been achieved. All with benefit if hindsight of course.

There are many ways things could go in regard to containing China. It's not much like Germany/Japan in the 1930s besides some superficial human rights issues [which while superficial are still dreadful.] It's lazy thinking to compare everything to the 1930s or the Cold War.

1 million Uighurs in "reeducation camps" doesn't sound like "superficial human rights issues." Nor does cultural genocide in Tibet.

As for fascist yes it is fascist. It's a one state nationalist authoritarian state with careful integration of the private sector to national goals. You even have what are political officers sitting on boards of major companies whilst the biggest are still government.

The takeover of the SC Sea is an even bigger coup than Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia or Austria – the Chinese conquered one of the world's most important trade routes without firing a single bullet and by mainly deploying constabulary ships and engineering equipment to build military installations!

The difference between the old fascists and the new Chinese fascists is that the Chinese are more subtle and more clever in their approach and understand how to exploit the current rules based system to get what they want.

The west has two options:

1. Stand up to China in a meaningful way (and the west doesn't even do this to third rate Russia or fourth rate Iran these days).

Or

2. Effectively capitulate to the Chinese and let them develop their stranglehold over the global economy and dominate over Asia and whatever else they want.

Some people would argue there is a middle way – ie engage with China economically and try to curb their behaviour with diplomacy. This way has already failed over last 20 years and is effectively option 2: capitulation.

The west is too spineless these days to stand up to growing Chinese tyranny in a meaningful way.

The US doesn't care about human rights. It should – but it's never gone to war over human rights so why should it start now?

A lot of time has been squandered. The time to formulate a strategy was the mid 90s.

Fascist is a term often used without clear understanding. Often just used as a catch all meaning 'baddies'.

China is a draconian authoritarian state and it's getting worse not better. So I'm not apologising for it in any way.

The question is what are we going to do about it?? It's a complex problem with a lot of moving parts. There are some encouraging signs but no grounds for complacency.

To contain China requires a multi-level approach. Military forces need to be maintained, enhanced and reoriented. Alliances need to be fostered with those in the front line and further afield. Economic reform is the foundation to free the US, the EU, Australia and others from excessive dependence on China.

As the squeeze is put on the CCP care needs to be taken to avoid forcing their hands.

Overall, those making and conducting strategy must deal with the situation as it is and not how they would like it to be. China is not the same problem the Soviet Union was, nor what Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were. There is no guarantee of success.

Ultimately, China is a nuclear power so attacking it is not a viable option now any more than in the '50s or '60s.

Economic reform is impossible in the west because the entirety of the western global economic system is based on neo-liberal "free trade" and a rules based system based on organisations such as World Trade Organisation.

To put simply, the capitalists in the west won't want any reforms because they make too much money out of China.

Any economic reform in the west would need changes to taxation to enable subsidising recreation of new industries from textiles to ship building to consumer electronics. And unlike in 1950-60s, modern westerners are averse to any growth in taxation which means lower opportunities for investing in new industry that is nominally unprofitable compared to the Chinese.

On their own the capitalists will not do anything to decouple from China. They make too much money and are no longer bound by nation states.

The answer to China requires not just painful reform in the west but a willingness to take things further than China ie increase risk for China.

As for nukes – China now has relatively low numbers. It may be possible to alpha strike them if it comes down to it. In the future probably not as the Chinese are expanding their arsenals.

I agree the root of the problem is neo-liberalism. A process that began to take effect some 40 years ago and has usurped any accountability of government to the governed.

We have to hope something can be done about this or the consequences in many areas are going to be grim. Climate change, economic collapse and more and bigger wars among others.

Normal Westerners are not adverse to growth in tax. Most Americans want progressive tax structures like the 1950s. But since big donors own nearly all politicians it can't even be discussed…

Personally, I'd favour an end to income tax and a move to finance government and services in other ways. It doesn't seem to make sense for government employees to be taxed and you can tax big companies more and then not tax their employees.

To return to China, I don't see reforms would have to be all that painful for the average citizens. Prices for some things would rise because they are not made in China, but other countries can step in and over time some jobs can be moved back to the US and Europe. With increasing automation China won't have such a big advantage anyway.

Something COVID has highlighted is that many rich countries no longer have a government but rather have a gang of stooges running things for their owners.

Skarper, I totally agree especially with the following comment:

Something COVID has highlighted is that many rich countries no longer have a government but rather have a gang of stooges running things for their owners.

+ 1 here…..

Amicalement
Armand