Poll- protect Taiwan? (I request you read OP before voting. its short)

If China invades Taiwan and we do nothing, Taiwan will not be the last country they invade.

If China invades Taiwan and we try to stop them, its likely to spark global war.

Its likely we (US and allies, not necessarily you or I...) are going to have to make this decision eventually.

 

I think Biden laid it out pretty well what would happen whoever was president. Basically, a WWIII nuclear war isn't in the world's best interest or the US's best interest. We provide arms to Taiwan but, ultimately, they will be peanuts in stopping China from invading. Think kind of like Afghanistan. Taiwan will put up a valiant fight for a few days before surrendering, after which all of the civilized world will sanction China and China will retaliate by cutting off our supplies of valuable things such as tech and drugs etc., after which we will claim we made our point so please, please, please resume our shipments of tech, drugs, etc. and please don't invade anyone else or we will take it very seriously.

 

Based on previous incidents that the international community has "stood firm" on, this looks like a likely scenario.

Sadly, I have no confidence that the US military could prevail in a conflict with China to protect Taiwan. The likely scenario is that we would lose our carriers, and China takes Taiwan anyway, and we either escalate nuclear war style or humiliatingly withdraw. Better to not get involved at all.

 

We could wipe China out faster than you can say Joe Biden is a scumbag - but we will not - because we have disgusting lowlife scum running DC.

 

We can nuke them you mean. We can't win any sort of conventional conflict with them.

 

We invited the Chinese to push on Taiwan when we abandoned Afghanistan.

 

Handed those poor Taiwanese to Chinese despots on a silver platter - already skinned & gutted.

 

If Trump was in office the Chinese wouldn't do squat to Taiwan - and 13-Genuine Americans would still be breathing.

 

At the time of the Afghanistan debacle I recalled Churchill's warning to Chamberlain.
“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war." - To Neville Chamberlain

― Winston Churchill

 

Would that America had a Winston Churchill now - we sure need him bad.

 

I firmly believe that Xiden will give China hell if they invade. The full force and might of the US will be used to repeal the Chicoms. Unless they bought a Hunter painting, then all bets are off.


PS: Trumps fault.

 

I dunno man. Taiwan has an impressive military for its size. Especially its reserve personnel (which is so large in fact I have to wonder if its been somewhat artificially inflated...). Its tanks are old, but it can bring far more of them to the fight. With the exception of airpower, Taiwan appears (on paper) well equipped to defend their tiny Island. Keep in mind that China has a vast nation to continue to defend, while Taiwan can bring 100% of its assets to the fight, they have the 'homecourt advantage' and they (unless they're morons) are already in an entrenched defensive position. China (statistically speaking) needs to bring 2x or 3x Taiwan's strength to overcome that defensive advantage (again, while continuing to defend the rest of their borders). Given the assets below, it appears to me that China would be relying almost entirely on their airpower advantage to achieve this.

Taiwan
personnel active165,000 reserve1,655,000
tanks 1100
armored vehicles 8700
artillery 1400
attack helos 91
fighters 288

China
personnel active218,5000 reserve510,000
tanks 3200
armored vehicles 35,000
artillery 3000
attack helos 327
fighters 1200

The point being, I don't see how China could win if we simply took away their airpower advantage by adding ours to the equation. As you mentioned that makes our carriers vulnerable... unless we can base our air forces primarily from land bases, such as the Philippines or Taiwan itself. Which doesn't sound like such an insurmountable goal ...if we start working on that beforehand.

 

Yeah, well he's not in office and Taiwan looks ripe for the taking.

 

I'm a little shaky on where you are getting your numbers. The PLA has about 2 million personnel. Is that just ground forces? Anyway if you think Taiwan can defeat the PRC, than OK, no US forces needed. I don't think so, but in any case, we don't have a defense treaty or even proper diplomatic relations with Taiwan, so there isn't any chance there is going to be prepositioned Air or Ground forces on Taiwan proper. It will be us, with a logistics tail half a world away, and all vulnerable, against China, which is right there.

No way Milley's high heeled hero's could push them back.

 

I got my numbers from Global Firepower Countries Index

I don't think Taiwan can defeat PRC on their own. I think they can handily defeat an invasion by the PRC if only US airpower is added to the equation. ...heels or no heels.

 

Sorry I just don't believe that. Any possible airbase is pretty far away and the carriers will be blown out of the water.

We can't even win a war gaming scenario and those are in our favor from the beginning.

https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-t...th-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html

 

Full military invasion. We should have done it in the Korean War and we wouldn’t be faced with this situation today.

 

IMO should the Red Chinese invade Taiwan we should beat them back there and continue on to defeat them in the field on the mainland. Our problems in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan came from our limits on the military force we were willing to apply. IMO if you're going to fight go all the way.

Edit: conventional forces only. Nukes are a bad idea.

 

Something to bear in mind where nuclear war is concerned is that nobody wants that, China included. If they think there is a risk of being nuked if they invade Taiwan, it's just not likely to happen. The economic fallout would also be a strong deterrent. Ultimately, the best strategy is going to make it highly undesirable for them to attempt even without the nuclear threat involved. It needs to be seen by China's leadership as more trouble and risk than it's worth.

 

I chose the second option. Economic tit for tat is normal in the United States at this point. People have a duty to speak out against injustice, but we still need to be pragmatic, cautious and realistic regarding military confrontation with China.

If China makes territorial claims on Russia and India, they won't make it with any military invasions in the very near future as they have nuclear weapons.

 

The USA cannot but other countries will come to Taiwan aid even if they don't trust us anymore

 

We can win a naval war but cannot invade China. We would need India and Australia to assist though.

 

This is a good question, and one which I suspect many on the Left are not going to know how to respond.
In fact, many on the Left don't even know the importance of Taiwan. A lot of them are somewhat sympathetic to Communist China, and don't get the warmest feelings about protecting a faction that historically broke away from the Communists because they were more towards the political Right.

Those who do not understand what is at stake here, I would encourage you to read about the changes China has put in place in Hong Kong, after Hong Kong's semi-autonomy was recently taken away. Hong Kong was a British or American-style Liberal Democracy, but now has come under a heavy-handed crackdown with totalitarian tactics. Those "peaceful protests", social "resistance" movements, civil disobedience that the Western Left is so fond of in Western English-speaking countries are not tolerated in the new Hong Kong.

 

Cry havoc! Let slip the dog of war!
This world is primed for another reset. Let the cards fell as they may and the dices roll to a stop.

 

Why would China want to? As it stands all they have to do is rattle a saber about Taiwan and the world defecates it's pants. Besides, IF they were to hit Taiwan with everything they had it would be over before anyone could mount a meaningful response save nuclear (and they've got them TOO). To expand on another posters comments, should the Chinese be inclined to invade Taiwan the likely result would be thunderous condemnations at the UN and western capitals followed by, "OK, so's where's the container ships with our goods?".