China & Chinese Shenanigans

[08Dawg]

1 hour ago, Prosuper said:

Not anything about doctrine or tactics but I haven't seen these questions asked.

1. Can the Federal govt  party politics  unite an American populace who are fed up with the lies of why we fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Syria?

2. Can we stomach high losses of American blood, I.E. a couple aircraft carriers, cruisers, frigates and destroyers with all hands. Destruction of Kadena, Andersen , and Elmendorf? 

3. Will China if they find things going south use nuclear weapons, will we? China only cares if the CCP survives.

4. Will we able to stomach total war, using extreme violence to drown millions of Chinese troops in the sea.

5. Can we coral Corporate CEO's who will sell their daughters into sexual slaves just to have a good qtr and do business with China? Plus can retailers and manufacturers handle not getting their cheap shit from China? Would world trade disappear. and could  China feed itself without American, Canadian exports? Could Americans put up with rationing? 

6. And the 800# gorilla in the room, are the present POTUS and VPOTUS  up for the job of being War leaders?

I think the answer to most of your questions is a resounding no. I don’t think the timing of the Chinese really ramping up their actions is a coincidence, juxtaposed with our very botched last days in Afghanistan. Similarly, they can read CNN and Fox News and see our current president is not really leading with any consensus. The American public IMO has exactly zero tolerance for any conflict right, especially a force on force conflict the size and scale of which we have not experienced since, I would argue, WWII.  If I were a Chinese general, I’d be screaming at the top of my lungs that if force is the chosen COA to reunify Taiwan, there is no better time than now. 

[HeloDude]

If/when (might bet is when) China invades Taiwan…for some reason I’m not so sure we’ll see the same outrage, sanctions, weapons supplies for Taiwan, etc that we’re seeing with Ukraine.

 

 

[DirkDiggler]

29 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

If/when (might bet is when) China invades Taiwan…for some reason I’m not so sure we’ll see the same outrage, sanctions, weapons supplies for Taiwan, etc that we’re seeing with Ukraine.

 

 

Why?  Say what you mean.

[bfargin]

We buy and source everything consumer based from CCP controlled outlets in China. We (the USA and most of the West) don't have the resolve anymore to sacrifice personal comfort for a cause, even a major cause like basic human rights. I forecast (if CCP invades Taiwan) we pontificate a lot (and I mean a lot), we drum up a few superficial sanctions, and we lobby the UN to make a statement that China was bad in this action but..... 

[HeloDude]

7 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

Why?  Say what you mean.

More/less what bfargin said.

When China invades Taiwan, is everyone all of suddenly going to stop buying products that are made China?

[DirkDiggler]

12 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

More/less what bfargin said.

When China invades Taiwan, is everyone all of suddenly going to stop buying products that are made China?

That's a fair question, and my honest answer is I don't know.  I've personally made the effort over the last 3-4 years to intentionally buy things that aren't made in China (it's more difficult than you'd think, waffle makers seem to be pretty much exclusively made in China these days, insert Frank the Tank not enough time reference).  

  There's a lot of verbose public personas ranting against China and pushing an independence from interdependence on China but not a lot of discussion on why/how the US got there in the first place.  Autarky hasn't been an overly successful model for any country in the past 300+ years (there's probably a historical example I'm unaware of, would honestly be interested in anything referenced).  I'd agree that the bulk of the US population that actually cares about this topic exhibits an odd form of schizophrenia that involves "China bad, America good" and "I want to buy American" (or insert any other foreign made product) but is unwilling to pay the higher prices involved in such an effort when confronted with reality.     

[HeloDude]

9 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

That's a fair question, and my honest answer is I don't know.  I've personally made the effort over the last 3-4 years to intentionally buy things that aren't made in China (it's more difficult than you'd think, waffle makers seem to be pretty much exclusively made in China these days, insert Frank the Tank not enough time reference). 

Thanks for the response.  What it comes down to is that the vast majority of people are only willing to stand up for their principles when it causes them very little (if any) change to their life style.  Hence why right now the US and Europe is still buying oil/gas from Russia.

I have zero problems admitting that I’ll continue buying products made in China after Taiwan is invaded.  Doing so doesn’t mean you support the invasion anymore than buying fuel from Saudi Arabia equates to your support of their oppression of women.  Now if I can get the same/similar product for close to the same price from somewhere else, then sure.  This is what happens with massive global trade and being willing to partner with nations who don’t share foundational common ideals.  To be fair, we’re getting further away in this country from sharing foundational common ideals.
 

 

[bfargin]

A couple of years ago I did an intentional search for nails made in the USA. At the time there was one remaining manufacturer that supposedly made nails in the US. I can't say my search was 100% exhaustive, but it made me do a similar search on other manufactured products and it confirmed how little we produce here at home. For many items we source the raw material and send it to China (or elsewhere) to have it fabricated and sent back. Pretty shocking how little we actually make and that it's cheaper to send product to China and back rather than make it here.

I know I'm unique here in the US, but having grown up in Taiwan it worries me how serious the threat really is to one of the few young democracies in the world. Taiwanese have grown from an autocratic more or less dictatorship (KMT run and controlled) while I was there (1970-1980) into a fully functioning democracy fighting for it's very existence in a world that fails to recognize them as an independent state. General CKS basically doomed Taiwan to the current situation by being so dogmatic that he was the ruler of all of China when the UN in the early 1970s chose the CCP as the official Chinese government.

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

On 3/1/2022 at 6:07 AM, bfargin said:

 For many items we source the raw material and send it to China (or elsewhere) to have it fabricated and sent back.

This includes food. Those frozen Tyson chicken strips? The chickens are raised and slaughtered in the US, shipped to China to be processed/breaded/deep fried, then shipped back here for sale.

[uhhello]

3 hours ago, LumberjackAxe said:

This includes food. Those frozen Tyson chicken strips? The chickens are raised and slaughtered in the US, shipped to China to be processed/breaded/deep fried, then shipped back here for sale.

Not true

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/11/tyson-chicken-indsutry-arkansas-poultry-monopoly

https://southhighbusiness.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/tyson-and-china/

Edited March 3, 2022 by uhhello

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

Well shit, I guess I fell victim to misinformation. Good to know.

[uhhello]

3 minutes ago, LumberjackAxe said:

Well shit, I guess I fell victim to misinformation. Good to know.

i mean it sounded dumb enough to be true 🙂

[arg]

Something must be going on over there. The CVS commissary is completely out of ramen noodles and Thai rice. Good thing they had tin foil in stock.


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[HeloDude]

So I’m confused…Biden said we’ll use our military to defend Taiwan against China, but right after he made that statement, his staff was quick to make a a “clarification”?  So which is it?  

Biden Says U.S. Will ‘Militarily Defend’ Taiwan against Chinese Invasion

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-u-militarily-defend-141519941.html

[Magnum]

11 hours ago, HeloDude said:

So I’m confused…Biden said we’ll use our military to defend Taiwan against China, but right after he made that statement, his staff was quick to make a a “clarification”?  So which is it?  

Biden Says U.S. Will ‘Militarily Defend’ Taiwan against Chinese Invasion

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-u-militarily-defend-141519941.html

No one, including Biden, truly knows.

[gearhog]

Someone recorded a highly detailed Taiwan Straits war planning meeting in Guangdong province. Fascinating stuff. Troop, ship, and aircraft numbers are discussed, along with fishing boat militias, domestic propaganda campaigns, and use of big data and health systems to aid in rapid recruitment.

 

CCP publishes this across most major Chinese media outlets today:

https://www.sohu.com/a/550108041_121094251

Quote

2022-05-24 10:25

   

After decades of hard work, China's national defense has grown stronger and stronger. In addition, China has adhered to the path of peaceful development, and has maintained a relatively peaceful domestic situation. China has been without war for a long time. However, the international situation is changing, and the world situation may not always be trending for the better. There are still many countries in the world who are eyeing us.

The war is not carried out overnight, and the country will enter a state of combat readiness before the war comes, and make adequate preparations for the occurrence of the war. Some friends became curious and asked hypothetical questions. If a conflict breaks out with other countries, it will be so serious that the army will face each other and enter a state of tense combat readiness. What should the general people do at this time? it's actually really easy.

The country enters a state of combat readiness, indicating the outbreak of war, and the army, as a national armed force, will act as soon as possible. The army will enter a state of tense combat readiness, deploy defensive forces at important levels, and operate various weapons of war one after another to warm up for the war. The personnel of the army will be called up at the first time, not only the servicemen, but also the retired soldiers will rush to the army at the first time, assemble, and dedicate themselves to defending the country and defending the country.

In order to ensure that there are enough soldiers in the war, the country will recruit troops on a large scale, open up more places to join the army, and let a large number of recruits join the army as soon as possible, so that they can strive to master combat skills before the war. Therefore, the country has entered a state of combat readiness, and the majority of young people should join the army and prepare to dedicate their blood to the country.

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by torqued

[Majestik Møøse]

That article reads like it was written by Chinese AI then run back and forth through Google Translate a few times.

To comment on the content, the biggest factor in winning a conflict is the motivation of the population and its military to fight. Motivation attracts better people, makes them train harder to develop and refine tactics, and increases budget and technology inputs from the population.

There’s no way the PRC population is as motivated to conquer Taiwan as the ROC population is to defend it. Even if the PRC were able to initially get some false motivation from propaganda, it would quickly become unraveled as the conflict drug on. The PRC has known this for the last 60 years - which is why they’ve never attacked - and the Russian-Ukraine conflict has only reinforced that perception.

[08Dawg]

On 5/23/2022 at 10:16 AM, HeloDude said:

So I’m confused…Biden said we’ll use our military to defend Taiwan against China, but right after he made that statement, his staff was quick to make a a “clarification”?  So which is it?  

Biden Says U.S. Will ‘Militarily Defend’ Taiwan against Chinese Invasion

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-u-militarily-defend-141519941.html

Just like many other recent “retractions”…kinda getting tired, and worried frankly, that POTUS can’t/won’t stay on script.  A slip of the tongue at the wrong time could have disastrous global effects. 

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, 08Dawg said:

Just like many other recent “retractions”…kinda getting tired, and worried frankly, that POTUS can’t/won’t stay on script.  A slip of the tongue at the wrong time could have disastrous global effects. 

He’s in charge, for better or for worse.  That being said, I’d be truly surprised if he/the Dems run him again in 2024…if he even makes it that far.

[M2]

23 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

He’s in charge, for better or for worse.  That being said, I’d be truly surprised if he/the Dems run him again in 2024…if he even makes it that far.

He's not in charge...

[GrndPndr]

3 hours ago, M2 said:

He's not in charge...

And we also know there won't be any debates.  No surprise, Joe doesn't do contemporaneous.

[arg]

Got to wonder if the Chineese military sucks as bad as the Russians.

 

[StoleIt]

3 hours ago, arg said:

Got to wonder if the Chineese military sucks as bad as the Russians.

 

Also gotta wonder if we would suck as bad as the Russians (in a REAL degraded environment).

[uhhello]

10 minutes ago, StoleIt said:

Also gotta wonder if we would suck as bad as the Russians (in a REAL degraded environment).

AFG and Iraq would have been a bit different if there were legit AT systems behind every mud hut and bus stop.

[Danger41]

11 hours ago, uhhello said:

AFG and Iraq would have been a bit different if there were legit AT systems behind every mud hut and bus stop.

Agreed. Also makes the Marines look pretty damn smart by pivoting away from tanks and looking to drastically restructure their force (pretty interesting topic if you aren’t tracking).