The only lesson that China can learn from Russia is to not invade their neighbor. It did not work out at all for Russia; if China invades Taiwan it will not work out for them either.
Well, recognizing Taiwan as an independent country for starters. The countries that recognize Taiwan are not recognized as independent states by China.
If anything, these actions will make Taiwan even more opposed to unification with China and will strengthen their resolve to oppose China.
For China it would have made more sense long term to first "incorporate" Taiwan into their country and only after that start turning the screws on both Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Naw, now Taiwan will have a few years to realize being 1C2S is no big deal, kids in HK are going to mainland to party, next gen is going to be even more integrated thanks to patriotic education. In 5-10 years you'll have patriotic HKers lol at TWers being brained for for prefering Gaza solution over HK solution. Which realisitically is really what the offer is now.
The Taiwanese support for pro-independence actually skyrocketed in 2019. I don't think anything bad happening to Hong Kong activists would be a good look for China.
Yes in 2019, look what's happening to TW politics now, green fatigue, DPP anti PRC rhetoric secured a couple elections but now the island new gen is increasingly jaded and post political because they realize the DPP Anti PRC card isn't improving their QoL. VS a few years post getting crushed, HKers also post political who realized they can simply live much better lives by embracing mainland (SZ) and not be such nativist/supremecist. Reality is democratic and shitlib politics is structurally failling everywhere, if the authoritarian gives you a priveledged deal, many TWer might eventually take it. Just look at HK reaction to recent fire, HKers lamenting how much more SZ and mainland tier1s have their shit together. The vibe is changing. PRC needs carrot and stick for TW, like how it's always been. Let's be real, in a post TW crisis there will be winners and losers, TWers need to see how winners are treated (tier1 affordtable life style) and how losers are treated (Gaza). Nevermind DPP just banned XHS because they realize they're losing culture war to mainland.
When look past liberal world order propaganda, aka the libtard bubble, a lot of geopolitical reality seem to bias toward PRC, not because PRC is extra prescient or competent (even though they kind of are) but because libtard delude themselves into false models of how world works.
Pertaining to topic, current reality is HK isn't going to be rebellious stain on 1C2S like LIO types wanted, it's thoroughly cowed and new gen of HKers are going to be patriotic as fuck. For the simple reason that patriotic education / indoctorination actually works really well as statecraft tool. TW democratic disallusionment is growing YoY, and eventually they're going to have to reckon between being privledged cowed like HKers or becoming Gaza - it wasn't Israel begging for ceasefire and Israel has less autonomy over Gaza than PRC over TW in a cross strait scenario.
Wow. That's a lot of modern keywords you have there. Now I am curious about your brain/point of view.
1. When you say "libtards," do you mean non-authoritarian democracy believers? If not, then what does that mean exactly?
2. How do you see Taiwan's sovereignty in the next few years?
Will the CCP kill many, and put the rest into re-education camps, or will that be entirely unnecessary?
Liberal world order / zombie democracy gud types. My brain / pov is just boring realism and recognizing a lot of strategic trendlines is going in PRC favor.
TW fine until mid 2030s, tldr is that is around crossing point where current baked in procurement / strategic investments will give PRC potentially unassailable geostrategic advantages vs US+co. If shit hits fan it will likely be around then.
CCP / at least Xi will be magnanmous because he's just a dove / nice boy. But war is war, no one really controls escalation, gaza is not first choice (especially for softie like Xi) but when ability to do a TW gaza, it is on the table and sometimes inevitable result from escalation dynamics.
How postwar TW gets treated depends on nature of capitulation, i.e. hearts and minds vs pacfication, if PRC paid high price in blood then domestic audience will want blood. But most of effort is patriotic education, i.e. school curriculum pro PRC material and next gen sentiment will automatically shift. Mass reeducation wasn't neccessary in HK who was broken relatively bloodlessly, and now new gen of kids shaped from PRC textbooks are going to have different brains than those shaped by British whose position is going to continue getting clowned on in public messaging until it becomes new norm. But would the extra intransient elements be whisked to mainland for re3ducation, probably - explicitly endorsed by PRC french ambassador at one point.
Ultimately how TW seperatist gets treated is matter of petty PRC bloodlust and local TW bloodlust. As with political jockeying during upheaval, anticipate a lot of pro seperatist TWers simply getting bumped off by local internicine factional violence for getting TW into shitfest in first place. The amount of organized crime influence in TW is too damn high, and all of them know they can instantly transform from gangster to legitimate political power post occupation by getting on Beijings good side, and some are actively being groomed for the role via United Front, see triad leading Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP). They're going to be bashing skulls on behalf of Beijing.
TBH whatever comes, comes. What I want to see in context to what I think is coming: IMO US/PRC bipolarity. The most favourable result for the world is to have 2 alternative, comprehensive tech stacks to develop from instead of depending on whims of single hegemon who controls entire tech tree. PRC/US/developed west will be fine, as in they can collapse/decline so far, but not to subsistent developing country levels due to capita accumulation. They can continue to jockey for podium positions. All the poors need to buy cheap Chinese renewables and capital equipment and up their development game which has never been more accessible. For the big players, peaceful transition / handover of regional hegemony / spheres of influence but that's a tall ask.
If say China failed to “Gaza” Taiwan - because, well, China has never successfully launched a maritime invasion in its long history - would your world-view change? Or are you a ride-or-die Central Committee man, every other thought is impossible, the province of us “liberal retards”?
Person B claims Bay of pigs failed / maritime invasion hard.
Person B argument retarded because US doesn't need to invade to Gaza Cuba.
Person B is admitting they lack 101 subject matter knowledge, to even bring up maritime invasion (because that's the context PRC/TW scenario is presented in lay news) is kind of so stupid it's not even wrong when talking about razing TW into Gaza.
TLDR PRC doesn't need to invade TW to Gaza it. They can now do it trivially from mainland fires. That's the current military reality. There doesn't need to be single foot on the ground to starve island with 90% energy and calorie import needs, and there's functionally nothing US+co can do about it, at least not for next 10+ years where procurement is locked in, and assuming PRC MIC somehow regress. So when I say PRC can Gaza TW, I mean statistically, with the currently correlation of forces across the strait, PRC can conventionally level TW like Gaza, without any amphib effort, just like US can simply glass Havanna from CONUS. That should not be controversial statement if you understand the actual #s involved. I mean delulu libtards are free to think delulu impossible thoughts, but some of them are, in fact functionally in the realm of impossible.
The West would probably cut economic ties with China like they cut them with Russia. For the simple reason that economic ties would help their enemy.
Invadin Taiwan would have a huge negative impact in China. Another poster in this thread, in the process of contradicting himself, said that the longer PRC waits the stronger they become. The conclusion then being that the best course of action for China is to never invade Taiwan. I fully subscribe to this conclusion.
lol it's not contradictory, there are specific PRC strategic milestones that shifts TW scenario, or a broader push to boot US+co out of east asia and gain PRC asian hegemony from potential gamble to forgone. And that's what PRC ultimately wants, their own Monroe. There's a few components left that more or less secures this in next 10/20 years where balance of forces makes US posture existentially unfavorable. The intersection period is mid 2030s-2040s where basically broader strategic balance is baked in, it's just matter of watching relevant trend lines cross (or gap extend). Realistically that's when we can expect things to pop off. The best course of action is for PRC to NOT JUST INVADE TW, but use TW as cassus belli for broader east asian war with US+co to dismantal postwar hemisphereic US security archictecture. The conclusion is, TW is basically PRC's legitmate excuse to shoot US hardware for meddling in domestic Chinese civil war card, it's simply too good to squander right now. Now ultimately international law doesn't matter in WW3, but it helps to have legimate reason to start a constrained WW3 in a way that would cause third parties to sit out (why meddle in ongoing Chinese civil war) and ask why not be net winners while US and PRC and most of east asia "lose". Ultimately for PRC it shouldn't be enough for them to gain TW, but US must also lose east asia.
Ukraine could easily be protect if there was a will to do so in the West. Very few people want to go die fighting for a country they can't even point to on a map so the the most effective solution to defending Ukraine is off the table.
Not sure about "easily" but I believe the idea at this point is to not escalate, drag out the war and win on economic grounds. Of course dragging things out also comes at a huge price for Ukraine but the EU/US seem to have accepted that as the price to be paid despite the moral posturing.
This is definitely not the sort of "protection" I would rely on.
On the flip side though see how badly things are working out for Russia. I think EU will not do business with Russia for a generation. Russia is really fucked.
PRC sees the writing on the wall and, being the pragmatic bunch that they are, will probably not invade Taiwan. Unless Xi really controls the country 100% (this I do not know since I am not a Chinese observer) and goes crazy like Putin did.
I agree that it is just dragging on and that is what I meant by describing the alternative as easy. Sending money and weapons is just leading to more death and destruction and no victory for Ukraine.
I don't think Ukraine can win with the way things are going unless the West joins the fighting or Russia collapses. Waiting until Russia collapses will quite possibly be a long time which will result in a Pyrrhic victory for Ukraine. They will have an entire generation of dead men at the rate things are going.
PRC never advertised a timeline outside of implying national rejuvenation (which can't happen without reincorporating TW) by PLA centennial by 2049. If you depend on western propaganda like Davidson Window 2027 then you can keep thumb twiddling. What's likely going to happen is some inciting event or some engineered out of blue casus belli.
PRC doesn't have any capable enemies in the west, including US, that can prevent PRC from turning TW into a Gaza. Which PRC can do with purely mainland based fires at this point. The force balance is too lopsided off PRC shores now. PRC's fleet of PL191 can basically level all of Taiwan urban areas in a few months, weeks considering other munition stockpiles. They can build a few hundred more chasis and frankyl TW->Gaza would take a couple weeks. Otherwise every inch of TW is within a few minute strikes from mainland, so resupply is out of question. There's nothing preventing TW from becoming Gaza except Xi is kind of nice bro.
He's nice enough all things considered, nelson mandella kind of person in LKW words. It is statistically remarkable how dovish he has been given size of PRC military now, all historic hegemons even local were up to more violence by this stage of rise.
There really aren't anything substantial, nothing the west can sustain anymore let alone in 5/10 years or 2049. It may very well be PRC is poised to be the least biggest loser, aka relative winner. IMO we're in stage where the longer PRC waits and accumulates the harder they win and frankly there's shit all west is able to do about it (on procurement side over next 10-20 years) with gap extending in PRC favor.
I personally would like to see East Asia more unified and less reliant on an increasingly unstable country like the US. They will collectively have to rely on foreigners more in the future anyway due to low birth rates as Japan already does. A lot of people serving food were Chinese when I went there. About 50% of the tourists were also Chinese.
I think the sentiment is nice but historic greviences still strong. Utlimately the problem isn't more or less reliance on US security hedging but force balance being so lopsidded in PRC that US don't matter. Reminder TW use to have the largest airforce in East Asia. At somepoint (that we're probably well past), US not capable of east asia security gurantee. And whatever you think about recent PRC/JP tussle, and ignore takaichi picking fights with RU over sakahlin and SKR over dokodo within last few weeks, JP having maritime/territorial disputes with all her neighbours despite beign loser of WW2, where her borders should be prescribed by treaty, is going to lead to messy situations.
I tend to believe that Communism provided enough of a threat to the Western elites that they felt forced to keep their countries visibly better. Not ready to defend this argument right now, I just think it does hold water.
There's a very common line of thinking that goes like this:
From the end of WWII until the fall of communism, the public in the West (as opposed to the elites) enjoyed much better treatment, and prospered more than ever before or since. This would include both fiscal gains, and the public's opinion being truly taken into consideration. This is mainly because the elites were afraid of people turning socialist / communist, so they gave them a reason to actually be invested in the system. Once that threat of communism evaporated, the elites could proceed to gut the majority as in the previous centuries with no fear whatsoever.
My comments:
I'm not sure I agree with that, though, too simplistic. On the other hand, I also think that people have a rose-tinted view of what "democracy" always was - with enough money / media control and a bit of time, you can convince the majority of anything, anywhere. Letting people prosper does make it easier. Maybe it did play a bit of a role. A counter argument is that (independent) media coverage made the Vietnam war unpopular, and then the US pulled out because of that, a miracle of democracy which never really came close to happening again ever after.
But I think the USSR itself murdered any real chances of communism's further spread in 1968, when they invaded Czechoslovakia. (The Hungarian thing in 1956 isn't nearly as important because of country's undeniable previous Axis affiliation; few had sympathy for that back then). The US and west in general couldn't get rid of their Woody Guthries, and their Klaus Fuchses, until USSR did it for them through sheer idiocy. But after that, was communism really a threat?
But I do think that the 1950s policies were affected by the war (+ Korean war) even more than communism itself. All these traumatized vets, desensitized to violence, were now back home, and the elites were truly afraid. But that doesn't seem like it brought democracy in today's sense of the word? There's a reason why feminism regressed in the 50s - letting men be little despots in their own (cheaply bought) homes was the least the government could do. But that seems to have lasted only until the mid 60s, then the Vietnam thing happened, ... Let's not go further.
Most left wing movements and organisations in the West drew strength from the existence of strong socialist states, both materially and ideologically. These kinds of groups were a balancing force against the right wing/capitalist direction, which is inherently undemocratic, having as its logical endpoint the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few.
I think the true decline begun earlier though, around the Thatcher-Reagan era, with the erosion of all kinds of state ownership and control of our economy and broad attacks on organised labour.
Is quite an assumption to make left wing movements and organizations in the West the defender of democracy. And another assumption to make the right movements the enemy of democracy. Also, take it from me who lived 15 years in communist Romania - the socialist states were very weak relative to the West.
Concentration of wealth and power was (and is) the highest in communist dictatorships - literally a handful (i.e. less than 5) people control pretty much everything in Cuba. North Korea is ruled with an iron fist by 1 guy - that is some concentration of power, right? In Communist Romania / East Germany power was concentrated in 2 people (a couple). In USSR power was concentrated in the 7 members of PolitBuro. In China power used to be concentrated in the hands of Mao Zhedong, now it seems it is concentrated in the hands of Xi Ping (but I could be wrong about Xi Ping. Maybe he shares some power with other people). I could go on forever, baby!!!
Capitalism has its problems but capitalism is quite fine all kinds of political systems - see German capitalism before, during, and following Hitler's rule.
Would you mind explaining what mistake did the Bitfinex hack perpetrators do? My understanding is that they were caught when they spent a bit of the money [0]. Because the transaction was on the public ledger FBI knew which wallet to track-which they did and the first few transactions gave the perpetrators away. But then again this is just my understanding. Thanks!
My MBA program mentioned in passing intrinsic / extrinsic motivation in the Ethics class - which in my program did not even have a final exam :).
Most of the time was spent on cost cutting, customer vs producer surplus, profit margins, efficient markets theory, lots marketing, lots of "the purpose of a commercial enterprise is to make money for its owner" said in different ways, and maybe some operations analysis.
I think usefulcat interpreted "std::vector<int> allocated and freed on the stack" as creating a default std::vector<int> and then destroying it without pushing elements to it. That's what their godbolt link shows, at least, though to be fair MSVC seems to match the described GCC/Clang behavior these days.
And Medicare cannot negotiate drug prices until 2026 (). Medicare is also banned from re-importing drugs from other countries (ex Canada) at lower prices. Thank you president GWB, the Alliance to Improve Medicare, and AARP (!!!!) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1126891/
() Biden's inflation act gave Medicare permission to start negotiating drug prices in 2026. Who know what the current US Administration will do though.
$200 seems valid - it comes from the linked article [0] and it includes home internet (I pay $110 / month Comcast just for home internet in Bellevue. In Seattle I paid $130 / month). Maybe Aaron could have phrased it better. (I also recommend to read the linked article as it is a phenomenally well done financial analysis.)
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