As Taiwanese, in additional information, I can say that there are less than 20 geographical points that are suitable for invasion in certain seasons. But those points are not designed for massive landing operations, imagine that a place maybe 5 to 10 times minor than Normandy if you were a western person. And our defense administration prepared for the invasion based on those hot zone. But I hope there’ll be no war at all cost.
@@TexanIndependence The point of this video, is demographic issues take a few generation to reverse, unless you solve it with immigration. It's not like turning on a light because you willed it.
@@kurtwinslow2670 South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany have worse demographics than China. Only 11.55 percent of Japan’s population is age 14 or younger while China’s is 17.5%. Most developed countries have low birth rates because women are going to school, get married later and when they have children it’s only one or two kids.
Taiwan has been preparing for the communist invasion since the time the refugees landed in Taiwan 1950's. The KMT generalissimo's first order was to fortify Taiwan's defenses. The underground tunnels are everywhere as safety against air raids or now missile bombings. Fighter jets are also parked under ground. For sure, modern weapons are more sophisticated to repel the invasion. It is illogical for China to go ahead with the invasion knowing the cost of lives and destruction and the consequence of war which will destroy China itself.
@@TexanIndependence which China can reverse, it is a dictatorship after all🤣Being able to explain everything in one or two tags, I envy you for your carelessness
@@kurtwinslow2670immigration is the worse thing to solve fertility problem as we can see in western europe... Countries need to focus on supporting families. For example i expect second child. I cant think of having third with my wife not because only of economic reasons, but also working whole day and having very low time to actually spend with kids is bad. Ofc iam no economist so i have no idea how to achieve that. But importing different culture, is a recepy for future civil unrest and possible civil war. Lived in Holland for 12 years, its kind of a sh** show there now sadly..
Something pretty war-like that you missed: Taiwan has always been considered an absolute nightmare to invade. The waters are shallow between China and Taiwan, limiting troop transport sizes. That results in more of a logistical nightmare on an already difficult maneuver that China (as you said) hasn't been proven capable of doing well. Amphibious assaults are already plenty difficult to do. The rest of the fighting would come in two, equally unsavory flavors: urban warfare or mountain warfare. A stout, porcupine defense from Taiwan would make this potential invasion a bloodbath. China's likely inexperience with any of these elements would likely make the these FAR worse.
The depth of the Taiwan Strait is not that shallow; about 60 meters deep or more. It is too shallow for submarines to safely operate in but ships will do fine.
D Day showed that landing troops was relatively easy. Soon after they had to land war machinery and auxiliary supplies, which requires the need to build temporary harbors.
@@floxy20 That only worked so well because of deception operations. I don't think that will work for an island. Look into it, it could have gone so wrong.
Yeah, an amphibious invasion is the most complex and difficult military operation there is, and this would be _by far_ the largest since the D Day landings in WW2. D Day took years of planning and preparation with a massive build up, and years of softening up the German defences during war time. I don't think China's military is currently prepared for such a large amphibious operation, and getting ready would require a mega project scale investment and years of work. China also won't be able to spend years wearing down Taiwan before the invasion. They'll need to launch the invasion force in the first few days of the war while Taiwan's military is still at full strength. A national scale amphibious invasion against an advanced military on day 1 of war has never been done before. It may not even be possible.
@TonboIV Taiwan's air force has already been severely worn down by years of aerial harassment. Taiwanese land units are antiquated, ill trained and still thinking in the 1970s. Its navy is about in the same shape.
Because in China the buyer first puts down a high down payment 30-50% and then the developer builds it. When completed the buyer obtains a mortgage for the remainder. Developers though in a hyped economy are always borrowing creating that bubble. The bubble bursts when demand slows. Another point not made is the debt problem. The federal government runs a relatively low ratio,75% but the state governments run a very high debt ratio. In the US combined federal and state runs $36.5T on $27T gdp,135%. China's combined debt is over $40T on $18T gdp,210%. Throw in the monkey wrench of deflation, stock and housing bubble and massive debt and it won't end well.
Yeah... i think they were able to enforce very high 'minimum prices' (even on empty / excess houses) up unitl the CCP decided to restrain lending to the construction industry, at which time, the buble burst.
Very astute analysis. I also believe the fear of failure is the real reason China has stayed it's hand. Ukraine giving Russia a whole load of what-for has been a gift to the whole world.
Ukraine has been destroyed, millions dead, 25% of its land confiscated. Ukraine has debts it can never repay. Russia is growing in influence and financially. I have no idea what you are talking about. If anything, the Ukraine situation has shown the weakness of the West.
Even Russian puppet rulers are calling it a bloody stalemate that needs a ceasefire. The fact a relatively tiny country militarily is still holding out is astounding.
@bassmanjr100 wrong it is only 17 percent not 25 percent. And Russia is not growing in any way either financially or in influence. I have no idea what you are talking about.
There is another issue; China is extremely dependent on foreign foodstuffs, fertilizers and farm equipment in order to feed itself. By far, the vast majority of these goods go through the Strait of Malacca. Moreover, something along the lines of 70% of the petroleum products it needs to keep the power on come through that same sea lane. To say that the country is vulnerable to a blockade really doesn't even begin to touch the issue.
Plus to more straits up north, plus what they can conjure up with Russia even further up north for easier access to the ocean. A blockade is not one-sided anyways.
This is why China has spent billions to try and get alternate import routes set up through Pakistan and Myanmar, plus borrowing naval bases closer to the Persian gulf so its brown water navy has a chance of covering the sea routes. A move that India counters by setting up its own set of alliances to keep those bases in check. To say China is "vulnerable to blockade" almost misleads: it's addicted to foreign investment funds which are starting to dry up. No active blockade needed.
@@2005jes2005 For China, a blockade is one-sided. In a war, their situation is even worse than Ukraine's. The entire sea that China relies on for its maritime access is hemmed in on all sides by enemy nations. And no, Russia does not provide a solution. Nevermind that one of the most important supply lines between the two countries was just blown up; the port of Vladivostok is already working at over 100% capacity as it is. There's also the simple issue of range; The US has a blue water navy, and China doesn't. For more than 90% of the Chinese fleet, 1k km is the maximum range, and that assumes going slowly in a straight line and not trying to come back. China simply doesn't have any way to project the sort of power needed to enforce a blockade on other nations. Whereas, for the US, simply sinking a ship in a couple strategic spots will make the most important waterways for China literally impassible, and the simple threat of nuclear submarines will do the rest.
@@Psieye You're not wrong, but a blockade or the lack of one is the difference between an Ethiopian style famine or a slow but at least theoretically controllable descent.
@@2005jes2005ah yes, they can get help accessing the sea from Russia, a country well known for always having great access to the sea and never encountering any issues with that during war time 🤦
Uggh simon went full neocon and spewed a pack of lies. AFU was a massive army, far bigger than the SMO army sent to force them to peace(which they did!) , AFU was built , trained and supplied by 451!!! nations! And guess what, Russia won, defeated the "neocons" Simon, stop spreading lies
Never a great idea agreed, it was probably an acceptable idea though back in the 40s when the receipt first fled to Taiwan... Once they were given time to properly set up defenses it made considerably less sense
@@jaykoernerthat's not correct either. When the nationalists lost the civil war and retreated to Taiwan, they had an air force and navy, the communists did not. The communists were never able to invade Taiwan. Not then, and still not now. Though the communists can probably pull off a blockade now
@@jaykoerner When you said 40s, I was expecting a reference to when Imperial Japan was occupying the island in WW2. USA decided that naval invasion wasn't worth the cost. Against 30k starving occupiers.
One of the things that I don't see often in these discussion of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan is that the vast majority of any invasion force will consist of single only child men thanks to the One Child Policy. The lost of several thousand of these men would be a social disaster as it would mean the end of several thousand family lines in a country where family lineage is greatly revered.
Good point, but at the same time, look at previous wars China fought and the casualties they endured. Vs Japan, lost upwards of 20 million people. Civil War, right around that time, around 10 million. Taiping Rebellion, upwards of 30 million. China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent. Whereas we haven't lost ANY in Ukraine, and support is breaking. Lost hardly 5k in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lost interest. We could very easily wipe out 2 million Chinese troops, but have 20 casualties of our own, and decide we should pull out, and China win. Are the American people ready to commit to a war with China? Cuz as it is, I see a lot of people who would rather shop with Temu than fight a war over Taiwan.
@@shaunholt "China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent" Not modern generations. The last 3 generations of Chinese don't know war at all.
I read that they tried to invade Vietnam in the late ‘70s and got whooped by the NVA (or I guess it’s just the VA at that point). Edit: it was mentioned in the video, hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
And they are known as a huge kleptocracy, just like Russia. Their readiness is probably compromised by that corruption. Some estimate that one of the secretly richest billionaires in the world is a chinese general. I don't know if he and his cohorts got cracked down on though. I heard that Xi was cleaning house.
You must have skipped history course often... Korea War and Sino India war? Selective history is bad for your brain... I forget, you might be a bot. :)
One particular problem for China is that particularly among the Han, children are concentrated as single children. Drafting soldiers to send to war will be much harder when you are drafting the only child from an entire family. If people were having 3 or 4 children per couple, then they would only need of several siblings, which would make potential losses more tolerable.
@@TexanIndependence It will take longer than 10 years for them to get where they need to go. Even if they force people to have babies at gunpoint, it will be a long time before this "crop" of soldiers is ready for harvest. Time they may not have. A lot can happen in 18 years. They are making poorly thought-out superficial changes, but not addressing the real problems facing young adults. Banning boy bands and making barren women suffer is NOT going to turn this around. They've been digging this hole for decades and can't just brute force their way out. Some things can't just be waved into existence.
@TexanIndependence haha dumb Texan. You can't force people to have kids. The single key to having a higher fertility rate is to stop educating females. Once females are educated ánd integrated into the general workforce they simply seize having lots of kids.
@TexanIndependence literal CCP copium, you can't just fix the massive aging population problem in just 10-15 years😂 assuming they have any success at all implementing those changes with all the other social/economic issues plaguing the country
@texanindependence It's fairly obvious you have no real idea about life in China. The idea that feminism is to blame for this is just silly. My mother in law was running the schools in a city of over 1 mln people in 1955. And she wasn't a real exception. But children are unaffordable - you literally need an extra income per child in order to be able to afford the education and medical costs. China could increase the population, but not by trying to force women out of "modern feminism", whatever you think it means.
Having worked in the semiconductor industry for a long time, just taking over a factory without the brains to run it means almost nothing...maybe a few days of production.
@@msimon6808 food is not a problem china have 3-5yrs food reserve, their top trading partner with over 150 country, also russia is a huge grain supplier right at china back yard. your need to change your china expert
Very interesting video. What I think that is not mentioned but quite relevant is that an economic turndown is often a trigger for dictators to start a war.
@@Rossco139 The flip side of that is that most parents have only one child to take care of them in old age (a big deal in Chinese culture - so I've read). This means that even a small number of casualties is politically unacceptable.
I think what will happen is China will actually go after Russia, Vladivostok used to be Chinese back in the day and China already posted a lot of things on social media that they want it back A Russian governor I think posted something celebrating the anniversary of Vladivostok and China was very quick to comment that they shouldn't be celebrating the anniversary as it was once their own territory
You didn't know? 😂😂😂 You must not follow much news. Nato did many things following up that provoked Putin into war. I feel for Ukraine and Ukrainian people but they kinda have nato to thank for that.
@@НААТ Ukrainan people through Euromaidan showed Russia and Putin that Ukraine didn't want to stay in Russia's leash anymore. Ukraine wanted to be an EUROPEAN country. That is something Kremlin couldn't allow. Nato had nothing to do with that. Bs narrative .
As Karuna mentioned below, China imports 80% of it's energy and 50% of its food. They are incredibly vulnerable to anything drawn out beyond 1 month. And it wouldn't even take active interdiction of this shipping. The shipping companies' insurance companies would just say 'nope, not going there'.
Depends on who you depend. Russia is under heavy sanctions yet is lasting way longer than what the american warhawks were forseeing... China is a major partner for many countries, including their energy/food suppliers. They even bought farms in africa, own most of the fishing boats etc.. They ll be even harder to cut off than russia was.
@@etienne8110 No, they won't, because it's not a political barrier, it's a geographical one. Russia is not as constricted to a single international shipping lane for the majority of their energy needs. If the Strait of Malacca closes to Chinese shipping traffic, it's over. There is no other path for the amount of resources China needs. Russia has no equivalent.
@@rednyte6155 you don t need 100% of usual to keep running. If anything, russia is the living proof of that, not even mentionning iran, venezuela or cuba. They just need enough passing through russia to hold for a couple months. Anylonger would also be a big hurt to both oil producers and europeans countries. China is a major economy (n 1, some would argue), you can t just blockade it forever...
Or other countries would think it's in their best interests to kidnap the scientists working in those labs or steal the schematics on making semiconductors for their own benefit than risk going to war for another. We humans are selfish beings after all
@@whz1991not really tbh. China is still 2 to 3 generations behind in semiconductor tech and the new Us fabs for TsMc won’t have the most advanced chips.
@@SrCoxas as long as ASML and western tech companies support the patented tech that goes into fabs(remember even China mostly relies on these to do the actual production) I don’t see them getting anywhere near as competitive as Taiwan considering that even their labor advantage is now mostly gone.
The fabrication process of a CPU ("chip") is painstaking and arduous. To give a general idea, the room it is fabricated in must be cleaner and more sterile than an operating theater. You have to be in full gear, mask, suit, everything. A CPU can take up to 3 months to go from base material to CPU. So even an explosion near one of these facilities renders it threatened or inoperable.
A news happened a few months ago involving an accidental explosion in one of the armory in Taiwan, meanwhile some politicians citing the danger of having an armory within residential area however the local residents said otherwise: "Don't move the armory away, we know where to get our guns if PLA are coming.". People of Taiwan aren't afraid of war, intimidation doesn't work against Taiwan. They will just simply ask to "bring it".
@@tcguanz Out of warranty weapons don't explode. The fuel oxidizes and becomes useless. They don't fail up, You don't build a missile whose end game could be blow up on the pylon when it's too old. Some Chemistry classes will help you with that.
@@johneeeemarry34on top of that other countries who dislike USA are taking inspirations from Russia like Iran and Hamas, now Venezuela and soon China, North Korea the USA hegemony is slowing breaking
Taiwan has some surprisingly good anti ship missiles with the hf3 being supersonic (mach 3.5) and a range of 250 miles and have cheaper sub sonic hf2 with newer ones having a range long enough to cover the entire straight. The also have been rapidly taking note from Ukraine with their drone use and build up a drone army
But one thing is Taiwan military and government is corrupt. There is unknown number of spies currently holding office that are in chinas side and this lowers military readiness.
@@MetaView7 And North Korea says the same thing about South Korea. The commies simply want to take over and enslave them without a fight. And besides, Taiwan was never ruled by the CCP. There is no unifying to do with Communists. We must resist them and their slavery system at all costs.
One of the major key objectives would be to capture the microchip processing factories intact. As stated this would be highly unlikely, wether it be from erroneous attack or sabotage, it's highly unlikely these facilities would remain intact.
You need to be more specific about whose objective is it to keep chip fabs intact. Because Huawei and SMIC just demonstrated China the right now the only country that does not need TSMC intact. And since losing TSMC will result in collapse of all western technology, it's very much China's objective to make sure TSMC does NOT stay intact. You're right that its very unlikely TSMC will remain intact, so what does that means for western technology?
@@ryankappel1245 China already developed their own EUV technology, both traditional laser-tin and next gen SSMB. Between this and the China blowing up TSMC, you have no idea how f*ed the west is.
@@vlhc4642 alot of TSMC manufacturing is starting to move to other countries. Also China kind of sucks at creating its own IP. They steal it and either reverse engineer and build a hack replica or fill in the gaps and build a janky replica. They think if they can take over Taiwan they can absorb everything that already exists and will have the pathway to keep advancing. They also need the EUV technologh which Taiwan is one of a few countries has.
When it comes to Taiwan's production of chips and SCs, it's not just the factories that the PRC needs. It also needs the technical skill to operate them. At the moment it does this at a premium by paying exorbitant rates to bring in foreign workers. That takes a long time to fix as it requires a lot of things to have been in place for a few decades to build domestic capacity. The bigger problem is on the back-end. Taiwan may produce the chips, but it's America, Canada, and the Netherlands that pioneers the designs.
Well those chip factories are not going to be saved if Tiawin get attacked. Which is one reason why Biden had invited several of those companies to come to the USA and set up shop here. Several companies have excepted the offer. I am sure China is fuming over that move. Right now China is getting chip by buying gaming consoles that are made in Vietnam since they have been santioned from buying directly from the chip maker. The other issue is China cannot build anything without the blue prints. There education is not set up to use your knowledge to come up with new ideas, there education is all about how much you can memorize.
AND purchases. Let's not forget where the real power resides. It's with the consumer. If the USA or others decides to boycott anything related to an invasion, their assault will become even more costly.
@deadpirateroberts9937: Taiwan cannot make the advanced chip-making equipment. It only uses them to produce advanced chips designed by their customers, such as the US. If war starts, the equipment is easily destroyed. The Taiwanese workers cannot build chips without that equipment. They have the knowledge on how to operate it, and convert a chip spec into a chip layout using the software tools that come with the equipment, but it cannot recreate the chip-making equipment. China has the previous generations of the chip-making equipment, and can make less advanced chips to their hearts' content, until the equipment needs to be serviced. Then, the equipment isn't useful, even for spare parts because they don't fully know how to service the equipment.
News: they don't need to produce chips from TSMC. Just destroy Western access to those chips..... The West no longer produces cutting edge chips either.
When it comes to China's GDP, that number is "estimated" to be $17 trillion. The one doing the estimation is China. China is not really a good faith actor when it comes to reporting GDP numbers. Independent estimates guess that number is closer to $9-13 Trillion. They're quite far away in the #2 position. However, the gap from the #1 spot is much further away.
Your 'independent estimate" doesn't happen to be the guy who tried to use night-time light to measure day-time factory activity does it? lol Chinese industry generates and consumed more electrical power than next 5 countries combined, China's auto industry is 2.7x larger than the US, China's ship building industry is 250x larger than the US, China alone operate 2/3 of all industrial robots on the planet and their solar production capacity just reached 1x total US power generation per year. You're right about on-paper GDP estimates being meaningless, you can't actually compare your local personal injury lawyer with a factory producing electric motors. The moment China pulls the plug, that is stop accepting USD as payment for Chinese exports, the real value of USD, and by extension the real scale of US GDP will become very visible.
@@vlhc4642 Lol look at this Chinese shill furiously trying to defend a deteriorating China's honor. Maybe you should worry about how your precious China is busy trying to fill in the holes made by its flailing economy as its various foreign investors and companies are slowly leaving the country. Better yet, maybe you should worry about where you're gonna find your next paycheck when China won't be able to pay your shilling wages anymore.
Tell me again why China would want to invade Taiwan. I asked a Chinese immigrant here in the USA that question, and she said it was “face,” a question of “saving face.” So China is holding a grudge that some of their citizens left China during Mao to live in freedom.
@@bennyxu970 Why? If anything it's gotten worse since then. China is the most heavily surveiled and sensored country in the world. It's a total police state.
Well, I'm pretty sure that taking control of the world's semiconductor supply and becoming a complete monopoly on them has a large part to do with it as well.
@@ericzimmerman9599 "the most heaviliy surveiled and sensored＂? Have you ever come to China to see it or compared it by yourself? or you just heard it from media or rumers? China is now open for tourists, 144 hours visa free transit.Check it by you own.
"China will get old before it gets rich", Mark Steyn famously said ten years ago: We are seeing that prediction play out, with Simon's chart showing an aging, declining population with a declining GDP.
Both japan and south korea have higher declining rate than China, especially Japan. Their economy should have been collapsing anytime now if based on your logic.
alot of the economic numbers are fake though. And the "growth" is hilariously because each year the government now tends to revise downward the numbers from two years prior, meaning that the previous year keeps getting a positive "growth rate" from this adjustment
9:18 I don't know much about microchip manufacturing, but I really doubt that China can just "capture the factories" and start pumping out chips. A microchip factory isn't something you just own and it produced chips, it's something you continually work to maintain. It constantly needs highly specialized new equipment, parts, software and expertise which is probably coming from companies all over the world. If China could provide all that stuff, then it would be making high-end microchips already. The factories are really just the physical manifestation of a whole network of high-tech stuff constantly flowing in and out of Taiwan, and an invasion and annexation would destroy that network. All that would be left are some factories that would quickly breakdown and become outdated. Remember when Russia stole all those foreign jetliners and how quickly they started breaking down because Russia couldn't take care of them? A high-end chip factory is a LOT more complicated than a jetliner.
Russia is quite comfortably winning a war… I don’t think they are too bothered about other people’s aeroplanes…The Chinese share the same genetics, I’m pretty sure they are capable of catching up in terms of the microchip manufacturing you know so little about…
@@andrewdopple6946 China uses those chips, just like everybody else, and most of their money comes from selling shit to those "adversaries" you mentioned, so hurting the economies of other wealthy nations just hurts China.
@@johneeeemarry34 yes almost two years into a three day "special military operation" Russian is doing fantastically in a conflict that has been notable for how well their equipment has been maintained.
China does things in extremes. I lived there for 5 years 2015-2020 and I watched it in real time. They do one thing at an extreme and then over compensate in the extreme when they GET to the point of breaking. This population crisis is a perfect example. They went from super conservative only 1 child to 2 children to no even promoting teen pregnancy.
This child policy is necessary and not extremism ~ Singapore used to have “Stop at 2” policy but we also need more babies; so we have “3 is better”-we incentivise $$$ for new citizens birth rates. U r shallow
Westerners really want to nitpick China about this policy. But for many decades, Western countries have their own policies of depopulation resulting in their current aging population. They criticize China for this but the population of the Asian nation ballooned to over 1.4 billion while theirs (Europe and the US) could not even reach that number. Though China now has an aging population, resulting in a change in policy, the Western countries resorted to inviting immigrants to become their 'modern slaves' as their governments are churning to abate the government decline, albeit at a snail pace, in coming up with effective policies.
A lot of pictures you used in this video are from Hong Kong. As a HongKonger myself, I'd suggest using pictures from the mainland China to represent China. Example: 1:46 is a scene from one of Hong Kong's famous night market, 6:07 is from the Central district of Hong Kong, 6:33 is Hong Kong International Airport
I am deeply sorry about what happened to Hong Kong. A fusion of the best of Chinese and Western cultures, it was one of the most amazing cities in the world. But mainland China has total control over it now. Hong Kong is China.
In WW2 the allies never attempted an invasion of Japanese-occupied Taiwan because they thought the cost to allied troops would be too high and success not guaranteed.
It is a word. Common as well. It's just that it has a redundant negation. There are more such terms in use like "inflammable" (meaning exactly the same as "flammable").
Capturing the TSMC fabrication facilities intact might not even be enough for China to keep producing. Constructing the machines for chip-production is nearly as complicated as making the chips themselves. There is a supply chain from the West for machine parts that would most certainly be cut.
China already SMIC and their own DUV and soon EUV machines to produce advanced chips, they don't need TSMC. What they need is for the west to rely on TSMC while not think about how losing TSMC via Chinese missile will shutdown the entire western tech industry,
Having the fabs alone isn't enough. They would also need their Taiwanese engineers to fully cooperate in order for them to be productive; it's way to easy for the fabs to deviate wildly out of spec even through simple neglect.
Also the chip designs come from American companies and engineers. If China could take the factories and the highly skilled workforce and engineers intact, they wouldn’t be getting any new designs from us.
china have smic, they not interest in tsmc, even if china got tsmc what use after 2-3 year it became old and useless. china have their own smic. so they never have to worry about not able to make cpu
Reminds me of why Operation Barbarossa happened as it did since the Winter War with Finland exposed to both the Soviets and the Germans how flawed the Red Army was at the time (due in a large part to Stalin purging the competent officers) and mustache guy wanted to knock them out permanently, while he still had fuel to spend and before the Soviets managed to finish its own preparations.
The lost lives in an amphibious assault would be enormous. There are not many places to land in numbers, the beaches are hard to approach, or so I've heard. A layered missile defense would wrack an absolute nightmare. I hope China sees that and won't even try.
I doubt they will actually try. An amphibious attack on this scale would take months of build up all being watched from space.. this would give Taiwan loads of time to mine the landing spots and huge areas offshore.. add this to the anti ship missiles and the other defences around the landing spots it is virtually impossible without China being willing to sacrifice at least 2 million soldiers thousands of boats.
I got a few minutes in and shut it down. If I wanted an economics lesson on China I would dial up a video of Jefferey Sachs or another actual famous economist.
@@miroslavdusin4325 china invade taiwan in 25 or 27, there is zero evidence of it, it purest western propaganda. the only red line china will attack is if taiwan declare independent's or allow usa military base there. there millions of taiwanese work/have family or business in china. logic.. if china want to invade taiwan why would they let taiwanese work/live and open business in china? anyone of these could be a spy china and taiwan have a freeze civil war, no shot fire for over 40yrs ..think about that
China is in a weird situation where a huge county can’t politically survive significant military casualties. The one china policy has made a situation were the military age males support not just their parents but also grandparent. Imagine sending an army of only children into the meat grinder that would be the Taiwan straits.
Japan and Korea aren’t exactly having a population boom…Nether is any European country, it’s just mass immigration, so those countries aren’t really even countries anymore, neither the natives or the unwelcome invaders are going to fight for these multi cultural shit holes..The only people on planet earth having loads of kids are in sub Saharan Africa, and they are in business with the China man… You need to get your facts straight before you end up in a weird situation or worse… a meat grinder!
I watched some interviews from Chinese citizen about their view about invading Taiwan. The youngsters are basically not care, the old people care more because they viewed Taiwan as their own territory. However, these old people also emphasized that Taiwan will come to China by their own will and not by war because China would not opted into murdering their brothers in Taiwan.
@@yangz1803 depends on who. I have met plenty of young Chinese who do not even think Taiwan belongs to China, and believes everyone should just focus on making more money.
Great video! I have a sibling who works in the diplomatic core and while they acknowledge the CCP and its leader as dangerous certainly, they also think its reputation and ego outstrips its capabilities by a fairly wide margin and that they aren't remotely as stable as they like to project. One of the big one's on this front is actually xi xi ping, the man has almost zero stable advisors. Its been noted how there will be a new "Rising star" and favorite every few months who will then vanish into obscurity. This is much the same approach to leadership that Stalin and plenty of other dictators take which doesn't work out well. It minimized collective action and critical feedback as well as insulates the leader from learning where problems are cos no one wants to be the fall guy. Then there's the fact huge swathes of what is called "China" currently are under semi perpetual military occupation, Tibet and the Uyghur population most of all. That both means that the military cant be pulled up from these areas to fight and in fact may need to reinforce those areas if they rebel. There's also the fact most of China's allies are not gonna be able to or be interested in helping. Russia is losing its own war, most of the nations in Africa they have in debt to them will have limited ability or desire to stick their necks out beyond speeches and North Korea doesn't actually 'like' China given its been trying to make them a lifeless obedient vassal since forever and keeps its aid extremely limited because they won't give up their nukes and submit. FInally, there's how the US responds to damages. The USA is... broadly speaking a prickly, prideful and paranoid beast. Its collective response to attacks or losses has pretty consistently been incredibly destructive and vengeful as opposed to losing willpower. I feel that reactions to any battle based losses will be less, "This is a waste we should call for peace" and more likely to be "Vengeance, raaaaaah!" NATO & the US are not doing enough for Ukraine but they are doing more than anyone expected and as noted, Taiwan is far more important strategically and unlike Russia won't bleed itself dry trying and failing to take Taiwan without intervention, making it far more necessary from a real-politic angle. To me, Xi Xi Ping's proclamations reflect a world leader surrounded by an echo chamber who has failed to register that his ambitions are likely doomed. Doesn't mean he won't launch nukes though, the man is notoriously thin skinned and not liable to take well to a defeat which while not inevitable still strikes me as likely.
You correct in some areas but incorrect in others. Russia is NOT losing in Ukraine. It is only a matter of time before Ukraine capitulate. Unfortunately, Ukraine has been led up the garden path by NATO and Biden. Secondly, NATO has already done too much in Ukraine. Putin is wrong to invade, but one of the major reasons he did is because NATO pushed ahead with Ukraine membership in 2021. He invaded in Feb 2022.
The PRC depends on exporting extraordinarily low quality widgets, and all its HI tech is just very sad knock offs, well when China start pissing off all their neighbors but especially the countries that dumped all their tech and money into your economy, the whole world is pulling it's support out of China. Since China has no free internal market, just state controlled currency, companies, and communist owned markets, as long as dumb ji peng is in charge there is no where to go but down hill for China. If Xi had just played nice another 20 years the takeover of Taiwan would have been perhaps a cake walk. I cannot believe that War Graphics does not take note of the lightyear leap forward in progress of defense (using Ukraine as the example) showing how an innovative society can defend themselves from a large clumsy soviet style wave attack. All I see is the bottom of the Strait of Taiwan being littered with crappy unwieldy Chinese water craft, air craft, and bottle rockets. I expect the prc air force will not fair much better than its rust bucket navy. I have yet to see an example of Chinese or Russian tech matching up in a battle to western hard ware since the early 60's. Instead of Russian meat attacks there will be PRC canned meat attacks. Drones cannot occupy Taiwan, but drones will destroy whatever the PRC is dumb enough to send to Taiwan.
@@Xezlec in the grander scheme of the proud Chinese history of 5000 years, those few hundred years are just a flash of time. Only parts of Taiwan was ruled by the Qing from 1683 to 1895, and the Republic of China for a few more years. But Taiwan has never been ruled by the PRC, and hence not a "reunion" with the PRC.
there isn't a country called "Taiwan". The country on that island is Republic of China. And your friend is right, ROC claims the west continent theirs in early days and this is exactly the concept the ROC government trying not to mention nowadays. As a mainlander, I highly appreciate your friend's effort in helping us unite under the one China concept, no matter it's ROC or PRC.
@@francis4225 The "government" illegally occupying the mainland is illegitimate. The government on the island of Formosa is the legitimate ruler of China.
@@francis4225I think you misunderstood the meaning behind the word “West Taiwan”. The word is used by younger generations of Taiwaneses as a meme to mock PRC because most of us despise PRC’s non-stop, aggressive shouting of “Unite the motherland by all means.” or “One China policy.” Another reason we use the word is to distance ourselves from the “China” identity, because most of us don’t identify ourselves as Chinese anymore. So no, his friend is not helping to promote uniting China, sorry for breaking your wishful thinking.
@@Joe_Ku888 lmao seems your education system is working really well. In the last century ROC was always holding the idea of reclaiming the mainland as it is the "righteous one" between two Chinas. I as a mainland shouldn't be the one educating you about ROC history but it seems you took in propaganda quite willingly. You really think I can't see It's you guys mocking? I just find it nothing but hilarious. I genuinely don't care what is your opinion towards PRC or the idea of China cuz in the end It's always down to a country's power. ROC lost seventy years ago and let's see if it will lose again in the future, which you nor i can do shit about.
@@francis4225 I see. That's quite unfortunate. I thought you really didn't understand the word, that's my fault for not getting the sarcasm in your words. But I do want to clarify that we do know the history of the stand of one true China ROC took in the last century. But for us younger generations, those are only history.Time has changed, so do our ideologies and thoughts on our own identities, we moved on. Yes, you are correct on the power discrepancy between ROC and PRC or the west, realistically speaking, there's nothing we Taiwanese could do but to hope for the best. But I really do hope you can take a more humane approach on this subject, instead of a utilitarian one. Perhaps this way you can understand our frustrations and aspirations. That way, there will be less unnecessary hostility and cruelty between us people.
Unlike 🇺🇦, Taiwan is a rich country, well armed, fully stocked, decades of preparation, well trained arm force and unlike flat land, they have ocean and mountains
China is not Russia, China own a dynamics supply chain and Taiwan is just a tiny island, and I doubt they can withstand carpet bombing from China. Hope China don't be as naive as Russia.
Some other reasons a war is unlikely: 1. Xi would have to give somebody more power than him in order to coordinate the military. An extremely risky move with little benefit when there is a lot of party inter-conflict ongoing. 2. Though an attack seems unlikely to succeed or be effective, there is a chance Taiwan could cause enough damage to the Three Gorges dam. This would be the equivalent of a nuclear attack in terms of destruction with the resulting floods. China would be going for full annexation, but that would eventually trigger this type of attack. 3. They need to be almost fully self-sufficient for the entire length of the war. Their land transportation routes aren't that developed to the middle east, leaving mostly just the ocean. But they have little power projection capability with their military, so they will quickly be blockaded. Plus whatever allies they would have in a conflict, they would not be able to supply China with goods and military supplies like a Western ally. 4. After any type of conflict they would be in a very vulnerable position security wise. With little military hardware left to defend, and will need to trust only nuclear weapons would be enough of a deterrent. While effective, a country like India could take some territory in the mountains, possibility of of Tibet. Which would only become more likely as water becomes a even more valuable resource to secure.
If I may; 1. Xi is likely to exercise great personal control over the military. He will want it to be his victory, not anyone else's. 2. The PLA is aware of this threat and would no doubt layer SAMs around the Three Gorges Dams. Also, they would be looking to destroy those systems in the first wave of the attack. 3. Yes. This is why they are stockpiling supplies. They would have to bet on receiving oil via train/pipe from Russia - but ultimately, in this scenario the war would only last 2-3 weeks. The PRC would certainly be planning on a sharp, short, extremely violent campaign. 4. If they win, China has a good chance of supplanting the US as the world superpower. It's a gamble. And the Chinese are well used to gambling. Someone like Xi has gambled repeatedly over his lifetime, as has won every time.
#2. Destroying a dam is a war crime for the extract reasons you laid out. It's unlikely that Taiwan, with USA backing, would attempt such a blatant warcrime like that and risk loosing US support.
China has a manufacturing capacity bigger than the US and EU combined. To think they will run out of munitions like the profit driven western MIC has supplying Ukraine is just silly.
Unfortunately the more desperate the situation in China becomes the more likely they are to lash out. China isn't as different from Russia as they'd like you to believe. They're just as likely to do something stupid at the expense of their male population and their country's future. Remember, whatever it takes to stay in power, regardless of the cost.
Outstanding documentary! Very thought provoking and well thought through! I enjoyed all of it immensely. Thanks for taking the time and effort to put this out there.
Don't think so. There is a book "Sunzi:The Art of War" which was written back to 2000 years ago. I read the book when I was young in school. The book clearly stated, invation or war is never the best approach to achieve a strategic target. There are always two better ways. I mean, that's a very famous and popular book in China.I read it and know it as a normal Chinese. and.... the China goverment leaders have much more information than me, and are much wiser than me. I believe they always know what should be the best way to take Taiwan back. But for sure, it is not anything about time out as this video says.
@@Ivanna_Jerkovhe most definitely doesn’t. Some of his Content was wildly inaccurate and assumed the Pentagon hadn’t considered some of the most rudimentary scenarios.
I would argue that time ran out for china the day russia invaded Ukraine which drove NATO to function as a true unified deterrent and Sweden and Finland filed to join NATO.
This is true, but china now knows that if it invades Taiwan, the West will unite, sanctions will be imposed, and china cut off and isolated. russia was perhaps the country most resilient to sanctions. It had deep reserves of cash and endless oil and gas reserves. china is perhaps the most vulnerable country to sanctions. Its economy is completely dependent upon the West buying its stuff. It has little in the way of cash compared to its population size. It is dependent upon other countries for its energy.@@Grey_Ocean2023
The supply chain for top-end semi-conductor manufacturing extends beyond Taiwan, so even if China manages to capture the chip factories intact (very unlikely), there remain challenges in maintaining processes under sanctions. Replicating the underlying technology might take decades, or be impossible in light of all of China’s other economic problems. Their best path forward probably involves massive political reform that encourages constructive participation of the next generation. Without evolving a political culture based on principle instead of graft, transparency instead of secrecy, an independent and responsive judiciary, the abandonment of personality cults, and a careful rebuilding of international relations, a further deterioration of all things economic looks bound to continue. One can only hope that the current situation serves as a learning opportunity, that an informed reflection on the infamous record of CCP failures, including the greatest famine in history, can help the Chinese people make better decisions going forward. Failure knows no bounds, but an honest reckoning may help avert further disaster.
China already have their own laser-tin EUV light source, EUV optics and photogel, we're talking month before first machine. And then there's China's SSMB capable of scaling to Blue-X. Oh China have no need to take TSMC, what China need is for the west to continue to rely on TSMC for everything, so when it's blown up China wins by default. The best path forward for the west is to smoke less copium and adopt a more realistic understanding of their place under Pax-Sinica. (and save up for reparations) Unfortunately it looks like the delusion goes too deep to be corrected, which in all likelihood means another 1000 year of dark ages.
@@Dorae-ur-mom Hate is a complete waste of time and energy, but I am very wary of its political system and Xi’s leadership. I recommend looking into the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961, which by some estimates killed tens of millions. The Great Leap Forward, while rapidly bringing about industrialization, came at an incredible cost. I also strongly support Taiwan’s independence, which is not mutually exclusive with also hoping that China finds stability and sustainable prosperity. Better leveraging the potential of China’s people can help with mitigating the risk of its socio-economic problems. From the Sampoong department store and the Narrows Bridge collapses, to the Fukushima and Bhopal industrial disasters, post-mortems are critical for identifying the contributing factors leading to failure so that such events do not become systemic.
Except that even if China were to takeover Taiwan they wouldn't be able to use the chip making tech. They wouldn't have the supplies, nor the technical expertise, and not even the ability to maintain it, let alone any of the other parts, like chip design. Taiwan has never been about the chips (for China).
That gets kinda complex. It absolutely would not work out the way China would think. They would absolutely lose technical expertise, but not as much as you think. And many of the materials come from countries that China has spent a long time giving low-cost loans and gifts that would suddenly need bigger "payments." However, a lot of the equipment does come from Europe and that pipeline would shut down. And that doesn't even get into what other powers like India, which has its own rivalry with China, would do in that situation. But you're also right it's never been only about economics. No matter the cause, though, if they ever did, it would be very bloody, very costly and would ripple across the planet. There would be absolutely no winners.
True, it's more about dickwaving for China. China was the sick man of Asia for generations due to Western imperialism and colonialism, and will do anything to prevent that from happening again. However, in their misguided attempt to be the big strong man of Asia, the CCP is pissing off all of their neighbors and driving them into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam and their Pacific allies. See the Philippines as a case in point.
@@Blackfatrat yeah. which would add to the complexity. That would also devastate the global economy. It took Taiwan 40 years to build that industry. If it happens, we don't know what the aftereffects will be, or how much survives.
It never ceases to amaze me how one of the world’s most complex geopolitical situations is reduced to such simplistic prognostication by so many commenters here. For those who think they are qualified to know how this would play out, I suggest trying to predict who might win the Super Bowl 5 years from now. It would be a lot simpler, and you’d have a higher chance of success.
The American journalist William L. Shirer, one of Hitler’s earliest critics, recalled in his memoir many years later that he had “left the Reichstag that evening convinced that Hitler, despite all my reservations about him, really wanted peace and had made the West, at least, a serious offer.” China's latest high profile political meetings is reminiscent of when Germany tried to convince the world all it wanted was peace while it quietly rearmed itself. German glider clubs for training pilots is no different than the cruisers China as painted up as coast guard vessels. At some point it will become undeniable, and we will enter a phase of appeasement, in hopes of avoiding what was long planned. Great video, the points are bang on.
Western countries recognized this very early and compensated with immigration. China hates the idea of immigration, basically doesn't allow it, expect for rare and exceptional cases, and it's too late to fix the problem even if they started letting a million immigrants a year join their society.
Almost like our culture has made a huge mistake by discouraging the traditional family unit. The more conservative people are, the higher their average reproductive rate is.
Except the country which matters the most: the USA, continues to see significant population growth due to migration. China (like Japan) does not enjoy that privilege when they see negative migration flows.
The biggest lesson I've taken from the Russo-Ukraine war is this: Just because it's a stupid idea doesn't mean they won't do it. Even in January of 2022 it was glaringly obvious that even a successful invasion of Ukraine would still leave Russia in a weaker position, as it would seriously undermine Russian global influence and damage European trade relations. Which is why a lot of very smart people were convinced that they weren't going to do it. I have no doubt that an invasion of Taiwan would do immense damage to the Chinese economy, the stability of the Chinese regime, and to Chinese global influence. But that doesn't mean they won't do it. It isn't a matter of what China actually has to gain or lose. But what Xi Jinping thinks China has to gain or lose from an invasion. Humans are not perfectly rational actors with perfect knowledge of what is and isn't in their best interest. They are partially rational actors, with imperfect decision making processes and imperfect knowledge of what is in their best interests.
It is my understanding that the chicoms first carrier was a converted Ukrainian casino ship. The second chicoms carrier is a copy of the first. I don’t see them train too often.
Should the US military make provision for myself to do so, I most certainly would. Even though I can’t be a Frontline guy, at age 65 with a replacement knee and hip, fully functional and as good as new, by the way, I am extremely resourceful in building and transporting materials necessary to conduct business on this kind of scale. Alas, as long as there is a Democrat party, they will fiercely guard Sociofasciocommunism, wherever it exists. And make no mistake aside from some pseudo intellectual psychobabble, They are all the same thing
@@rogerpenske2411yes because those Democrats never did anything to provoke China like say pelosi visiting Taiwan specifically after China told her not to? Or the Biden administration passing the chip acts and sanctioning their access to advanced tech as mentioned in the video. They even got butthurt and moved their navy around to posture but aight gramps, thankfully you're ignorance is temporary and won't stop you from helping in the potential war effort.
Cheers mate! Just afraid China has more 'meat' to send into any grinder than we do... and the willingness to process a lot of meat in order to meet its objectives. Commies think nothing of human life... that is terrifying.
@@rogerpenske2411dude the only reason we provided clear support for Ukraine was ‘cuz of Biden. if a certain Cheeto Mussolini were in office he’d have tried to block aid like he’d been trying pre-invasion.
No. Once the US gets semiconductor self sufficiency, China can have Taiwan. According to literally everyone, China is a declining power, so there's no reason to fear them getting their hands on Taiwan, because all the valuable tech would be in the US.
@@J_X999The United States _will_ go to war to defend democracy in Taiwan, and to prevent Chinese expansion in South Asia. Microchips have little to do with it...the US is a tech juggernaut and could easily jump that hurtle if they haven't already.
@@dpelpal Oh boy are you misinformed. You were the sort of person to talk about how "American troops will march their asses into Ukraine if Russia invades." Where do I even start with this? I can educate you on the state of technology between the Taiwanese, China and the US. Or I can educate you on why the United States isn't bothered about Taiwan, but only the chips. Your choice!
You are very delusional if you think the U.S. has the political capital to defend Taiwan. At the very most they will get the Ukraine treatment for a couple of years until the public moves on.
I don't know if I'd agree with the suggestion that the US has really faced a massive remotely-near-peer military in modern era. At last not that anyone in their ranks or command still alive have experience from. They've been surprisingly open about how much they're learning from the Russia-Ukraine war, and how so much of their competence and especially combat experience among its ranks is far more geared towards combating insurgency and guerilla warfare operators. With a sprinkle of aging-out veterans having fought well equipped but much (!!) smaller adversaries. To the spirit of the claim, that probably hasn't really happened since WW2.
Iraq wasn’t weak in 1991. In 2003, I’d agree that the Iraqis were pretty weak. But 1991 Iraq was quite strong. The veterans of that conflict are probably almost gone with only older officers knowing about it. But I disagree that WW2 was the last time the USA fought a strong opponent.
fighting a guerilla war against a loosely banded group that does not wear uniforms and defend well defined front lines is harder than fighting an conventional military which the US military has always been best trained for sense before the founding of the nation. The US has been fighting unconventional wars sense Vietnam with the exception of the 1st Iraq war and we know how that went. China does not want to draw a line in the sand and fight the USA
so it gonna be slugfest even vietnam cant be compared to and like russia is gambling on that prospect, dictators may try their luck. something might happen elsewhere though, as distraction is 101 in warfare.
tbh the only countries who’ve fought in a modern, large-scale conventional war are Ukraine and Russia. from my understanding tho the US is still the best when it comes to combined arms maneuvers, mostly due to the prohibitive cost of fielding and operating so much hardware for drills. the only branch I’d be concerned about experience would be the navy (especially given Taiwan’s geography), but compared to the Russian navy they seem to be much more responsive even outside of wartime.
Italys just called time on the Belt n Road project. India bars China's path to the Arabian sea and too much cash has been blown on doomed follies across SE Asia. Then there's North Korea. Nuff said.
how about right now？意大利向我们申请重新加入项目，我们在斯里兰卡，马尔代夫有了军事基地，伊朗，巴基斯坦是我们的朋友，印度和东南亚国家是中立态度，害怕战争，我们支持中东国家对抗以色列，我们会惩罚菲律宾。美国很快会参加欧洲和中东的战争，我只能告诉你，美国政府是贪婪，懒惰，喜欢战争，我们会知道谁是更聪明的人
Chinese here. Just liked to share some thoughts: 1. The CCP isn’t likely to stop claiming the island because that is a very important factor for the party’s own legitimacy. 2. Assault isn’t the only way to pressure the island. 3. At the moment, what’s more important than owning Taiwan is China’s influences on the south east Asia. If China wins over that part of the planet, Taiwan will be just a collateral gain.
The idea that just snatching Taiwan is enough to achieve microchip dominance is wrong. The tools to make the chips come from Europe, China would still need them. It would increase their leverage, not give them total dominance, and yeah, it's borderline absurd to think TSMC would just let them take the equipment.
@@BlackfatratThe US initiates a humanitarian evacuation of Taiwan (with the TSMC techs at the front if the line). US fighters and warships and providing security for the evacuation flights and ships. If China attacks US forces, then.....
@@will-213 They're certainly trying, but the supply chain is tough to replicate and they are far behind currently. Time will tell of course, the thing about tech is that things can change radically and a new set of winners and losers bear out. Chinese government must hope for this as things stand.
1 major reason : Chinas population is nose diving Last year in 2022, it lost 800,000 + people This year, may be more? A shrinking population means much less geopolitical power.
@@Janny890while that is correct Taiwan would likely recive (meaningful) aid and perhaps even full on intervention in its favor, i cant seen the Russians providing similar to the Chinese
Peter Zeihen has a similar theory for Russia's invasion of Ukraine: this was Russia's last best chance before the Russian population plunged and it would be clearly impossible. According to the theory, it was a massive gamble in hopes of succeeding (in 3 days), not losing too many men in the process, and adding Ukraine's population to Russia's own. If the theory is true, Putin certainly didn't win that gamble.
@@lajoyalobos2009 Peter Zeihan is a broken clock. He is right every now and then. Personally, I think he's an idiot. But he's an idiot that KNOWS how to deliver a presentation, and that's why I'm subscribed 😂
Their diplomatic failure with philippines made their invasion to taiwan more impossible, even if philippines said "yeah.. dw, we wont be participating with whatever us will be doing" they will still gonna do it just because of sheer paranoia of them getting attack as well.. China has a golden opportunity several years ago with duterte but they taken it for granted
Most if not all of the TSMC factories have self destruct capabilities from what I hear. If anyone has a source let me know. I wouldn't put it past them.
I mean with some processes in semi conductor manufacturing using pyrophoric (combusts in the presence of air) chemicals not to mention many of the abatements that break down hazardous byproducts use natural gas as a fuel source, I could imagine it wouldn’t exactly be hard to disable certain safety systems and play with the flow of certain gasses to literally turn everything within a mile radius of the factory into a chemically toxic wasteland
I've heard that TSMC factories are so sensitive, a mistake in clean room procedures would permanently reduce capacity. I don't see it at all difficult to scorch the factories if it looks like China might occupy them.
Theoretically, they can just pull a Pearl Harbor and mass Missile strike the Pacific fleet at the very start of the war, damaging and delaying the fleets time to deploy
Difficult to hide an invasion force from satallites and the chances are 2 U.S subs are never far away from the north and south of the island any invasion force would meet with their missiles first
Is the fleet always 100% ready? It most likely isnt, the fleet might be capable and drilled but moving it to a high readiness could be tricky. Read readiness as having all the assigned escorts present, all wings completely stocked, full personnel for the air wings, land based assets available and ready, fleet is fueled and stocked for deployment
I'd love to see a video on the likelihood of China invading Australia. Many Australians are adamant that this is what China want to do, with certain media organisations playing into this fear. For me, it doesn't seem to make logical sense. So I'd love to see a Warographics breakdown of the likelihood. Thanks
As an Australian who works with many other Australians, I’ve never heard anyone make this claim. I suggest you read the defence white paper if you are interested in this issue.
I'm from new zealand and china invading Australia will not happen in our time, china just doesn't have the capacity to make that kind of move. For one many countries will side with Australia and blockades on china will be implemented and held and therefore china will need its navy to defend its ability to import its coal and pols.... I could explain more in detail but an invasion of Australia from China is incredibly unlikely.
Honestly some days i hope that the chinese government will grow up .. stop obsessing over stuff from the end of the civil war & stop caring about Taiwan & maybe concentrate on more important domestic issues that are troubling it.
I don’t think it can. Part of China’s problem is that so many things are completely mixed with the party. Wanting to change these things from the top down is like saying there is something wrong with the top itself which the will never do. And if people at the bottom or in the mid level try to make change even to low level stuff then top level will consider that an attack to the top. A huge part of the Chinese problem is that so many things are completely tied to the party. And therefore represent them. Wanting to change those is like saying you want to change the party. And the party is a dictatorship so it will not negotiate. It’s a sad thing and only an uprising or revolution can change things.
Taiwan is not a domestic issue. Its a world wide issue. China may think otherwise, but will quickly find out that reality doesn't agree with their assumptions too much.
@@StCreed tell me how TAIWAN, is a concern for me while I'm living on another Continent? -i would like to remind you that, American perspective is not whole world's perspective.
One more factor to consider for why China both wouldn't and would want to invade Taiwan is the fact that the Three Gorges Dam is within the strike range of Taiwanese long range cruise missiles. In fact the Taiwanese government has made it no secret that they would consider the dam a possible in the event of an invasion by mainland China, calling it their equivalent of nuclear deterrence. If the dam suffered a catastrophic collapse, it would flood the entire Yangtze River basin and could drown up to 400 million people as well as devastate miles of China's most fertile farmland. It's horrifying to think about, but it's still a factor that needs to be considered. Now on the one hand, China would be insane to not at least take into consideration that this is probably not an empty threat. Desperate people when backed into a corner may do desperate things. But on the other hand, you have to imagine the government in Beijing absolutely rankles at the idea that Taiwan is essentially holding a loaded gun to their head. I personally would say Taiwain's not unprovoked to do so, but we know how the government in Beijing has treated threats to its authority in the past so this can't be sitting well with them. But until they can safely neutralize Taiwan's long range missiles, that gun is still locked and loaded. So that would be yet another consideration to China invading Taiwan: they'd need to find a way to either neutralize or defend against Taiwan's Hsiung Feng IIE missiles, they would need to reach a point where they would believe the loss of the Yangtze River basin was worth it, or they'd have to genuinely believe that Taiwan would not pull the trigger even when faced with invasion
@@starfucks5327 *shrug* You say it's "ridiculous," but look up the range of the Hsiung Feng IIE and then look up the distance between Taiwan and the Three Gorges Dam.
@@hfar_in_the_sky The top of the three Gorges Dam is 40 meters thick and the bottom is 115 meters thick. Conventional missiles cannot destroy this reinforced concrete building and must use nuclear bombs. Second, it takes 1200 kilometers to launch missiles from Taiwan to the three Gorges Dam, during which multiple layers of air defense interceptors can shoot down these missiles. Most importantly, when in a state of war, the reservoir of the three Gorges Dam will be discharged ahead of time, and even if the dam is destroyed, a large number of cities will not be flooded.
@@miaorenfeng1 Except studies have found that for dams that contain that much water, all you would need is to crack the lower portion of the dam. The intense water pressure does the rest. As for anti-missile defense, modern conflicts have shown that even the most perfect missile defense system does not always shoot down every single missile. The failure of Israel’s Iron Dome during the recent events threw that into sharp focus. Not to mention how Ukraine has been employing some of the most advanced anti-missile systems Europe has to offer and while they’ve shot down most of the cruise missiles fired at them in recent months, they don’t get all of them. And all it would take for the Three Gorges Dam is one well aimed strike and physics does the rest. And keep in mind that Taiwan’s continued focus over the years with their cruise missiles have been to refine their accuracy and their fire power. Just something to think about. You do bring up a good point about draining the reservoir during wartime though. That certainly would be the smart thing to do in the event of an invasion of Taiwan to mitigate the threat to all land along the Yangtze. Although I think if Taiwan managed to prolong the invasion in any way, having mainland China drain the Three Gorges Reservoir would play to their advantage. Keep in mind that the Three Gorges Dam provides electricity for nearly 5.4 million households and if the reservoir is drained then most to all of that electricity goes away. And that’s not even getting into how the reservoir provides tremendous amounts of water for agriculture and even basic drinking water. The strain on China’s utility infrastructure would be massive. And any prolonged war where the reservoir had to be drained would start to become unpopular with millions of people who aren’t getting electricity and are having difficulty getting water for their crops and to even drink. Thus an added risk factor to consider if invading Taiwan. If you invade and keep the reservoir full, then you risk it being a target for missile strikes, whereupon you’re gambling 400 million lives and billions of yuans worth of your county’s industry and agriculture that your dam is strong enough and your missile defense strong enough not to fail. And if you drain the reservoir, you need to be 100% certain you can indeed finish the invasion quickly or else you’re going to have widespread riots back home and a general collapse of an entire region’s infrastructure. Just factors to consider
China's real estate situation is worth a video on its own. Several other channels have explored it, but it would always be interesting to get another take.
The sewer systems on russias ships don't even work. But hey, 70% of the country doesn't have indoor plumbing so I guess their sailors feel right at home 😂😂😂
In 2014 they had the second largest navy by tonnage (845,739 after the US’ 3,415,893), and China has since surpassed them, so it wouldn’t have been a stretch to call them the 3rd most powerful Things have changed since Russia decided to shoot itself in the foot, but hey
"Hey, soon all these factors will start changing in a worse direction for us to be able to invade Taiwan, so what should we do? Try to work at reversing those factors? Or go to war which immediately causes all those factors to get exponentially worse?" This is why invading Taiwan doesn't make any sense to me, but dictators rarely ever make sensible decisions...
As Taiwanese, in additional information, I can say that there are less than 20 geographical points that are suitable for invasion in certain seasons. But those points are not designed for massive landing operations, imagine that a place maybe 5 to 10 times minor than Normandy if you were a western person. And our defense administration prepared for the invasion based on those hot zone. But I hope there’ll be no war at all cost.
@@TexanIndependence The point of this video, is demographic issues take a few generation to reverse, unless you solve it with immigration. It's not like turning on a light because you willed it.
@@kurtwinslow2670 South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany have worse demographics than China. Only 11.55 percent of Japan’s population is age 14 or younger while China’s is 17.5%. Most developed countries have low birth rates because women are going to school, get married later and when they have children it’s only one or two kids.
Taiwan has been preparing for the communist invasion since the time the refugees landed in Taiwan 1950's. The KMT generalissimo's first order was to fortify Taiwan's defenses. The underground tunnels are everywhere as safety against air raids or now missile bombings. Fighter jets are also parked under ground. For sure, modern weapons are more sophisticated to repel the invasion. It is illogical for China to go ahead with the invasion knowing the cost of lives and destruction and the consequence of war which will destroy China itself.
@@TexanIndependence which China can reverse, it is a dictatorship after all🤣Being able to explain everything in one or two tags, I envy you for your carelessness
@@kurtwinslow2670immigration is the worse thing to solve fertility problem as we can see in western europe...
Countries need to focus on supporting families.
For example i expect second child. I cant think of having third with my wife not because only of economic reasons, but also working whole day and having very low time to actually spend with kids is bad.
Ofc iam no economist so i have no idea how to achieve that.
But importing different culture, is a recepy for future civil unrest and possible civil war.
Lived in Holland for 12 years, its kind of a sh** show there now sadly..
Something pretty war-like that you missed: Taiwan has always been considered an absolute nightmare to invade. The waters are shallow between China and Taiwan, limiting troop transport sizes. That results in more of a logistical nightmare on an already difficult maneuver that China (as you said) hasn't been proven capable of doing well.
Amphibious assaults are already plenty difficult to do. The rest of the fighting would come in two, equally unsavory flavors: urban warfare or mountain warfare.
A stout, porcupine defense from Taiwan would make this potential invasion a bloodbath. China's likely inexperience with any of these elements would likely make the these FAR worse.
The depth of the Taiwan Strait is not that shallow; about 60 meters deep or more. It is too shallow for submarines to safely operate in but ships will do fine.
D Day showed that landing troops was relatively easy. Soon after they had to land war machinery and auxiliary supplies, which requires the need to build temporary harbors.
@@floxy20 That only worked so well because of deception operations. I don't think that will work for an island. Look into it, it could have gone so wrong.
Yeah, an amphibious invasion is the most complex and difficult military operation there is, and this would be _by far_ the largest since the D Day landings in WW2. D Day took years of planning and preparation with a massive build up, and years of softening up the German defences during war time. I don't think China's military is currently prepared for such a large amphibious operation, and getting ready would require a mega project scale investment and years of work. China also won't be able to spend years wearing down Taiwan before the invasion. They'll need to launch the invasion force in the first few days of the war while Taiwan's military is still at full strength. A national scale amphibious invasion against an advanced military on day 1 of war has never been done before. It may not even be possible.
@TonboIV Taiwan's air force has already been severely worn down by years of aerial harassment. Taiwanese land units are antiquated, ill trained and still thinking in the 1970s. Its navy is about in the same shape.
What I am impressed about is that China managed to have a housing bubble and shortage at the same time
Shortage? Housing bubble was 'investment' not to live in
The Chinese housing bubble has been famous for having buildings with nothing inside them to actually house residents. This even extends to Cities,
Because in China the buyer first puts down a high down payment 30-50% and then the developer builds it. When completed the buyer obtains a mortgage for the remainder. Developers though in a hyped economy are always borrowing creating that bubble. The bubble bursts when demand slows. Another point not made is the debt problem. The federal government runs a relatively low ratio,75% but the state governments run a very high debt ratio. In the US combined federal and state runs $36.5T on $27T gdp,135%. China's combined debt is over $40T on $18T gdp,210%. Throw in the monkey wrench of deflation, stock and housing bubble and massive debt and it won't end well.
Yeah... i think they were able to enforce very high 'minimum prices' (even on empty / excess houses) up unitl the CCP decided to restrain lending to the construction industry, at which time, the buble burst.
lol - Australia achieved this too!
Very astute analysis. I also believe the fear of failure is the real reason China has stayed it's hand. Ukraine giving Russia a whole load of what-for has been a gift to the whole world.
Ukraine has been destroyed, millions dead, 25% of its land confiscated. Ukraine has debts it can never repay. Russia is growing in influence and financially. I have no idea what you are talking about. If anything, the Ukraine situation has shown the weakness of the West.
Even Russian puppet rulers are calling it a bloody stalemate that needs a ceasefire. The fact a relatively tiny country militarily is still holding out is astounding.
@@bassmanjr100 what fucking planet do you live on? Millions dead? Where? You Russian 🤡
@bassmanjr100 wrong it is only 17 percent not 25 percent. And Russia is not growing in any way either financially or in influence. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Just since bot probably @@pigbearcub
There is another issue; China is extremely dependent on foreign foodstuffs, fertilizers and farm equipment in order to feed itself. By far, the vast majority of these goods go through the Strait of Malacca. Moreover, something along the lines of 70% of the petroleum products it needs to keep the power on come through that same sea lane. To say that the country is vulnerable to a blockade really doesn't even begin to touch the issue.
Plus to more straits up north, plus what they can conjure up with Russia even further up north for easier access to the ocean.
A blockade is not one-sided anyways.
This is why China has spent billions to try and get alternate import routes set up through Pakistan and Myanmar, plus borrowing naval bases closer to the Persian gulf so its brown water navy has a chance of covering the sea routes. A move that India counters by setting up its own set of alliances to keep those bases in check.
To say China is "vulnerable to blockade" almost misleads: it's addicted to foreign investment funds which are starting to dry up. No active blockade needed.
@@2005jes2005 For China, a blockade is one-sided. In a war, their situation is even worse than Ukraine's. The entire sea that China relies on for its maritime access is hemmed in on all sides by enemy nations. And no, Russia does not provide a solution.
Nevermind that one of the most important supply lines between the two countries was just blown up; the port of Vladivostok is already working at over 100% capacity as it is.
There's also the simple issue of range; The US has a blue water navy, and China doesn't. For more than 90% of the Chinese fleet, 1k km is the maximum range, and that assumes going slowly in a straight line and not trying to come back. China simply doesn't have any way to project the sort of power needed to enforce a blockade on other nations.
Whereas, for the US, simply sinking a ship in a couple strategic spots will make the most important waterways for China literally impassible, and the simple threat of nuclear submarines will do the rest.
@@Psieye You're not wrong, but a blockade or the lack of one is the difference between an Ethiopian style famine or a slow but at least theoretically controllable descent.
@@2005jes2005ah yes, they can get help accessing the sea from Russia, a country well known for always having great access to the sea and never encountering any issues with that during war time 🤦
The timeline for when invading Taiwan is/was a good idea: Never. It's always been a bad idea.
Uggh simon went full neocon and spewed a pack of lies. AFU was a massive army, far bigger than the SMO army sent to force them to peace(which they did!) , AFU was built , trained and supplied by 451!!! nations!
And guess what, Russia won, defeated the "neocons"
Simon, stop spreading lies
Never a great idea agreed, it was probably an acceptable idea though back in the 40s when the receipt first fled to Taiwan... Once they were given time to properly set up defenses it made considerably less sense
@@jaykoernerthat's not correct either. When the nationalists lost the civil war and retreated to Taiwan, they had an air force and navy, the communists did not. The communists were never able to invade Taiwan. Not then, and still not now.
Though the communists can probably pull off a blockade now
Yeah but when have communists ever had a good idea?
@@jaykoerner When you said 40s, I was expecting a reference to when Imperial Japan was occupying the island in WW2. USA decided that naval invasion wasn't worth the cost. Against 30k starving occupiers.
One of the things that I don't see often in these discussion of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan is that the vast majority of any invasion force will consist of single only child men thanks to the One Child Policy. The lost of several thousand of these men would be a social disaster as it would mean the end of several thousand family lines in a country where family lineage is greatly revered.
Good point, but at the same time, look at previous wars China fought and the casualties they endured. Vs Japan, lost upwards of 20 million people. Civil War, right around that time, around 10 million. Taiping Rebellion, upwards of 30 million.
China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent. Whereas we haven't lost ANY in Ukraine, and support is breaking. Lost hardly 5k in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lost interest. We could very easily wipe out 2 million Chinese troops, but have 20 casualties of our own, and decide we should pull out, and China win. Are the American people ready to commit to a war with China? Cuz as it is, I see a lot of people who would rather shop with Temu than fight a war over Taiwan.
I recall reading that many of the young men in China are like "little emperors" who don't really want to get their hands dirty or bloody.
@@shaunholt Yes, they lost millions. But those losses occurred when families often had six, eight or more children.
That why China is spending billions on AI and robotics. They wouldn’t invade Taiwan with soldiers but instead with drones and missiles
@@shaunholt "China is used to suffering casualties on a scale we cannot comprehend, and not relent" Not modern generations. The last 3 generations of Chinese don't know war at all.
The Chinese military is really, really good at standing and marching in very straight lines. Their ability to fight is less known.
So what? Thanks to its hypersonic missiles, no invasion force will get within 2000 kilometers of the place.
I read that they tried to invade Vietnam in the late ‘70s and got whooped by the NVA (or I guess it’s just the VA at that point). Edit: it was mentioned in the video, hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
And they are known as a huge kleptocracy, just like Russia. Their readiness is probably compromised by that corruption. Some estimate that one of the secretly richest billionaires in the world is a chinese general. I don't know if he and his cohorts got cracked down on though. I heard that Xi was cleaning house.
You must have skipped history course often... Korea War and Sino India war? Selective history is bad for your brain... I forget, you might be a bot. :)
@@IronChef60 Yes and mighty US invade Vietnam and successful defeat NVA, is it? LOL... What u mean US military is paper tiger, right? 🤣
One particular problem for China is that particularly among the Han, children are concentrated as single children. Drafting soldiers to send to war will be much harder when you are drafting the only child from an entire family. If people were having 3 or 4 children per couple, then they would only need of several siblings, which would make potential losses more tolerable.
@@TexanIndependence It will take longer than 10 years for them to get where they need to go. Even if they force people to have babies at gunpoint, it will be a long time before this "crop" of soldiers is ready for harvest. Time they may not have. A lot can happen in 18 years. They are making poorly thought-out superficial changes, but not addressing the real problems facing young adults. Banning boy bands and making barren women suffer is NOT going to turn this around. They've been digging this hole for decades and can't just brute force their way out. Some things can't just be waved into existence.
@TexanIndependence haha dumb Texan. You can't force people to have kids. The single key to having a higher fertility rate is to stop educating females. Once females are educated ánd integrated into the general workforce they simply seize having lots of kids.
@@TexanIndependence That was mentioned among many factors and certainly wasn't highlighted as the major one.
@TexanIndependence literal CCP copium, you can't just fix the massive aging population problem in just 10-15 years😂 assuming they have any success at all implementing those changes with all the other social/economic issues plaguing the country
@texanindependence It's fairly obvious you have no real idea about life in China. The idea that feminism is to blame for this is just silly. My mother in law was running the schools in a city of over 1 mln people in 1955. And she wasn't a real exception. But children are unaffordable - you literally need an extra income per child in order to be able to afford the education and medical costs.
China could increase the population, but not by trying to force women out of "modern feminism", whatever you think it means.
Thank you for your well presented and interesting talk.
Having worked in the semiconductor industry for a long time, just taking over a factory without the brains to run it means almost nothing...maybe a few days of production.
china already able to make their own chip, in a few yr tsmc mean nothing
@@jetli740 With global food supplies constricted because of the wars, China may not last 2024. And 2025 is likely worse.
@@msimon6808Global food supplies are no where near bad, infact we waste 1.3billion tons of food a year.
@@jetli740 China are still 2 or 3 generations behind Taiwan and even the US
@@msimon6808 food is not a problem
china have 3-5yrs food reserve, their top trading partner with over 150 country, also russia is a huge grain supplier right at china back yard.
your need to change your china expert
Very interesting video. What I think that is not mentioned but quite relevant is that an economic turndown is often a trigger for dictators to start a war.
And with a huge surplus of males that aren't getting any younger....🤷🏼♂️
I was thinking the same actually, if things go bad at home, find an external opponent...
@@Rossco139 The flip side of that is that most parents have only one child to take care of them in old age (a big deal in Chinese culture - so I've read). This means that even a small number of casualties is politically unacceptable.
unfortunately, sad but true
Russia and Venezuela are already in the chat room. :/
I didn’t think Russia would invade Ukraine so I have no idea wether China will attack Taiwan. 🤔
I think what will happen is China will actually go after Russia, Vladivostok used to be Chinese back in the day and China already posted a lot of things on social media that they want it back
A Russian governor I think posted something celebrating the anniversary of Vladivostok and China was very quick to comment that they shouldn't be celebrating the anniversary as it was once their own territory
You didn't know? 😂😂😂 You must not follow much news. Nato did many things following up that provoked Putin into war. I feel for Ukraine and Ukrainian people but they kinda have nato to thank for that.
@@НААТ
Ukrainan people through Euromaidan showed Russia and Putin that Ukraine didn't want to stay in Russia's leash anymore. Ukraine wanted to be an EUROPEAN country. That is something Kremlin couldn't allow. Nato had nothing to do with that. Bs narrative .
@@НААТ Russia wanted Ukraine back, one way or another. Sure you can blame NATO, but it was going to happen regardless.
China does not want to attack Taiwan, and the United States provokes a war in Taiwan to slow China's development. But China will avoid this war.
Thanks!
As Karuna mentioned below, China imports 80% of it's energy and 50% of its food. They are incredibly vulnerable to anything drawn out beyond 1 month.
And it wouldn't even take active interdiction of this shipping. The shipping companies' insurance companies would just say 'nope, not going there'.
Depends on who you depend.
Russia is under heavy sanctions yet is lasting way longer than what the american warhawks were forseeing...
China is a major partner for many countries, including their energy/food suppliers.
They even bought farms in africa, own most of the fishing boats etc..
They ll be even harder to cut off than russia was.
@@etienne8110 No, they won't, because it's not a political barrier, it's a geographical one. Russia is not as constricted to a single international shipping lane for the majority of their energy needs. If the Strait of Malacca closes to Chinese shipping traffic, it's over. There is no other path for the amount of resources China needs. Russia has no equivalent.
@@rednyte6155 you don t need 100% of usual to keep running.
If anything, russia is the living proof of that, not even mentionning iran, venezuela or cuba.
They just need enough passing through russia to hold for a couple months.
Anylonger would also be a big hurt to both oil producers and europeans countries.
China is a major economy (n 1, some would argue), you can t just blockade it forever...
China has been hoarding food and fuel for a long time now. They definitely have plans but the world is moving to intercept.
@@etienne8110bro a nation at war absolutely cannot stand having moat of their population starving. Take a history lesson.
With semiconductors being so important for just about everything, it is in world's best interest to protect Taiwan as much as possible.
it's moved to the States and China has its own advanced semiconductor industry now, so not that many people cares.
Or other countries would think it's in their best interests to kidnap the scientists working in those labs or steal the schematics on making semiconductors for their own benefit than risk going to war for another. We humans are selfish beings after all
@@whz1991not really tbh. China is still 2 to 3 generations behind in semiconductor tech and the new Us fabs for TsMc won’t have the most advanced chips.
what if china took taiwans edge over the semiconductor manufacturing?
@@SrCoxas as long as ASML and western tech companies support the patented tech that goes into fabs(remember even China mostly relies on these to do the actual production) I don’t see them getting anywhere near as competitive as Taiwan considering that even their labor advantage is now mostly gone.
The fabrication process of a CPU ("chip") is painstaking and arduous. To give a general idea, the room it is fabricated in must be cleaner and more sterile than an operating theater. You have to be in full gear, mask, suit, everything. A CPU can take up to 3 months to go from base material to CPU. So even an explosion near one of these facilities renders it threatened or inoperable.
USA: I have the high ground.
China: you underestimate my power
USA: don’t do it.
China: ……
China : Now, you had tasted my power, kneel.
USA : .....
@@DreamyCheshire-up9rf Wow, you totally killed that star wars joke. nice going.
@@DreamyCheshire-up9rf these chinese are so dumb lol
@@brockb4452 He's chinese, they are probably prohibited from seeing the movie lol.
@@bassyeynope, everyone knows star wars in China😂
A news happened a few months ago involving an accidental explosion in one of the armory in Taiwan, meanwhile some politicians citing the danger of having an armory within residential area however the local residents said otherwise: "Don't move the armory away, we know where to get our guns if PLA are coming.".
People of Taiwan aren't afraid of war, intimidation doesn't work against Taiwan. They will just simply ask to "bring it".
Didnt it occur to u that explosions happen coz us export their out of warranty date fire arms to taiwan and cause such havoc😂
This is really ironic news. Residents are protesting that the arsenal is located in a residential area. Request to move out immediately
@@tcguanz Out of warranty weapons don't explode. The fuel oxidizes and becomes useless. They don't fail up, You don't build a missile whose end game could be blow up on the pylon when it's too old. Some Chemistry classes will help you with that.
@@bcomp12 lol, you dont need a missile, you just need a 30 years old grenade
lol Sure, sure 😆
Russia just proved that starting any war in the 21st century is totally pointless. No matter how outmatched they are.
I think Russia is very happy about how things are going…They made their… point..
我认为俄罗斯干的不错，西方废物天天被洗脑，这次战争彻底撕毁美元霸权 直接绕过美元交易
@@johneeeemarry34on top of that other countries who dislike USA are taking inspirations from Russia like Iran and Hamas, now Venezuela and soon China, North Korea the USA hegemony is slowing breaking
@@JDDC-tq7qm been saying that for 50 yrs now, eh? 😂😂
Taiwan has some surprisingly good anti ship missiles with the hf3 being supersonic (mach 3.5) and a range of 250 miles and have cheaper sub sonic hf2 with newer ones having a range long enough to cover the entire straight. The also have been rapidly taking note from Ukraine with their drone use and build up a drone army
But one thing is Taiwan military and government is corrupt. There is unknown number of spies currently holding office that are in chinas side and this lowers military readiness.
And Russia and China is taking notes on drone use too
@@whm_w8833 Well we are taking note that Russia and China are taking notes from the other notes alright?
Taiwan's military is also incredibly corrupt and full of Chinese spys.
And Taiwan being much richer than Ukraine means they can easily buy the very same weapons that Ukraine has to ask for.
A very balanced and insightful video on a complex topic. Thank you for a job well done! 👏👏👏
Balanced? Why would they want to "invade"??? They have stated many times over the years that a peaceful reunification is their goal.
@@MetaView7 And North Korea says the same thing about South Korea. The commies simply want to take over and enslave them without a fight. And besides, Taiwan was never ruled by the CCP. There is no unifying to do with Communists. We must resist them and their slavery system at all costs.
oh wait you're serious@@MetaView7
very biased
@@MetaView7 peaceful is not a possibility.
One of the major key objectives would be to capture the microchip processing factories intact. As stated this would be highly unlikely, wether it be from erroneous attack or sabotage, it's highly unlikely these facilities would remain intact.
biggest thing would be keeping them from getting their hands on the EUV machinery.
The factory itself is only a small part of the entire production chain, a chain that has the entire world taken parts in
You need to be more specific about whose objective is it to keep chip fabs intact.
Because Huawei and SMIC just demonstrated China the right now the only country that does not need TSMC intact.
And since losing TSMC will result in collapse of all western technology, it's very much China's objective to make sure TSMC does NOT stay intact.
You're right that its very unlikely TSMC will remain intact, so what does that means for western technology?
@@ryankappel1245 China already developed their own EUV technology, both traditional laser-tin and next gen SSMB.
Between this and the China blowing up TSMC, you have no idea how f*ed the west is.
@@vlhc4642 alot of TSMC manufacturing is starting to move to other countries. Also China kind of sucks at creating its own IP. They steal it and either reverse engineer and build a hack replica or fill in the gaps and build a janky replica. They think if they can take over Taiwan they can absorb everything that already exists and will have the pathway to keep advancing. They also need the EUV technologh which Taiwan is one of a few countries has.
When it comes to Taiwan's production of chips and SCs, it's not just the factories that the PRC needs. It also needs the technical skill to operate them. At the moment it does this at a premium by paying exorbitant rates to bring in foreign workers. That takes a long time to fix as it requires a lot of things to have been in place for a few decades to build domestic capacity.
The bigger problem is on the back-end. Taiwan may produce the chips, but it's America, Canada, and the Netherlands that pioneers the designs.
Well those chip factories are not going to be saved if Tiawin get attacked. Which is one reason why Biden had invited several of those companies to come to the USA and set up shop here. Several companies have excepted the offer. I am sure China is fuming over that move. Right now China is getting chip by buying gaming consoles that are made in Vietnam since they have been santioned from buying directly from the chip maker. The other issue is China cannot build anything without the blue prints. There education is not set up to use your knowledge to come up with new ideas, there education is all about how much you can memorize.
AND purchases. Let's not forget where the real power resides. It's with the consumer. If the USA or others decides to boycott anything related to an invasion, their assault will become even more costly.
Taking over Taiwan could allow it to enslave the workers who know about how to make chips.
@deadpirateroberts9937: Taiwan cannot make the advanced chip-making equipment. It only uses them to produce advanced chips designed by their customers, such as the US. If war starts, the equipment is easily destroyed. The Taiwanese workers cannot build chips without that equipment. They have the knowledge on how to operate it, and convert a chip spec into a chip layout using the software tools that come with the equipment, but it cannot recreate the chip-making equipment.
China has the previous generations of the chip-making equipment, and can make less advanced chips to their hearts' content, until the equipment needs to be serviced. Then, the equipment isn't useful, even for spare parts because they don't fully know how to service the equipment.
News: they don't need to produce chips from TSMC. Just destroy Western access to those chips..... The West no longer produces cutting edge chips either.
When it comes to China's GDP, that number is "estimated" to be $17 trillion. The one doing the estimation is China. China is not really a good faith actor when it comes to reporting GDP numbers. Independent estimates guess that number is closer to $9-13 Trillion. They're quite far away in the #2 position. However, the gap from the #1 spot is much further away.
I keep saying the same thing. Everything from the CCP has to be taken with a grain of salt. They lie about everything and people fall for it.
希望你继续保持你的观点，这个很重要，哈哈！作为一个中国人，毫无疑问，当然我希望他们继续低估他们的对手
And GDP per capita is even farther behind the US and Europe.
Your 'independent estimate" doesn't happen to be the guy who tried to use night-time light to measure day-time factory activity does it? lol
Chinese industry generates and consumed more electrical power than next 5 countries combined, China's auto industry is 2.7x larger than the US, China's ship building industry is 250x larger than the US, China alone operate 2/3 of all industrial robots on the planet and their solar production capacity just reached 1x total US power generation per year.
You're right about on-paper GDP estimates being meaningless, you can't actually compare your local personal injury lawyer with a factory producing electric motors.
The moment China pulls the plug, that is stop accepting USD as payment for Chinese exports, the real value of USD, and by extension the real scale of US GDP will become very visible.
@@vlhc4642 Lol look at this Chinese shill furiously trying to defend a deteriorating China's honor. Maybe you should worry about how your precious China is busy trying to fill in the holes made by its flailing economy as its various foreign investors and companies are slowly leaving the country. Better yet, maybe you should worry about where you're gonna find your next paycheck when China won't be able to pay your shilling wages anymore.
Tell me again why China would want to invade Taiwan. I asked a Chinese immigrant here in the USA that question, and she said it was “face,” a question of “saving face.” So China is holding a grudge that some of their citizens left China during Mao to live in freedom.
Assuming she has been out of china for at least 20 years.
@@bennyxu970 Why? If anything it's gotten worse since then. China is the most heavily surveiled and sensored country in the world. It's a total police state.
Well, I'm pretty sure that taking control of the world's semiconductor supply and becoming a complete monopoly on them has a large part to do with it as well.
@@ericzimmerman9599 "the most heaviliy surveiled and sensored＂?
Have you ever come to China to see it or compared it by yourself? or you just heard it from media or rumers?
China is now open for tourists, 144 hours visa free transit.Check it by you own.
@@bennyxu970 china has literally banned feminine boys. i don't know how it gets less censored than that lmfao
"China will get old before it gets rich", Mark Steyn famously said ten years ago: We are seeing that prediction play out, with Simon's chart showing an aging, declining population with a declining GDP.
Declining gdp? They literally grew 5% this year.
Both japan and south korea have higher declining rate than China, especially Japan. Their economy should have been collapsing anytime now if based on your logic.
alot of the economic numbers are fake though. And the "growth" is hilariously because each year the government now tends to revise downward the numbers from two years prior, meaning that the previous year keeps getting a positive "growth rate" from this adjustment
@@papabear90 bahhahahhaa where is that data from you loser ccp wumao hahah
9:18 I don't know much about microchip manufacturing, but I really doubt that China can just "capture the factories" and start pumping out chips. A microchip factory isn't something you just own and it produced chips, it's something you continually work to maintain. It constantly needs highly specialized new equipment, parts, software and expertise which is probably coming from companies all over the world. If China could provide all that stuff, then it would be making high-end microchips already. The factories are really just the physical manifestation of a whole network of high-tech stuff constantly flowing in and out of Taiwan, and an invasion and annexation would destroy that network. All that would be left are some factories that would quickly breakdown and become outdated.
Remember when Russia stole all those foreign jetliners and how quickly they started breaking down because Russia couldn't take care of them? A high-end chip factory is a LOT more complicated than a jetliner.
Russia is quite comfortably winning a war… I don’t think they are too bothered about other people’s aeroplanes…The Chinese share the same genetics, I’m pretty sure they are capable of catching up in terms of the microchip manufacturing you know so little about…
What is valuable is denying your adversaries the means to produce the chips.
@@andrewdopple6946 China uses those chips, just like everybody else, and most of their money comes from selling shit to those "adversaries" you mentioned, so hurting the economies of other wealthy nations just hurts China.
@@johneeeemarry34 yes almost two years into a three day "special military operation" Russian is doing fantastically in a conflict that has been notable for how well their equipment has been maintained.
@@johneeeemarry34 Haha, funny troll post.
China does things in extremes. I lived there for 5 years 2015-2020 and I watched it in real time. They do one thing at an extreme and then over compensate in the extreme when they GET to the point of breaking. This population crisis is a perfect example. They went from super conservative only 1 child to 2 children to no even promoting teen pregnancy.
This child policy is necessary and not extremism ~ Singapore used to have “Stop at 2” policy but we also need more babies; so we have “3 is better”-we incentivise $$$ for new citizens birth rates. U r shallow
@@angxiang3186Anti-natalism is not really an extreme idea, but the execution China took when enforcing it was what can be considered extreme.
Westerners really want to nitpick China about this policy. But for many decades, Western countries have their own policies of depopulation resulting in their current aging population.
They criticize China for this but the population of the Asian nation ballooned to over 1.4 billion while theirs (Europe and the US) could not even reach that number.
Though China now has an aging population, resulting in a change in policy, the Western countries resorted to inviting immigrants to become their 'modern slaves' as their governments are churning to abate the government decline, albeit at a snail pace, in coming up with effective policies.
@@angxiang3186incentives fail in s korea.
And the fifty cent army rears their ugly heads with straw man arguments. I love it.
Thank you for your videos: concise, direct, and packed with information rather than just opinions.
A lot of pictures you used in this video are from Hong Kong. As a HongKonger myself, I'd suggest using pictures from the mainland China to represent China. Example: 1:46 is a scene from one of Hong Kong's famous night market, 6:07 is from the Central district of Hong Kong, 6:33 is Hong Kong International Airport
HongKong isnt China yet?
Hi Gaza 废青
Yeah, HK is in China though.
@@graemehindshaw4221 But it is not fully Chinese. It is still an autonomous region partially outside Chinese Communist Sphere of influence.
I am deeply sorry about what happened to Hong Kong. A fusion of the best of Chinese and Western cultures, it was one of the most amazing cities in the world. But mainland China has total control over it now. Hong Kong is China.
In WW2 the allies never attempted an invasion of Japanese-occupied Taiwan because they thought the cost to allied troops would be too high and success not guaranteed.
That's why the dropped the sun in the first place, twice.
You've done a really good job on this episode.
“Irregardless” isn’t a word. It’s just ‘regardless’ or ‘without regard’
It is a word. Common as well. It's just that it has a redundant negation.
There are more such terms in use like "inflammable" (meaning exactly the same as "flammable").
Capturing the TSMC fabrication facilities intact might not even be enough for China to keep producing. Constructing the machines for chip-production is nearly as complicated as making the chips themselves. There is a supply chain from the West for machine parts that would most certainly be cut.
China already SMIC and their own DUV and soon EUV machines to produce advanced chips, they don't need TSMC.
What they need is for the west to rely on TSMC while not think about how losing TSMC via Chinese missile will shutdown the entire western tech industry,
Having the fabs alone isn't enough. They would also need their Taiwanese engineers to fully cooperate in order for them to be productive; it's way to easy for the fabs to deviate wildly out of spec even through simple neglect.
Quite. The lithography part of the process is Dutch for starters. You can't make chips without this capability.
Also the chip designs come from American companies and engineers. If China could take the factories and the highly skilled workforce and engineers intact, they wouldn’t be getting any new designs from us.
china have smic, they not interest in tsmc, even if china got tsmc what use after 2-3 year it became old and useless. china have their own smic. so they never have to worry about not able to make cpu
Not to mention that the US is in the midst of completely restructuring its military for this exact situation.
Reminds me of why Operation Barbarossa happened as it did since the Winter War with Finland exposed to both the Soviets and the Germans how flawed the Red Army was at the time (due in a large part to Stalin purging the competent officers) and mustache guy wanted to knock them out permanently, while he still had fuel to spend and before the Soviets managed to finish its own preparations.
The U.S. can't meet its own recruitment quota and is building 13 billion dollar artificial reefs and B2 bombers for nearly a trillion a pop.
The lost lives in an amphibious assault would be enormous.
There are not many places to land in numbers, the beaches are hard to approach, or so I've heard.
A layered missile defense would wrack an absolute nightmare. I hope China sees that and won't even try.
I doubt they will actually try. An amphibious attack on this scale would take months of build up all being watched from space.. this would give Taiwan loads of time to mine the landing spots and huge areas offshore.. add this to the anti ship missiles and the other defences around the landing spots it is virtually impossible without China being willing to sacrifice at least 2 million soldiers thousands of boats.
"If you want peace, prepare for war. -- Vegetius" which is a blueprint that is engraved in the hearts of every Taiwanese.
然后你们军队训练也不认真，军费开支也不多。供肖小
Is that silvanaa from mlbb,😆
Looks like we dipped into Econographics for part of this video, lol. Great video on the subject, as ever.
Goddammit I want an Econographics channel now
Spot on
I got a few minutes in and shut it down. If I wanted an economics lesson on China I would dial up a video of Jefferey Sachs or another actual famous economist.
Excellent analysis here, and I hope you're 100% right. Otherwise this on could get very messy.
Excellent analysis only if you lazy to fact check... he wrong on most of the subject
@@jetli740 Any examples?
@@miroslavdusin4325 china invade taiwan in 25 or 27, there is zero evidence of it, it purest western
propaganda. the only red line china will attack is if taiwan declare independent's or allow usa military base there. there millions of taiwanese work/have family or business in china. logic.. if china want to invade taiwan why would they let taiwanese work/live and open business in china? anyone of these could be a spy
china and taiwan have a freeze civil war, no shot fire for over 40yrs ..think about that
@@miroslavdusin4325I would bet money they are a Chinese wolf warrior.
China is in a weird situation where a huge county can’t politically survive significant military casualties. The one china policy has made a situation were the military age males support not just their parents but also grandparent. Imagine sending an army of only children into the meat grinder that would be the Taiwan straits.
They might even use the cannon fodder / sheer numbers approach of USSR in WW2 and China in Korea.
Japan and Korea aren’t exactly having a population boom…Nether is any European country, it’s just mass immigration, so those countries aren’t really even countries anymore, neither the natives or the unwelcome invaders are going to fight for these multi cultural shit holes..The only people on planet earth having loads of kids are in sub Saharan Africa, and they are in business with the China man… You need to get your facts straight before you end up in a weird situation or worse… a meat grinder!
你是有多无知才能发表这种言论的？
有没有一种可能，那就是如果欧洲或者美国人介入，那么进入这个绞肉机的不光有中国人，还有美国人欧洲人…你以为战争只有中国会付出代价吗？你们可以站在边上看热闹？呵呵，可能不会那么符合妳的预计
@@tamagawa8227 Hey dipsh*t, aren't you supposed to be banned from viewing RUclips? -5000 social credit points for you!
I watched some interviews from Chinese citizen about their view about invading Taiwan. The youngsters are basically not care, the old people care more because they viewed Taiwan as their own territory. However, these old people also emphasized that Taiwan will come to China by their own will and not by war because China would not opted into murdering their brothers in Taiwan.
Young people in China also view Taiwan as a Chinese territory. The difference might be, they don’t view Taiwanese as Chinese (own people).
@@yangz1803 depends on who. I have met plenty of young Chinese who do not even think Taiwan belongs to China, and believes everyone should just focus on making more money.
你看到的，都是你们媒体想让你看到的。下个抖音，看看评论区，关于台湾问题的
Amazing contenttt!!! hope this channel continues to do good
Won’t be long till it’s shut down to many facts
This is excellent! I study China on a daily basis and have to say this production was bang on. Well played, I'll be checking out more of the channel
I can relate, as I find myself reading news about North Korea almost daily.
Okay, you study China on a daily basis, so that means you should be well versed to understand that China has no intention of invading Taiwan.
@@A.T.148-Scot-HK I hope you do ry lil weak wumao
Best analysis I have seen on the issue. Well done!
Perun has also done a war economics video on this.
Great video!
I have a sibling who works in the diplomatic core and while they acknowledge the CCP and its leader as dangerous certainly, they also think its reputation and ego outstrips its capabilities by a fairly wide margin and that they aren't remotely as stable as they like to project.
One of the big one's on this front is actually xi xi ping, the man has almost zero stable advisors. Its been noted how there will be a new "Rising star" and favorite every few months who will then vanish into obscurity. This is much the same approach to leadership that Stalin and plenty of other dictators take which doesn't work out well. It minimized collective action and critical feedback as well as insulates the leader from learning where problems are cos no one wants to be the fall guy.
Then there's the fact huge swathes of what is called "China" currently are under semi perpetual military occupation, Tibet and the Uyghur population most of all. That both means that the military cant be pulled up from these areas to fight and in fact may need to reinforce those areas if they rebel.
There's also the fact most of China's allies are not gonna be able to or be interested in helping. Russia is losing its own war, most of the nations in Africa they have in debt to them will have limited ability or desire to stick their necks out beyond speeches and North Korea doesn't actually 'like' China given its been trying to make them a lifeless obedient vassal since forever and keeps its aid extremely limited because they won't give up their nukes and submit.
FInally, there's how the US responds to damages.
The USA is... broadly speaking a prickly, prideful and paranoid beast. Its collective response to attacks or losses has pretty consistently been incredibly destructive and vengeful as opposed to losing willpower. I feel that reactions to any battle based losses will be less, "This is a waste we should call for peace" and more likely to be "Vengeance, raaaaaah!"
NATO & the US are not doing enough for Ukraine but they are doing more than anyone expected and as noted, Taiwan is far more important strategically and unlike Russia won't bleed itself dry trying and failing to take Taiwan without intervention, making it far more necessary from a real-politic angle.
To me, Xi Xi Ping's proclamations reflect a world leader surrounded by an echo chamber who has failed to register that his ambitions are likely doomed. Doesn't mean he won't launch nukes though, the man is notoriously thin skinned and not liable to take well to a defeat which while not inevitable still strikes me as likely.
You correct in some areas but incorrect in others. Russia is NOT losing in Ukraine. It is only a matter of time before Ukraine capitulate. Unfortunately, Ukraine has been led up the garden path by NATO and Biden.
Secondly, NATO has already done too much in Ukraine. Putin is wrong to invade, but one of the major reasons he did is because NATO pushed ahead with Ukraine membership in 2021.
He invaded in Feb 2022.
I agree with all, except nukes; neither China nor Russis would unless invaded directly. So it will be proxy conflict like Ukraine.
The PRC depends on exporting extraordinarily low quality widgets, and all its HI tech is just very sad knock offs, well when China start pissing off all their neighbors but especially the countries that dumped all their tech and money into your economy, the whole world is pulling it's support out of China. Since China has no free internal market, just state controlled currency, companies, and communist owned markets, as long as dumb ji peng is in charge there is no where to go but down hill for China. If Xi had just played nice another 20 years the takeover of Taiwan would have been perhaps a cake walk. I cannot believe that War Graphics does not take note of the lightyear leap forward in progress of defense (using Ukraine as the example) showing how an innovative society can defend themselves from a large clumsy soviet style wave attack. All I see is the bottom of the Strait of Taiwan being littered with crappy unwieldy Chinese water craft, air craft, and bottle rockets. I expect the prc air force will not fair much better than its rust bucket navy. I have yet to see an example of Chinese or Russian tech matching up in a battle to western hard ware since the early 60's. Instead of Russian meat attacks there will be PRC canned meat attacks. Drones cannot occupy Taiwan, but drones will destroy whatever the PRC is dumb enough to send to Taiwan.
明白人，此人不可久留
You can’t “REUNITE” something that has NEVER BEEN “united” !!
Taiwan and the mainland were united for centuries under the Qing dynasty.
@@Xezlecok wumao 😂
@@Xezlec in the grander scheme of the proud Chinese history of 5000 years, those few hundred years are just a flash of time. Only parts of Taiwan was ruled by the Qing from 1683 to 1895, and the Republic of China for a few more years. But Taiwan has never been ruled by the PRC, and hence not a "reunion" with the PRC.
My friend works in Taiwan. He told me that he refers to China as “West Taiwan” and his students cheer every time.
there isn't a country called "Taiwan". The country on that island is Republic of China. And your friend is right, ROC claims the west continent theirs in early days and this is exactly the concept the ROC government trying not to mention nowadays. As a mainlander, I highly appreciate your friend's effort in helping us unite under the one China concept, no matter it's ROC or PRC.
@@francis4225 The "government" illegally occupying the mainland is illegitimate. The government on the island of Formosa is the legitimate ruler of China.
@@francis4225I think you misunderstood the meaning behind the word “West Taiwan”. The word is used by younger generations of Taiwaneses as a meme to mock PRC because most of us despise PRC’s non-stop, aggressive shouting of “Unite the motherland by all means.” or “One China policy.” Another reason we use the word is to distance ourselves from the “China” identity, because most of us don’t identify ourselves as Chinese anymore. So no, his friend is not helping to promote uniting China, sorry for breaking your wishful thinking.
@@Joe_Ku888 lmao seems your education system is working really well. In the last century ROC was always holding the idea of reclaiming the mainland as it is the "righteous one" between two Chinas. I as a mainland shouldn't be the one educating you about ROC history but it seems you took in propaganda quite willingly. You really think I can't see It's you guys mocking? I just find it nothing but hilarious. I genuinely don't care what is your opinion towards PRC or the idea of China cuz in the end It's always down to a country's power. ROC lost seventy years ago and let's see if it will lose again in the future, which you nor i can do shit about.
@@francis4225 I see. That's quite unfortunate. I thought you really didn't understand the word, that's my fault for not getting the sarcasm in your words. But I do want to clarify that we do know the history of the stand of one true China ROC took in the last century. But for us younger generations, those are only history.Time has changed, so do our ideologies and thoughts on our own identities, we moved on. Yes, you are correct on the power discrepancy between ROC and PRC or the west, realistically speaking, there's nothing we Taiwanese could do but to hope for the best. But I really do hope you can take a more humane approach on this subject, instead of a utilitarian one. Perhaps this way you can understand our frustrations and aspirations. That way, there will be less unnecessary hostility and cruelty between us people.
Unlike 🇺🇦, Taiwan is a rich country, well armed, fully stocked, decades of preparation, well trained arm force and unlike flat land, they have ocean and mountains
It's not well armed. Go and do some research.
China is not Russia, China own a dynamics supply chain and Taiwan is just a tiny island, and I doubt they can withstand carpet bombing from China. Hope China don't be as naive as Russia.
Taiwan is an island which means it will have to fight with what ever weapons it has at the beginning of war.
@@waisinglee1509Elaborate?
I've put this commentator on .75 of the speed. Nerve wrecking 150 words/minute. Cheers mate.
Some other reasons a war is unlikely:
1. Xi would have to give somebody more power than him in order to coordinate the military. An extremely risky move with little benefit when there is a lot of party inter-conflict ongoing.
2. Though an attack seems unlikely to succeed or be effective, there is a chance Taiwan could cause enough damage to the Three Gorges dam. This would be the equivalent of a nuclear attack in terms of destruction with the resulting floods. China would be going for full annexation, but that would eventually trigger this type of attack.
3. They need to be almost fully self-sufficient for the entire length of the war. Their land transportation routes aren't that developed to the middle east, leaving mostly just the ocean. But they have little power projection capability with their military, so they will quickly be blockaded. Plus whatever allies they would have in a conflict, they would not be able to supply China with goods and military supplies like a Western ally.
4. After any type of conflict they would be in a very vulnerable position security wise. With little military hardware left to defend, and will need to trust only nuclear weapons would be enough of a deterrent. While effective, a country like India could take some territory in the mountains, possibility of of Tibet. Which would only become more likely as water becomes a even more valuable resource to secure.
If I may;
1. Xi is likely to exercise great personal control over the military. He will want it to be his victory, not anyone else's.
2. The PLA is aware of this threat and would no doubt layer SAMs around the Three Gorges Dams. Also, they would be looking to destroy those systems in the first wave of the attack.
3. Yes. This is why they are stockpiling supplies. They would have to bet on receiving oil via train/pipe from Russia - but ultimately, in this scenario the war would only last 2-3 weeks. The PRC would certainly be planning on a sharp, short, extremely violent campaign.
4. If they win, China has a good chance of supplanting the US as the world superpower. It's a gamble. And the Chinese are well used to gambling. Someone like Xi has gambled repeatedly over his lifetime, as has won every time.
#2. Destroying a dam is a war crime for the extract reasons you laid out. It's unlikely that Taiwan, with USA backing, would attempt such a blatant warcrime like that and risk loosing US support.
@@-007-2Given what Israel is doing right now, and the fact the US is backing them, I wouldn't be so sure.
China has a manufacturing capacity bigger than the US and EU combined. To think they will run out of munitions like the profit driven western MIC has supplying Ukraine is just silly.
Chinese central planning decided in favor of railways, and they are point vulnerable.
This information has calmed some of my anxiety. Thank you for the content Simon.
Unfortunately the more desperate the situation in China becomes the more likely they are to lash out. China isn't as different from Russia as they'd like you to believe. They're just as likely to do something stupid at the expense of their male population and their country's future. Remember, whatever it takes to stay in power, regardless of the cost.
Beautiful facts and analysis!!!
Outstanding documentary! Very thought provoking and well thought through! I enjoyed all of it immensely. Thanks for taking the time and effort to put this out there.
Don't think so.
There is a book "Sunzi:The Art of War" which was written back to 2000 years ago. I read the book when I was young in school.
The book clearly stated, invation or war is never the best approach to achieve a strategic target. There are always two better ways.
I mean, that's a very famous and popular book in China.I read it and know it as a normal Chinese.
and.... the China goverment leaders have much more information than me, and are much wiser than me. I believe they always know what should be the best way to take Taiwan back. But for sure, it is not anything about time out as this video says.
You are one of the best with a relentless pace and quality content. Bless you Simon. May things go your way :-)
It's easy to keep a relentless pace when you get your scripts from the U.S. State department.
@@Ivanna_Jerkovhe most definitely doesn’t. Some of his Content was wildly inaccurate and assumed the Pentagon hadn’t considered some of the most rudimentary scenarios.
i notice a lot of senile old-timers commenting and chinese bots and this guy sucks.
I would argue that time ran out for china the day russia invaded Ukraine which drove NATO to function as a true unified deterrent and Sweden and Finland filed to join NATO.
Taiwan isn't a Nato member, and the Nato charter doesn't trigger mutual defense in a China-US clash over Taiwan.
This is true, but china now knows that if it invades Taiwan, the West will unite, sanctions will be imposed, and china cut off and isolated. russia was perhaps the country most resilient to sanctions. It had deep reserves of cash and endless oil and gas reserves. china is perhaps the most vulnerable country to sanctions. Its economy is completely dependent upon the West buying its stuff. It has little in the way of cash compared to its population size. It is dependent upon other countries for its energy.@@Grey_Ocean2023
The supply chain for top-end semi-conductor manufacturing extends beyond Taiwan, so even if China manages to capture the chip factories intact (very unlikely), there remain challenges in maintaining processes under sanctions. Replicating the underlying technology might take decades, or be impossible in light of all of China’s other economic problems.
Their best path forward probably involves massive political reform that encourages constructive participation of the next generation. Without evolving a political culture based on principle instead of graft, transparency instead of secrecy, an independent and responsive judiciary, the abandonment of personality cults, and a careful rebuilding of international relations, a further deterioration of all things economic looks bound to continue.
One can only hope that the current situation serves as a learning opportunity, that an informed reflection on the infamous record of CCP failures, including the greatest famine in history, can help the Chinese people make better decisions going forward. Failure knows no bounds, but an honest reckoning may help avert further disaster.
China already have their own laser-tin EUV light source, EUV optics and photogel, we're talking month before first machine. And then there's China's SSMB capable of scaling to Blue-X.
Oh China have no need to take TSMC, what China need is for the west to continue to rely on TSMC for everything, so when it's blown up China wins by default.
The best path forward for the west is to smoke less copium and adopt a more realistic understanding of their place under Pax-Sinica. (and save up for reparations)
Unfortunately it looks like the delusion goes too deep to be corrected, which in all likelihood means another 1000 year of dark ages.
🤣🐸
Here comes the china haters 😂
@@Dorae-ur-mom
Hate is a complete waste of time and energy, but I am very wary of its political system and Xi’s leadership. I recommend looking into the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961, which by some estimates killed tens of millions. The Great Leap Forward, while rapidly bringing about industrialization, came at an incredible cost. I also strongly support Taiwan’s independence, which is not mutually exclusive with also hoping that China finds stability and sustainable prosperity. Better leveraging the potential of China’s people can help with mitigating the risk of its socio-economic problems.
From the Sampoong department store and the Narrows Bridge collapses, to the Fukushima and Bhopal industrial disasters, post-mortems are critical for identifying the contributing factors leading to failure so that such events do not become systemic.
@@Dorae-ur-mom Don’t forget all the people they casually shot because they opposed them, or the genocide currently happening in Xinjiang
Nice piece Simon. Thank you.
These analysts always leave out the fact that the CCP could launch a war out of desperation
Except that even if China were to takeover Taiwan they wouldn't be able to use the chip making tech. They wouldn't have the supplies, nor the technical expertise, and not even the ability to maintain it, let alone any of the other parts, like chip design. Taiwan has never been about the chips (for China).
That gets kinda complex. It absolutely would not work out the way China would think. They would absolutely lose technical expertise, but not as much as you think. And many of the materials come from countries that China has spent a long time giving low-cost loans and gifts that would suddenly need bigger "payments." However, a lot of the equipment does come from Europe and that pipeline would shut down. And that doesn't even get into what other powers like India, which has its own rivalry with China, would do in that situation.
But you're also right it's never been only about economics. No matter the cause, though, if they ever did, it would be very bloody, very costly and would ripple across the planet. There would be absolutely no winners.
True, it's more about dickwaving for China. China was the sick man of Asia for generations due to Western imperialism and colonialism, and will do anything to prevent that from happening again.
However, in their misguided attempt to be the big strong man of Asia, the CCP is pissing off all of their neighbors and driving them into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam and their Pacific allies. See the Philippines as a case in point.
@@Blackfatrat yeah. which would add to the complexity. That would also devastate the global economy. It took Taiwan 40 years to build that industry.
If it happens, we don't know what the aftereffects will be, or how much survives.
@CortexNewsService China has always had the ability to make mid-range and low-end chips.
so far china sanction window has closed afaik so they are not benefiting from chips there anyway.
Keep up with the uploads Simon!!
It never ceases to amaze me how one of the world’s most complex geopolitical situations is reduced to such simplistic prognostication by so many commenters here. For those who think they are qualified to know how this would play out, I suggest trying to predict who might win the Super Bowl 5 years from now. It would be a lot simpler, and you’d have a higher chance of success.
lol
*It might be easier to conquer China than conquer Taiwan.*
ok,ok,you can have a try.😅
The American journalist William L. Shirer, one of Hitler’s earliest critics, recalled in his memoir many years later that he had “left the Reichstag that evening convinced that Hitler, despite all my reservations about him, really wanted peace and had made the West, at least, a serious offer.”
China's latest high profile political meetings is reminiscent of when Germany tried to convince the world all it wanted was peace while it quietly rearmed itself. German glider clubs for training pilots is no different than the cruisers China as painted up as coast guard vessels. At some point it will become undeniable, and we will enter a phase of appeasement, in hopes of avoiding what was long planned.
Great video, the points are bang on.
Let's be real though. Most western countries are in the same boat as far as birth rate goes. It will eventually affect many of us.
Western countries recognized this very early and compensated with immigration. China hates the idea of immigration, basically doesn't allow it, expect for rare and exceptional cases, and it's too late to fix the problem even if they started letting a million immigrants a year join their society.
Numbers yes, but quality? Probably not. @@baneofbanes
@@baneofbanes That only helps with unskilled/menial laborers. Doesn't help provide us with more doctors, engineers, or skilled laborers.
Almost like our culture has made a huge mistake by discouraging the traditional family unit. The more conservative people are, the higher their average reproductive rate is.
Except the country which matters the most: the USA, continues to see significant population growth due to migration. China (like Japan) does not enjoy that privilege when they see negative migration flows.
Thank you for the great video.
Keep it up fact boy!!
The biggest lesson I've taken from the Russo-Ukraine war is this: Just because it's a stupid idea doesn't mean they won't do it.
Even in January of 2022 it was glaringly obvious that even a successful invasion of Ukraine would still leave Russia in a weaker position, as it would seriously undermine Russian global influence and damage European trade relations. Which is why a lot of very smart people were convinced that they weren't going to do it.
I have no doubt that an invasion of Taiwan would do immense damage to the Chinese economy, the stability of the Chinese regime, and to Chinese global influence. But that doesn't mean they won't do it. It isn't a matter of what China actually has to gain or lose. But what Xi Jinping thinks China has to gain or lose from an invasion. Humans are not perfectly rational actors with perfect knowledge of what is and isn't in their best interest. They are partially rational actors, with imperfect decision making processes and imperfect knowledge of what is in their best interests.
It is my understanding that the chicoms first carrier was a converted Ukrainian casino ship. The second chicoms carrier is a copy of the first. I don’t see them train too often.
Good video Simon & Co.!
When one-child policy was introduced everyone wanted to have kids. Now that it has been lifted no one wants to have kids.
Some policy making simply isn't able to get its dynamic right
The One Child Policy allowed people to realize that the fewer children they have, the higher their standard of living.
@@independentvoter8710 Until they get old. And then standard turns very substandard.
They’ve didn’t want to have kids they needed to have kids to survive
China has more than enough kids to stay prosperous.
Not only is America more battle ready... she has Vets like myself who are still able and willing to fight... I doubt China can say that
Should the US military make provision for myself to do so, I most certainly would. Even though I can’t be a Frontline guy, at age 65 with a replacement knee and hip, fully functional and as good as new, by the way, I am extremely resourceful in building and transporting materials necessary to conduct business on this kind of scale. Alas, as long as there is a Democrat party, they will fiercely guard Sociofasciocommunism, wherever it exists. And make no mistake aside from some pseudo intellectual psychobabble, They are all the same thing
@@rogerpenske2411yes because those Democrats never did anything to provoke China like say pelosi visiting Taiwan specifically after China told her not to? Or the Biden administration passing the chip acts and sanctioning their access to advanced tech as mentioned in the video. They even got butthurt and moved their navy around to posture but aight gramps, thankfully you're ignorance is temporary and won't stop you from helping in the potential war effort.
You forget how American troops withdrew from the 38th parallel during the Korean War.Look at the veterans of the Korean War. They're still scared。
Cheers mate! Just afraid China has more 'meat' to send into any grinder than we do... and the willingness to process a lot of meat in order to meet its objectives. Commies think nothing of human life... that is terrifying.
@@rogerpenske2411dude the only reason we provided clear support for Ukraine was ‘cuz of Biden. if a certain Cheeto Mussolini were in office he’d have tried to block aid like he’d been trying pre-invasion.
Insightful and well-researched as always.
"To make war on another is abhorrent, to egg the other on is contemptible" - Albert Einstein".
Taiwan must be defended at all costs.🤷♀️
No. Once the US gets semiconductor self sufficiency, China can have Taiwan. According to literally everyone, China is a declining power, so there's no reason to fear them getting their hands on Taiwan, because all the valuable tech would be in the US.
@@J_X999The United States _will_ go to war to defend democracy in Taiwan, and to prevent Chinese expansion in South Asia. Microchips have little to do with it...the US is a tech juggernaut and could easily jump that hurtle if they haven't already.
@@dpelpal Oh boy are you misinformed.
You were the sort of person to talk about how "American troops will march their asses into Ukraine if Russia invades."
Where do I even start with this? I can educate you on the state of technology between the Taiwanese, China and the US. Or I can educate you on why the United States isn't bothered about Taiwan, but only the chips.
Your choice!
@@J_X999You're a fool to think that Ukraine and Taiwan are even remotely the same thing.
You are very delusional if you think the U.S. has the political capital to defend Taiwan. At the very most they will get the Ukraine treatment for a couple of years until the public moves on.
I don't know if I'd agree with the suggestion that the US has really faced a massive remotely-near-peer military in modern era. At last not that anyone in their ranks or command still alive have experience from. They've been surprisingly open about how much they're learning from the Russia-Ukraine war, and how so much of their competence and especially combat experience among its ranks is far more geared towards combating insurgency and guerilla warfare operators. With a sprinkle of aging-out veterans having fought well equipped but much (!!) smaller adversaries.
To the spirit of the claim, that probably hasn't really happened since WW2.
Iraq wasn’t weak in 1991. In 2003, I’d agree that the Iraqis were pretty weak. But 1991 Iraq was quite strong.
The veterans of that conflict are probably almost gone with only older officers knowing about it. But I disagree that WW2 was the last time the USA fought a strong opponent.
fighting a guerilla war against a loosely banded group that does not wear uniforms and defend well defined front lines is harder than fighting an conventional military which the US military has always been best trained for sense before the founding of the nation. The US has been fighting unconventional wars sense Vietnam with the exception of the 1st Iraq war and we know how that went. China does not want to draw a line in the sand and fight the USA
so it gonna be slugfest even vietnam cant be compared to and like russia is gambling on that prospect, dictators may try their luck. something might happen elsewhere though, as distraction is 101 in warfare.
tbh the only countries who’ve fought in a modern, large-scale conventional war are Ukraine and Russia.
from my understanding tho the US is still the best when it comes to combined arms maneuvers, mostly due to the prohibitive cost of fielding and operating so much hardware for drills. the only branch I’d be concerned about experience would be the navy (especially given Taiwan’s geography), but compared to the Russian navy they seem to be much more responsive even outside of wartime.
To be fair after the soviets union Collapse, there isn't any country that can be considered near pear to the US
I like Simon as a host because usually he gave a very unbiased views on his channel...
One more factor which would keep China from any major war is the vulnerability of the Three Gorges dam, whose compromise would be very unfortunate.
Italys just called time on the Belt n Road project. India bars China's path to the Arabian sea and too much cash has been blown on doomed follies across SE Asia. Then there's North Korea. Nuff said.
how about right now？意大利向我们申请重新加入项目，我们在斯里兰卡，马尔代夫有了军事基地，伊朗，巴基斯坦是我们的朋友，印度和东南亚国家是中立态度，害怕战争，我们支持中东国家对抗以色列，我们会惩罚菲律宾。美国很快会参加欧洲和中东的战争，我只能告诉你，美国政府是贪婪，懒惰，喜欢战争，我们会知道谁是更聪明的人
This video would be more informative if you compared the demographics and economic challenges in both China and Taiwan.
Chinese here. Just liked to share some thoughts:
1. The CCP isn’t likely to stop claiming the island because that is a very important factor for the party’s own legitimacy.
2. Assault isn’t the only way to pressure the island.
3. At the moment, what’s more important than owning Taiwan is China’s influences on the south east Asia. If China wins over that part of the planet, Taiwan will be just a collateral gain.
Some very interesting points to consider. Nothing is ever like it appears on the surface.
The idea that just snatching Taiwan is enough to achieve microchip dominance is wrong. The tools to make the chips come from Europe, China would still need them. It would increase their leverage, not give them total dominance, and yeah, it's borderline absurd to think TSMC would just let them take the equipment.
Yes, they would propably relocate to the United Staates when the Attack Starts
@@Blackfatrat I don't they can achieve that because the US would intervene.
@@BlackfatratThe US initiates a humanitarian evacuation of Taiwan (with the TSMC techs at the front if the line). US fighters and warships and providing security for the evacuation flights and ships.
If China attacks US forces, then.....
China will have its own whole chip production chain. Chips are not China's core interests. This is a hype from the US。
@@will-213 They're certainly trying, but the supply chain is tough to replicate and they are far behind currently. Time will tell of course, the thing about tech is that things can change radically and a new set of winners and losers bear out. Chinese government must hope for this as things stand.
These videos have become more and more speculative lately
The Chinese army definitely excels at marching though. Their uniformity is impressive.
just sink the food supply to China for 1 month , guess what happen ?
Excellent Episode 👍
1 major reason : Chinas population is nose diving
Last year in 2022, it lost 800,000 + people
This year, may be more?
A shrinking population means much less geopolitical power.
Taiwan has a lower TFR rate than Mainland China though.
@@Janny890People often over look that, however defending requires less people.
@@Janny890while that is correct Taiwan would likely recive (meaningful) aid and perhaps even full on intervention in its favor, i cant seen the Russians providing similar to the Chinese
Peter Zeihen has a similar theory for Russia's invasion of Ukraine: this was Russia's last best chance before the Russian population plunged and it would be clearly impossible. According to the theory, it was a massive gamble in hopes of succeeding (in 3 days), not losing too many men in the process, and adding Ukraine's population to Russia's own. If the theory is true, Putin certainly didn't win that gamble.
@@lajoyalobos2009 Peter Zeihan is a broken clock. He is right every now and then. Personally, I think he's an idiot. But he's an idiot that KNOWS how to deliver a presentation, and that's why I'm subscribed 😂
Also a lot of US military nearby in the Philippines.
Their diplomatic failure with philippines made their invasion to taiwan more impossible, even if philippines said "yeah.. dw, we wont be participating with whatever us will be doing" they will still gonna do it just because of sheer paranoia of them getting attack as well..
China has a golden opportunity several years ago with duterte but they taken it for granted
Most if not all of the TSMC factories have self destruct capabilities from what I hear. If anyone has a source let me know. I wouldn't put it past them.
I mean with some processes in semi conductor manufacturing using pyrophoric (combusts in the presence of air) chemicals not to mention many of the abatements that break down hazardous byproducts use natural gas as a fuel source, I could imagine it wouldn’t exactly be hard to disable certain safety systems and play with the flow of certain gasses to literally turn everything within a mile radius of the factory into a chemically toxic wasteland
I've heard that TSMC factories are so sensitive, a mistake in clean room procedures would permanently reduce capacity. I don't see it at all difficult to scorch the factories if it looks like China might occupy them.
Excellent analysis. Thanks for posting.
With the US Pacific fleet near Japan, would China have the few days it'd need to take Taiwan?
Theoretically, they can just pull a Pearl Harbor and mass Missile strike the Pacific fleet at the very start of the war, damaging and delaying the fleets time to deploy
Difficult to hide an invasion force from satallites and the chances are 2 U.S subs are never far away from the north and south of the island any invasion force would meet with their missiles first
A few days…yeah ok
@@MykeWinters I think you're misunderstanding what I said.
Is the fleet always 100% ready? It most likely isnt, the fleet might be capable and drilled but moving it to a high readiness could be tricky. Read readiness as having all the assigned escorts present, all wings completely stocked, full personnel for the air wings, land based assets available and ready, fleet is fueled and stocked for deployment
Seems like the entire developed world is going through similar demographic issues. Our birthrates in the US are dipping too.
But it’s more than offset in the USA by the illegal immigration, so the population continues to grow.
Not a useful population though . . . @@ScentlessSun
@@EllieMaes-Grandad Latin Americans are some of the hardest working people I know.
Pleased to hear it, but they're not putting much effort into improving their own countries, it would appear . . . @@jaydenjackson3193
@@EllieMaes-Grandadimagine being this oblivious and ignorant lol, poor fool
I'd love to see a video on the likelihood of China invading Australia. Many Australians are adamant that this is what China want to do, with certain media organisations playing into this fear.
For me, it doesn't seem to make logical sense. So I'd love to see a Warographics breakdown of the likelihood.
Thanks
There is absolutely no way China would invade Australia. It makes no sense from any angle.
USA would be more likely to invade Australia. When has china ever invaded anyone
As an Australian who works with many other Australians, I’ve never heard anyone make this claim. I suggest you read the defence white paper if you are interested in this issue.
美国政府需要你们，菲律宾，台湾，日本，你们的政府被美国控制，你们的军队不是为了自己国家的利益战斗，而是为了美国的利益战斗，就像乌克兰一样。我从来没有见过任何一个中国人讨论过入侵澳大利亚，就像你们不会讨论入侵巴西一样。如果你喜欢阅读，知道澳大利亚的历史，你就会明白，澳大利亚人从来没有管理过自己的国家。在第一次世界大战，你们为英国的女王而流血。在第二次世界大战，你们为美国而流血。澳大利亚太远了，兄弟，几乎不可能控制如此远的土地。但是你们的政府和媒体被美国人控制，他们会经常告诉你们中国非常邪恶，你们必须与中国战斗，然后你们离开自己的家，被派遣到几千公里之外，在那里‘去保护你们的国家’
I'm from new zealand and china invading Australia will not happen in our time, china just doesn't have the capacity to make that kind of move.
For one many countries will side with Australia and blockades on china will be implemented and held and therefore china will need its navy to defend its ability to import its coal and pols....
I could explain more in detail but an invasion of Australia from China is incredibly unlikely.
This might be the best video you have created on any of your channels. Great work.
Honestly some days i hope that the chinese government will grow up .. stop obsessing over stuff from the end of the civil war & stop caring about Taiwan & maybe concentrate on more important domestic issues that are troubling it.
I don’t think it can. Part of China’s problem is that so many things are completely mixed with the party. Wanting to change these things from the top down is like saying there is something wrong with the top itself which the will never do. And if people at the bottom or in the mid level try to make change even to low level stuff then top level will consider that an attack to the top. A huge part of the Chinese problem is that so many things are completely tied to the party. And therefore represent them. Wanting to change those is like saying you want to change the party. And the party is a dictatorship so it will not negotiate. It’s a sad thing and only an uprising or revolution can change things.
@@hansmemling2311 i suspect that is unfortunately the problem *sigh*
TAIWAN is also a CHINESE domestic issue.
Taiwan is not a domestic issue. Its a world wide issue. China may think otherwise, but will quickly find out that reality doesn't agree with their assumptions too much.
@@StCreed tell me how TAIWAN, is a concern for me while I'm living on another Continent?
-i would like to remind you that, American perspective is not whole world's perspective.
One more factor to consider for why China both wouldn't and would want to invade Taiwan is the fact that the Three Gorges Dam is within the strike range of Taiwanese long range cruise missiles. In fact the Taiwanese government has made it no secret that they would consider the dam a possible in the event of an invasion by mainland China, calling it their equivalent of nuclear deterrence. If the dam suffered a catastrophic collapse, it would flood the entire Yangtze River basin and could drown up to 400 million people as well as devastate miles of China's most fertile farmland. It's horrifying to think about, but it's still a factor that needs to be considered.
Now on the one hand, China would be insane to not at least take into consideration that this is probably not an empty threat. Desperate people when backed into a corner may do desperate things. But on the other hand, you have to imagine the government in Beijing absolutely rankles at the idea that Taiwan is essentially holding a loaded gun to their head. I personally would say Taiwain's not unprovoked to do so, but we know how the government in Beijing has treated threats to its authority in the past so this can't be sitting well with them. But until they can safely neutralize Taiwan's long range missiles, that gun is still locked and loaded.
So that would be yet another consideration to China invading Taiwan: they'd need to find a way to either neutralize or defend against Taiwan's Hsiung Feng IIE missiles, they would need to reach a point where they would believe the loss of the Yangtze River basin was worth it, or they'd have to genuinely believe that Taiwan would not pull the trigger even when faced with invasion
太可笑了
@@starfucks5327 *shrug* You say it's "ridiculous," but look up the range of the Hsiung Feng IIE and then look up the distance between Taiwan and the Three Gorges Dam.
@@hfar_in_the_sky 就是专打台湾渔船那个升级款是吧？你这窜天猴但凡能进入大陆12海里领海，都算你赢。而大陆的超高音速导弹飞跃很多次台湾上空了，你们新闻敢播报吗？哈哈
@@hfar_in_the_sky The top of the three Gorges Dam is 40 meters thick and the bottom is 115 meters thick. Conventional missiles cannot destroy this reinforced concrete building and must use nuclear bombs.
Second, it takes 1200 kilometers to launch missiles from Taiwan to the three Gorges Dam, during which multiple layers of air defense interceptors can shoot down these missiles.
Most importantly, when in a state of war, the reservoir of the three Gorges Dam will be discharged ahead of time, and even if the dam is destroyed, a large number of cities will not be flooded.
@@miaorenfeng1 Except studies have found that for dams that contain that much water, all you would need is to crack the lower portion of the dam. The intense water pressure does the rest.
As for anti-missile defense, modern conflicts have shown that even the most perfect missile defense system does not always shoot down every single missile. The failure of Israel’s Iron Dome during the recent events threw that into sharp focus. Not to mention how Ukraine has been employing some of the most advanced anti-missile systems Europe has to offer and while they’ve shot down most of the cruise missiles fired at them in recent months, they don’t get all of them. And all it would take for the Three Gorges Dam is one well aimed strike and physics does the rest. And keep in mind that Taiwan’s continued focus over the years with their cruise missiles have been to refine their accuracy and their fire power. Just something to think about.
You do bring up a good point about draining the reservoir during wartime though. That certainly would be the smart thing to do in the event of an invasion of Taiwan to mitigate the threat to all land along the Yangtze. Although I think if Taiwan managed to prolong the invasion in any way, having mainland China drain the Three Gorges Reservoir would play to their advantage. Keep in mind that the Three Gorges Dam provides electricity for nearly 5.4 million households and if the reservoir is drained then most to all of that electricity goes away. And that’s not even getting into how the reservoir provides tremendous amounts of water for agriculture and even basic drinking water. The strain on China’s utility infrastructure would be massive. And any prolonged war where the reservoir had to be drained would start to become unpopular with millions of people who aren’t getting electricity and are having difficulty getting water for their crops and to even drink.
Thus an added risk factor to consider if invading Taiwan. If you invade and keep the reservoir full, then you risk it being a target for missile strikes, whereupon you’re gambling 400 million lives and billions of yuans worth of your county’s industry and agriculture that your dam is strong enough and your missile defense strong enough not to fail. And if you drain the reservoir, you need to be 100% certain you can indeed finish the invasion quickly or else you’re going to have widespread riots back home and a general collapse of an entire region’s infrastructure.
Just factors to consider
China's real estate situation is worth a video on its own. Several other channels have explored it, but it would always be interesting to get another take.
America's real estate problem is much more interesting.
@@Ivanna_Jerkov no ist not lil commy loser. Long live Ukraine! Long live Taiwan
Let’s not forget that China LOST to Viet Nam in that conflict.
It cracks me up that whoever wrote this video believes that Russia has the worlds third best navy.
Third best in Ukraine maybe
3rd largest by hull count is not the same as quality.
The sewer systems on russias ships don't even work. But hey, 70% of the country doesn't have indoor plumbing so I guess their sailors feel right at home 😂😂😂
Russia has the second best military in Ukraine. This is known.
In 2014 they had the second largest navy by tonnage (845,739 after the US’ 3,415,893), and China has since surpassed them, so it wouldn’t have been a stretch to call them the 3rd most powerful
Things have changed since Russia decided to shoot itself in the foot, but hey
"Hey, soon all these factors will start changing in a worse direction for us to be able to invade Taiwan, so what should we do? Try to work at reversing those factors? Or go to war which immediately causes all those factors to get exponentially worse?" This is why invading Taiwan doesn't make any sense to me, but dictators rarely ever make sensible decisions...