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Notes -
A few things:
-They don’t want to do it while Trump Is president. Trump’s reputation is different in China. He’s not considered a hapless buffoon. He’s kind of a Vladimir Putin figure. They don’t like him but they see him as extremely ruthless and cunning.
-China was worried by what they saw during the Ukraine War. Blitz offensives have become a thing of the past. China doesn’t want to give Taiwan another decade to turn themselves into an even spinier hedgehog. Especially since there’s a bipartisan consensus in America to give them tons and tons of weaponry.
-America is uniquely distracted and overstretched at this point. Ukraine is taking up a lot of energy and weapons. No matter how the Ukraine war ends, it will eventually end, and America will likely be free to finally focus all its energy on the Pacific. The Middle East is also exploding, and could end up in an a full open war between Iran and Israel. China has its best military shot if it goes now.
-America is weak and divided, but there’s no guarantee it’s going to stay that way. America has had plenty of stunning comebacks in its history and it’s very possible that 2030s America is much stronger and more United than it is now.
-Peter Zeihan’s frantic proclamations of imminent Chinese collapse are overstated, but China will probably have a weaker hand in ten to twenty years. And aging population, fewer expendable young men, a slower economy.
-Taiwan’s attitude has been hardening up for years now. They increasingly see themselves as as their own separate political and cultural thing. Peaceful reunification is going to get harder, as would any military occupation.
-The AI race: military action against Taiwan would at least temporarily or permanently knock out a lot of America’s best chip fabs, and possibly allow China to actually take them. Either would give China a considerable leg up.
Huh, really? Where'd you find this out?
One of the biggest mistakes Western China watchers make is hyper focusing on the opinions of like 20m ultra online netizens who regularly discuss international geopolitics, an extreme minority of the Chinese public.
But what does that mean for the above question, exactly?
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