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Notes -
Trump's not a great example here. In the Korea crisis in 2017, Trump signalled successfully that he was crazy enough to start WWIII, which is why he's the first POTUS since the Korean War to actually drive a wedge between Beijing and Pyongyang, and why Seoul and Pyongyang started singing kumbaya to at least some extent (they both wanted Trump to go away).
All that aside, while without the USA the PRC could take Taiwan, it still takes* quite a while - probably over a year - to prepare. D-Day wasn't exactly a spur-of-the-moment thing, you know.
*I say "takes" rather than "would take" because I suspect the PRC has in fact started these preparations. What's changed since 2016? Well, they've continued to expand the Chinese military and the USA's culture war has gotten worse, but also the Hong Kong crackdown in 2020. I think the CPC is telling the truth that it would like to get Taiwan peacefully - you'd have to be a complete maniac to prefer fighting over getting what you want without fighting, and that goes back to Sun Tzu. But Taiwan is never going to agree to a reunification deal now that there's an object lesson in Hong Kong that the PRC likes to alter deals of this exact sort, so I think the PRC is dusting off the "brute force" option. They could still abort, but I think the wheels are actually quietly in motion.
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