Relations between China and the UK

I’ve been listening to spokespeople re AUKUS and it is a big step.

It’s hard to tread a line that isn’t provocative but also is t history won’t thank us unless we do.

Yeh it’s a bit 😳

I didn’t realise it wasn’t US kicking it off

I can see why China have said hang on what are you up to, but then that’s happening in other direction

I liked Ben Wallace’s reply to to SNP / independence guy the other day. Basically such a bad idea. We need to get our collective act together and think about o/s threat not each other.

Inflation is an issue with defence budget, I can see why priority is that it falls.

These are nuclear powered submarines not nuclear weapon carrying ones so avoid the scaremongering DM headlines. They're also going to take 30 years. This is what deterrence looks like as a strategy

NATO will lose backing Taiwan against Chian according to the USA Centre for strategic and international studies.

Link? Everything I've read suggests both sides come out badly and mostly favourable to US

Boris started AUKUS, it's what made me be quite sure we were going to war.

Rubbish, it was started as a French/Australian project. The Australians were concerned that France was looking as if it couldn't deliver, and so approached the USA and the UK and asked them to join.

The world would be extremely unwise to turn a blind eye to what China is doing, and yes we may have to fight them eventually, or it might be better just to unite and stand up to their strong arm bullying.

Preparing for war by creating a deterrence posture isn't the same as going to war. And as the submarines won't be in play for years and years it's not very effective in the short term. Yes this is a dangerous moment, no question, and there is certainly an escalation (globally) in terms of language and defence. But is there anybody else, other than you, presenting this specific analysis? Any other analysts heading the budget and suggesting it's preparation for a draft? What's your time frame here?

Hearing, not heading

I don’t think we’ll be at war with Chiba inn18 months.🤨I just don’t😂

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow well if we are the AUKUS submarines won't be helping out 😂

Are you a new user OP?

John Pilger’s 2016 documentary made me realise ‘Shit’s gonna get real.’ I just thought it wouldn’t be this soon. That said, it’s been several years since that warning. Certainly the sabre-rattling is being kicked up several notches.
I’m an American and I’m sick to the fucking back teeth of our insatiable, sociopathic thirst for unstoppable hegemony.

What does war look like between nuclear armed countries? I'm serious. Without an apocalypse?

The world won’t go to war over Taiwan. China will probably take it over and the rest of the world will come to an agreement because actually no one wants war, especially China, whose entire economy is based on selling things to the west.

It could be a shift in globalisation though, which covid started. The realisation that we are so reliant on certain countries for important goods (energy, medicine, PPE etc) has been somewhat of a wake up call for a lot of countries.
There was an interesting series on Radio 4 called Autarky a few months ago which was fascinating and well worth a listen.

Western countries are hopefully looking closely at what Taiwan produces (semi conductors) and figuring out how to make them because when China takes over Taiwan, what they can do is hold the world to ransom economically (they can probably almost do this now).
I can’t see why China would want a war, no countries would “win” these days - look at the U.K. economy after the Second World War, it took years to pay back the debt, and our weapons are much more sophisticated nowadays.
Whoever “wins” out of Russia and Ukraine - they are left with a ruined country that the rest of the world will pay to rebuild (if Ukraine wins) and a desolate wasteland full of people that hate them (if Russia wins).

My last comment - the people of China don’t want war any more than we do. In the past 30 years millions of people have been lifted out of poverty and into a middle class life (and plenty are very wealthy) - there is no way that they would want to jeopardise that. It isn’t history to them either, many people in their 40s and older today grew up very poor and would no way want to go back to that.

Well you've listed three sources citing the same story. There is so much political analysis on US-China relations to read through instead. Or there are great podcasts that break things down to more that spectacular sound bites (Sinica, China Global, What China Wants). That (probably deliberately) leaked memo is from a pro-war US general about his "gut feeling", no actual evidence is cited. The US has also reported that there are no visible signs that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent. The Ianguage from China is about wanting the future ability to invade if necessary not a foregone conclusion that it will. I'm not saying the worst case scenario can't happen, just that it's best not to take frightening headlines at face value as it's all so nuanced

So someone in the US armed force has had a gut reaction? Of course he has, that’s what he gets paid for.

My gut reaction is he’s talking shite.

Just like the UK press kept wheeling out some veteran commander saying conscription will be introduced due to Ukrainian war🤔and that British troops would be fighting in Europe. Maybe l missed something?

It’s just warmongering by guys who want to willywave. Give them a few toddlers to deal with single handedly and they’d soon fucking shut up.

Paul Keating, ex PM of Australia has a lone stand against a war-with-China mania that has gripped the Australian Labor Party and the media deserves all our support. Please read this important and urgent piece:

johnmenadue.com/news-organisations-urge-nuclear-war-by-australia-against-china/

It is exceptionally important that the readership of these two capital city newspapers understands that the papers and their editors are urging war with China, over of all things, Taiwan. An island, off the Chinese coast, an island Australia does not recognise as an independent state.

And has never recognised as an independent state. And a war employing nuclear weapons. With the absurd assumption that were Chinese assets to be attacked with nuclear weapons the Chinese would not similarly attack Australia employing the same weapons.

In such a wicked scenario, how would the Herald and the Age report Chinese reprisals against Australia as nuclear weapons smash into Australian targets? But this is the game the fool, Hartcher, has urged the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age to be in. God help us.