To think there actually could be a war with China?

[ShiftingSands21]

NC for this as I don’t want everyone to think I’m a crazy person.

I grew up in the 90s and at the time very much bought the idea that we had reached the end of history, which is retrospectively quite embarrassingly silly. Since 1997 say, a bunch of things have happened that I never would have thought possible before that. The pandemic has most recently shifted my sense of what can actually happen as I’m sure it has for many.

But reading the news lately, what catches my eye is rapidly shifting from coronavirus to geopolitics, and I am beginning to feel as though we are actually moving towards a war with China, even if indirectly.

One trend I see is that we are consistently underestimating the intentions and/or capabilities of our opponents (a term I use loosely). See: Afghanistan, Hong Kong, for example. These -quite different- situations moved much faster than we seemed to have planned for.

Yesterday I saw it reported that China tested a hypersonic missile that the US was not aware they would have the technological capability for. China’s designs on Taiwan are apparent and they are actively building up military capability in the region. People seem to be saying that this conflict is still only on the distant horizon but I am less convinced given how wrong we have been so far on literally everything. If China were to occupy Taiwan I don’t know what would happen - for the west it’s a losing battle to try to defend. The AUKUS pact, as far as I can tell, is a defensive mechanism against the NEXT stage which would come after that. That is really scary. I don’t know where China’s territorial designs end. It’s more subtle belt and road initiative extends right into Europe. The EU god love them do appear to be asleep at the wheel, not for the first time and recent news about China’s influence in the WHO and even the IMF are also really concerning.

To be clear I don’t hate China or something. Please, no racism. It seems like an amazing place, Chinese people I know are fantastic and I want the people there to live happy lives with improving standards of living. We are so closely interlinked with China on a number of levels and that’s good and I don’t advocate isolationism. But at the same time the Chinese government there literally have internment camps, arrest people for opinions and they vocally want to take over other countries. I don’t really want any China-style policies to influence my life or the parts of the world I’ve lived, am from and love. The US is also a malign influence in its own way, I don’t appreciate the global American influence either in many respects, despite having lived years there. However I’m really concerned that the sands are all shifting a lot faster than anyone anticipated and that conflicts can’t actually be ruled out in this changing world order.

I didn’t read this until after I wrote this post, but this morning the Guardian also seems to have concerns as do other places www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/18/the-guardian-view-on-chinas-missile-launch-the-arrival-of-a-peer-competitor

What do you think?

@RedHelenB I don’t think this is really about nuclear weapons. It’s great if living standards improve and every country is entitled to defence. However in this case there are some significant territorial disputes and ethnic tensions going on and these factors make the situation more complex and concerning with regard to the potential for conflict in my opinion.

But letting China take control of Taiwan means they have control over the world's biggest manufacturer of semiconductor chips upon which every aspect of our lives depend.

So if China take control of Taiwan, they take control of the world.

God forbid people couldn't have a new Samsung/IPhone every two years.

I don’t know about China and war etc, but I’m confused about what you mean about history ending in the 90s.

Surely you were aware that history is just what happened before the present, so there will always be history?

@RedHelenB

I never understand why were up in arms that other countries have developed nuclear armaments. It's a natural consequence of us and USA etc having them. Doesn't mean war is inevitable though. Our conditions improved with the industrial revolution and eventually so will that of the Chinese population.

The Chinese are somewhat past the industrial revolution. 😂 It's not a matter of cultural development. They're a dictatorship and dictators don't usually decide to 'be kind' all of a sudden.

And you wouldn't be concerned about somebody as unstable as Kim Jong having nuclear missiles?

But regardless if there is to be a war then there will be one. I don’t think there’s one on the immediate horizon and I’m not worried about one given there’s so much that’s actually happening to worry about.

@Againstmachine

There also won't be a war with China as China didn't invade the world the bought it up. And China wouldn't want to risk the foreign debts they have bought not getting paid back.

Presumably if any of their foreign debtors renege on their debts then China will seize the assets in lieu.

@KayKayWat I think you might find that the use of semiconductors goes slightly beyond that.

@Kanaloa I can’t take credit for the idea of the end of history en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man However it’s particularly relevant here as a concept because many people hadn’t appreciated - and I suspect from this thread still don’t appreciate - that western liberal democracy will not maintain the cultural hegemony that we have grown accustomed to. That is going to impact our lives in ways we didn’t plan for - it is already.

Well, it would go one of two ways:

1. China: “We have invaded Taiwan, just like we invaded Tibet! And by the way, the UN has recognised Taiwan as part of China since 1971.”
2. Rest of world: “That was jolly naughty, we don’t think you should have done that.”
3. China: “Mind your own business.”
4. Rest of world looks the other way.

OR

1. China: “We have invaded Taiwan!”
2. Rest of World: “How dare you, we will fight to the death to defend Taiwanese independence. Even though we recognised Taiwan as part of China. We declare war.”
3. China: “While your military were practicing first world war reruns, we were learning technology. We have turned off all of your telecommunications systems. Your hospitals and military bases now have no power. Your traffic lights are all turned off. Also you can say goodbye to the cheap goods you import for us, including most of your hospital equipment.”
4. Rest of World: “We surrender. Are you going to invade us now?”
5. China: “No thanks mate.”

@Skysblue but you feel confident it stops at Taiwan?

Skysblue the second alternative is terrifying and all too plausible.

3. China: “While your military were practicing first world war reruns, we were learning technology. We have turned off all of your telecommunications systems. Your hospitals and military bases now have no power. Your traffic lights are all turned off. Also you can say goodbye to the cheap goods you import for us, including most of your hospital equipment.

Sorry but it's really laughable to think that China is the only country that has developed advanced weapons systems and cyber capabilities. Do you really think the US spends several trillion dollars a year on FWW reenactments? Come on.

China can threaten to cut off its exports to the world but then China loses all the money from those exports, it's not the weapon some people think it is.

It's increasingly clear that a cyber attack of that magnitude turning off power grids and hospitals, leading to massive loss of life is going to be treated by the major powers as equivalent to a nuclear attack, and may be responded to accordingly. No one is going to take that step lightly.

For example, the US most likely has the capability to use ground-based lasers to blind its adversaries' satellites in space. The Chinese military can't do anything without its satellites, so that's one way the US convinces China not to do anything too rash.

‘Better red than dead’ was a slogan during the Cold War.

@Marelle

I find it very odd that they have actual concentration camps in China and are committing all sorts of atrocities, but we aren’t doing anything about it. When Nazi Germany did that we went to war with them and freed the victims! Now I’m wondering if we only intervened because Germany was threatening to invade us personally, and we actually weren’t bothered about the concentration camps. Because we don’t seem too bothered about them right now.

I don't think anyone thinks we went to war with Germany because of the concentration camps. If we were that bothered we could've bombed the train lines to disrupt the deportations. We went to war with Germany because of the invasion of Poland.

Yes. Read this book

The Chief Witness: Escape from China’s Modern-day Concentration Camps

I no longer buy anything made in China

@Sausage222 thank you for the recommendation

I also highly recommend this video which I think provides a lot of insight as to how China operates and how this may affect us. It’s a documentary produced by Deutsche Welle.

China - Surveillance state or way of the future?

Will return to read on later, but adding my recommendation for Tim Marshall's books; he's very readable too.

Isn't The End of History the book/paper by Francis Fukayama?

China: “While your military were practicing first world war reruns, we were learning technology. We have turned off all of your telecommunications systems. Your hospitals and military bases now have no power. Your traffic lights are all turned off. Also you can say goodbye to the cheap goods you import for us, including most of your hospital equipment.

Given how Anonymous manage to hack into pretty much anything they want, I'm pretty convinced that the US has some decent hackers of their own.

War on that level would be destructive for the global economy. I'm not saying that something couldn't happen inadvertently but given the nuclear capabilities of the relevant nations - no, I find it hard to envisage a deliberate conflict. There's too much at stake economically. It's not like the cold war days where the Soviet Union was cut off from the rest of the world and suspicious of the motives of the west (and vice versa. Nations today are interdependent and a conflict of that magnitude would be self defeating.

Nope.
We seem to let china do what they want (see Hong Kong) because we are aware it would not end well.

Imagine war against China. We don’t even have the manufacturing here to make toy soldiers anymore, they are made in China.

Bar Russia and the USA is anyone interested in being a global superpower anymore?

I don't think the UK is agoing to volunteer.

Maybe the idea of the superpower is not the right paradigm anymore. I think the idea of the civilisation state is increasingly useful.

One of the recurring arguments seems to be that we are all to economically interdependent for conflict to ever make sense. I do think that’s a good point but I also think it overlooks the motivating economic factor of competition for scarce resources. The semiconductor thing has been mentioned. There is the backdrop of climate change leading to unpredictable resource impacts that may lead to, and the race to net zero, and the resource demands that imposes like rare earths for renewable generation.

There is the backdrop of climate change leading to unpredictable resource impacts that may lead to, and the race to net zero, and the resource demands that imposes like rare earths for renewable generation

China is not going to join this silly race to the bottom unless it’s just to sell us cheap solar panels and other materials.

The current coal shortage is China is not really due to domestic supply, they still have a lot left to exploit.

One of the causes tho was due to their refusal to import it from Australia (for geopolitical reasons). They really shot themselves in the foot with that one!

That said they sincerely did want to cut down on coal somewhat (having lived many winters in northern China I totally understand, it’s dirty and stinks) but the administration just weren’t too smart about how they went about it.

Now they can’t dig it up fast enough, reopening all those closed mines … it might be dangerous for the miners :(

@UsedUpUsername

They are the leading producer of this tech. They are already a part of the race though it’s true they don’t restrict themselves to the agreements that others are trying to adhere to and we know Xi likely won’t show up to COP26, so they can turn coal back on in a crunch. (Of course they also have nuclear and are experimenting with things like cold fusion so who knows what could happen there.) However climate change also really affects China, as we saw with the recent deadly floods, just like it affects us all. Unlike us they are also really impacted by straight up pollution which is properly deadly for the population. Coal is not a sustainable solution on any level. The only question is the timing of the transition.