China’s advancing military is determined to fight for Taiwan

That's one that could see us Anzacs involved...

Or the ships break down and we have no parts 'cause theyre all from China...

And we dont need to ring to order them because they have a direct link on your 5G Huawei...

Oh the sarcasm just oozes out...lol

Im not so sure Jonas...the South China sea doesnt represent the same problems as Tibet or any of the other areas China has just chosen to absorb...if they can get the space, time wise, logistically wise (they need a amphib capability; which theyre building) and geographically wise (build more islands out of nothing or even the 'seafort' principle; which theyre doing) then its not differcult to create a buffer zone between Japan, the US, ANZAC, the Philippines / Vietnam etc into which they can then 'absorb' Taiwan...

Theyve already started the fake news shit to blind the west (where we have to many people with the 'right' to an opinion, the means to share it (the net) and no actual knowledge on the subject at all (never let that get in the way of an opinion, think Pauline Hanson here!) by simply saying that they can take over Taiwan and they can live in peace and harmony as two systems under one country...FFS thats Chinese jibberish at its finest but some will suck it up...

It wouldnt be easy but casualties arent an issue to China and they are relentless bastards...

Anyone here know if the people living in Taiwan consider themselves Chinese?

I reckon if Vietnam could mire the US and us for 2 decades ... and 'win' (whatever that means); people of Taiwan who want to be Taiwanese rather than Chinese could do the same to China. Although Taiwan is an island and theoretically easier to cut supplies to in order to create hunger and prevent weapons and munitions smuggling.

I seem to recall that the end of the world was meant to be nigh for Hong Kong upon its reabsorbtion back into China. That worked out OK for everyone didn't it?

And yes Taiwan could be messy and a long battle...theyve still held Tibet...Taiwan is a small laboratory and surrounded by sea not land AND now protected by sea-way they have 'claimed' by virtue of creating islands and putting missile bases on!...

So here's a thought...Australia decides it has 'imperialistic' desires...it sails an old warship up to a reef in the Timor Sea (within a crossover of several nations ocean economic zones) and sinks it hard onto that reef...it maintains all the missile systems on that sunken old warship and effectively has a military reach 50km surrounding that ship...it announces in the UN that the ship is now an island and it's part of its territorial waters and NO ONE ELSE CAN TRAVERSE THAT TERRITORY OR THEY WILL BE SHOT AT...effectively you've just conducted an annexation of territory (theft by another name) and all trading nations wishing to move through must pay you a fee or be shot at (robbery by another name)...the other nations, pissed with this idea decide they need to remove that old warship and free up the trade routes...Australia moves up all its warships and planes to defend their 'island'...Bang! We have a war...over an island that never existed!

China is smart...they envelop countries and absorb them...Taiwan is enveloped in a shield and the Taiwanese people really can only respond to those on their soil; they can't take the battle effectively to China (as Tibetian guerillas have) because they're surrounded by water controlled by China...mark my words, they can do Taiwan...