China watch.

The ABC consistently goes along with the PRC narrative of Taiwan being 're-united' with China. It's gaslighting at best, downright dangerous at worst. Taiwan has never belonged to the PRC and never should. These repeated unprovoked threats of war should be treated as such.

Yes thats right - Taiwan has never been part of the PRC ever in all of history. As others have said, in most of the ways that matter Taiwan _IS_ China, the last bastion of China as it was - though not stagnant in time of course. The big land mass called the PRC has only been around for what 70 odd years?

The only hope here it to provide such a massive deterrent that no war could be contemplated. Once conflict begins there would be no way to stop it becoming very dire ... and the problem therefore for the Taiwanese and one they are very aware of, is that the West utlimately will do nothing - because deterrent costs more than we'd be willing to spend and conflict would be something we already know we couldn't sustain.

Interesting how we're so focused on the loss of new mobile phones as the reason to do anything. Oh yeah, lets defend Taiwan's chip manufacturing facilities because I want to be able to buy a cheap iPhone 18 in a few years. Yikes! There are already big moves in the USA and elsewhere to build silicon capability - once thats complete, and assuming we have the 10 years or so required to get it all scaled up .... would that then mean we'd collectively cut Taiwan adrift?

It's interesting to consider what would of happened if the communists had lost the civil war there. Could you imagine what China would be like now if they advanced like Taiwan has? It's also interesting to consider if the CCP ever falls and they do get their act together like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, etc. They are just pretending at the moment, if they opened up they would be the monster (their demographic issues notwithstanding) they are claiming to be now.

Oh yes, I was being overly facetious of course.

Most of the tech reasons for current car industry problems are at the industries own feet as I understand it - they cancelled contracts at the beginning of Covid and therefore lost their position in multi year scheduling. Everything being JIT meant ... well ... yikes! So yes, there would be an impact. One wonders if there would really be an immediate global crisis though? No new phones or cars or computers ... whats wrong with the old ones? Would we really descend into the stone age almost immediately?

As for power over other countries if the PRC took over the factories. I really don't know how much of Taiwan would be left to salvage after what would be a struggle to the death for them. Depends on the nature of the conflict I suppose. I'm thinking Ukraine style conflict of utter destruction but with much more speed and aggression. The PRC would take ownership of a depopulated smoking ruin - and you know, I doubt they even care that this would be the outcome. For the PRC and the PLA the 'face saving' is not in the people or the infrastructure but in the island itself. They'd probably quite happily nuke it if they could guarantee no fallout dropping on the mainland.



I agree. It seems a shame to me that we have to use economics to help us decide if a regional ally is worth defending ... but I guess its the way of the world and has always been.



And _THIS_ is ultimately the real danger in my view. Much as I'd weep for the Taiwanese, the aftermath would be a nightmare.

America is headed downwards, do we really want to be associated with a failed world power ?






Keyboard not found, bang head on screen to continue.....

The thing is, the USA seems to be eating itself alive.  Its really not being dominated from without.  

The law of the universe appears to be pretty simple: what you're not prepared or are incapable of defending will be taken away from you.

So, go soft, get robbed basically.   

Its hard to see a scenario where the US can emerge as a strong integrated whole.  The blue states are getting bluer, the red states redder.  The obvious right way forward would appear to be some sort of partition, but theres no clear demarcation line, so perhaps some type of balkanization is the only way?  To make that work they'd have to get rid of the idea of an overarching President - or, perhaps, move back to the original idea of the federal government, which was a body to manage external affairs with virtually no internal powers.

"Its hard to see a scenario where the US can emerge as a strong integrated whole. The blue states are getting bluer, the red states redder. The obvious right way forward would appear to be some sort of partition, but theres no clear demarcation line, so perhaps some type of balkanization is the only way? "

Talking to some hams stateside last night, the revolution movement is gaining ground. Civil war is coming, and that's the only way to reset things. Hopefully the military will be on the peoples side, and so far, indications are that they will be.






Killer rabbits motto: "Lettuce pray."

‘Clearly a threat’: Australia’s nuclear deal sparks China concern.

www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/clearly-a-threat-australias-nuclear-deal-sparks-china-concern/news-story/71036df081252e8e3f6ca94e8b7907db


LOL, suck it up China-you tell others to butt out of your business, so, butt out of ours!!!

Why would the PRC be concerned about Australia's military? Unless they were planning on threatening us of course.