How would a war in Taiwan affect you?

Not that long ago I posed a similar question about Ukraine when the news media warned of the prospects, Ukrainians were rehearsing air raid drills, and darned if Russia didn’t invade.
Now the news media is warning about the PRC, and Taiwan is rehearsing for air raids.

How do you think a war in Taiwan will change going about your day to day activities?
IF the PRC declares war against the US (or vice versa) obviously things could get catastrophic real quick,
One analyst claims that the Chinese Navy is capable of sinking the Pacific Fleet in hours(!) but what if it is limited to Taiwan and the PRC?
Can the US survive without Taiwanese microchips? Pharmaceuticals from the PRC?
Markets for US Agriculture? Will there be surplus US Agriculture to export without Ukraine fertilizers?

Just in case you weren’t depressed enough.

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I think China would have it rougher, not that it will be easy on us. But China can’t feed its ppl w/o food from the US. We still have the edge on tech in the military but that is closing fast. Also Japan wouldn’t sit still either I don’t think. Nothing good will come out of it for anybody I don’t think. But when have governments cared about its ppl?

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It’s a great question. I don’t think anyone knows the answer. No one wants to fight China, probably less so than even Russia. But would anyone step up and defend Taiwan? Would the U.S.? I have no idea.

On the positive side, China doesn’t want to pick a fight with the U.S., either. It’s not that they fear we’ll attack, it’s that we’re their best customer. Who else is going to buy so much useless, cheap junk? They also need our food. If the U.S. people became bold enough to boycott Chinese goods, the way many are boycotting Russia, it would really hurt China. The cost would be worth more than Taiwan is worth.

I have no idea how China is calculating this, but you can be sure they’re watching Russia.

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I don’t either but one thing is for sure; they see Biden as weak and dim witted. I do and you have to assume the worst when it comes to your enemy.

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The only thing that would happen if china attacked Taiwan is our economy would sink faster. We would do the exact same thing with Taiwan as we are doing in the Ukraine. Even worse, we would placate china at the same time. Our politicians are idiots. China does not want a hot war. They want to subjugate us financially and use us as a market. 6 out of the 10 largest wind turbine companies are chinese, 67% of our lithium and electric car batteries come from china.

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China needs those Taiwan chips also. Think Taiwan would just let China take over that manufacturing with it being operational, and they’d be able to step in and take over?

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6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

10 And then shall many be offended ( Matthew 24), and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

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I found this statement interesting to say the least. I’m not a Naval strategist so did a little reading and came to the conclusion that whoever made that comment is trying to strike fear without backing. First, it’s true that the Chinese Navy outnumbers the US Navy in sere numbers of ships. That being said it doesn’t look at the quality or individual power of those ships. The Chinese Navy seems centered around ships that will perform well in swallow seas and around the mainland of China. The US ships are larger and more capable. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scenarios where the US fleet would be stalemated or even defeated but hardly destroyed within a few hours. The most devastating seems to be trigged by an early biological attack on US Navy forces, followed with an attack on Taiwan. That being said it will be difficult at best for the US fleet to move into a position to defend Taiwan regardless of when the Chinese launched an attack. Now all of this also assumes two combatants in the region with neither side having allies involved.

As to your question how would it affect me and my family on a daily basis. Most likely if we did not get involved militarily, we would still have import restrictions so costs would go up. We would loss all goods coming out of Taiwan and probably the PRC. Although this would be costly in the short term it would force the US to strengthen its ability to produce goods at home. There would be a shortage of rare metals and some other raw goods, so a shift in the value of various consumer goods would also occur. Overall, I think it would be a messy situation and you can guess who would pay the price.

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I think this is a distinct possibility. The US has apparently been trying to get Taiwan to come up with a formal plan for destroying the chip factories if China invaded but they have apparently not come up with one yet.

I am not sure if the Taiwanese have the fight in them that the Ukrainians seem to. They have been living in isolation and luxury for quite some time, only taking limited steps to beef up their military despite China’s clear commitment to gaining control of their island. I also suspect that the people in charge of the chip factories might make the calculation that things will go better for themselves and their families after an invasion if they can help the Chinese get things back up in running quickly after an invasion. Might beat the alternative of facing China’s wrath for destroying the factories they covet.

Instead of learning from Russia’s mistakes and avoiding conflict China might assume they could just learn from them and avoid making them. They may also assume that the US will be unwilling to implode our economy any more than it already is. We can live without Russia’s oil but much of our economy depends on Chinese products that we can no longer make ourselves. China may see our current weakness and dependency as their best opportunity.

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China’s navy may be weaker than ours but their lead in hypersonic missile technology and proximity to the conflict zone give them distinct advantages. It is very likely that the US carriers are now the WW2 equivalent of battleships. Big, fat, easy to find and destroy targets.

It also doesn’t help that our military’s combat readiness is at all time lows. Many of our ships are long overdue for overhauls and upgrades and in need of serious repairs. Our military is still the best in the world but it is getting severely worn out from decades of policing the rest of the worlds problems along with dealing with the problems we keep creating for ourselves.

Agree that if it happens it will be messy and we will all be paying heavily for it.

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As I understand it, China is not thought to have the amphibious capability to actually invade Taiwan. They are more likely to blockade and fire off missiles, hoping to batter Taiwan into surrendering.

That said, Bad Man Xi has made it his mission in life to make Taiwan join Red China, and there are ways for them to make up for their lack of amphibious capabilities in a fairly short time, so more Javelins, please.

To be sure, I always expect this war. I also suspect that when China finally does make their move, they will have North Korea invade South Korea to divert and divide our attention.

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Unless Taiwan folds quickly, I see things going bad for Asians in the US. Even if the US does not get directly involved, the chaos caused by the additional economic chaos and disruption of supply chains will lead to a rise in anti-asian sentiment. Worse is if the US gets into a shooting war. Imagine the damage some chinese operatives could do in the US.

Depending on how serious the situation gets, I could see the government deciding to move Chinese in the US to camps for their safety or due to national security concerns. It happened before during World War 2. Thing is, can people easily distinguish between chinese, japanese or koreans?

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I found that video very informative. Thanks for posting it.

That’s a big issue, George.

Civilly, some Sikhs were targeted during the “sand box” wars because to racists, they simply looked like middle easterners because they wore turbans. Go figure!
Recently there seems to be a rise in attacks against Asian-American and Pacific Islanders.

The Nisei during WW2 was different matter—Government mandated discrimination. I think that’s a good reason to study History and learn from past horrors.
Realistically I don’t think think imprisoning such a huge population is even possible, but with the lunacy going on in Washington, who can say or certain?

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Maybe. I have found most Americans to be kind and anti racist. Our news cycle over and over tells us we are racist. I can see in general that Asian Americans will be treated respectfully with a few isolated incidents, but all bets are off if we find the chinese are actually creating problems within our border and the news actually reports it. I distrust ALL news media, 95% has some agenda or political slant.

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China needs USA more than China needs Taiwan, saying China relies on our resources and their exports to survive. China is not the Military strength we thing they are, I know during the cold war, Russia produced all these ships and subs at a alarming rate but did not have the trained personnel to operate them. China knows this, but America is seen as weak right now so making threats are easy as we keep showing our weak hand. However, a true war in that region would severely cripple China and the USA. We would be crushed financially, we do not manufacture most of our products we need, and the manufacturing we do here require resources from China to allow manufacturing here in the USA. One example is raw plastic materials. ABS, Nylon, and most other engineering resins, like for those polymer grips on many handguns and even rifle parts are hard enough to find, in some cases a lead time of 26 weeks. We need to focus back in to American, but I think it is too late. Finding young 20-30 year olds to get into manufacturing trades has been tough. My technical staff are 50’s and 60’s and I have 2 younger guys training to help replace. We are in a tough place right now.

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How will the establishment convince US population that Brandon-in-chief, Madam insider trader of the House, Mayor Pete who is…above his head, the Commie Squad - are all Asian?
I suppose disruption of supply chains and lockdowns may be pinned on Fa Uch Yi, but that’s it.
I take offense from assumption that 300 million Americans are blind, deaf, and mute, and only capable of acting with hate toward none-White minority in the times of troubles caused by completely different people.

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The U.S. can’t even build a wall on our shortest border. How would the U.S. build a camp big enough to house 5 MILLION Americans with Chinese ancestry?

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Hypothetically speaking, if they did build internment camps and isolated potential PRC agents there, I strongly suspect, majority would be White Liberal Academics and Silicon Valley Tech CEOs

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Yes, recruiting woes are the testament to this. PRC (I prefer this term, because Taiwan state is also formally called China) faces closing window of opportunity, with the next Congress and next Administration being a lot worse adversaries. That alone provides motivation. Of course they may bet on USA turning isolationist to address domestic troubles in near future, but then again PRC is in a severe crisis and may not be able to mount an expeditionary force in 2 years.

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