For discussion

[fpb]

I think that the future of the whole world depends on two monstrous gambles, in which most of us are concerned. One is to do with Islam: the effort to tame the rebellious and Titanic spirit of this religion by continued acquaintance and collaboration with a world that now includes not only the West but also the Far East and India. The other is the Chinese leadership's gamble that they can keep the colossal Chinese rate of economic growth going for another generation, absorbing the immense mass of unemployed in new businesses (the unemployed in China are estimated to be anything up to fifty or a hundred million) and stabilize the Chinese state on the income from taxation. If that fails, China might collapse into another of its civil wars, which are historically her reaction to change; but a civil war in a country of 1.4billion and with the atom bomb simply does not bear thinking about.

(That is why I was alarmed by bufo_viridis' offhand reference to the likelihood of China invading and taking over Taiwan by force. This would be a disastrous step; even supposing for a second that the US and Japan would not become involved in such a war, Taiwan is a virtually independent country that is one of the world's top ten economies. Its investments abroad, and foreign investments in it, are enormous. Its sudden destruction in a surely bloody and expensive war - Taiwan is armed to the teeth, as far as its small size allows it to be - would be a worldwide economic disaster; and China itself would suffer as much as anyone. The after-effects might be just as bad, if China's export markets suddenly start feeling mistrust towards it. Altogether, I can imagine no foreign-policy development more likely to stop the great Chinese growth in its tracks and endanger the great Chinese gamble.)

Comments

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Right, to make matters clear, I do not think the invasion is imminent. In fact there are several other military scenarios, less violent, but ending in the same result, namely subjugation of the island.
My offhandendness was mainly caused by my belief that in the case of invasion, Taiwanese won't get much more than kind words from the rest of the world.

The most interesting thing is that the countries which can do most to protect Taiwan and who whould be the most interested in "rewarding" the outstanding achievement of Taiwanese mocratization, i.e. USA and Western Europe will also be the one hit worst by the conflict's after-effects, because they're dependent on the electronic products of Taiwan.

There are also non-military scenarios of subjugation of Taiwan - mainly by freezing its enormous (100 bilions or so USD) investmentment on the Continent. Curious thing is, it's hard to gues how would the Chinese economy react to such freezing.

I won't develop further, becuase the starting point is too general - but I'd love to participate in the discussion which will hopefully follow.

To points think needs to be corrected:
China might collapse into another of its civil wars, which are historically her reaction to change
I think this is a bit too far-fetched - most often collapse and civil wars happened when the ruling part exhausted its ability to change and ossified too much; or at least I think so.

Taiwan is a virtually independent country
It's not virtually independent - it's a regular, independent state, albeit with very limited official international relations, but with a full capacity to maintain them.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

I have thought such many times myself, but I've just kept quiet it on it. I see no reason to ponder what might happen with China, because as with much of the affairs that have to do with them... They do what they want when they want because they do nothing without a great deal of planning and preparation. They also tend to corner the planetary market not only on economy -- but on patience.