China launches live-fire drills encircling Taiwan

(theguardian.com)

27 points | by pinewurst 4 hours ago ago

15 comments

  • yanhangyhy 4 minutes ago

    I genuinely suspect that they might suddenly launch an attack during some future military exercise. Yesterday I was discussing investments with friends, and both China and the United States are competing for and stockpiling non-renewable resources. As long as a war does not actually break out, this kind of hoarding will not stop. So I bought some non-ferrous metals funds.

  • ncr100 3 hours ago

    Practically, what kind of country does this?

    Rhetorically, what kind of country does this?

    Culturally, what kind of country does this?

    • __patchbit__ 4 minutes ago

      Cowardly bully, they've removed seventy percent of seated military leadership in the latest purge. Communist Party zombies in China need a heart to heart check.

    • pfannkuchen an hour ago

      Isn’t Taiwan legitimately a threat to the CCP, though? Not in the sense that Taiwan the country can do anything to China the country, but Taiwan’s government used to be China’s government, right? It’s like an exiled royal family. And since Taiwan has the government type that the west supports, if the Chinese people at some point become sufficiently unhappy with the CCP, the Taiwanese government could appear as an alternative and it has a historical claim to do so and the west could back them (with a morally coherent and therefore defensible to its own people story for doing so). If I was CCP leadership I probably wouldn’t feel good about Taiwan either. This is also probably the real reason why the USA supports them, by the way. It isn’t about defending democracy, or industry there or whatever. It’s like if Russia was protecting the Confederate government that had fled to Puerto Rico. America probably wouldn’t like that. It’s weird that we have such a hard time looking at things from other people’s perspective, and instead project some moral framework on top of everything and whoever violates it is “bad” or whatever.

    • sleepyguy 2 hours ago

      Perhaps they're just copying the USA. You know, the action against Venezuela and the threatening of Denmark with the annexation of Greenland.

      • slimebot80 an hour ago

        These types of actions from China pre-dates that, even if there are similarities.

  • agentifysh an hour ago

    im not worried about Taiwan it has sufficient deterrence against any sort of land invasion. China might be able to launch a lot of air and missile strikes but if pushed to the brink Taiwan could use the ultimate trump card that is targeting the Three Gorges dam with its advanced cruise missiles.

    secondly, JSDF and US Navy offer overwhelming reinforcement if it looks like Taiwan would fall and China's PLAN would not be able to face the two most powerful navy in the world.

  • ungreased0675 2 hours ago

    Taiwan needs nukes. Just a few.

    • Ekaros 38 minutes ago

      Everyone needs nukes. Iraq and Afganistan needed them. Koreas needed them. Vietnam needed them. Cuba needed them.

      We should make proliferation world wide goal. More nukes every nation has the better for world peace. It is only way to ensure peace.

      Now it looks like Venezuela would have great and extremely justified reasons to have lot of them.

      • nielsbot 28 minutes ago

        You can add Syria, Lebanon, and Ukraine to the list.

        And of all these countries, nobody screws w/ N Korea. (Nukes!)

      • tjpnz 29 minutes ago

        Nukes as a Service. See you at the YC Spring 2026 Batch!

    • tjpnz 2 hours ago

      I would bet that they already do.

      • sleepyguy 2 hours ago

        Come on man, from where? It's not like they're Israel and the US gave them a few.

        • mullingitover an hour ago

          They’ve literally been caught developing nukes in the past and were talked down. They had their own domestic plutonium production.

        • slimebot80 an hour ago

          Don't see why not, Taiwan's silicon is a global security asset.