First of all, every geopolitical issue is defined by three things — geographics, demographics, and economics. Secondly, we have to understand nothing about China is ever as it appears. We can start with the myth of Communist Hegemony in China. As Daniel Greenfield notes:

The scenes from China show that there is a spectrum of opposition, from anger over financial fraud and Zero COVID to traditional calls for democracy and an end to Communist rule. I don’t believe that they will succeed, but the regime has been rattled badly. Zero COVID was to show that people would jump through any hoop, and instead, it showed that there is a sizable undercurrent of public anger, and despite a generation of indoctrination and total media and social media censorship, outrage lurks below the surface.

China is a huge country, but the vast majority of its population, of almost two billion people, live in an area no larger than the land mass East of the Mississippi River in America and are primarily ethnic Han. The rest of China is either very mountainous or very arid. It is sparsely populated, and not that productive agriculturally or industrially. These other ethnic groups hate the Han, and view the central government as illegitimate, and that’s particularly true of Tibet, which is an unending source of resistance to the Chinese Communist Party, which is stunningly corrupt.

Interestingly many of the Han also consider the Chinese government to be illegitimate, and the communist’s handling of the economy and the covid tyranny has enhanced that view. China’s economy is a myth, and finally, many geopolitical analysts are finally acknowledging that. Xii is a true believer in Maoist economics and is driving their economy down the drain.

They’re now provoking India in the Himalayas, for reasons I fail to understand other than they think they will intimate them into believing China will invade India from the North if they interfere with their activity in the South China Sea and Taiwan. They’re unendingly interfering in governments all over the world, which includes their Belt and Road Initiatives, and picking fights with Japan along with the Philippine Islands, Vietnam, and other South East Asian countries involving the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and what’s being called the nine-dash line area claimed by China and rejected by the rest of the world, which China is attempting to enforce with military intimidation.

India, Japan, and the Philippines are reacting to that with military initiatives of their own, especially Japan, and Taiwan is working an international lifeline via what they’re calling a Parliamentary Outreach. This is not going well for China, and it appears they’re shocked. Imagine that. 

India gave the Dalai Lama asylum after Tibet’s 1959 uprising. China decided to launch what was, in reality, an “object lesson war” against India in 1962. That’s an important event in understanding China’s military policies. They love playing the biggest, baddest bully boy on the block with their “object lesson military actions.” They really don’t like full-scale wars, and for good reason, the last one was the Korean War with America, and they took a massive beating throwing away untold thousands of young men’s lives with their tactics.

China really doesn’t have the capability to extend its power much beyond its borders, which they’re working to fix that by building aircraft carriers, with 25-year-old Russian technology, the technology they’ve stolen from others, and a failed economy.

For some time, we’ve been hearing reports the Chinese Communists are going to invade Taiwan and are practicing amphibious invasions, test-launching missiles, and they provocatively keep invading Taiwan’s air space playing intimidation games. Well, there are some things, no matter the rhetoric or provocations by Xi and his government, that represent substance over illusion.

The Chinese know a few things:

> First, this landing they’re practicing is just a big show. The U.S. Marines are the greatest military force in the world for amphibious landings, and it took more than practice to become good at it.

> Secondly, they must know their losses will be massive, in both men and equipment, if they attempt such a landing. Taiwan has a substantial military that would devastate such a landing force; even if they’ve never fought a real war, they’ll be fighting for their homes.

> Third, they have to know even the Biden administration, as stupid as they are, will have to jump in to save Taiwan, even if it’s just involving U.S. air power, and that alone will devastate the Chinese Air Force, their Marine landing force, and any ships they may employ. U.S. Naval aviators are the finest in the world. That’s why they’re called Top Gun! And currently, there are three carrier task forces in South East Asia, two East of the Philippine Islands and one East of Borneo.

> Fourth, they know if they launch a landing and are repelled, their military credibility throughout all of S. E. Asia will tumble like a house of cards. They can’t afford that since they’re attempting to impose an economic hegemony throughout all of Asia via military intimidation.

> Fifth, such an action will trigger economic retaliation the CCP can ill afford. China is actually broke, and I wish more people read the book Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. as it outlines just how devastating all that military buildup was to their economy, and that was from the early 1950s, hence the need for maskirovka to make them bigger than they were. China has the exact same problem, and they’re now having a demographic pyramid problem.

Will they attack Taiwan? No! There are too many negatives and few positives for such an action; even if they were to win, there would have to be long-term political and economic consequences they can’t afford.

What this will do is bring more American, Japanese, Indian, and Australian, forces into the area, just as Soviet outrageous claims triggered an arms race that broke the Soviets back economically; this will trigger responses they won’t like and can’t handle.

If Xi really had the intention of invading Taiwan, the disaster Putin created in his attack on Ukraine is a wake-up call for Xi. China has far more troubles than Taiwan. Xi is now facing a massive outbreak of covid in his population, and the reason for that was the massive lockdowns.

Since their society was, in effect, quarantined, they never were able to develop herd immunity to this virus, and I think combining that with these false vaccines, that are demonstrating they seem to make those vaccinated more susceptible to the virus, Xi has a lot of internal issues. The only resistance these lockdowns created was resistance and demonstrations against Xi in at least 17 cities around the country. They were clearly spontaneous, which many believe was the real reason for more and tighter lockdowns ⏤ because that spontaneity has to be frightening to the CCP. More lockdowns weren’t to stop this virus, but an effort to stop demonstrations against Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.

Invading Taiwan may be great rhetoric for the population in order to divert attention from Xi’s failures, but it’s not a reality.

Image: NRK