Let's Talk about China

[easye]

China (and Xi) don't care about breaking past the first islands or they don't care about who helps with the US strategy of containment?

[Disciple of Fate]

They don't care about the diplomatic orbits as much. South Korea and Japan are firmly in the US camp, Vietnam and the Phillipines don't pose a large risk. The name of the game for China is to strike quickly and dig in for a US response, keeping the fight as far away from the mainland as possible. Occupying and fortifying those islands fits into that plan. Letting Vietnam and the Philippines have those islands/sandbanks allows the US to get much closer.

[easye]

The Philippines poses a huge risk to any effort to re-take Taiwan.

They are essentially an unsinkable aircraft carrier and help lock China from moving into a Blue Water campaign. This will help keep regional shipping lanes open.

[Disciple of Fate]

Oct 25, 2023 10:30:07 GMT -5 easye said:

The Philippines poses a huge risk to any effort to re-take Taiwan.

They are essentially an unsinkable aircraft carrier and help lock China from moving into a Blue Water campaign. This will help keep regional shipping lanes open.

Chinese thinking (which is probably woefully optimistic, but the size difference is vast) is that they overrun Taiwan in days. Too fast for a real US response to be mustered, then park a lot of missile defences on the eastern shore and wait for the next phase. Taiwan together with the SCS islands will protect a lot of the mainland from direct strikes is the thinking.

As dumb as this might sound, plenty of dictators have gone before Xi in overly positive thinking.

[easye]

More Chinese shenanigans around the South China Sea.....

A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of a B-52 bomber, U.S. military says

www.npr.org/2023/10/27/1208941174/a-chinese-fighter-jet-came-within-10-feet-of-a-b-52-bomber-u-s-military-says

A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of an American B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea, nearly causing an accident, the U.S. military said, underscoring the potential for a mishap as both countries vie for influence in the region.

In the night intercept, the Shenyang J-11 twin-engine fighter closed on the U.S. Air Force plane at an "uncontrolled excessive speed, flying below, in front of, and within 10 feet of the B-52, putting both aircraft in danger of a collision," the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement released late Thursday.

************************

China has been increasingly assertive in advancing its claims on most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters, a position rejected by the U.S. and other countries that use the vast expanse of ocean for shipping.

China's claims have led to longstanding territorial disputes with other countries in the South China Sea, one of the world's busiest trade routes. A Chinese coast guard ship and an accompanying vessel last week rammed a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat off a contested shoal in the waterway.

Following that incident, President Joe Biden renewed a warning that the U.S. would be obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, aircraft or vessels come under armed attack. He spoke in a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday at the White House.

[tannhauser42]

Another bit of China related news recently. The US added additional items to the list of AI processors from Nvidia that can't be sold to China and certain other countries. The RTX 409O is on that new list. It's a bit surreal knowing that my gaming PC is too powerful to let China have it.

Edit: more recent tech news is saying the 4090 isn't in the final list.

Edit Edit: and it's back on the ban list in the latest news.

[easye]

www.npr.org/2023/12/18/1216317476/china-military-taiwan-air-defense

China is subtly increasing military pressure on Taiwan. Here's how

Well, with their economy on the ropes and collapsing diplomatic efforts; the military is the biggest tool left in the tool box.

[herzlos]

Oct 27, 2023 15:43:47 GMT -5 tannhauser42 said:

Another bit of China related news recently. The US added additional items to the list of AI processors from Nvidia that can't be sold to China and certain other countries. The RTX 409O is on that new list. It's a bit surreal knowing that my gaming PC is too powerful to let China have it.

Edit: more recent tech news is saying the 4090 isn't in the final list.

Edit Edit: and it's back on the ban list in the latest news.

It's probably not a power thing; it'll be the AI algorithms or some function it can do that isn't allowed to export.

Edit: nah, it's stuff over a given power threshold, in some new export regulations. I'm surprised by that.

Of course, there's nothing stopping them linking multiple weaker ones together - most super computers these days are really just huge clusters.

[pacific]

Quite an interesting article I read on 'predictions in politics in 2024', and one of those was Xi Jinping being ousted from power this year. Apparently a lot of rumblings from within the Chinese Communist party over recent months over China's failure to perform economically, domestic pressures, and some key policies (with Jinping's name on them) which have not been successful.

It will be interesting to see if it is actually possible to remove him from power, if enough power remains within China's leadership (or how many challengers have been replaced by lickspittles, as tends to happen in autocracies) to actually remove him. My worry would be, in an attempt to hold onto power, he gets desperate and does something rash with regards to Taiwan..

[Disciple of Fate]

We simply don't know, but similar pieces pop up every year or so. Xi has quite a list of failures, but he has also been able to keep his power consolidated through some of the most 'public' unrest in the last few years. The fact that he has purged almost everyone not dependent on him for their own positions, makes it seem difficult for anyone to take over at the moment.

[Haighus]

So the UK MoD data breach is being blamed on a hacking operation by China, which China is strongly denying. The UK government is being fairly cagey about confirming they think it was China though. It is unclear to me whether China is actually the culprit, but it is being widely reported as such. For example:
news.sky.com/story/defence-secretary-grant-shapps-confirms-name-of-contractor-running-mod-system-hacked-by-china-13131105

Interestingly, the data breach occurred via a payroll system provided by a private contractor (which is some bland subsidiary for a French company). Having some insights into the mess that is private contracts for civil service functions, this does not surprise me.

I doubt this will change much in the China-UK diplomatic relationship by itself, but I think it does align with the increasingly adversarial relationship between China and the US and its vassals close allies.