Should we continue to arm Taiwan?

[al981]

Guaranteeing Taiwan's sovereignty is another game entirely and not one we should get involved in. That would be an empty promise and everyone knows it.

no oil in taiwan...sorry suckas!

so much for "defending freedom" amiright 0r000r00000.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Right now, it is impossible for China to invade Taiwan. China simply lacks the ability to move enough troops across the 150+ km stretch of water.

When you hear of them expanding their navy with more troop carriers & amphibious assault ships then you can worry. Also a big reason China gets their panties in a bunch when Taiwan tries to get advanced anti ship missiles.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

You'd be surprised how many young Taiwanese consider themselves Taiwanese and not Chinese.

I know a few.

I'm Taiwanese. Hell I'm born and raised in the US, and I consider myself Taiwanese. It's not the same.

I'm all for peaceful dialogue with the mainland, but Taiwan needs to be able to deter Chinese attacks.

Taiwan is more than willing to buy more planes and ships. The US just needs to sell to them. Bush and Clinton sold to Taiwan more when things were aggressive with the Mainland. Even in the latter Bush years, he's pushed Taiwan to the side. I wouldn't be surprised if fewer arm sales are carried out. I just visited Keelung the other day to see the Kidd-Class destroyers. Apparently these are Taiwan's flagships....

Right now, it is impossible for China to invade Taiwan. China simply lacks the ability to move enough troops across the 150+ km stretch of water.

When you hear of them expanding their navy with more troop carriers & amphibious assault ships then you can worry. Also a big reason China gets their panties in a bunch when Taiwan tries to get advanced anti ship missiles.

China's a little more advanced than most people think they are. Just like most people think the streets of Beijing are filled with billions of bicycles. Of course that's what films from the 80s and early 90s will tell you. In reality the streets of Beijing and Shanghai look like the streets of Taiwan minus all the scooters they have in Taiwan. There are bikes, but it's not like they're in the majority anyway.

The same goes with the Chinese military. People think they still fly WW2 bombers or something. Uhhh. Yeah. They may not have 2000 advanced fighters at their disposal, but they have more than a handful to put Taiwan in a world of hurt.

Casualties will be HEAVY in a real invasion. Taiwan has a huge terrain advantage and a lot of fighting will take place on the hills. It's not because China can't fight. It's because even if the US had to engage in mountain forest combat, it would be pretty difficult.

 

[Schadenfroh]

OP updated, it looks like Obama approved the sizable arms sale. Looks like this package was mostly defensive technology, like patriot missile batteries, but it did include Black Hawks (did not specify if it was the attack helicopter model or the utility model). Command and Control equipment was also in there.

This should piss China off nicely, shame they hold so much of our debt.

One of my bosses is originally from Taiwan, so obviously I take the mainland's side in this matter.

Joking of course, in a better world (where we owe no money), I would support the sale without hesitation. I still support the arms sale, but it does make we weary due to the economic MAD relationship we have with the mainland.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

OP updated, it looks like Obama approved the sizable arms sale. Looks like this package was mostly defensive technology, like patriot missile batteries, but it did include Black Hawks (did not specify if it was the attack helicopter model or the utility model). Command and Control equipment was also in there.

This should piss China off nicely, shame they hold so much of our debt.

One of my bosses is originally from Taiwan, so obviously I take the mainland's side in this matter.

Joking of course, in a better world (where we owe no money), I would support the sale without hesitation. I still support the arms sale, but it does make we weary due to the economic MAD relationship we have with the mainland.

Obama really doesn't have to worry, he'll never be thought of as a war president no matter how hard he tries and will not win any elections on it.

One sitting duck.

 

[Zorkorist]

Who give a f about Taiwan and the 23 million people there. We all know China is the $hit, doesn't matter if China practice totally unfair trade/foreign exchange policy, doesn't matter China totally disrespect human right, doesn't matter China pretty much bully their citizen and other countries around, if China says don't sell arm to Taiwan, US and Obama gotta listen.

End of story.

Cut out the middleman... everything businessmen do.

Taiwan is about as usefull as a spur on my heel.

-John

 

[Dari]

The threat of nuking Beijing ought to give the anti-G-d commies pause. Of course, if we did nuke them, think of all the new dishes they can create...

 

[Zorkorist]

We're not going to nuke nobody Dari.

Especially not God Damn Commies.

Cuba is too close, and there aren't many other commies left, today. (Except within our own Government)

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

We could nuke Saudi Arabia?

A Kingdom?

Does that work for you?

-John

 

[Dari]

We could nuke Saudi Arabia?

A Kingdom?

Does that work for you?

-John

That works for me. BTW, after getting royally humiliated and disrespected by the Chinese in Copenhagen, it seems like Obama is on a roll in pissing them off. More power to him. I would like to see this continue.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Obama viewing Taiwan as a "barrier" to US interests in Asia is exactly what I was talking about in my thread regarding Obama being seen as weak in Asia. The guy oozes weakness and he has no spine to stand up for allies against an anti-G-d, antid-democratic, totalitarian government. Obama is a pussy.

dari you ooze super troll and super mis-information and super stoopidity, did I mention idiocrisy?? Your one oozing troll dude!!

why stand up for Taiwan when as was mentioned earlier China is not going to invade taiwan..also another generation or 2 and i suspect that they will once again be part of china...voluntarily I might add.

Why fight a war if we don not need too....

 

[JEDIYoda]

That works for me. BTW, after getting royally humiliated and disrespected by the Chinese in Copenhagen, it seems like Obama is on a roll in pissing them off. More power to him. I would like to see this continue.

Obama did not get humiliated in Copenhagen......this is just more of your anti obama trolling.......your in the running for Village idiot with pat ur anus.....

 

[Dari]

dari you ooze super troll and super mis-information and super stoopidity, did I mention idiocrisy?? Your one oozing troll dude!!

why stand up for Taiwan when as was mentioned earlier China is not going to invade taiwan..also another generation or 2 and i suspect that they will once again be part of china...voluntarily I might add.

Why fight a war if we don not need too....

Are you retarded? That post was made before this decision and before Obama decided to get tough. If Obama was not humiliated in Copenhagen by lower-level Chinese drones, I doubt he would have done this. Obvious the humiliation was a slap back to reality. Now, he's managed to piss them off wrt Google and Taiwan. Stop sucking the president's dick.

 

[Babbles]

You'd be surprised how many young Taiwanese consider themselves Taiwanese and not Chinese.

I know a few.

From my experience this is totally true. In my graduate program we have quite a few students from both Taiwan and mainland China. The Taiwanese students made it quite clear that we should refer to them as Taiwanese and not Chinese - they effectively got offended if we inadvertently called them Chinese. With that being said the Taiwanese and Chinese students appear to get on great. Based on this I tend to think any sort of genuine animosity lies within the upper political numbnuts running China.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Gotta keep those jobs going in the US MIC (Military Industrial Complex).

Your tax dollars financed the research, development, testing and construction. Now, a private company stands to profit substantially from your taxpayer investment.



And China/Taiwan <---> USA has been, and will always be, LOL.

Other than maintaining the status quo, where does anyone ever expect this to go? A Shooting War?





--

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

The threat of nuking Beijing ought to give the anti-G-d commies pause. Of course, if we did nuke them, think of all the new dishes they can create...

WTF is a G-d?

Just shut them the fuck out, it's a shithole of a nation, a third world shithole just like India and the only thing we're doing is supplying their leadership with a good reason to keep it that way.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

That works for me. BTW, after getting royally humiliated and disrespected by the Chinese in Copenhagen, it seems like Obama is on a roll in pissing them off. More power to him. I would like to see this continue.

You want to talk about humiliation, Powell before the UN, i was there and i saw him sweat as he was laughed at, the entire world knew that he was wrong, the Nigerian cake bullsheit made some MI6 agents the laughing stock of the UK before that, along with Blair. The centrifuges bullsheit was already disproven and there he stood, having all that info and sweating as he tried to explain that GW's truth was truthier than reality.

THAT is what humiliation looks like, Obama in Copenhagen was just politics as usual, he knows the drill by now and he has indeed become a full fledged politician, all words and no actions, ideologies are more important than actions to most people anyway so he will win on talking, not doing.

 

[Sclamoz]

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - China threatened to impose sanctions on U.S. arms companies and cut cooperation with the United States unless it cancels a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, but Washington said on Saturday the weapons would contribute to regional security.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60T07W20100130

Seems like an empty threat to me.

 

[K1052]

I'm sure they're really pissed over the sale of the PAC-3 systems, they probably don't really give a crap about the rest of it.

That said I think China will eventually back off. He could have done a lot worse like sold them the F-16s they want or broker a deal with South Korea to sell them Type 214 AIP submarines.

 

[Lemon law]

I disagree with Dari here, the Chinese are starting to upgrade their military and have the luxury of buying and building the latest and the greatest technology without being stuck with maintaining a huge inventory of obsolete equipment.

All we do by arming Taiwan is to motivate China to arm far faster than China wants to and accelerate the day when China achieves military parity in the far East.

China is now in the position the US was when Teddy Roosevelt was in office. And in a decade, the USA went from an insignificant Naval Power to competitive with the British.
As the Japanese did roughly the same and kicked the butt of a huge Russian fleet in 1906.

The last thing the USA needs at this is to get into an arms race with China. And China, which is in a time of great change and is wracked with all kinds of internal disagreements
has already discovered that nothing unifies the Chinese more than regaining lost territory. Singapore is an example of that as the British 100 year lease expired.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Gotta keep those jobs going in the US MIC (Military Industrial Complex).

Your tax dollars financed the research, development, testing and construction. Now, a private company stands to profit substantially from your taxpayer investment.

The defense contractors and their suppliers will no doubt be taxed by our government. Private companies profit from taxpayer investment all the time, not just in the defense industry.

Do the contractors not invest their own time / money / resources into these projects (and competitions for these projects) as well?

 

[CanOWorms]

China will probably eventually take it over if they want it. We should concentrate on dismantling the European powers instead since they are weak and we can see some real results. Imagine giving the Basques some missiles which they can point at Madrid. Or have drones flying over London assassinating their MPs.

 

[lsquare]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60013Z20100101



As you all know, our defense exports are highly regulated by the government. Both Obama and Bush have been very cautious in regards to allowing arms to be sold to the ROC (Republic of China (Taiwan)).

Traditionally, we have had close political ties to the KMT (China's conservative / nationalist (not to mention ruling) party) and the ROC itself. Our economic ties are tight with the ROC, but it is by far eclipsed by our economic ties to the PRC. This is obviously a very sensitive issue with the PRC. Do the Taiwanese people / government still consider the US their friend after our years of alienating them?

Is it worth our economic security / relationship with the PRC to continue to supply Taiwan with arms and to some extent protection? There is still the remote possibility in the future of a PRC attack on the ROC sparking another world war (possibly one side calling the other side's bluff), but that is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Personally, I leaning towards that we should continue to sell / supply them with what they need to protect themselves (if the people of Taiwan want our help). But, I can see both sides of the issue and I suppose I could still be on the fence.

They hold many of the same values as us and it would be a shame to see another free society be snuffed out. Even a well armed Taiwan could not resist an overwhelming military attack from mainland China without U.S. and Friends' help, but with the right equipment and training, the cost of the invasion might not be worth it to China as they would have to destroy everything of value on the island and lose vast amounts of men and material to take it (which would deter an attack, I would think).

Edit: To clarify, when I say "arm Taiwan," I mean sell them arms, not give them to them for free

Update 1/29/09: It looks like the administration will continue to arm them
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100130/ts_nm/us_usa_china_taiwan

I think the US should continues to arm Taiwan because the PRC poses an existential threat to the Taiwanese regime. As you have said, the US and Taiwan share many of the same values and it would be ashame to let a totalitarian regime absorb it.

However, the notion that the US is defending Taiwan strictly because of its democratic values is wrong. In my opinion, this has more to do with geopolitics than with defending another democratic "state". The government and media likes to spin the news to convince the American people that a democratic society in Taiwan is under threat from its mainland neighbour. Most people don't understand the implications of selling weapons to the Taiwanese.

Taiwan plays a major role in US foreign policy in the Pacific region. In a way, Taiwan is part of US policy of containing a rapidly rising China. China is a superpower in its own right and it'll only get stronger over time. While a Sino-US war may not be inevitable in the short-term, in the long run, conflict may be inevitable. Why? Because common interests between the US and the PRC are in my opinion diverging and not converging. The US and the PRC have been at odds over the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues for a while now. While the PRC is unlikely to come to the assistance of Iran in the event of a US-led attack on Iran, the PRC will come to the assistance of the DPRK if the US and the ROK invades North Korea.

So how is this all related? The PRC does not want US allies with close proximity to the mainland. That's exactly why the PRC assisted the DPRK during the Korean War. US-led forces almost destroyed the DPRK until the PRC joined the war. The last thing the PRC wants is a US-friendly regime next door. Everyone knows that the US is the ROC's greatest supporter. In the event of a Sino-US conflict, Taiwan's close proximity to the mainland makes it particularly ideal to launch any invasions against the mainland.

 

[lsquare]

Taiwan is an independent country. We can and should sell them equipment, but not gift anything.

No it's not, the UN doesn't recognize the ROC regime and therefore it's not an independent country.

 

[lsquare]

Actually, China does not have us over a barrel. It's the opposite. A lot of the crap that comes from China is made or contracted by American companies. Furthermore, China's obsession with American debt makes it a Chinese problem, not an American problem. $800B is nothing to sneeze and they would have to think real hard before asking for that money cause we can just print it.

The US can certainly print more money and they did to the tunes of $1 trillion, but printing more only makes inflation a major problem down the line. I think Newton's third law or w/e it's called makes a lot of economic sense here.

As for comparing Obama's action to previous governments, at least Clinton and Bush had the balls to sell to the Taiwanese. Obama is too fucking scared to do so. If China really wants a war over Taiwan, we have more than enough strength and allies to re-colonize them. Besides, with them being aggressive against other countries in that region with regards to territorial rights, what's to stop them at Taiwan?

I wish it was that easy. Don't forget, the Chinese have nuclear weapons. Not to mention the the PLA has the largest army in the world. They fought the Americans to a truce during the Korean War. No war against the PRC will be a easy one. If it was, the US would have eliminated the PRC long before 2010.