Slidey said:
banco55: New Zealand was reluctant to send any troops to Iraq, since it technically had no mutual aid pact with America anymore, but by the transitive property, it had one with Australia and Australia had one with the US, meaning New Zealand essentially had one with the US.
South Korea and Japan similarly have such pacts with the US.
America and its allies are smart enough to know that you can't let a country like China pick off democracies one at a time. There is all indication that America would respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Oh, the "my daddy beats your daddy" mentality again. "Look, we have more guns than you do, therefore, you are doomed." Have you forgotten the lessons learned in the Vietnam War? Have you forgotten that China has allies too? Do you think the Russians will just lean back and watch as the Koreans and Japanese threaten their interests? You can't fight an ideology with bullets, you said so yourself. You can’t simply go to war with another country because you disagree with its ideology. America had learnt from its past mistakes. You can't meddle in the affairs of another country. It is not an act of war on the U.S if China invaded Taiwan. Mainland China passed an anti succession bill back in 2005, which gives them the legal pretext to respond with "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan were to declare independence. Taiwan is not a sovereign country, even the U.S acknowledges that. Thus any "defensive pacts" it signed would be null and non-binding, and since when did Taiwan and the U.S sign a defensive pact? Can you provide valid proof to back up your claim? Because that would really be an act of war by the U.S on China. It's like New Zealand signing a defensive pact with Tasmania.
Dismissing them when a country like China declares an act of war is ludicrous
By your definition, there have been numerous “acts of war” committed by both China and the U.S over the years. See the Hainan Island incident in which a U.S EP-3E reconnaissance plane was brought down by a Chinese J-8 and the “accidental” bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo by a U.S B-2. By your logic, shouldn’t the United States and it’s oh so powerful allies have destroyed China a long time ago, since it is “ludicrous to dismiss them when a country such as China declares ‘an act of war’”? Shouldn’t China have nuked the United States and its allies because their dignity was trampled by the vile western imperialists?
It works both ways. China knows this, and it is the reason Chinese hasn't taken Taiwan by force so far.
China’s unwillingness to retake Taiwan by force is not due to the fear of American intervention, but because of the massive unrest, both in mainland China and Taiwan, such a course of action would bring. The ordinary Chinese folks do not want to see the government using soldiers and tanks to oppress them ever again, doing so would remove the bandage on a wound that has not yet been healed. If the commies were to retake Taiwan by force, there can be no saying that they’d still be in power afterwards.
The rest of your post is your personal speculation, much of it rather wild. For example you say that America would take 2 weeks to act, yet in 2005 America signed a pact with Japan that meant if Taiwan were attacked, Japanese troops would aid America in the defence. Somehow I doubt there would be a slow response time to something America has been anticipating for years.
Read my post. I didn't say America would take 2 weeks to act. I said America would respond by steaming its 7th fleet to the Philippine Sea like they did in the second and third Taiwan Strait crisis. Their carrier-based planes again would do some ELINT overflights in the strait for a week or two and then they'll go home. Japan can not go to war with China over Taiwan as the Japanese constitution forbids the formation and deployment of a traditional military. The Japanese Self Defence forces are only allowed to defend the Japan island from attacks, they are not permitted to be deployed abroad except for peacekeeping operations. Unless China attacks Japan, the only "aid" Japanese “troops” can provide to the U.S would be logistical. Again can you provide proof that America and Japan signed such a pact in 2005?
Taiwan has been essentially independent of China for about 50 years now
Your argument that the United States of America would go to war with China if it were to invade Taiwan, is merely based on your assertion that Taiwan has been independent of China for 50 years. Yet no country, not even the United States, acknowledges Taiwan as a
sovereign state. A state is not independent if it does not have
sovereignty. The United States government supports the eventual reunification of China, as it is stated time a time again, yet the U.S strives to maintain the status quo because it does not want to see Taiwan, a fully funtioning democracy, to be overrun by a bunch of commies. Taiwan, as stated by the the Kuomintang, will not return to mainland China unless it adopts the Three Principles of the People(democracy basically, that's all you need to know). Actually the KMT aims to reunify China by retaking mainland China but we all know it's never gonna happen as the commies are entrenched now.
yet you claim China has every right to invade and colonise it?
China does not need to colonise Taiwan as Taiwan has always been inhabited by the Chinese for thousands of years. I think before you want to start talking about a country you've never even been to so adamantly, you should at least do some research on its history and its people first. Yes I think China has every right to invade Taiwan if somehow the KMT had lost the grand scheme of things and declare independence. China has every right to invade Taiwan just as much as the American Union had when the Confederation declare independence. Back then, America was still a relatively weak country, yet the superpowers of the time, the French and the British Empire did nothing. What makes you think today’s superpower, the United States would intervene on behalf of Taiwan? Let's not forget that while China is not a superpower, it is an economic powerhouse with strong military tradition.
And no, Australia doesn't belong to England. If you read the various policies of Australia, such as the Statute of Westminster, the Australia Act, etc, you'd know that. Our relationship to England is a consensual one. One which now is effectively an alliance of cultures and aims, not duty or control.
Yeah we put the queen on our money though, as far as I'm concerned, that makes Australia British.
Any credibility China has would disappear if China used nukes on Taiwan. I imagine it really would spark a world war, grotesque a notion as that is.
China would never nuke Taiwan. Running over protesters with tanks is one thing, using nukes on your own people is another. Also, China is the only nuclear power to declare that it will not use, or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones under any circumstances. I think if China were ever to use thermonuclear weapons on Taiwan, there will be massive rebellion and the Communist Party would collapse onto itself before the world can respond.
Again, China knows this too, which is why they are attempting to integrate Taiwan through bluff, intimidation and economics instead.
The Communist Party of China is a joke. Taiwan will never yield. Nothing short of a democratic federation would reunite China.
