- US Adm. John Aquilino said China’s military is building up at a rate not seen since World War II.
- That puts it on the path to meeting its goal of being ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, he said.
- Aquilino, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.
China’s rapid military build-up is more expansive than anything seen since World War II, which means it’s on track with its 2027 goal to be ready for a Taiwan invasion, said US Navy Adm. John Aquilino.
“All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027,” Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.
“Furthermore, the PLA’s actions indicate their ability to meet Xi’s preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed,” added the admiral, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command.
outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.
Better yet. Instead of spending a trillion dollars to gear up to join WW3, how about spend that money to develope domestic manufacturing so we can completely embargo all imports from China. Stay out of conflicts between other nations.
Hit them in the economy and it will hurt them far more than hitting them with bombs, plus the bonus effect of not wasting thousands if not millions of human lives.
That is the thing. We funded the Chinese build up. Stupid to fund a hostile nation.
We shouldn’t do business with China, period. Not only would our economy grow like crazy, but China would decline and become less of a threat to the world.
Ironically could have learnt something from China. Just said fuck you we got everything we need on this side and close the border.
stay out of conflicts between other nations
Exactly. There’s no way Hitler’s will try to take Poland. Even if he does, it’s not like the Nazis or Japanese would attack the US.
Americans can’t afford housing, homelessness is increasing, healthcare is unaffordable; and you want its population to support teabagging the rest of the world like it’s 1945. When militaries spread themselves thin, without the nation taking care of its home population, that spells trouble. Ask Rome.
All of those problems are because of political corruption, not raw money in/out. The US spends 3.5% of GDP on military, a lot, but not the most. Ranked #10 globally for military spending per GDP. Russia spends more than the US.
US is not Rome, at least not yet, or anytime in the immediate future.
Your analogy is not a 1:1 representation of the situation at hand and only serves to distract people from the subject.
I think less of people who always resort to analogies, because they just reduce complicated situations into ones that are easier for their small minds to comprehend.
That’s all well and good, but I just don’t understand. Can you rephrase that in how it relates to an Olympic size swimming pool?
Paradoxically, a large standing army will mean less likelihood of conflict. Deterrence works.
Would you rather the Chinese be allowed to have their way with the entirety of the Asia-Pacific region? Based on what we’ve seen in Hong Kong I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Maybe one day they can attain the freedom status of the exceptional USA.
To be honest, that graph is a bit worrying especially if you look at PPP. I’m not saying “China will build more aircraft carriers than the US” or some such nonsense. I’m saying there is no point going to 300 bil if you don’t want to fight the US. India is their other closest rival.
I’m not sure they would succeed, but I’m worried they might try.
The thing that’s always so misleading about these numbers is that everything costs more in the US to begin with. A lot of that expense is just for US labor, which costs more per person than at least most countries. The graph is a lot more reasonable when you do [% of gdp] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/266892/military-expenditure-as-percentage-of-gdp-in-highest-spending-countries/)
I think they’re probably more worried about the us invading them. We’re the ones who’ve been invading countries most in the past 100 years, not china.
KSA being on this chart is an imposter because they can’t even defeat the Houthis by themselves lmao.
All that funding is to buy and bribe the US military to maintain their own bases in the country to keep themselves secure.
I’m all against populist and authoritarian regimes, but taking them out of the table, fuck USA.
Errr, Taiwan people should fight their own battles.
Just like Haitians and Africans.
Or, let me guess: it’s okay for the West to defend Whites. It’s okay for the West to defend Asians. But it’s not okay for the West to defend Blacks.
Actions do speak louder than words, after all. Better to fight China’s armies than Haiti’s gangs.
(This is why I never take popular sentiment seriously anymore. Too many useful idiots incapable of critical thinking.)
All that money isn’t going to mean much without experience to back it up.
The US military could crumble once people start dying and plans/equipment start failing.
We could find out that the US has just been taken for a ride by military contractors. Western equipment certainly didn’t turn the tides in the Ukraine war like people on these forums thought it would.
The us military is constantly experiencing warfare.
If anyone in that pic turns out to have been swimming naked it’ll be the chinese
I think Taiwan doing so well in the semiconductor space is a huge win for the region. I fear China attacking would put East Asians in a tough spot; especially if the foundries get destroyed.
So does the Chinese think it will be a quick war? Recent history has shown that this kind of years never end. The Taiwanese have been preparing for this for years.
Russians thought taking Ukraine would last a few weeks and that war has been ongoing for couple of years. The Saudis are sucked into Yemen for several years. The US got into 2 forever wars at the same time.
Taiwan is a 13,976 sq mile Island. Yemen is a 214,287 sq mile desert. Ukraine is 233,062 sq miles. It’s not a fair comparison. China could take Taiwan very quickly because it’s a tiny little island. They’re more likely to simply embargo the island though and turn it into the next Cuba.
China could take Taiwan very quickly because it’s a tiny little island.
I assume you have little military knowledge. Personally I don’t make claims like this at all because I know the limits of my own knowledge. If China were to attempt to take Taiwan it would be devastating for both countries. War is absolute shit, many civilians would die, and what would China really gain? They’d gain being on America’s shitlist which historically is terrible. Be careful with statements like these, they’re the same ones I read right before Russia invaded Ukraine.
It is tiny, but far more parity in terms of arms and the whole being an island thing makes it exponentially harder to invade than say, a country you share a a land border with including roads leading you to where you want to go.
No it isn’t. They could carpet bomb the whole island in a week. They don’t even need to step foot on Taiwan to conquer it. Their Navy and Air Force is more than enough. But they’d be more likely to just blockade the country and starve everyone.
That being said, I don’t actually believe China will invade Taiwan. There’s no real incentive. I don’t doubt that they’re expanding their military, but I believe it’s entirely US propaganda intended on selling weapons through fear mongering.
Link to show invading is not trivial https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-a-taiwan-invasion-would-look-nothing-like-d-day/
Enforcing a blockade around an island full of long range anti ship and air defences, aided by the US military, is extremely hard. Also and more importantly it’s a very long dragged out war that gives Taiwan time to build allies, and the west to organise, which will make it harder and harder to enforce.
Finally you’re replying to someone saying the war will take a long time, which you initially disagree with then go on to talk about an embargo which more than agrees with it. It’s going to take ages to resolve if they attack and it’ll almost certainly include Russia distracting NATO in Europe. I dearly hope china sees sense and gets rid of xi before his desperation for personal achievements in his lifetime causes the nation and world a lot of pointless suffering
I think you’re misunderstanding. If China were to invade, it would be over quickly. I’m not saying that China wouldn’t have losses in the process, I’m just saying it wouldn’t take long due to the fact that the island is roughly the size of Maryland. To add to that, I doubt the US would actually get involved and would instead just try to sell weapons to Taiwan, just like Ukraine.
That being said, invasion aside, like as a completely separate course of action, I believe they’d be more likely to take the long term path of embargo. They wouldn’t be bombarding the island, just preventing supplies from coming in or out. They can do this outside of the range of Taiwan’s defenses and Taiwan is incapable of sustaining itself for very long. The war would likely end within a year, the US would probably make a lot of threats, but ultimately wouldn’t sacrifice the US economy for a war with China.
Now, this is really the most important part. It is well within China’s best interest to not invade Taiwan. They have a symbiotic relationship and the whole situation is just posturing between the US and China and has nothing to do with Taiwan at all.
Well if nobody in the West is prepared to admit that Taiwan isn’t a bit of China, what are they going to do about it? Probably nothing at this point. It’s far enough away that it’s not really a territorial threat to us, unlike Ukraine.
The real question should be, what are we doing about all that Taiwanese manufacturing we rely on? Because if the answer isn’t “move it all back to Western countries where it can fuel Western economies no matter the cost” then you’re making a hell of a gamble on China staying friendly with us in the future.
Time to play psyop or tankie!
The answer is Seventh Fleet goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
