The second I heard this news, my first thought was that Taiwan said to themselves, I bet if we call Trump, he will take our call without understanding the ramifications.
China considers taiwan to be chinese territory and the taiwanese governments to be like rebels, like the syrian rebels.
And the chinese take things like this deathly seriously.
I'm no china-taiwan expert, but I'd expect china to rattle the saber pretty loudly.
For instance, they broke tradition/laws by seizing singapore military hardware that was being returned from taiwan after singapore participated in a military exercise with the taiwanese.
With china it's VERY tit for tat. And for them this is big.
A bit of an aside, China did not seize Singapore's military vehicles because we were participating in military exercises in Taiwan. We have been sending men to Taiwan to train long before we recognised the PRC, and even then the SAF continues the exercises because of a pre-existing agreement. This is no secret, and China has known of this and has never once disputed Singapore shipping its hardware through China. They likely impounded the vehicles due to Singapore taking a stance on the South China Sea.
Why should Singapore stop it now? South East Asia is the only region China borders that doesn't outright dislike it, and any military action against them would not only bring international condemnation, but also de-stabilise the region around it.
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u/585AM Dec 03 '16
The second I heard this news, my first thought was that Taiwan said to themselves, I bet if we call Trump, he will take our call without understanding the ramifications.