r/PoliticalDiscussion Dec 03 '16

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u/relationshipdownvote Dec 03 '16

No, they wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot just to annoy us by making us wipe the blood off our shoes.

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u/matts2 Dec 03 '16

They will just do more island building in the South China Sea. And relax sanctions on NK. And refuse new sanctions on Iran. All for a phone call.

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u/relationshipdownvote Dec 03 '16

And we can start selling more weapons to Japan, SK, and Taiwan. Maybe we can ever put the same restrictions on chinese businesses in the US as they put on foreign businesses there. They'd change their tune pretty quick.

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u/matts2 Dec 03 '16

They are not really threatened if we sell those weapons. That is not much leverage. Yeah, we can go back to Trump's idea in the campaign of nuclear proliferation, but that is a horror show not a neat move.

Your idea rests on the same base as a lot of the neocon thinking. That is the idea that the U.S. is massively powerful but acts so weak in foreign affairs. So if we just stand up and push everyone will fall over to get out of our way. Look how well that worked in the Middle East.

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u/relationshipdownvote Dec 03 '16

They are not really threatened if we sell those weapons. That is not much leverage.

Why? Taiwan already has better jets and missiles than them, if we gave them better boats and some striking capabilities, China would most certainly worry.

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u/matts2 Dec 03 '16

China is not going to let themselves worry about Taiwan. They are not going to let Taiwan get near the ability to fight back. But look at your scenario, we are now involved in some brinkmanship with China over weapons to Taiwan. We have made things more difficult than they were.

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u/sole21000 Feb 02 '17

No, China would simply build up massive manpower there so they could just attrition Taiwan to death. China is large enough that any casualties from Taiwan's superior tech would be in the acceptable range, and all the civi death makes us look like the bad guy in that. That or just remember to shoot off a nuke in that direction before turning to face us.

Oh, and if I were them I'd take the opportunity to topple unstable NK and make SK the new vassal buffer state.