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Nuke 'em.
China sensing American weakness and distraction due to Iraq, Iran and North Korea decides now is a good time to annex Taiwan. They send forces in and take the island. Your the decider, what do we do?
Discuss.
Nuke 'em.
Simply threaten to affect trade with China.
The US has immense leverage over China because of the level of trade if it wishes to exercise that influence.
The Chinese leadership knows that China depends too much on the income produced from exports to the US to even consider raising this specter, regardless of how much some hardliners in China push for such a move.
The betterment of US-Chinese trade relations has dramatically decreased any chances of conflict.
Talk about a knee-jerk reaction.
Wait! I would send RandomGuy as an envoy to try some diplomatic strategery and then...I'd nuke 'em.
They do own a lot of the U.S. debt. I guess we could default on that as well.....
Then I would RandomVaporGuy.
I would come back as a ghost and haunt the message board here.
BOO!!
Yup. That would cause our credit rating to go in the toilet, with a resulting massive e in interest rates.
Remember our federal debt is 75% of our GDP and rising.
Interest payments are under control now, but such a rise would cause massive tax increases.
It would be... bad.
By "bad" I mean apocolyptic, and I say that in 100% seriousness.
China prefers to have it's little brothers do the dirty work for them - Korea, Vietnam, and now Iran and Syria. The trouble is Taiwan is an Island, it really has no neighbors except for main-land China. The Chinese would lose in a Naval War against the U.S..
Tell China in advance that we would not oppose their taking over Taiwan in exchange
for them not doing anything when we invade Iran and as a kicker we can give them our word that we will let them have 50% of the oil in Iran.
You wouldn't want to pay the price to win a war against China Dan.The Chinese would lose in a Naval War against the U.S..
Um, we are having problems holding on to a country of 16 million by severely straining our military.
How would we hold on to a nation of 60 million?
You let them take it. Most countries, even the US, have been viewing mainland China as the one true China for a while. Not only that, but China alone is a rather strong power with many allies. This all assumes that regular diplomacy isn't working, which any leader would do first.
Now, what if North Korea decided to finish the still on-going Korean War? I would say we are obligated to come to the defense of South Korea.
I can't tell you what "should" happen, I can tell you what would because I lived in the region for 2 years.
The US has 25,000 troops and the biggest airbase in Asia on Okinawa, less than 1 hour away by flight. They also have CAPs sitting between China and Taiwan the entire time.
The US would undoubtedly be able to stop an invasion by sea with their air and sea power in the region, then they'd shift those 25,000 troops to Taiwan just to show how serious they are.
Any talk of nukes is just plain silly seeing as the Chinese have them too and could retaliate, and oh how brilliant that is, say we all, as the world is engulfed in a cloud of radioactive dust...
However, I was surprised to find out the other day that the Chinese only have about 300 nukes. Unfortunately for Yonivore and his ilk, they also have ICBMs to put them on, and it only takes one to level a city.
Either way, I don't see China doing anything that stupid unless there is a major shift in the world power balance (like the US is hit with a virus that wipes out half the population). If world power does shift away from the US, both Taiwan* and Japan* better have their nukes ready or the will certainly hit the fan...
*I would be surprised if both states aren't highly advanced in plans to develop nukes if they happen to need them.
There's not a whole lot in it for China to try to take over Taiwan. To do so would mean to destroy it and any reason that made it attractive for takover in the first place. The only real reason China would invade would be to save face if Taiwan went ahead and declared independence. The Taiwanese may or may not be that stupid.
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