[simonh]

If China invaded Taiwan, Europe would stand together with the US on any retaliation. It would be the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait all over again, geopolitically. China would be cut off dead from the global economy, no matter the cost. I don’t think it would be practical to liberate Taiwan, but China would be ruined.

[sudosysgen]

China is not Iraq. It's insane to compare the two.

Europe was okay with the first invasion of Iraq because they frankly had very little to lose and a lot to gain.

Meanwhile suiciding the EU economy by cutting off Chinese exports would hurt the EU a lot more than it would hurt China and certainly much more than the invasion of Kuwait.

In any case I'd recommend reading what Chinese generals write on the subject. For the exact same reason as you cited they don't want to invade Taiwan unless "necessary" until the balance of trade shifts far more into the Chinese side.

Yet when confronted on the possibility of doing it now they make a very solid point. China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.

That is to say, in the Chinese calculus, the EU and US cutting themselves off of Chinese trade would hurt the former more in the short term and medium term than it would hurt China, and their arguments for it are compelling.

Beyond that, the truth is that there is a lot more to the economy than the EU and the US. China would still trade with Russia, Africa, South East Asia, almost definitely South Korea, and most of Central and South Asia.

The real thing that is at issue in Chinese military planning is not a voluntary embargo, it's a blockade by the US. But even the ability for the US to execute such a maneuver is already questionable and dwindles every year, and it would assuredly royally piss of the entirety of the world and definitely kill millions outside of China from economic dysfunction.

[goatsi]

>China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.

Tell me what I'm missing about their domestic oil industry then, because everything else I'm reading tells me they need to import around 10 million barrels of crude oil a day (primarily to produce gasoline and diesel, so it's very hard to substitute).

[sudosysgen]

Indeed, they do. They still have the domestic capacity to expand internal production to cover most of those 10 million barrels. I didn't say they produce everything they need in sufficient quantities, just that they produce it. It would cause short term trouble and rationing but long term the impact is mitigated.

[goatsi]

Looking at the most recent numbers, they produced just under 4 million barrels a day domestically. Oil production isn't something where you can just triple the output over a few months. China has been working to expand their internal production for a while, and it takes billions of dollars and years to do so: https://www.forbes.com/sites/edhirs/2019/06/06/china-is-bett...

[sudosysgen]

They don't need to triple it in months. Increasing domestic supply by 50%, increasing Russian oil imports from 1.7 mbd to 3mbd.

Meanwhile, China has reserves for 100 days of imports.

In the long term domestic and Russian production will catch up fully.

[goatsi]

Did you read the article? Why would they plan to spend 77 billion over 5 years for a 50% increase in production if they could crank it out of their existing infrastructure in under 100 days?

And even if Russia repudiated every other contract they have in Asia, it doesn't look like they have the pipeline capacity to get that much oil to China, even if the cross border capacity for China to import it existed. So it would have to come on tankers, which would generate some interesting geopolitical brinkmanship.

That's assuming things don't escalate far beyond sanctions or a possible blockade. The risk with a naval confrontation is that it's very easy to quickly generate casualties that would make backing down politically suicidal. Even just a few of the smaller ships getting sunk means hundreds of dead sailors.

[c_o_n_v_e_x]

"China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another."

...produces finished goods. China cannot do this without massive imports of raw materials copper, iron ore, coal, etc. China has effectively colonized Africa for access to said raw materials.

Belt and Road is a way to set up overland routes to avoid any naval blockades.

[sudosysgen]

China hasn't colonized Africa.

China produces very significant amounts of copper ore, iron ore, coal, and has the facilities to expand production on short notice .

It would hurt production in the short term, yes, but there wouldn't be anything that China would completely miss.

[throwaway210222]

> China has effectively colonized Africa

Where do you you get this crap from?

I live in Africa and I have never been told what to do by a Chinese official or business - or even a local official actin on the instructions of a mandarin.

Unless you have watered 'colonisation' down to 'Chinese interests own some stuff in parts of Africa'.

Which - to indulge my woke hat - pretty offensive to people who lived under actual colonisation.

[simonh]

That's fair, don't understand the downvotes. The thing is colonisation now extends to things like believing western science and liking western music. It's become watered down to just mean any form of developed world influence.

[throwaway210222]

Just a small correction: there is no such thing as Western science.

There is just science.

[Unless people truly believe the Chinese space programme uses its own, different physics, or that the concrete in the new Ethiopian dam on the Nile river has its own chemistry.]