[hker]

> Also, as the war in Ukraine proves, you don't need cutting edge chips to inflict worlds of pain on another country, but 100+ year old tech of mortar cannons and shells are more than enough.

Worth noting the difference in scale between Russia (1.3m active personnel) and Ukraine (0.2m active personnel), the West are not directly participating in the battlefields (due to nuclear threats), and that Russia is connected to Ukraine by land.

For the Chinese case, the US has been very clear about sending armies to defend Taiwan, which is separated from China by sea.

So a technological gap can be a sufficient deterrent for the Chinese case, while less so for the Russian case.

[navigate8310]

Why do you believe that nuclear concerns wouldn't arise if China were facing significant setbacks in attempting a conquest of Taiwan?

[adriancr]

It's hard to see China (or anyone else) using nuclear weapons without similar response or worse.

So they would go from attempting to conquer a new piece of land via conventional war that they can withdraw from at any point if losing to facing destruction.

They've lost wars like vietnam and withdrawn after declaring victory, so it's not like they are suicidal if they dont get their way.

[hker]

China has a No First Use policy on nuclear weapons.

Russia threatens to use nuclear, even without being hit with nuclear.