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by JumpCrisscross 518 days ago
> CCP has fully subscribed to irredentism and it has popular support in the mainland

Plenty of countries, particularly those in an economic slump, have popular support for stupid wars. That changes quickly when the war is started and the costs come home.
1 comments
SllX 518 days ago
This doesn’t stop them from starting stupid wars for stupid reasons. Losing a war is not even a guarantee that they will waive their future territorial ambitions or concessions just as two examples: Spain and Gibraltar or Argentina and the Falklands.
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JumpCrisscross 518 days ago
> Argentina and the Falklands

This is the example Xi, and those around him, would be looking to.

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SllX 518 days ago
Yeah. Irredentism is a fundamentally emotional ideology borne from nationalism. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be a rallying cry.
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JumpCrisscross 518 days ago
> It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be a rallying cry.

Correct. It's for domestic consumption. By the time leadership is weak enough to be compelled into playing it out, chances are it won't make military sense.

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SllX 518 days ago
The hope is that it not making military sense prevents military action. We don’t have any such promise from reality, or much historic precedent to depend on, and in the case of the PRC and Taiwan, it is CCP leadership which is angling for a takeover of the independent nation of Taiwan and the eradication of the Republic of China.
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