[SllX]

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.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Argentina and the Falklands

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

[SllX]

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.

[JumpCrisscross]

> 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.

[SllX]

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.