You have been misinformed: Tibet was not invaded by China

[Dr Opinion]

> "...A claim that extends only from 1907 to 1959 is not a very ancient claim..."

No, no, the *claim* if much older.

The Internationally agreed and documented legal *ownership* is from 1907.  

[Bruno]

China wouldn't dare attack Taiwan for the simple reason that she would be trounced by the island's overwhelming air and sea superiority. Capitalism helps you buy nice toys.

[Dr Opinion]

Wrong.

China's J-11/SU-27 can beat even American F-18 in 60% of engagements. It is the most fearsome and technologically advanced air superiority fighter in South East Asia. The PLA has 200 of these beasts imported from Russia, and they are now building their own using domestic high-technology at the rate of 20 per year.

China owns the skies over Taiwan, should the mood take them.

When the time comes, China just has to keep on firing (unstoppable) ballistic missiles and shells until the Taiwanese capitulate.

Easy-peasy.  

[Publius]

Oh yeah, America is quaking in its boots at the thought of being confronted by Chinese and Russian-built fighters.

Taiwan too.

You sound like Khruschev banging his shoe on the podium of the UN. By the way, where is ol' Khruschev these days?

With Mao?

[T2K]

Dr O, your assessment of a possible China/Taiwan conflict is mostly off.

One correct thing is that at least you don't imply that China has any chance of actually capturing Taiwan.  They are totally incapable of projecting sufficient ground forces to Taiwan to accomplish that.  

You also don't mention the certain involvement of US naval forces based in Japan.  That would be much to China's detriment.

Finally, your link about the superiority of Russian (or Chinese copies of Russian) fighters is pretty authoratitive - for "the business of providing success on the World Wide Web." - which is what Emerald Designs does.  Crap source!  Check out Janes...

You are right though that China definitely has the capability to interdict shipping and cause casualties in Taiwan with long range weapons.  Maybe in 20 or 30 years they will be in a position to actually invade Taiwan (maybe not) but not now.

Anyway, I don't have much interest in Tibet as you can see.

[Dr Opinion]

> "...America is quaking in its boots..."

I said "South East Asia". Jesus.  

[Dr Opinion]

> "...the certain involvement of US naval forces based in Japan..."

America now has *far* more investment in the PRC than the RoC.

I'm afraid money talks.

If it came to the crunch, the Americans would be given a warning, and would leave.  

[Dr Opinion]

> "...is pretty authoratitive..."

Unfortunately my source on Jane's is a paid article. I found a freebie for you scummy freeloaders. If you actually have a subscription to Jane's, you can confirm what I'm saying in one of several articles on the J-11.  

[Manc Man]

I just got this off Janes

<<The Israel Air Force's (IAF's) first F-16I fighter was rolled out at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth manufacturing facility, Texas, on 14 November, marking a new era in the service's operations of the multirole strike aircraft.

Specially designd to meet the unique needs of the Israeli Air Force this plane underwent extensive customized operational testing. Lockheed spent months flying the the plane at high speed at an altitude of 300 feet over children throwing rocks. After these initial tests, the plane then successfully deployed a whole range of sophisticated weapons technologies on these rock throwing children.

"It's going to make a real difference tp our war on terror" said an Israeli spokesman, "It's almost impervious to hand thrown stones and can obliterate whole playgrounds in a single strike."

mm

(OK, I may have made that last bit up)

[Joseph27]

Frankly speaking the Chinese military would not succeed in capturing Taiwan in a conventional attack.  Although China may having the biggest airforce in the world - they would be hard pressed to take on even one US battle group - let alone two plus Taiwan’s impressive airforce.  Simply speaking China couldn’t inflict the damage needed to shut down Taiwan’s military before launching troops across the straight – another exercise they are incapable of carrying out.  The SU27 is a good fighter but I put it to you that against a carrier launched FA18, the FA18 would win primarily because of the quality of the pilot and techniques taught in the US.  

[Snaffled]

I remember that when many of the USSR fighters were dismantled by NATO following the end of the Cold War, the more recent ones were found to be as good as, if not better than, their NATO counterparts.  

What was lacking though was the infratructure & support services for these aircraft.  
While the aircraft in any Taiwan-China conflict are hugely important, the surrounding services would be instrumental in any victory.

I believe that if China did actually invade Taiwan (and I don't believe they will), then the USA would militarily come to the aid of Taiwan.  This being the case, wouldn't also the combat experience of US pilots offer a great advantage?

[Dr Opinion]

THe US would do no more than (quietly) provide logistics. Look how scare the US was to intervene overtly in the Falkland conflict for fear of pissing of South American countries, and look how more more investment is at stake in China.

Consider that even though global war might be a neocon wet dream (The Oil prices! The "defence" contracts!) the US would not go head-to-head with China, another nuclear power. It's simply not worth the risk. China has the miliary capability to drop nuclear bombs on facking Washington DC. It would be insane to even contemplate a direct US military involvement.

It's a no brainer: there would be no carrier groups, no F-18s, no direct US support at-all-period-end-of-story.  

But that said, I don't think China wants to invade Taiwan, and even if they wanted to crush them there is no need of military force. They could simply seize the assets and bank accounts of all RoC citizens operating on the mainland, and Taiwan would go bankrupt overnight.  

[bob55]

"They could simply seize the assets and bank accounts of all RoC citizens operating on the mainland, and Taiwan would go bankrupt overnight"

Exactly, the PRC government is working hard to bring-in investment from Taiwan and provide pretty good support to Taiwanese biz entities. This will drain most of the Taiwan resources and eventually ROC will find out that most of their money and asset are in PRC.... and do not have bargaining power expect their military power, which is just as good as people who run the forces.