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I thought boots on the ground was China's Plan A?
Peaceful reunification has always been plan A. The official line has always been “we pursue peaceful reunification with maximum effort but never rule out the use of force” or something along those lines. The Communist Party has always talked with the Taiwanese KMT (Kuomintang, lit. Nationalist Party, the party that was defeated by the Communists and retreated to Taiwan) since Chiang Junior’s era about peaceful reunification. Xi met with then-Taiwanese president and KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore in 2015 and met again with KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun just a few days ago, which should be a step in the right direction. I think it’s one of the biggest happenings for cross-strait relations lately, but few seem to have heard of it in the West, partly because the other strait took their interest. Partly because Chinese positions on Taiwan was not imo rightly represented in western media, and the fact you think boots on the ground is plan A is pretty telling.
Also, PLA military advantage over Taiwan is a relatively recent development. Before the 2010s, the PLA navy and air force were weak, and their only edge against Taiwan was the PLA Rocket Force, which as you can see right now in Iran cannot force a complete defeat without boots on the ground.
I think it would be obviously stupid and tremendously tragic to do an Ukraine on Taiwan. I don’t want rockets destroying their (in my mind, our) civil infrastructure. I don’t want to destroy our cultural artifacts, and most importantly I don’t want to kill my own people, even if they don’t recognize themselves as my own people, which I think is something that could be changed without the use of force. They are 96% Han Chinese after all. There might be good reasons to have to do all of the above (the anti-secession law in China outlined a few things, including Taiwanese acquiring nukes) but it’s by no means plan A. I hope the KMT wins the next election (although I think it’s rather unlikely), and the temperature cools down a bit.
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