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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   18565 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026

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when Xi Jinping told the PLA to prepare the capability to invade Taiwan in 2027 (he said this multiple years ago), do you think that he wasn't being serious?

He is entirely serious. He's generally a serious person and doesn't joke. People should take everything he says seriously, unlike with Trump. However, like Trump, he says a whole lot of things.

He wants a powerful, intimidating military and he wants to get Taiwan. He does not want to invade Taiwan to get it, if possible. He prefers to think that it's still possible to get Taiwan without a military operation. He certainly doesn't want a full scale war (to say nothing of a nuclear war) with the US, over Taiwan or otherwise. He has priorities, and Chinese national strength and development clearly take priority over any symbolic wins. Finally, he's likely supremely unimpressed by Russian and American performance in their ongoing wars, so will be extra reluctant to try something in this genre, even if he comes to believe that the PLA has some sufficient capability. The capability of the US is well respected in China.

Of note, he had this interesting meeting with the KMT Chair this April.

Xi:

At present, changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world. Yet no matter how the international landscape or the situation in the Taiwan Strait may evolve, the overarching direction of human development and progress will not change, the prevailing trend toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will not change, and the great tide of compatriots on both sides of the Strait becoming closer, more connected, and coming together will not change. This is the verdict of history, and we are fully confident of it.

Today’s world is far from tranquil, and peace is all the more precious. Compatriots on both sides of the Strait are all Chinese, members of one family. To seek peace, development, exchanges, and cooperation is the shared aspiration. The meeting between the leaders of our two parties today is precisely to safeguard the peace and security of our common home, advance the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, and enable future generations to share in a better future.

We are willing, on the common political foundation of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan independence, to strengthen exchanges and dialogue with all political parties including the Chinese Kuomintang, groups, and people from all sectors in Taiwan society to work for peace across the Strait, for the well-being of our compatriots, and for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and to keep the future of cross-Strait relations firmly in the hands of the Chinese people ourselves.

Cheng:

The Mainland’s development under the leadership of General Secretary Xi has not only achieved the eradication of absolute poverty and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, with extraordinary accomplishments, but has also continued to soar. The 15th Five-Year Plan has just begun, and it will surely take development to a new level. It is something well worth looking forward to. Although people on the two sides of the Strait live under different systems, we shall respect one another and also move toward one another. I believe that peace is a shared moral principle and shared value across the Strait. Both sides should rise above political confrontation and work together to think through and build a win-win and prosperous cross-Strait “community of shared future”, while seeking an institutional solution to prevent and avert war, so that the Taiwan Strait may become a model for the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world.

Cheng's QA:

As for the cross-Strait differences you mentioned at the outset, in fact, what General Secretary Xi said in the closed-door meeting just now addressed this very point. I took some careful notes, although of course I was not able to record his remarks verbatim. Xinhua will issue a full report of the relevant content.

But this happens to answer your question. He spoke in particular about the divergences you just mentioned. I, too, mentioned them several times. He said there has been a very long historical process behind them, but also stressed that we must proceed with patience and perseverance, with the spirit of Yu Gong moving mountains and Jingwei filling the sea. The freeze does not happen overnight, but as long as there is open communication and a willingness to consult on matters together, and, indeed, everything is open to discussion.

On the divergences across the Strait that you mentioned, I was particularly struck by what General Secretary Xi said. He noted that, with regard to those divergences, the Mainland respects Taiwanese compatriots’ social system and their chosen way of life, which are different from those of the Mainland. But he also expressed the hope that Taiwan could acknowledge the Mainland’s development achievements. So we need more opportunities for exchange, more opportunities to know one another, and more opportunities to understand one another.

…General Secretary Xi also said just now that so long as a proposition is conducive to the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, it should be pursued with full effort; so long as a matter is conducive to the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, it should be pursued with full effort. This is therefore a goal and direction both sides are jointly striving to achieve.

……

Regarding the fourth point, this is how I stated it: on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, Taiwan once participated, in an appropriate capacity, in the World Health Assembly and the International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly. But unfortunately, that opportunity was lost later. In the future, once political mutual trust has been rebuilt, efforts should be made to enable Taiwan to return to the World Health Assembly and the International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly, and also actively to explore Taiwan’s participation in the INTERPOL General Assembly.

In addition, regional economic integration bears directly on Taiwan’s economic development. So cross-Strait economic cooperation and Taiwan’s participation in regional economic integration can reinforce one another. Both sides may explore Taiwan’s accession to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive (RCEP) and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). That was the substance of my remarks just now.

Taken as a whole, with regard to these and other requests and proposals we raised, as I said, General Secretary Xi viewed them and responded to them all very positively.

My understanding is that for now Xi intends to bet on the KMT winning elections and pursuing gradual integration with the hope for eventual formalization of a "One country two systems" version of the nebulous 1992 Consensus (which neither side precisely defines). This is a long-term and uncertain bet but it is unlikely to be settled either way by 2027, irrespective of the Chinese Military's preparedness.

People bizarrely expect China to lash out in desperation. If they had such a temperament, Taiwan would be smoldering ruins already, if not just successfully captured. For all the armchair theorizing on the difficulties of the amphibious logistics, the porcupine nature of Taiwan (complete bullshit), the superiority of American subs or missiles (exhausted in Iran) or whatever, the prior on success and timeliness is at least as strong as Russia had in 2022, and in my opinion much higher. Xi just doesn't think like Putin or Trump about risk-return in such matters, he's not an out-of-touch gambler. War is inherently risky and costly and is not the only option available, so he will try to avoid war, despite the commitment to reunification "eventually".

Lyle Goldstein says it well:

I do believe the West engages in a vast tendency towards threat inflation, and I see it literally in almost every media article. You can see that there’s a natural anxiety at a period of major change. This rather pervasive hinting that China has very expansive military goals, whether it’s conquest of the western Pacific or Africa or the Middle East, is not warranted and constitutes analytical malpractice, to my estimate. I hasten to remind people all the time that there’s just no record at all of Chinese military aggression, certainly not in the modern era, and that should give us substantial confidence that we are not confronting some kind of enormous threat.
A lot of people in Washington are fond of saying, “China is much more powerful than the Soviet Union ever was. So we need to not just do what we did in the Cold War, but do two or three times what we did in the Cold War” in terms of gathering up alliances and preparing for war, basically. I think this is very foolish. It is true that China is very powerful and formidable, but I maintain that national security calculations have to take intentions into account, and there is this tendency to try to act like China has very aggressive intentions, which I just don’t see any evidence for.

then again,

Another theory I have though – and this is one that keeps me up at night as I hope this is not true – we cannot rule out the idea that there is a real possibility of a Taiwan contingency and that Xi and the people around him are very systematically picking the people that they want – new faces with fresh ideas and fighting spirit, people whose heart is in this and who are ready to command.
I hope that’s not true. I hope I’m wrong here, but we have to consider that as a possibility that the PLA is being radically restructured for war. Unfortunately, that might be true. I hope it’s not.

then again,

Since I specifically didn't make the certainty claim, I'm not sure we have a disagreement.

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