How Taiwan Will Stop China's Invasion

in January of 2023 an American Air Force General named Mike minahan wrote a memo to his fellow officers in the air Mobility command then almost immediately leaked to the public the memo warned that the United States and China were marching full steam ahead towards fighting a cataclysmic War over Taiwan very soon with minahan himself writing that my gut tells me we will fight in 2025 and alarmingly he has also been far from the only American Military figure to voice these predictions of imminently impending War back in 2021 Philip David at the time a four-star admiral of the United States Navy and the commander of the US indopacific command infamously predicted that war with China and the Taiwan straight could end up coming by 2027 a prediction that he has continued to stick with ever since this year in 2023 both the United States Secretary of State Anthony blinkin and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Millie have cautioned that while war with China is neither imminent nor inevitable China is actively seeking to acquire the capability of militarily seizing the the island by no later than 2027 in April of this year in 2023 John ulino another United States Admiral and the current commander of the Indo Pacific command plainly stated that China has engaged in quote the largest fastest most comprehensive military buildup seen since World War II by total number of Warships the Chinese Navy has already emerged as the largest in the world in the 2020s surpassing the total number of ships in the American Navy China's defense spending is approach onethird of the defense spending in the United States and already exceeds the military budgets of Russia India the United Kingdom and France all combined and consequently China's military capabilities have been dramatically expanding into this new role of arguably being the second most powerful military in the world in August of 2022 the then speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi made an official state visit to the island of Taiwan and in doing so triggered the biggest cross straight crisis seen in the past quarter of a century China Chinese fighter jets stormed across the so-called median line between the mainland and Taiwan and even patrolled around taiwan's eastern coast Chinese ballistic missiles rocketed outwards and crashed all around the island with a few Landing within taiwan's own territorial Waters and several more even flying directly over the islands airspace itself and crashing into the exclusive economic zone of Japan events that up until then had been completely unprecedented and events then now fit into US military planners expectations surrounding the very real possibility for a fullscale Chinese invasion of the island happening sometime in the coming years an event that could easily pull the United States into war with the other Global superpower in a vast and catastrophic 21st century War for the Pacific but why is all of this happening right now all of a sudden in the 2020s and what is it about this island that makes it so valuable to both the United States and China and why is it arguably the most dangerous flash point of the entire 21st century for starters China has continually claim Taiwan as a part of its country now for the past 34s of a century you see it's far more helpful to really think of China as the Communist People's Republic of China or the PRC and Taiwan as the continuation government of the Old Republic of China or the ROC the two sides fought a brutal civil war against each other for the control of all of China across the early 20th century culminating with the eventual victory of the PRC over the Chinese Mainland and the ensuing Retreat of The Roc to the island of Taiwan in 1949 an island that been annexed by the Ching dynasty of China centuries previously in 1683 then conquered and annexed by Japan in 1895 and then returned back to the rooc after World War II in 1945 now although the roc's total Retreat to Taiwan in 1949 marked the end of the direct shooting between both sides in the Chinese Civil War there has to date still never been a formal peace treaty ending the Chinese civil war between them and so in many ways the Chinese civil war between both sides has remained effectively on pause now for the 74 years of history that have followed ever since making it in a sense one of the Contemporary world's longest lasting Frozen conflicts the PRC has continually over all this time asserted that it is the sole legitimate government of all of China and that the island of Taiwan constitutes an inalienable part of that China this is referred to as the one China policy and it is why Beijing doesn't view Taiwan as an independent country but as a core part of China that is currently in Rebellion and being led by the row government of The Roc it is why the PRC refuses to have diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the r is the government of China over itself and owing to the prc's dramatically larger population manufacturing and economic base the vast majority of the world's countries have long since abandoned their formal diplomatic relations with the ROC in favor of the PRC as of 2023 only 13 countries in the world remain who maintain formal diplomatic relations with the RO and most of them are very tiny ones the largest are Guatemala Haiti and Paraguay just since 2018 the PRC is successfully managed to convince Burkina FAO El Salvador the Solomon Islands kabas Nicaragua and Honduras to be the most recent countries to formerly abandon the ROC diplomatically conversely of course the ROC has always officially followed the one China policy as well the ROC officially recognizes that Taiwan is also a core and inalienable part of China in addition to the mainland they've just historically counter inss that they are the sole legitimate government of all of China and not the PRC which means that they effectively view all of the Mainland is a very large series of provinces in Rebellion that are being led by the row government of the PRC to a very large extent though much of the roc's viewpoint on the One China policy is effectively political theater the problem is that the ROC has to continue claiming to be the sole government of all of China no matter how ridiculous the claim might appear because if they ever stop claiming to be the sole government of a unified China and begin insisting on themselves being the government of only Taiwan it could lead to the perception in Beijing that the Roc and Taiwan were abandoning the one China policy and in so doing effectively declaring formal independence from China which would almost certainly immediately trigger a PRC military response to preserve the country's perceived territorial Integrity that is why the ROC has never ever made any formal attempt to distance itself from the one China policy and seek out formal Independence and for decades the PRC has been mostly attempting to bring Taiwan under its Authority through diplomatic means chairman ma once famously told then US president Richard Nixon back in 1972 that the PRC could wait a hundred years before it took Taiwan but now in 2023 little more than half a century later from those words it appears that Beijing is indeed growing increasingly impatient with this long desired objective for 74 long years ever since 194 9 diplomacy and what Beijing refers to as peaceful reunification have not worked and the status quo is remained now the prc's demographic and economic Outlook beyond the 2020s look in doubt Beijing knows that after 2030 its demographics and economy will begin getting worse and worse with every passing year and so it knows that the option of taking Taiwan militarily through force will be easier within this decade than the next one while they are relatively stronger now the PRC has made it abundantly clear that they have never and will never renounce the right to one day use Force to bring Taiwan under its control and in order to try and deny the PRC from ever being able to use that option of force the United States and Taiwan alike have been increasingly preparing themselves across the Pacific for a war with the other Rising Global superpower that they do not want because if it happens it will completely upend our entire world as we know it and nothing you know will ever be the same again Taiwan itself has well understood the precarious geopolitical situation that has found itself in now for decades with an increasingly aggressive PRC opposite of them in the mainland and ever dwindling diplomatic relations and support abroad and so they've adopted three very different overarching strategies that all connect together to hopefully from their perspective deter the PRC from ever attempting an invasion in the first place the first of these Taiwanese strategies has already been briefly touched upon and it's their diom atic strategy both with the PRC on the mainland and with the rest of the outside world by continuing to remain officially committed to the one China policy diplomatically and by continuing to insist that it is the rightful government of all of China including all of the Mainland the rooc on Taiwan gives Beijing the legitimacy to rightfully assert that Taiwan still truly is a part of China that is only temporarily under the control of a rebellious government as long as the ROC government continues to play along with this there is still a chance no matter how seemingly slim of The Roc government eventually accepting beijing's diplomacy and surrendering control and sovereignty over the island peacefully but for decades now this chance at peaceful diplomatic reunification between Taiwan and the mainland has been growing increasingly Slimmer and Slimmer when Taiwan was returned by the Japanese to the ROC in 1945 the Chinese nationalist Quang party or kmt fully Incorporated the island into their government and once they retreated to the island after being defeated on the mainland by the Communists the kmt established a strict authoritarian onep party regime on the island that included a period of permanent martial law that lasted for nearly 4 decades until 1987 during that long period of time a Chinese national identity was imposed by the kmt on all of Taiwan and the population was forced into only being allowed to speak Mandarin it was only after martial law was finally lifted in 1987 in the Island's government transition to democracy that a long suppressed Regional identity on Taiwan separate from the Chinese of the the mainland began to finally emerge shortly after the island transitioned to a democratic form of governance in 1992 a poll found that just 17.6% of the Island's population identified as only Taiwanese compared with 25.5% who identified as only Chinese and another 46.4% who identified as both but only three decades later in 2020 another poll was conducted by the national chunchi University's election study center that found a whopping 61% of respondents identifying solely as Taiwanese air 2.7% identifying as only Chinese and 32.9% identifying as both in general the trend on the island is that the younger Generations born after the lifting of Martial law and total kmt rule in 1987 tend to identify more with Taiwan while the older Generations still tend to identify more with their Chinese identity and are more in favor of eventual reunification with the mainland the two largest current political parties on the island are thus the old Quang or kmt which continues to emphasize Chinese nationalism the current status quo an eventual peaceful reunification with the mainland and the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP which very notably counter emphasizes Taiwanese nationalism over Chinese nationalism and while they also support the current status quo they are much more in favor of eventual Taiwanese statehood and Independence rather than reunification the kmt won the first open presidential election in Taiwan and continued ruling until 1999 when they lost the first election to the rising DPP resulting in DPP rule of the Island from 1999 to 2008 and the first time in history since the Japanese surrendered control over the island that the kmt wasn't actually in power the kmt won back the presidency again in 2008 and then again in 2012 ruling until 2016 during a period of Fairly warm relations with mainland China but the past two presidential elections in Taiwan in 2016 and again in 2020 have both LED to victories for the DPP again and the ascendancy of their candidate sing Wen to the presidency which have led to fears within Beijing that the chance at diplomacy is fading to Beijing the kmt is seen as the preferable party in Taiwan to have power because at least to an extent they remain committed to working out reunification with the mainland eventually under some terms since the DPP is more affiliated with Taiwanese nationalism and eventual Taiwanese Independence and statehood though Beijing is openly and staunchly opposed to them it is why with the DPP in power Beijing has been far more ferociously opposed to any perceived attempt within Taiwan to gain greater International recognition as a separate state which is partially why Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island in August of 2022 triggered such a massively harsh response as at the time she was second in line of succession to the US Presidency her visit represented the highest ranking US official to visit the island since the then speaker new Gingrich visited 25 years previously back in 19 1997 but gingrich's visit was back when the more Pro reunification kmt was still in power in Taiwan Pelosi's visit came with the more pro-independence DPP and power her visit thus sent a clear message to Beijing and it is why the PRC denounced the trip and carried out its unprecedented military exercises all around Taiwan within only days of her leaving and the next presidential election in Taiwan is coming very soon set for January 2024 Beijing hopes that the election will result in the kmt returning back to Power again which will continue giving their hope of peaceful diplomatic reunification alive but if the DPP wins again and is set to rule the island for at least another four years through 2028 then Beijing May conclude wrongfully or not that the chance at diplomacy has passed and the only option remaining will be through War therefore taiwan's second strategy at deterring a Chinese Invasion has everything to do with economics without any diplomatic support from the outside world it really matters with the loss of Japan Australia and most of Europe in the 1970s and even the loss of American recognition in 1979 Taiwan had to get creative with providing an incentive for outside powers to actually care enough about it to intervene on its behalf if the day ever came that China finally decided to invade the United States intervened against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1991 largely over concerns about how much of the global supply of oil would fall into saddam's hands if they sat back and did nothing but unlike Kuwait iwan has virtually zero natural resources to make any outside Powers care enough about who actually controls it the island has virtually no oil no coal and no gas and for decades the Island's people were relatively poor with a nominal GDP per capita estimated by the IMF at about a par with the Iranians as recently as 1989 but something that Taiwan did have was incredibly ingenuitive thinkers and forward-looking planners who crafted one of the most masterful economic defense strategies that the world has ever seen seen anyway who would end up needing natural resources to make the outside world care if you could just create your own artificial resources to make them care instead it all began with this guy named Morris Chang a legendary Roc businessman Chang moved to the United States at a young age and eventually found himself working a lengthy 25 year long career at Texas Instruments the eventually overseen the company's entire Global semiconductor business semiconductors or microchips are basically a set of electronic circuits on a small flat piece of silicon on these chips transistors act as miniature electrical switches that can turn a current on or off and a modern microchip the size of your fingernail can contain literally billions of these transistors that can be measured in mere nanometers of scale smaller than even a virus after being invented and developed in the United States microchips steadily grew smaller grew ever higher numbers of transistors on them and grew more advanced to become one of the most important new resources for our modern world powering just about everything you can think of from computer computers to smartphones to digital cameras to drones to microwaves to air conditioners to cryptocurrency mining to the stock market to calculators and dozens of other applications including critically military ones like guided missiles fighter jets and emerging artificial intelligence us companies originally dominated every facet of microchip production from research and development to design to the creation of Highly specialized tools required to manufacture them and to the actual manufacturing process itself but the manufacturing process of doing this placing billions of microscop transistors on a fingernail sized wafer of silicon is among the most complicated Advanced and expensive manufacturing processes that Humanity has ever developed billions of dollars had to be invested into fiendishly complex foundaries to manufacture these microchips to the incredibly high standards that they demanded and by the late 1980s American companies were growing frustrated with these increasingly exorbitant costs it was around that time in the 1980s that chain decided to leave Texas Instruments one of the leading microchip companies of the time and come back home to the ROC in Taiwan because he and the ROC government had come up with a bold new idea instead of attempting to develop their own completely separate microchip industry and compete with American companies in the United States government directly why not instead create a brand new kind of company in business that had up until that point never existed a company strictly focused on the expensive and laborious manufacturing side of microchips rather than competing directly with us firms on designs of microchips that could risk antag ganizing the US government the new company would help American businesses by granting them the ability to Outsource the prohibitively expensive and complicated microchip manufacturing processes to Taiwan instead which would lower their overall costs and increase their profit margins while securing taiwan's own position as a critical component of the still emerging microchip industry it was this guiding philosophy that led to Chang in the ROC government founding the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company or tsmc in 1986 a company that had humble beginnings that has since evolved into likely the most powerful Corporation in the world that you've never heard of from the very beginning tsmc was a project of the Taiwanese State 48% of the startup Capital required to get the company running was put up by the ROC government While most of the rest was literally fundraised by wealthy Taiwanese citizens who the government went around politely asking to invest in the new company over time from the late 1980s when it was first founded tsmc was able to tout its lower Manufacturing in Taiwan to convince more and more major microchip companies from across the US Europe and Japan to Outsource some or even all of their manufacturing processes to them instead huge modern companies like AMD Nvidia Intel IBM Sony broadcom Qualcomm and especially Apple all eventually did this apple in particular eventually emerged in the 2010s as tsmc's largest single customer with $17 billion paid for their chip Manufacturing Services in 201 22 alone that powered the company's desirable iPhones Macs and iPads the most advanced microchips that Apple designs today containing billions of microscopic transistors within them can literally only be manufactured within a single building in tsmc sprawling primary campus in Taiwan as a result tsmc was able to emerge as not only the largest and most valuable Semiconductor Company in the world but one of the most valuable companies in the world period with a current market cap of more than 4 50 billion as of the production of this video in October of 2023 tsmc is the 14th most valuable publicly traded company in the entire world and they manufacture tens of billions of dollars worth of microchips for the world's 1 2nd fourth fifth 6th 23rd and 63rd largest companies and more this is why when including tsmc and all the other microchip foundaries on the island owned by other companies Taiwan collectively manufactures about 68% of all the microchips that are made in the world today and even more crucially they manufacture more than 90% of the world's most Cutting Edge chips Tiny But powerful chips that have billions of microscopic transistors that are 5 nanometers in size or smaller approaching the width of human DNA strands that are used for emerging Quantum Computing and artificial intelligence applications together microchip manufacturing from tsmc and the other companies represents around 15% of taiwan's total GDP today and the industry raked in re Vues of more than $175 billion in 2022 alone in nominal terms taiwan's microchip manufacturing industry is these days larger than the entire economy of Kenya a country with more than 53 million people it is the industry that has most propelled Taiwan into being nearly a top 20 global economy in its own right and it is what makes taiwan's continued security absolutely vital to the interests of people from all around the world the United States Department defense recently commissioned a study that found any disruption to taiwan's microchip industry through either a Chinese blockade or Invasion scenario would generate an estimated $2.5 trillion dollar in losses per year to the worldwide economy to put that Financial Devastation into more perspective that amount of estimated losses per year is greater than the economies of Ukraine and Russia combined it would eliminate 68% of the world's supply of microchips and 90% of the world's supply of the most Cutting Edge microchip in an instant and trigger a worldwide Financial meltdown the likes of which have hardly ever been seen before as the effects of the world's microchip manufacturing Hub being removed from the global supply chain ripples through the companies and governments that rely on their manufacturing so much like apple Nvidia AMD Intel broadcom Sony Microsoft alphabet Amazon and dozens of others the ripples would then spread even further through companies that build cars computers cameras and Home Appliances that all rely on a constant supply of microchips to keep producing them and then the ripples would even further begin impacting the US military who need microchips to continue building their guided missiles fighter jets and emerging artificial intelligence systems all of that obviously provides a vital economic and strategic incentive to the United States military to ensure that such a catastrophe never actually happens in the first place by doing whatever it can to deter and protect Taiwan from a looming chines Invasion thus the Island's massive microchip industry is often referred to as taiwan's silicon Shield the theory of the shield goes that the outside Powers who have come to rely on taiwan's microchip Foundry so much like the US the EU and Japan will all be heavily financially incentivized to protecting those foundaries from any attack coming from China and thus be highly incentivized to defend taiwan's sovereignty as well even if it comes to fighting a war for it but keeping third parties incentivized to defend Taiwan is only half of the Silicon Shields protection strategy the other half is that it simultaneously deters China from ever launching an offensive attack in the first place because just like the United States China's own technology sector has also grown to become highly dependent on taiwan's chip foundaries despite pouring billions of dollars into developing their own microchip industry China has so far not been capable of producing a genuine competitor despite having previously set a target of achieving 70% self-sufficiency in microchip production by 2025 China as of 2023 reportedly only has a self-sufficiency closer to a poultry 6 15% up until 2022 China was still importing more than $400 billion worth of microchips a year which in terms of dollar value was roughly twice as much oil as the country was importing and the majority of those imported microchips were all ones that were manufactured in the foundaries of Taiwan would China actually risk an invasion of the island that could see taiwan's chip foundaries that they so depend upon get destroyed in the process either by the fighting itself or through intentional self-sabotage on the part of the Taiwanese more over even if China Were Somehow successful in seizing the island and all the chip foundaries intact would the foundaries even be of any use to them afterward in order to properly function taiwan's chip foundaries rely on a complicated supply chain of tens of thousands of experienced Taiwanese workers along with designs and equipment from the United States Japan and the Netherlands who would most likely just cut it all off and leave China to figure out how to keep running everything on their own to an extent this does likely serve as a major economic deterrent to China from invading the island until they can become more self sufficient in their own ship manufacturing because if they do invade before they're more self-sufficient their economy will immediately take a major hit and their Imports of microchips they need for pretty much everything including for their military will all come to a crashing halt the big question though is how much does China and Xian ping actually care about and factor that into their calculus would that be enough all on its own to avert a Chinese Invasion if Taiwan suddenly declared its independence would China instead decide that a more short-term hit to its eon economy would be worth sacrificing for the long-term goal of controlling Taiwan and would it actually be enough to get the United States to risk going to war with China over to many leaders in Taiwan it appears that the United States has been consistently Making Moves In the 2020s to erod taiwan's Silicon Shield away in order to give itself more flexibility in deciding when or even if to intervene on taiwan's behalf during a potential Invasion scenario after the US passed the chips and science act in 2022 the Biden Administration agreed to provide 52 billion dollar in federal subsidies for Global microchip manufacturing companies to build new chip foundaries within the United States America's share of global chip manufacturing had dwindled and dwindled from 37% of the total back in 1990 to only a mere 12% today as most American companies outsourced their manufacturing to Taiwan and a few other countries but the goal of this Act was to bring much of it back several major chip producing companies since then have announced the construction of new chip foundaries across the United States including Intel Samsung Micron and most notably tsmc themselves who are right now actively building a new chip Foundry in Arizona and investing $40 billion of their own money to do it a situation that is highly controversial within Taiwan itself including with Morris chain the now 92-year-old original founder of tsmc who has since become one of the biggest critics of the Biden administration's plan to bring back the US microchip manufacturing industry he has accused both the United States and T C of hollowing out taiwan's security by expanding chip manufacturing from Beyond the island while taiwan's economy Minister has also since declared that quote taiwan's key position in semiconductors will not be shaken if the chips act becomes successful and America returns as a major chip manufacturer again then they would likely lose the major economic and one of the major strategic incentives for coming to taiwan's Aid during an invasion and taiwan's silicon Shield would be pierced in the process it is because of of this fear that tsmc is not bringing their most Advanced Technologies to the new Foundry being built in Arizona once it is completed and operational in 2025 it will still only be manufacturing chips that are a full generation behind the more Cutting Edge foundaries back in Taiwan and perhaps even more alarmingly From taiwan's perspective are the recent us export controls being placed on China that are also related to microchips in October of 2022 the US introduced the series of export controls that restricted China's ability to buy or manufacture their own higher-end chips the US government has since even asserted an extr territorial jurisdiction over these controls to restrict even non-american companies from helping China buy or manufacture high-end chips with products if those products contain us origin technology in regards to Taiwan security tsmc and all the other chip manufacturing companies on the island obviously rely very heavily on us technology designs and equipment in their manufacturing process meaning that the new US export control laws can enable the US to restrict Taiwan from providing Cutting Edge chips they manufacture to China and if they do that and the more Chinese companies end up losing access to more higher end chip production in Taiwan the less they will end up being dependent on Taiwan for sourcing their chips and the smaller the economic deterrent BEC comes that's currently protecting the island from an invasion after all what would China have to financially lose from an invasion of Taiwan if they weren't relying on any chip imports from the island anyway the chip foundaries on the island could all end up getting destroyed during the Li in and it wouldn't even make any material difference to China under that scenario thus America's recent policies of dramatically expanding chip manufacturing at home while simultaneously restricting China's access to chips from Taiwan and elsewhere is from many in taiwan's Viewpoint severely undermining their silicon Shield strategy by eroding the economic incentive of Washington to Halt an invasion while simultaneously eroding the economic deterrent of Beijing from choosing to invade but either way China will still have to contend with taiwan's third strategy of deterring an invasion from ever happening which is possibly their greatest one of all military deterrence and transforming themselves into a bristling porcupine that would simply be too painful for China to ever attempt its swallowing if the day ever comes that Beijing does decide to invade taiwan's military planners are aware that in order to have any hope of success the PRC will have to organize and launch the largest amphibious invasion in human history since at least the Normandy Landings of D-Day in 1940 4 the PRC will have to spend time assembling a massive Invasion Force numbering anywhere between 300,000 and 1 million soldiers along with all of their equipment and along with an armada of hundreds of transport ships all concentrated on the western side of the Taiwan Strait activities that will all be blatantly obvious to us satellites operating above just as American intelligence began warning about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine in the months leading up to the actual Invasion American intelligence would likely do the same for serious Chinese preparations of a Taiwan Invasion but a hypothetical PRC invasion of Taiwan regardless of taiwan's own preparedness will be orders of magnitude more challenging than Russia's invasion of Ukraine was and Russia's Invasion hasn't even gone well Russia was able to mass troops directly along thousands of kilometers worth of Ukraine's borders and transport those troops and their accompanying tanks artillery Fuel and ammunition all directly to the borders of Ukraine with railroads Taiwan is is separated from the Chinese Mainland by about 130 km of open ocean across the Taiwan straight at the narrowest point that China's Invasion Fleet will have to travel across the seas within the strait are usually rough throughout most of the year and they are only at their calmest for limited Windows of time in the spring and Autumn which limits the climatically ideal opportunities for a military Invasion to take place once the invasion Fleet is advancing across the straight they will be further vulnerable to Taiwanese missiles and AER assaults and then once they even get across the straet there were very limited beaches on Taiwan that the people's Liberation Army could possibly choose to even assault it's generally believed that there are only 14 possible beaches on the island that are considered suitable enough to launch an amphibious D-Day style of Sultan and this becomes more apparent when you take a closer look at taiwan's geography and topography the island is dominated by a series of huge towering mountains that run across the entire interior and which roughly separate the island into two separate halves larger wider Coastal plane in the west of the island facing the Chinese Mainland and a smaller narrower Coastal plane in the east of the island facing into the open Pacific all 14 of the possible Beach head Landing sites have already been extensively fortified by The ROC military and people's Liberation Army troops and Marines assaulting them could expect to face Heavy Artillery missile and machine gun fire upon their arrivals moreover According to some people's Liberation Army texts it is believed that at least some of these beaches have a series of underwater pipel lines that connect from the interior to just off of the beaches themselves that the defending Roc have engineered to pump flammable liquid through that can be ignited in order to completely torch the beaches and deny them from being landed at under an emergency Invasion scenario limiting China's Invasion options even further the Eastern side of Taiwan is more mountainous more rugged and it faces away from the Chinese Mainland meaning the Taiwanese military planners have long assumed that it would be the safest part of the island during an invasion scenario coming from China who would more than likely concentrate the bulk of their Invasion Force to the geographically easier to assault western side this is why Roc commanders have long believed that during an invasion the relatively safer Eastern side will be used as their primary rear base to support the bigger fight raging across the wider and more open ples exposed in the west immediately facing China with more potential Beach Landing sites thus the east of the island is where most of the roc's air bases are all located with hangers for aircraft that have been carved deep into the mountain side to prot protect them from Chinese missiles being able to blow them up before they have a chance to get into the air and sink Chinese Invasion ships traveling across the straight As the fight is presumably raging in the west the east of the island is supposed to function as the primary Center for Roc forces to refuel rearm and coordinate the fight in the west and if the beaches begin to fall and the pla begins advancing from them into the bigger cities on the island like Taipei then armed Taiwanese insurgents can Retreat deeper into the mountains of the interior and continue on waging an asymmetric Gorilla War to continue the fight until outside help presumably from the United States eventually arrives to turn the tide and the Eastern side of the island geographically separated from the most heavy fighting that will be going on in the west is the most ideal location for Allied troops like Americans and potentially Japanese to arrive at and assist the fight from the east of Taiwan is thus the most critical part of the island to hold and it represents the roc's final line of defense and if it falls then most hope for a free Taiwan one will be lost as well getting to that point will undoubtedly be very very costly for China but just as taiwan's geography as a mountainous Island makes it a very difficult Target to invade from the outside it also makes it a very difficult place to support from the outside as well this is yet another enormous difference between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan since the Russian invasion the West has been able to easily support the Ukrainian war effort by sending tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware and equipment on trains through NATO States directly Overland to Ukraine's own borders where they can simply pick the equipment up and then carry them the rest of the way to the front line but as an island without any land borders Taiwan will never have this luxury during a fullscale Invasion scenario the island could easily be suffering beneath a total Chinese Naval blockade involving Chinese ships and submarines directly and probably Chinese missiles and aircraft attacking incoming foreign ships or planes trying to get supplies in as well moreover taiwan's ports and airfields could also be destroyed damage by the heavy fighting which would reduce the Island's ability to take in supplies that cannot possibly come in any other way than through ports and airfields getting the required military hardware into Taiwan after the invasion has already happened could prove to simply be too late and so the island is attempting to get everything in that it needs now as the war in Ukraine is evolved with time Ukraine's greatest successes at defeating the Russians have been shown through asymmetric military capabilities small groups of Ukrainian Fighters armed with drones and portable anti- tank and anti-air weapons have proven to be highly capable of pushing back against larger more well-armed Russian forces with heavier weapons at the same time large-scale conventional Ukrainian counter offensives using heavy equipment like tanks and artillery have proven to be less successful based on this experience taiwan's military planners are wanting more smaller weapons like drones and easily portable anti-ship anti-air and anti-tank weapons that individual soldiers can carry with them like the Stinger the javelin and the enaw battle tested against a conventionally Superior opponent in Ukraine these smaller weapon systems also provide another military purpose to benefit Taiwan they don't make it appear that Taiwan is arming itself too aggressively were Beijing to feel that Taiwan was arming itself too much with heavier weapons like tanks Fighters guided missiles or submarines it might tilt their calculus that Taiwan was arming itself and preparing itself too quickly and might eventually grow into too tough of a nut to crack in the future further incentivizing Beijing to hasten its Invasion plans for soon rather than later taiwan's ultimate Achilles heal however that could ultimately Doom it during an invasion is its critical overdependence on imported energy as mentioned a while back in this video and I forgive you if you forgot by this point Taiwan has virtually zero natural resources of their own and as a consequence they don't have any possible way to completely power themselves an overwhelming 97% of all the energy consumed on the island is imported in from abroad largely in the form of oil gas and coal in 2022 42% of taiwan's electricity production was generated through imported coal another 38% was produced through imported liquefied natural gas or LNG another 8% came from domestic nuclear power while only the remaining 12% came from other domestic renewable sources that is 80% of taiwan's electricity that comes from imported coal and LNG coming in on container ships and virtually all of taiwan's oil powering the Island's Vehicles tanks and planes come in the same way all of these sea Lanes coming into Taiwan will be vulnerable to Chinese interception from ships submarines missiles and aircraft in the event of a conflict and even worse the Taiwanese government is artificially removing even more of its domestic energy inputs because just as Germany did following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan Taiwan pledged to phase out all of their own nuclear power plants as well by no later than 2025 there is an argument that nuclear power plants are vulnerabilities during wartime as has been showcased by the zapan nuclear power plant in Ukraine that has frequently been fear to be on the brink of a meltdown almost ever since the Russians invaded the country active nuclear power plants in Taiwan under attack during an invasion scenario could prove to be similar vulnerabilities and potentially disasters waiting to happen but at the same time once nuclear power is fully phased out on the islands soon the 8% share of the islands electricity that was being generated by nuclear will have to be replaced by either increasing Maritime Imports of coal and LNG which will be further vulnerable during an invasion scenario or increase domestically produce Renewables like wind adding offshore wind farms around Taiwan are an option but they pose challenges to National Security as well the windiest locations around Taiwan are a small section of ocean just to the south of the island or within the Taiwan straight itself facing the Chinese Mainland wind farms built here are ideal from a wind potential perspective but are terrible from a national security perspective as Chinese ballistic missiles could destroy the wind turbines Rising above the sea while Chinese submarines could sever their transmission cables carrying electricity back to the Taiwanese Mainland this means that Taiwan won't really have any easy solutions to its energy problem in the event of a blockade or a war short of outside international support it has been estimated that Taiwan only has enough stockpiles of coal to last for 39 days and only enough natural gas to last for 11 days if the island comes under a Chinese blockade taiwan's ability to power itself will run out extremely quickly which is very bad news for taiwan's incredibly valuable microchip manufacturing industry taiwan's giant Corporation tsmc the masters of global chip manufacturing currently all on its own consumes more than 6% of all of taiwan's energy and as the company continues to reinvest into itself and pursue even more advanced chip manufacturing capabilities to maintain taiwan's silicon Shield its share of taiwan's energy consumption is only expected to continue growing during an emergency energy shortage resulting from a blockade or Invasion scenario Taiwan will have to make a series of extremely difficult decisions will tsmc and the other chip foundaries continue receiving the large amount of energy they need to continue doing business and keeping the Silicon Shield alive at the expense of the energy needs of the island citizens Taiwan is fully aware that it is ultimately still a David versus a Goliath in this potential upcoming Invasion scenario China's population is orders of magnitude larger than its own and faced with the constant risk of an Invasion From China the ROC government of Taiwan has long maintained a policy of mandatory military conscription for all men in the country to boost the size of its military but ever since 2013 that compulsary military conscription for Taiwanese men was limited to only 4 months as the ROC was trying to transition towards an all volunteer Armed Forces but now in the 2020s faced with rapidly deteriorating relations with China and the increased risks of an invasion the Island's DPP president saying Wen took what she called the immense L difficult decision to raise the length of compulsary military service for men in Taiwan back to one full year again which will go into force in January of 2024 doing so will hopefully raise the ROC standing armed forces of about 215,000 Personnel today in 2023 compared with a more than 2 million active duty Personnel in the armed forces of the PRC on the other side of the straight if the day ever comes when China's Invasion Fleet launches outward then the ROC also has another 2.3 million men in its reserves that it can summon up after ordering a general mobilization but that still might not be enough to fully withstand the entire Fury of the massive PRC and the people's Liberation Army Navy which in terms of total numbers of ships is the largest Fleet in the world now taiwan's planners know that outside help will be needed for their best chance at surviving the onslaught but if it doesn't end up coming for whatever reason or arrives too late then Taiwan does have an insane last ditch Ace up their sleeve to pull from to try and fully deter China from ever invading on their own this is the final mostly unknown and fourth way that Taiwan will try and deter the Chinese from invading without any outside help mutually assured destruction without acquiring nuclear weapons Taiwan almost certainly has the knowledge and the skills to build a nuclear device on their own and attach it to a missile that could impact Chinese C cities but doing that would almost certainly immediately provoke the PRC into launching a fullscale invasion of the island because the only reason why Taiwan would acquire nukes would be to aggressively assert their independence from China but Taiwan doesn't need to acquire nukes and provoke the PRC that way because of their less well-known and current capability to already potentially generate mass destruction in China anyway they can fire conventional cruise missiles targeting the Three Gorges Dam in China's Hub province the Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station and the largest hydroelectric project in the world built across the mighty Yang SE River the third longest river in the world after the Nile in the Amazon it holds behind it a water reservoir that is 40 cubic kilm in volume and so its hypothetical destruction would unleash the biggest and most catastrophic flood that has ever been seen in human history the entire lower Yang SE Valley would be buried beneath this apocalyptic surge of water virually wiping out several major Downstream Chinese cities like Wuhan Nanjing and Shanghai millions of civilians would almost certainly die from the disaster potentially even tens of millions and Untold economic damage would be inflicted such an attack from The ROC if successful would almost certainly trigger a retaliatory nuclear strike on Taiwan from Beijing and inevitably result in the roc's complete and utter destruction it is a completely unhinged insane plan that is not even official policy in Taiwan at all but it has still been discussed amongst many of taiwan's military planners as a way to ensure mutually assured destruction with the PRC without taking the more provocative step of acquiring nuclear weapons to those Taiwanese military planners the goal is to never use this option in the first place but to threaten it against China as a credible capability and deterrent to dissuade China from ever attempting an invasion but it's also not even really clear if it would actually work work Taiwan would likely only have limited numbers of cruise missiles to spare during a wartime scenario and fewer still that would have the range to penetrate more than 1200 km away deep into the center of China to strike the dam the missiles would have to deal with the prc's air defenses all along the way and even more air defenses that would likely be placed immediately around the dam itself and some analysts think that mere cruise missiles could do nothing to actually destroy the Three Gorges down which is essentially just a mountain of concrete even hundreds of cruise missiles striking the dam might not end up being enough to actually destroy it and cause the apocalyptic flood Downstream but it doesn't even really have to work even if there is just the remotest chance that it might work it's a fear that the prc's military planners still have to think about and prepare for when considering an invasion of Taiwan still in order to ensure that it never reaches that doomsday scenario in the first place every other one of taiwan's potential deterrents leading up to it would have to fail first diplomacy would have to fail the Silicon Shield would have to fail the porcupine military defense strategy would have to fail and outside help would have to fail to actually arrive and turn the tide meanwhile America and China are busy actively positioning themselves in their own ways to fight this coming war that may or may not actually arrive and the preparations are extending deep into the internet American websites like Google YouTube Facebook Instagram Wikipedia Reddit and dozens of others have been blocked in China for years but now popular Chinese websites and apps like Tik Tok are beginning to be similarly blocked in the United States as well earlier this year in May of 2023 Montana became the first US state to pass legislation Banning Tik Tok everywhere on all personal devices within the state a ban set to take effect in January of 2024 that will block access to Tik Tok for all of the state's 1.1 million residents more States could end up following Montana's decision and there were many representatives and Senators who would like to see Tik Tok ban outright Nationwide it's already been banned for government employees on government issue devices in 34 US states plus New York City while dozens of University campuses across the country block Tik Tok on their campus Wi-Fi and University owned computers the Internet should be exactly the same no matter where you are but that's simply not the case even if you're living in a place like the US Europe Canada or Australia pretty much everywhere there's an increasing number of censorship firewalls legislation like in Montana limiting where you can access what and different versions of websites with different prices depending on the country or the state you're in this is most apparent when it comes to booking flights hotels and holidays companies will use cookies to adapt their services offered to you like increasing the prices for things when you return to their website in the hope that you'll impulsively make a purchase out of fear the price Rising again sometimes Airlines and hotels will offer cheaper ticket prices to people in their own home country while alternatively they may also Spike prices of interest from the same country suddenly increases all at once like during specific holidays in the US or UK that aren't holiday somewhere else companies will also adjust their prices based on the user's country because they assume that someone from a wealthier country like the US UK or Canada will be able to afford to pay higher prices and this is where using a VPN like today's sponsor nordvpn can come in handy and literally save you thousands in airfare tickets and holiday bookings once you've signed up for a subscription and installed the nordvpn app on your device and launched it you can securely connect your device to a router in a different country and browse through holiday service providers and jot down their prices then you clean out your browser's cas cash to prevent those same service providers from identifying you as a returning customer and then you connect to a different country server and check out the holiday service providers again and compare prices here three different examples showing three different holidays booked from the United States with the US prices shown in this column and then the prices for the exact same holidays booked with a VPN through servers in Italy and the UK shown in this column worth hundreds of dollars in savings this is my own favorite way to use a VPN to save money on trips and vacations but they have tons of other uses and purposes as well from circumventing website or app blockers like Montana's Tik Tok band legislation to entertainment benefits like being able to unlock the streaming libraries available in other countries and so much more and nordvpn gives you the best possible experience which is why I'd absolutely recommend you give them a try especially considering the incredible deal that they're offering right now it's completely risk-free with nord's 30-day money back guarantee and for a limited time when you use my link nordvpn.com reifel any two-year plan you sign up for will also include four extra months and you'll be great helping to support real life Flo while you're at it so click the button here on screen right now or follow the link Down 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 3,297,029

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know

Id: hfjTUvzaZ7s

Length: 49min 10sec (2950 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023