Taiwan V China. Its getting very feisty between these two at the moment.

Taiwan have a huge amount of semiconductor facilities, most of the worlds computer chips are made there. Almost all the bleeding edge stuff is.

The PRC taking control of all this would be a huge blow, as those semiconductor fabs are a big strategic asset that most of the world relies on. If it did come to it, the PRC would take Taiwan without the US interfering. Biden doesnt have the stones

My wife’s Taiwanese friend would tell you otherwise. To her, that’s like calling an Irish person British.

Difference with Crimea is it was filled with a lot of ethnic Russians who welcomed the takeover. To my knowledge Taiwan does not have a lot of PRC-separatists in their midst. Russia got sanctioned for Crimea (are they still in place?), but nothing happened beyond that really. The Ukrainians kick up a fuss but they wouldnt dare try take it back.

Russia officially recognises Taiwan as Chinese clay too, so it's clear who is backing who in this - the usual Russia-Iran-China axis vs US-Japan-Aus-UK. Most likely outcome is China takes it with little fuss - they want a fully unified China by 2049 (100 year anniversary of People's Republic of China), but expect the takeover to come much sooner than that. By 2049 all Taiwanese will be good chinese citizens pledging allegiance to the party.

In two decades they will be on the decline already due to their artificially stunted demographics. They know it too. If they want to grab Taiwan it's going to happen in the next decade.

I would hope not but I do believe that in a few years it is probably inevitable that China will make a move. I hope Taiwan strikes back with force when the time comes.

Taiwan is one of the lynch pins in the US strategy for countering China's belligerence in South China Sea. They will absolutely defend them. This is a totally different situation to the Ukraine. There are decades long guarantees of US support, that underpin the relationship. A failure to defend them would be catastrophic strategically for the US, and destroy and credibility they have in other alliances.

Not sure what "cope" means in this context but the idea that China "don't really need migration" is just wrong. Their current fertility rate is well below the reproduction rate of 2.1. Currently both the USA and China have a fertility rate of 1.70 (and practically the same media age). The difference between them is that USA tops up its population shortfall where China actually exports people. The Net Migration rate for USA is 2.82 per 1000 whereas for China it's -0.25 per 1000. An untapped rural workforce may get them over any short-term humps but in the long run they're either going to have to change their stance on migration or face the consequences (not enough young people to bear the burden of the growing population of retirees).

No they can't "be seen as immigrants" if the entire country has a net negative migration rate. The migration rate looks at the country as a whole - internal migration is irrelevant in its calculation.

Also your 300m "untapped rural workers" figure is not a credible number. The entire rural workforce numbered 332m in 2019. Did you just assume that they can all move to the cities in their entirety? That's not how it works. Those people are doing jobs that need doing in the countryside from farming to teaching children to looking after the elderly. If you moved them to the city then you just create a shortfall in rural areas that needs to be plugged.

You cant just move rural workers to cities like that - rural workers are farmers and all the support industries for them, among other things.

It is delusional to think you can do that - sure next why dont we fill any job vacancies in Irish cities by evacuating all the farmers too? What could possibly go wrong?

You cant measure a persons contributions in taxes alone - people involved in food production tend to be paid worse but are infinitely more important than an office worker on 60k as the deputy head of HR

Which makes the Chinese "belt & road" initiative all the more attractive - the trade route from NW China through Afghanistan, Iran and on to the middle east and Europe. Which they are pursuing quite aggressively lately.

And maybe in absolute terms it would be more devastating to China (by nature of a larger population), in relative terms Taiwan would be infinitely worse off. I think Chinese self-sufficiency for food is around 70-80% compared to Taiwanese 32% according to @ChocolateIce . Taiwan being an island means it can be fully blocked off too, whereas China still has links to Russia and air routes to the Middle East and Europe

I read a piece analysing a possible US course of action in the event of conflict. Mass aerial mining of Chinese ports and waterways was one idea. Chinese are far more vulnerable to disruption to imports and trade than the US.

I think if it's at the point of conflict, we'll all be living in dark after the cyberweapons are unleashed and the satellites come crashing down.

On a longer scale, if a conflict didn't go nuclear, the US would have a number of advantages that weigh in it's favor. Secured supply routes, unrestricted access to sea travel and generally being liked better than China. They also have the benefit of experience fighting wars, on a military level. That's something that China, for all its posturing simply doesn't have.

the USA have more experience of losing wars - Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. With experiences like that, I would be suing for peace before it starts

I know it's a frowned up practice but I felt that really needed fixing, America only goes to war because the war machine is huge in that country and vested interests always push for war. A war with China would be a whole different beast.

I cannot countenance direct fighting breaking out between the USA and China because of the threat of escalation up until the point of nuclear weapons being used. Like do people really believe that they're going to fire rockets and drop bombs on each other and trust each other not to go any further than that? The Americans and the Soviets never engaged in direct conflict with each other for this exact reason. I can't see why the Americans and Chinese will be any different. Instead it'll be all indirect warfare: funding disinformation, cyber attacks, propaganda, proxy wars in third countries - that kind of thing. I still believe the Chinese will attack Taiwan - but only after they are sure that it won't lead to all out war with the Americans.

On the Chinese navy, one of the interesting thing China has been doing over the last few decades is building infrastructure in other countries - namely ports.

China owns and operates all these ports on behalf of the host country, but the port is theirs. Something like 90+ ports worldwide are owned by China, so no doubt they would provide some use to the Chinese navy if push came to shove.