4 Comments

The issue is NOT cost of defending Taiwan.

America is standing on principle, defending a sovereign nation and important PacRim ally. America also inherited the Pax Americana from the Anglosphere.

So the issue is the cost to anyone who gets between America and those and what she protects, including freedom of navigation.

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In contrast, mainland China has waxed and waned throughout the millennia, sometimes ruling over neighbors, other times being under their domination. For example, northern conquerors were simply renamed "Yuan Dynasty" and life went on.

Today, totalitarian xi assails ALL his neighbors, 360° around -- India, Nepal, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, To the west China oppresses Tibet and Mongolia, and perpetrates genocide on the Uighurs.

History will judge the CCP badly.

History will also judge America poorly, if we abandon what is right, to such evil.

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More years back (fall 1960, I believe) than I care to count, I took a required US Govt class at UT Austin. One day a student asked the prof what a legal revolution was. The prof immediately answered: "One that succeeds!" I feel the same way about secession. A legal secession is one that succeeds. Why was Kosovo allowed to secede from Yugoslavia? NATO in effect "bombed it free." Why then doesn't the world recognize Northern Cyprus's secession from Cyprus? (Only Turkey does.) Since NATO has no desire to bomb Turkey, Northern Cyprus may become a de jure country (it already is de facto) in a few years.

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Ft. Sumter was not a possible undeclared nuclear power. The Chinese have to consider the possibility that if they invade Taiwan, Shanghai and the Three Gorges Dam will disappear in bright flashes. It should at least give them pause.

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The issue is NOT cost of defending Taiwan.

America is standing on principle, defending a sovereign nation and important PacRim ally. America also inherited the Pax Americana from the Anglosphere.

So the issue is the cost to anyone who gets between America and those and what she protects, including freedom of navigation.

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In contrast, mainland China has waxed and waned throughout the millennia, sometimes ruling over neighbors, other times being under their domination. For example, northern conquerors were simply renamed "Yuan Dynasty" and life went on.

Today, totalitarian xi assails ALL his neighbors, 360° around -- India, Nepal, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, To the west China oppresses Tibet and Mongolia, and perpetrates genocide on the Uighurs.

History will judge the CCP badly.

History will also judge America poorly, if we abandon what is right, to such evil.

Expand full comment