The Chinks, yes, the same wonderful people that gave the world a contagious virus that they created in a bio lab, infected a few hundred thousand of their slaves with and then deliberately sent them out into the world, is preparing for war.
They fully intend to invade Taiwan and make it part of China again. To prevent this, the very affluent government of Taiwan has been buying up high quality military hardware for decades to defend themselves with, mostly from us, and it promises to be a battle royal before Taiwan succumbs.
Part of the reason for this is that the nations neighboring China know that they’re next and once China commits to the fight with Taiwan, China will be more vulnerable to attack from Japan, Vietnam and others including us, though we’re not so much likely to attack China as we are to defend Taiwan.
This is why the Chinks have been turning so many little atolls into military bases with airports. They’ve extended their military reach well out into the Pacific to make it easier to both intercept incoming attacks and launch them outward.
The problem for us of the Chinese takeover of Taiwan is that Taiwan is a big trading partner of ours. Our billionaires and their billionaires are both making more billions from trade that China doesn’t control, and when China controls the trade, vital items can suddenly become very hard to get. There’s also the shipping traffic through that area of the ocean that China wants to have total control over, which would utterly change the global economy and military dominance and entirely in their favor. Which is the other reason for changing the atolls into military bases.
So following my usual method of reaching conclusions based on obvious givens, here’s my prediction: China attacks Taiwan, the Japanese and Vietnamese attack the atoll bases and sink all the Chinese shipping they can. The Chinese are afraid to strike back at Japan because we will defend Japan. (How’s that for a switch?) but are forced to as Japanese attacks become bolder and more destructive. The Russians, always willing to insert knives into the backs of anyone on the defensive, take this opportunity to seize a few islands contested by them and Japan, that just happen to be in known oil reserve areas.
Russia also grabs the chance to move troops into contested areas along the Russia-China border, which forces China to respond with troops of their own. China threatens to use nukes, so Russia does. Everyone is jumping up and down, waving swords and screaming threats and of course India takes this wonderful opportunity to push back the Chinese who have taken Indian territory in the Himalayas. Little battles are raging everywhere while the big one goes on in Taiwan.
If ever there was a time for the United States to go full bore assault on China, this is it. Not that we expect to conquer China, we don’t. We just want to reduce their threat level dramatically for as long a term as we can arrange while at the same time not wrecking our trade with them. Damaging it is okay because it’s gotten steadily more expensive to buy from China as the people become steadily better paid and we’re always looking for cheaper labor. But we still need to trade with them. So we will destroy as much of their navy as we can along with erasing those atolls, and their ports will probably get hammered as well.
We won’t be without casualties. I bet we lose a lot of sailors and ships, but there’s about a zero chance of losing any ground troops since this will all be fought at sea. Nuclear war is out of the picture. If the Chinese try to destroy us it will very likely bring on their own destruction and that’s not in their plans anymore than it is ours. Mutual Assured Destruction is the glue that holds our world together.
So what I see coming is a messy, bloody, scattered and mostly short war between China on one side and us, Japan, India, Vietnam and Russia on the other. We all have big axes to grind with the Chinks. When do I think China will attack Taiwan? Why, during the Olympics, of course, when all those beloved athletes from all over the world are under China’s benevolent and loving wing and can’t escape, when China has lots of valuable hostages, that’s when.
Maybe not, I have no magic crystal ball here, but that would sure be like them.