Can China Invade Taiwan?

Russia backs China on Taiwan

Moscow, Russia, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Russia repeated its strong support for Beijing's "One China" policy this weekend, the official China Daily reported Sunday.

The Russian government issued a statement Saturday announcing that it continued to oppose any kind of independence for Taiwan but urging a peaceful resolution to the dispute over the island, the newspaper said.

Responding to a query about proposed Chinese anti-secession legislation that appears aimed at Taiwan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that "the Russian side supports the Chinese side's policies in questions concerning the defence of the state unity and territorial integrity of the People's Republic of China," the China Daily said.

"As for the Taiwan issue, Russia believes that only one China exists in the world. The government of (China) is the only legitimate government representing all of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China," Yakovenko said, according to a ministry statement cited by the China Daily.

"Russia is against the independence of Taiwan in any form," Yakovenko said. "We do not accept the concept of "Two Chinas" or "One China and one Taiwan."

It doesn't matter what China or Russia say, only what the Taiwanese think.

They and the US have no legitimate say about the final status of Taiwan.

Only The Taiwanese people have a say in the final status.

Anyone can say anything, but if it has no basis in international law then they can't make it stick. China passing some fool law would be like the US annexing Canada.

[edit on 12/26/2004 by bodebliss]

Russia wont back china, russia hates china, china hates russia.
Simple.

Originally posted by bodebliss

Originally posted by dingyibvs

2 What if the Chinese nuke the North and the South pole and melt the entire icecaps? That would probably be as effective as any weapon in eliminating the U.S. coasts.

Sorry the Chinese probably can't reach the South or North pole and even if they could it would only have a very temporary effect, as you understand nothing about climate, the poles would immediately refreeze.

The Chinese can't reach the poles? All they need are some medium-range missiles to reach the north pole, the south pole would be accessible through ships and/or submarines. And no, they will not immediately refreeze. Enough water would have flown out of the poles to hotter waters by the time refreezing starts to occur.

Besides, that's not even the real point of my argument, my point was that China CAN wreck enough ecological havoc to render the planet much less inhabitable(that is, more deaths) for everyone else, and they don't have to do it by directly attacking U.S. soil.

Russia seems to have the same stance as America, so saying they back China isn't really accurate.

America say it supports the "One China" policy, just won't let it happen through force.

And attacking the polar ice caps would seem rather pointless. It would do damage to China, and its allies as well. It's the same as using nukes directly on America. Nothing would stop America from attacking them in full force after that, as well.

Why would ANYONE nuke the poles?? First off, even if you could melt the polar ice caps with nukes to try and flood the U.S., well, China itself is pretty much in the same region as the United States, just on the other side of the world. They'd be risking flooding themselves out too.

But also, if such a thing were to occur, you'd screw the whole planet's ecological system probably. And mess up the weather system.

Originally posted by devilwasp
Russia wont back china, russia hates china, china hates russia.
Simple.

This is very true.
Some analysis suggest that Russia is conducting excursuses with china only to size-up its military capabilities because after all, they make more things then they buy from Russia.
When aren�t they having minor-moderate disputes?

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
Why would ANYONE nuke the poles?? First off, even if you could melt the polar ice caps with nukes to try and flood the U.S., well, China itself is pretty much in the same region as the United States, just on the other side of the world. They'd be risking flooding themselves out too.

But also, if such a thing were to occur, you'd screw the whole planet's ecological system probably. And mess up the weather system.

OK, maybe I didn't explain the context in which I made that suggestion very well, but here it is:

Some people were citing the large differential b/w the Chinese and the American nuclear capabilities as a reason that China would shy away from a nuclear war. I was countering that argument by saying that China CAN still damage the U.S. and in fact the rest of the world, including China itself, by causing ecological disasters.


Since in a nuclear war, the entire nation of China would be annihilated by U.S. nukes anyway, it wouldn't matter to China if the melting poles, for example, would cause harm to China as well as the U.S. To put in simpler terms, since China would be destroyed anyway, why not take the U.S. down with it? And wouldn't causing an ecological disaster be MUCH easier than actually building missiles that work and can penetrate American missile defenses, and thus neutralizing(somewhat) the American superiority in nuclear capabilities?

Keep in mind that the key point in my suggestion is that in the case of a nuclear war, China would be destroyed by the U.S. nuclear assault and therefore they would not have anything to lose by causing harm to the planet.

Yeah, but then why not just nuke the U.S. directly in such an instance. Otherwise, they might get destroyed by the U.S. nukes and also flood themselves....if you are guaranteed to be annihilated, then just directly send nukes to the U.S. in such a situation.

Problem is that with the ever increasing technology and deployed vehicles of the missile shield it may be near impossible to get sufficient hits on U.S. soil.

I'm sure we keep tabs on their situation as much as possible. I doubt our ASW fleets and actual sub fleet would let them run rampant.

Originally posted by ChrisRT
Problem is that with the ever increasing technology and deployed vehicles of the missile shield it may be near impossible to get sufficient hits on U.S. soil.

However, despite its "operationl" status, its still not fully tested. Nor could it hope to intercept an all out launch of the communist nations ICBM's At best the Ft. Greely interceptors (6) could hit 3 missiles. Inital reports indicate that they will loft 2 missiles at each inbound because if it misses there will not be enough time to intercept it. Hech you launch a 2nd for insurance. That leaves 17 still targeted at the US no doubt aimed at pricipal cities and not at military targets (They do not have enough to get that fancy)

As far as sub warefare goes, the PLANN would get its clocked cleaned by the U.S. / Japanese / Australian / UK forces. Better tech, more subs, better ASW assets (Japan has the largest P-3 fleet outside of the U.S.) as well as the ace in the hole SOSUS would make it like shooting fish in a barrel

Originally posted by FredT

Originally posted by ChrisRT
Problem is that with the ever increasing technology and deployed vehicles of the missile shield it may be near impossible to get sufficient hits on U.S. soil.

However, despite its "operationl" status, its still not fully tested. Nor could it hope to intercept an all out launch of the communist nations ICBM's At best the Ft. Greely interceptors (6) could hit 3 missiles. Inital reports indicate that they will loft 2 missiles at each inbound because if it misses there will not be enough time to intercept it. Hech you launch a 2nd for insurance. That leaves 17 still targeted at the US no doubt aimed at pricipal cities and not at military targets (They do not have enough to get that fancy)

As far as sub warefare goes, the PLANN would get its clocked cleaned by the U.S. / Japanese / Australian / UK forces. Better tech, more subs, better ASW assets (Japan has the largest P-3 fleet outside of the U.S.) as well as the ace in the hole SOSUS would make it like shooting fish in a barrel

! Who doesn�t know it isn�t really operational yet?
It is maturing with each passing tweak and will continue to do so.
More interceptors will be put into place and Pac-3 (with the newer rocket motors) and Aiges ships will be placed in 'areas of interest'.

It's all supposed to pan out in the next 5 years.

Originally posted by devilwasp
Russia wont back china, russia hates china, china hates russia.
Simple.

Russia and China are allies,same form of government,same way of doing things,only wary of each other. Simple.

Originally posted by W4rl0rD
Russia and China are allies,same form of government,same way of doing things,only wary of each other. Simple.

Errr, you what?

Russia now claims to be a democracy (the USSR no longer exists) while China is still ruled by the Chinese Communist Party...

If it's so simple what was the Sino-Soviet split all about?

As for the poles not immediately re-freezing...

Yes, they would.

The steam caused by the nuclear blast would carry the heat away from the water so quickly the re-freeze would actually be more catastrophic than the original detonation.

Try this: put a cup of cold water and a cup of just boiled water side by side in the freezer and see which one turns into ice first...

The effect of nuclear bomb couldn't be more powerful than the constant volcanic activity at the south and north poles. Those forces don't melt all the ice, why should bombs. The effects of climate( mostly solar output ) would melt that ice in milleniums, as at one point forests of conifers grew all the way to the South Pole. Nuking Antarctica would be holding a match under a cubic yard of ice.

Bode

Originally posted by bodebliss
The effect of nuclear bomb couldn't be more powerful than the constant volcanic activity at the south and north poles. Those forces don't melt all the ice, why should bombs. The effects of climate( mostly solar output ) would melt that ice in milleniums, as at one point forests of conifers grew all the way to the South Pole. Nuking Antarctica would be holding a match under a cubic yard of ice.

Bode

Nuclear bombs ARE more powerful than the constant volcanic activities, plus much of the volcanic activities' energies are released in forms other than heat(earthquakes for example)

Also, as for steam helping it freeze faster, there are two main problems:

1)Where does the steam go? All that heat created by the nuclear weapons aren't escaped to space, a lot of which will be used to melt the ice caps into steam. The steam will move, will rain, the end result is STILL that more water is created. If it's rained on the Arctice circle, then heat is released during condensation, the same heat that's used to create the steam, and thus heat is given right back. It's a simple matter of conservation(sort of) of energy.

2)Steam is only created at 100 degrees C, meaning it can only maintain the water temperature at sub 100 C, freezing is at 0 C, whic the steam can help little.


Oh, BTW, the cold water freezes faster. I mean come on, does water at 0.01 C freeze faster or water at 99.9 C freeze faster? The 99.9 C water needs to be cooled to 0.01 C BEFORE it can be frozen. From then on, the cooled water will freeze at the same rate as the 0.01 C water. So even if the cooling process from 99.9 to 0.01 C takes only a nanosecond, it will still be slower than starting with 0.01 C water. Use some common sense will ya?

dingyibvs,
I don't think so . In the US, 4ft in the ground the temp is a constant 55deg and for every 100ft deeper you go the temp rises 1deg. A nke doesn't produce a lot of heat most of the damage is caused by the winds produced from the explosion. Antarctica is already raked by 200mph winds and there are no trees or buildings to act as flotsom.

Howlrunner is correct. What he stated is an old science experiment from grade school.

The world climate is more dynamic than is captured in your knowledge base.

Yeah if your talking one small ice field you might melt it with nukes, but the heat would disappear and it would refreeze almost immediately. Have you ever stood by a fire in a trash can in January? Did the fire melt all the snow in your neighborhood? Think about it!

Bode Bliss

In the example I gave, in which I compared the solidifying time for 99.9 degree water and 0.01 degree water, the Mpemba(sp?) effect does NOT apply.

I know a lot of the readers here probably don't know this effect, so let me explain this. If you take a 95C cup of water and an 85C cup of water and try to freeze them, the 95C cup of water will freeze faster. No one has come up with a conclusive explanation yet, but the most plausible one is that the 95C cup of water will evaporate more water in the form steam than the 90C cup, and thus with less mass, it takes less time to freeze. HOWEVER, if you compare something like a 95C cup with a 5C cup of water, THE 5C ONE WILL FREEZE MUCH FASTER. Likely because the difference between the masses won't affect the freezing time as much as the lower starting temperature.

Now, how does this affect what we're talking about? IT DOESN'T. First of all, it's not an amazingly big difference, so massive amounts of water will still be released into the world oceans. Second of all, if the difference were due to mass released as steam, WHAT THE HECK do you think the steam will do? It'll eventually coalesce and rain as WATER, which is what the nukes aim to do. And during the process of raining, heat is released, keeping the temperature high.

Now, about how the nukes do their damage, have you seen the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Most of the structures in the towns are STANDING, though heavily charred. The lethal damage of those bombs were mostly due to heat, not shockwave.



Now, how the heck did we get into such an indepth discussion about this physical phenomenum? It wasn't even my point. My point was that China CAN kill by creating ecological disasters one way or another WITHOUT actually shaving to directly attack any country in particular. This pole thing is just some random example I thought of. I have no clue how much heat those nukes need to generate or whatnot, and I doubt any of you know it either, so this is really a moot subject. The point, again, is not whether this will work, it's whether something similar to it can happen, and thereby making China perfectly capable of executing a M.A.D strategy without having the capability of striking a particular country such as the U.S.

Naw dingyibvs,

No problem at all. I took the amount of joules it takes to melt a kg. of ice, the amount of ice on Antarctica, the yield from a 1 megaton blast, and it came out to 17.6 million megaton blasts to melt the ice on Antarctica. This figure does not include sea ice nor the ice at the north pole, so including those places I'd say 45 million 1 megaton blasts would do it.

This would raise sea level 215 feet.

Bode Bliss

seems some of you still live in the Cold War. China is no more a communist country than russia is a democrazy.

You guys need to upgrade your knowledge about the rest of world so that people wouldn't say that americans are ignorant any more.