People's Liberation Army Air Force : News & Discussions
- Thread starter Aashish
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My date is Sept/Oct 2024 for either a war in the mountains or Taiwan. Both the US and India will be in election mode, making them weaker than usual.
In America's case, both Presidential options are average, so it doesn't matter who comes to power during wartime. In India's case, a loss in the mountains could increase the chances of Modi's defeat in elections, which is of tremendous benefit to both Pak and China.
The Sep/Oct weather is also suitable in both areas.
Although the world will be less dependent on China, it will still remain dependent. It won't go away in just 7 years. But China will become less dependent on exports by then too, so it works both ways.
My perspective is more on the military side of things rather than economic. The US doesn't have the air assets necessary to fight China today and won't be getting them until 2030, or even 2035.
With that said, I still think the best time for China to invade Taiwan is 2024-27. And China will be at its strongest vis-a-vis the US in 2026-27. Everything that the US considers is necessary to fight China will only start coming in after 2026-27, the F-22 MLU, F-35 B4, AB class Flight III in numbers, Virginia B5 etc. So the Chinese will have a significant tech advantage in some areas until then.
Now, all they need is the opportunity to test their new weapons before risking a war with the US. It doesn't have to be India either, although India is the best option for them.
It most defintiely will. It has less to do with terrain and more to do with fighting experience. They need to get into actual firefights, artillery and tank duels etc. Just 'cause there are tactical differences doesn't mean the lessons learned cannot be applied elsewhere. It's not just the army, the air force, rocket forces and navy will gain experience too.
They also need to test their new weapons.
And, Why do you think that Chinese will not calculate the political and Economic Cost of waging war with India?
Indian Market in future is going to be very big, Do they really want to get Cutoff from that forever?
If the Chinese are worried about the economic impact, then they won't wage any war at all, that's a good thing. But that's only one of the possibilities, and only the Chinese have a definite answer.
If the Chinese do go to war, then they will get sanctioned anyway. So this topic of getting cut off from the Indian market is moot. We are already treating them like an enemy country.
Anyway, Taiwan concerns the CCP's survival. As long as Taiwan exists, the CCP's days are numbered. And there's no peaceful unification on the horizon. As mentioned in the other thread, China needs Taiwan to escape their geography. Then they are struggling economically as well, so they need an external threat to quell internal disturbances.
India is the simplest target, followed by Taiwan. There are Mongolia and Vietnam as well, but the former risks irking Russia and the latter has a different set of complications, 'cause it will be a serious war and they need much more naval power or risk bringing the US in. Mongolia won't help train and polish their military, so the Chinese will leave them alone until they are ready to take on Russia. So India it is.
But it isn't, I've already shown graphs proving that.
India Fiscal Year GDP Growth
Full Year GDP Growth in India decreased to 6.40 percent in 2025 from 8.20 percent in 2024. This page includes a chart with historical data for India Full Year GDP Growth.
tradingeconomics.com
China Full Year GDP Growth
Full Year GDP Growth in China increased to 5.20 percent in 2023 from 3 percent in 2022. This page includes a chart with historical data for China Full Year GDP Growth.
tradingeconomics.com
And this is despite being several times larger than India already.
Gotta correct my post here. It's Oct for the US, but April for India. Both 2024. April is suitable too.
I remembered it was supposed to be 1-2 months before the elections for both countries.
The Chinese would love to see Modi go. However, can they afford to wait till 2024 when they have multiple issues at home and need an immediate diversion? Modi's ouster is a long term solution for them, but at this point they need a quick fix. The only available option with limited losses is war with India.
My theory is strictly economic in nature. 7 years is reasonable time to move significant amount of manufacturing out of China. There will still be dependence, but that will not deter the western world to apply back-breaking sanctions on China. On the other side, if they attack Taiwan today, no country can afford to apply any meaningful sanction. Plus if they takeover Taiwan, the whole world is still dependent on TSMC and alternate manufacturing facilities are yet to come up. With all these trump cards in hand, they can force the world to accept the accession of Taiwan with comparatively limited loss. If they really want to takeover Taiwan, they should do it ASAP.
Regarding reducing China's dependence on export with internal consumption, China has not been successful to do that so far. There are 3 main drivers of Chinese economy, 1. Exports 2. Real estate and 3. Infrastructure development. Currently real estate is in shambles without any viable path to recovery. Infrastructure development is already saturated and most of their big ticket projects like high speed rail ($900 billions debt) are just money pits. In this situation, can they can reduce their dependence on exports? I don't think so.
Question is how important is Taiwan for China and what price they are willing to pay. Any sane minded Chinese leader would not attack Taiwan considering the impact. However, Xi is an idiot and the way he has hurt Chinese economy so far, nobody can guess his next move.
For the time being china wont attack taiwan, status quo benefits both the countries. Things might escalate if west plans to station nukes or any other weapon systems.
If we see from a market perspective asean + southasian region forms a huge market and will drive the global economy in coming decades.
As long as china can maintain the manufacturing edge companies will continue to trade with them. If they can reach parity in semi conductors and gain allies (not the motley crew of nk or pakistan) they can certainly weather the storm.
Allies is what will make or break them. One of the reasons why soviets lost the plot was lack of strong & big allies. The marked difference between 90s and now is that russia can scrape through by trading with other countries.
Logically it doesn't make sense for China to attack Taiwan. But when ego takes over, logic takes back seat. Xi has a huge ego and so far his actions are more about cementing his position, rather than strengthening China's economy. He is modernized version of Mao.
Regarding manufacturing, Covid has already exposed the disadvantages of having a single source and companies are already working on China + one strategy. 25% of iPhone will be manufactured in India by 2025. iPad assembly is being moved to Vietnam. Any aggression from China will only increase the pace. War or no war, outflow of manufacturing is a done deal.
Asia is a significant market, but still not in a position to cross US + Europe. Plus India and south Asian countries are actually trying to capture China's manufacturing base. They are trying to reduce import from China.
Regarding allies, China has shot in it's feet. They have spoiled relationships with bigger Asian powers like India and Japan with some useless border disputes and tried to exploit other countries with debt burden. I can't think of any meaningful ally apart from Russia.
If 1-2 months before elections, Modi will win for sure. They need time to not only start the war, but convincingly defeat India to stop Modi. Any stalemate will not yield desired results
apple products are not affordable to most of the ppl. Most of us buy chinese products bcos of the price but if they can match the quality of apple, what will prevent them capturing the market? Thats the reason why US is imposing accces to chips & other highend stuff. Given enuf time huawei could have rivalled apple.
Even if most of the manufacturing moves out, it will take another decade or two for them slide down the ladder. They have enuf critical mass to sustain themselves , thats why they are focusing on increasing self consumption.
as long we have dollar running the show yes that will the case. when trade increases and countries start using local currencies then they have higher amount of trade flowing freely across the border.
I think it's too late for that. They need to attack quickly, but it's winter. So they have to wait until March. But there's no way to tell what will happen in the next few months.
They may actually take the time to clean up. Once enough people are made to disappear, then it will go back to normal. In fact, I'd argue that their internal trouble actually forces them to focus on it first.
If China attacks Taiwan, then trade with them will disappear. It doesn't matter how dependent everybody is, it will simply cease.
TSMC will also cease to exist. Depending on who's winning, the other side will blow it up. Companies dependent on TSMC will have to skip a generation. At least Intel and Samsung will keep going.
Since it's about political survival, they can even bring China down to NoKo standards if necessary. They will just try and rebuild again. To communists, the economy is only a means to an end. They will just survive like Russia has done. They will build a lot of nukes, and that's enough to keep the US or India from invading until they rebuild. In the meantime, they will just kill off tens of millions of their people in a widespread purge.
Elections will be held in May. So a start in March-April could see an end before May. Of course, if it continues then Modi stays. But I don't think the Chinese will start a war unless they believe they can end it quickly, ie, win. If they are losing during elections, then it makes no difference.
Same for Taiwan. The first few days will make or break their invasion. They have to start with an air-sea battle before they can invade.
It's not a question about affordability, but about the overall value of the products and from that prospective Apple has been the driving force. Plus when apple built product in China, it gave them credibility to attract every major player. As of today, every western company is seriously planning to move at least some portion of their product lines out of China.
It does not take a decade. If push comes to shove, every damn electronics product assembly line can be moved out in 5 years time. The self consumption is not even 10% of what they are building right now. And when people employed in these factories lose jobs, who exactly is going to support the consumption? It's like a pack of cards. When one sector is down, the cascading effect shows up in every sector.
Who is going to use local currencies with China? India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Australia? I don't think so. As I mentioned earlier, China has no meaningful ally left apart from Russia.
They may chose to start as soon as winter is over. As we know, they keep building facilities long LAC. Of course, no-one can predict their actual plan.
They are suppressing the decedents with iron fist using all their dark technologies. Got lots of first hand info from my Chinese co workers. Will post the details someday. Just to summarize, they are going back to Mao's era. For sure within next few weeks they will stop all these demonstrations. But even though people stop showing up in demonstrations, the dissatisfaction level is highest in last 5 decades. One of the their modus operandi is to raise the nationalism issue and brainwash ordinary Chinese people.
If today China attacks Taiwan, no country can afford to stop trade with China!! Just see what happened with Russia. Even after 9 months, Europe is still buying oil and gas from Russia. When Europe could not make alternate arrangements for oil and gas, how do you think whole world is going to arrange from spoon to mobile phones ?? This dependency is China's biggest bargaining chip and they need to cash it ASAP. US is building fab capacity at breakneck speed. Heard a story from one my senior co-worker which sounded like a plot from Hollywood. It seems his brother owns a transport company and his trucks have been busy transporting fab equipments guarded by FBI agents. Can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, but won't be surprised a bit if it's true.
Let's assume TSMC is blown up as a result of this war before alternate arrangements are made. Then it will translate to at least 2-3 trillion US$ direct loss and few more trillions as indirect loss. Intel and Samsung can't provide alternate solutions for 2 reasons. 1. They don't have capacity 2. Every chip made in TSMC has to be rebuilt with Intel/Samsung libraries and it will take at least 3 years to reach mass production level. Which means no electronic devices for 3 years !!
Basically Xi is holding a weapon which has the capacity to make more destruction than nukes.
It's not about political survival, rather it's about Xi's ego and hunger for absolute power. I would not generalize about communists. Please note it's the same communists who built this economy. The current issue is strictly created by Xi and his cronies. He has been working on this for past many years and got rid of all his adversaries. Basically he is in complete control of army, police and his party without any checks and balances whatsoever. If he destroys the economy by his stupid actions, then he can never rebuild it in his lifetime. Please note, China's economic growth was fueled by US outsourcing. The issue is Xi doesn't care. He just wants to rule like an emperor till his death.
One of friend (hard core communist part supporter) commented Xi should be killed and hung in front of forbidden palace
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Okay, I'll agree. There is room for both dates. If it's not 2023, then it will be 2024 or it won't happen. We can only guess.
Please do.
It will be interesting to see what their future is like over the next few months. The CCP screwed up brilliantly. Right now they are trying to blame local govts for going overboard with the Covid policy.
Plus Covid could be running rampant in China, it should already be at the community level by now.
There is a way out for the CCP though. Once it becomes an epidemic, the CCP can scare the population into obedience by using Covid deaths as an excuse, so the protesters will take the blame. In fact, the CCP can go overboard with the number of deaths. Post which, they can go full Mao on everybody.
Can't compare oil and gas with a smartphone. People can live without a phone for years, but not without energy.
If TSMC is crippled, then people will just use what they have. Any supply-side shock will be temporary because demand will still be there. The most important fab in the world is not TSMC, it's Intel. Unlike smartphones, economies cannot survive without laptops and PCs. Other than that, there are plenty of industrial-grade fabs coming up, ie, 14/22nm to 65nm, like two upcoming fabs in India. Least profitable, but most critical; for transportation, factories, power plants etc.
The US must be building the fabs at war-footing, so it's not a surprise to me. Personally I believe you will be surprised in a year or two. At least it won't come as a surprise to me if their production rate ends up covering most of TSMC's supply.
Frankly, the world needs an oversupply of fab production, even if govts have to absorb some losses. It's a strategic sector, it cannot be dictated by a profit and loss statement.
The massive flurry of semiconductor activity across the board is one of the biggest clues to the possibility of an invasion of Taiwan actually happening.
Anyway, lots of jobs for Indians coming up. So 2000-day visa appointments.
