From today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
Bloomberg has reported that the US has struck a deal to sell 400 ground-based Harpoon missiles to Taiwan, which will increase tensions with China. It looks as if, as the Ukraine war is lost, the Biden Administration – backed by Republicans – are looking for a “new” Ukraine. Also today: Peace is breaking out in the Middle East as the US is looking more and more irrelevant. Finally: Germany shoots itself in the head. Again.
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Honestly if Japan and Australia aren’t willing to take the lead in this with us in a supporting role at most, why should we step in to make the South China sea lanes safe for them?
Sure it’s important to us but it’s even more to them and they aren’t willing.
My opinion:
Australia always wants to sit with the adults instead of at the kids’ table, but can’t be counted on to bring a covered dish. Maybe a bag of chips if they’re on sale, but that’s about it.
Japan has, until recently, been forbidden (first by the US victors in World War Two, then in the constitution imposed on them by MacArthur) to re-militarize. That’s changing now (what could possibly go wrong?), but will take time.
Depending on the pace of militarism’s return in Japan, I suspect they may end up being more likely than Taiwan to provide the excuse for a US war with China.
If they prefer to avoid being nuked again, best they refrain from any possible threats to China and be a good & friendly neighbor… Especially now that there is no defense against their hypersonics.
The Aussies seem to be the Brits “boys” at the end and just don’t seem to be as willing as we are to protect the Brits’ (and their former empire country’s) interests. Sure we trade there too in that area but our percentages do not approach our friend’s.
Japan is arming up though. Their defense budget is increasing above inflation rate so one might say as you do and they’ll cause just as many issues with China. No one has forgotten WW2 and a rearmed Japan is not a benign issue in that area of the world.
BTW that new 400 missiles contract is to be filled in ’29.
Are we actually planning on shipping them to New China (or whatever Taiwan will called)?
Even if the Beijing regime is dumb enough to invade Taiwan, it’s unlikely to do so in the next decade or so. And that’s plenty of time for public sentiment in Taiwan to swing toward unification, if the matter is handled well.
I’m on my phone so no links but the opposition party that used to rule the place made a recent trip to China and if I remember they were able to garner a very large percentage (40’s?) In the 2020 (?) National elections.
I too believe it will be a electoral decision in the future to become part of the mainland but now it represents how China plans to expand their power/influence in that region.
Thailand is a mess, Malaysia isn’t any better (some of the reporting about the local politics tend to trend towards “gallows humor” at times; stuff like, “he said with a straight face” and the like;-)
It’s really isn’t just about Taiwan in that region but the Western press is lazy…
Peaceful unification is China’s preferred outcome, but the U.S. harbors the same Neocon delusions for Taiwan that we see killing Ukraine. Sad Biden let that maddness seduce his better judgement. I hope my family lives through their maddness.
What will happen if Russia uses tactical nukes in Ukraine and all hell comes to be? What is the Neocon preferred end game to their ‘Russian Trap’ which it appears they may have to eat?
Those missiles are probably obsolete in today’s hypersonic reality.. And by the time they are delivered, China will most likely have hypersonic missile defenses.
China probably already has.
There are folks in China who remember the brutal invasion by Japan. I would guess that they think the re-arming of Japan as a lap dog of the U.S. is just peachy keen.
Why exactly would the Chinese “shut down the sea lanes” when they are the world’s greatest exporter? This notion makes as much sense as the ludicrous allegation that Russia blew up its own pipeline. We have China and Russia ringed with military bases, yet we are expected to believe they are the aggressors! We have the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, so there is zero threat of any invasion. No other nation is frightened enough to need 800 foreign bases.
It’s who control them that they keep harping about.
We didn’t sign that submarine base contract with Australia because their beaches are nice.
If Ukraine has taught us anything, it is that the world needs far less Ukraine’s. Apparently, it is also teaching the defense industry the wrong lesson. As long as there is war somewhere, there is always money to be made, the people, humanity and the planet be damned. We are stumbling fast into a possibly devastating nuclear war over Taiwan. Meanwhile, justice department is busy prosecuting people for speaking against it.