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Comment by onetimemanytime | Hacker News Reader

Maybe they can win a battle...China will live to fight another day. Let's be honest: if today is in doubt, a couple of decades ago China had no chance. The trend is on China's side. What will happen two decades from now with China having relatively unlimited money for this cause?

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"Win" in the sense of the article is the same kind of "win" that Finland achieved against the USSR; they surely lost all of their objectives, but it was long, bloody, and expensive from the USSR's point of view.

Unlimited money, or at least the willingness to spend unlimited money, has not really resulted in a sustainable "win" in Afghanistan, for example.

Unlimited money, or at least the willingness to spend unlimited money, has not really resulted in a sustainable "win" in Afghanistan, for example.

China can afford a Finland vs USSR scenario, several times over. China is not going away and the Taiwanese are essentially Han Chinese according to Wikipedia so the Afghan scenario is different. China can offer same government or laws for at least for x decades...

Righty-oh: as Han Chinese, the Taiwanese are highly dangerous to the mainland Communist Party's narrative that there is no alternative and that top-down Party heavy-handedness is just being reasonable "with Chinese characteristics". Any Finland-like scenario would demonstrate the effectiveness and societal value of obtaining more democracy to all Han Chinese.

Or exacerbate the conflict, the deaths from both sides in Taiwan and China could create hate that might just lead to a eight-year-long civil war like the Syrian Civil War with no end in sight.

Hmm sorry this is a bit of a non-sequitur. Responsibility for the deaths on both sides would squarely fall on Xi, and he would get all the very much deserved hate, having taken full ownership now.

It would fall on Xi but that doesn't mean the conflict will end, once blood is spilt, there will be anger. I've seen enough Middle Eastern conflicts to see where it would end. We can blame Assad for the Syrian war but its not ending it.

Probably not. There's a straight between the two sides here. They aren't right next to each other like in Syria.

There's a strait between Northern Ireland and the British mainland. It doesn't take very many people to cause destabilizing acts of terror.

The notion that everything is kumbaya among all Han Chinese automatically is a silly government line.

> China can offer same government or laws for at least for x decades...

Wasn't Hong Kong supposed to be independently managed til 2047? The Taiwanese are not blind.

>>Wasn't Hong Kong supposed to be independently managed til 2047? The Taiwanese are not blind.

Ask Hong Kong...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Hon... . Blind or not average people might not fight to the last man if they feel /perceive no difference in rule.

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