(Mainland) China, or at least the leadership and those that accept the leadership line[1], is probably desperate to get either 'de facto' or 'de jure' control of the island nation, in leiu of the whole umbrella, and right now they're losing their passive (and psychological) grip on both.
I can't see them backing off any, really. Status Quo is probably the best we can hope for, leaving the tipping-point away in either direction always just as imminent. If it tips at all, it'll probably be from too much doubling-down[2] and fall into far more non-passive moves.
Like Ukraine, though, the blame for any outright conflict has to be laid at the one who initiates the conflict, which I can only see being one party (hint: not the ROC/DPP, nor their distant allies). Unlike Ukraine, though, it probably would (at the moment[3]) actually draw significant RotW nations into it. This is the one reason I can believe that Xi will talk hard, maybe play hard ('military exercises'), to keep the pressure up, but not actually follow through with anything more. Hopefully.
But with unknown future tendencies for the balance of power to change. New guy at the top, internal pressures, significant global changes (like Footnote-3). Or some other hotspot just flares up and makes today just look like another interbellum era as various diplomatic dominos topple and makes the fate of Taiwan not even a sideshow. (But that's also beyond the scope of this thread....)
[1] This latter group being a supermajority of the country is, of course, the whole aim for any leadership, and CCP are certainly no slackers in that regard. To the reader(s) who are in the country, I can well imagine that a phrase such as "fish have no word for water" applies, and I'm not even going to go down the route of describing how air-breathing creatures would risk drowning in the environment they find entirely livable...
[2] Sorry, I hate that phrase (outside of original context). It seemed to invade political speech over the last decade or so, usually to describe those who are playing with a bad hand. In that respect, I'm using it wrongly here. But only because it's a wild west saloon game of poker with the threat of gunplay on top of cards.
[3] A certain returning POTUS could essentially do a withdraw of support at least as dangerous (probably more so) as the Afghan one he set up. With much less actual reason to do so. But that's beyond the scope of this particular post/thread.
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Topic: Cathay and Formosa discussion thread (Read 11078 times)