MLB Draft, the All Star Game, Taiwan war games and Chinese Rope-a-Dope

MLB Draft, the All Star Game, Taiwan war games and Chinese Rope-a-Dope

Major League Baseball just held its draft. Does anybody – other than those picked, their families, and the teams – care? Name me the first pick – I dare you. That is because college (and high school) baseball is just a spring sport whose popularity in most places is secondary to spring football. Even though MLB is my favorite sport, I did not watch its draft. However, the University of Tennessee Vols had 8 players picked the first day. Eight!

I also don’t watch MLB’s all star game. Once it was a real game – remember Pete Rose slide into home and the collision with Ray Fosse? It has become a caricature of the game, like the NFL’s all star game whose Pro Bowl is now a flag football game. Why anyone would pay to watch a flag football game is beyond me. Speaking of paying to watch nonsense, a friend of mine offered me two tickets to the baseball all star game in Atlanta. The tickets were $900! Tickets at the dugout infield were $3,000! I think we have a new definition of insanity. BTW, the game ended in a tie! The MVP was the guy who won the home run “swing off.” Can you imagine Pete Rose’s reaction?

The Taiwan War Games and Chinese Rope-a-Dope

Troops from the US, Australia, Japan and a bunch of other countries are conducting war games in Australia, training to fight the Chinese if they invaded Taiwan. The three-week Talisman Sabre exercise involves 19 nations and more than 40,000 personnel. Wow. Well it gives the military something to do and lets the troops have fun playing Audie Murphy for a while. But seriously, do you think that China will really invade Taiwan? If they somehow make it the 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait, are there going to be 40,000 troops from 19 nations waiting to greet them?

Unlike Ukraine where the Russians could amass 50,000 troops and walk across the border, the Chinese just can’t walk across the Taiwan Strait. They would first likely send missiles and aircraft to conduct bombing raids. Surely, the Taiwanese air defenses could knock down most of the missiles and the planes. If the Chinese navy attacked, they would have to face air defenders, drones, submarines and naval forces. It would be very very costly. I once likened Taiwan’s defense to that of a porcupine – an animal that is small, slow and vulnerable, except for its quills. Most predators avoid porcupines. However, bobcats and coyotes are known to attack a porcupine’s face and try to flip them over, rendering them defenseless. China would have to find that soft underbelly or else it will rattle its sword, be bombastic, threaten but ultimately not attack the Taiwanese porcupine.

But China could be doing a rope-a-dope. While it is posturing toward Taiwan it could easily reunite the parts of Manchuria and all of Siberia that it lost to the Russians way back when. Here is what one historian writes “The modern borders between Russia and China were largely established through what Chinese historians have long termed the “unequal treaties” of the 19th century. The Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860) transferred over 600,000 square miles of territory from Qing China to Tsarist Russia, much of it in modern-day Siberia and the Russian Far East. These agreements, signed during a period of Chinese weakness and Western imperial expansion, have never sat comfortably within Chinese historical memory.”

So if the Chinese claim Taiwan as their home territory, then why don’t they claim Northern Manchuria and all of Siberia as Chinese homelands? Putin invaded Ukraine claiming to recover Russian territory didn’t he? Well the Chinese could walk into Siberia and meet minimal Russian resistance. Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine where it has been exposed as a paper tiger. They do not have the resources, the military might or the will to counter a Chinese invasion. The vast expanse of Siberia stands as the world’s greatest repository of untapped resources, a treasure trove of strategic minerals, fossil fuels, timber and fresh water. What riches are there in Taiwan? Chip factories? Get serious. If the Chinese invaded Taiwan, the chip making expertise will vanish overnight and appear in the EU, Canada and the US.

Invading Taiwan would be foolhardy. Siberia is there for the taking. Look for China to take it. John Lonergan makes a compelling argument in “China will invade Siberia, not Taiwan” and goes as far as suggesting that the Chinese already have plans to do so. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5379824-china-wants-to-invade-siberia-not-taiwan/

He notes that Hitler was stopped by the 22 mile English Channel and that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely fail and come at a steep cost of over 10,000 soldiers, 155 aircraft,138 major ships and over a trillion dollars. Did I hear someone say “porcupine”?

The costs of invading Siberia would not nearly be as steep. China has already changed the names of its maps of six cities, including Vladivostok (Haishenwai) and Khabarovsk (Boli), one island and one mountain from the Russian names back to the original Chinese ones. I wonder if Trump will have the US maps change the names or will he be afraid of infuriating Putin? Do Chinese maps now say “Gulf of America”? The only defense that Russia has would be a nuclear threat- which China would counter. Would this be enough to deter the Chinese? I seriously doubt it.

If interested, I highly recommend reading 

https://harmoniousdiscourse.substack.com/p/the-dragons-northern-gambit-china