Summary
China launched large-scale military drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, deploying air, sea, and rocket forces in what it called a “severe warning” against Taiwanese independence.
The exercises included 19 navy vessels and the Shandong aircraft carrier entering Taiwan’s defense zone.
Taiwan responded by deploying warships and missile systems. Beijing labeled Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te a “parasite” and accused him of separatism.
Taiwan condemned the drills as provocative and escalatory. The drills mark the latest move in China’s continued military pressure amid rising cross-strait tensions.
what is the point where having continued drills becomes just ridiculous? What is it that they are actually testing at this point?
The rest of the world’s response. When we stop caring enough to even report on it, they stop being drills and go live.
That’s probably true… Still looks a bit ridiculous though. It’s like somebody is planning to steal your wallet but instead of jumping you in a dark alley, they start showing up in front of your house every day, do 100 push ups on the sidewalk, then glare at you and leave.
Maybe Putin didn’t do enough drills before trying to invade Ukraine and that’s why he’s not done great, I don’t know. My expertise invading countries (or mugging people for that matter) is pretty low, so don’t mind me.
Russian invasion to Ukraine looked like a drill. Continue escalating the drill, people eventually get tired hearing the same drill to the point they become complacent. Then that’s the moment they make it the real thing. When your complacent and not ready.
but Putin’s invasion wouldn’t have looked like an invasion at all, if it had gone according to his plan. He infiltrates territories, creates areas heavily inhabited by Russians, assumes more and more direct control of them through puppets and only then eventually moves in with the army to “liberate them”.
And then we all collectively pretend to look the other way and resume doing business with him as soon as possible. That’s how it mainly worked with Crimea, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, so not a new thing. This time NATO didn’t play ball (and Trump is trying to go back to the usual routine).
When the “move in with the army” phase happened with Ukraine, the way I remember that last part, it was pretty abrupt as far as invasions go; “drills” was a brief excuse when they couldn’t hide all the troops that were amassing near the border, not a continuous flexing of military muscle.
Not saying that “Putin did it better” here; in fact I hope he’s going to get the right comeuppance for what he’s doing to millions of people (Ukrainians and his own). Just saying that whatever China is doing with Taiwan looks different to just-a-schmuck-on-the-internet me…
