News from China . . . and Taiwan

I would have a hard time believing that China would invade Taiwan for two reasons - one is that it would come with a high risk of getting the United States involved in defense of Taiwan, even if Xi could get the go-ahead from his pal Trump, and two that China's one-child policy has left the country with a number of one child soldiers, whose parents would not be happy at all about seeing their only children sent off to fight a war.

Still, the South China Morning Post has published a couple of articles recently indicating that they may be considering exactly that.. Although I'm having a lot of trouble finding any credibility to these articles, they do seem to be cropping up.

The first was one I posted about here:

Is China preparing for war against Taiwan?

in which the author argued that increasing "‘island encirclement’ patrols" were indicative of a preparation to strike Taiwan.

Now a new article on January 3 suggests a possible timetable for the action.

Is China planning to take Taiwan by force in 2020?

Deng Yuwen believes Beijing is coming to the conclusion that if it is to achieve reunification with Taiwan, as Xi Jinping has pledged to do at the 19th party congress, it has to do so by force, and sooner rather than later

The two articles are the works of two individual commentators, whom I don't think should be taken too seriously.

But then there's this from Xinhua on 2018-01-03 and 04

Xi stresses real combat training

Xi stresses building elite combat force

further reading material that cheetah and other readers may find interesting

THANK YOU TRUMP: THAT TWEET WAS JUST WHAT CHINA NEEDED TO TAME PAKISTAN

US president’s outburst and Washington’s decision to punish old ally comes at an opportune time for Beijing, which has been facing uncharacteristic pushback from Islamabad

. . . and stamps for the coming Year of the Dog

#randyw