This is actually good news, considering the state of China's domestic circumstances.<p>China knows it's not really in a position to start a war with the West, and so it's trying to gain some of the political benefit of appealing to domestic nationalism without destroying its domestic employment, economy, trade relationships, or overseas wealth as a result of an actual invasion. And it is no secret that this happens whenever China's leadership takes a popularity hit -- most recently with the electricity shortages as a result of their (now suspended) anti-coal push.<p>If China was really going to attack, it would not be sabre rattling like this.
I've recently been really digging in on China, and the more I read / learn, the less threatening (not evil, the CCP is certainly plenty evil) I perceive them.<p>A starter on this is the three part polymatter series.<p>1) China has a monster of a demographics problem that they are clearly lying about with census data:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTbILK0fxDY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTbILK0fxDY</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZWIwKdXC4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZWIwKdXC4</a><p>2) It's pretty well established at this point that Chinese property markets have serious issues which threaten systemic issues:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgVXRtq5EIg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgVXRtq5EIg</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlbMsS4u5EY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlbMsS4u5EY</a><p>3) Their resource situation, especially water issues are serious:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUc4gTO-PE&t=918s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUc4gTO-PE&t=918s</a><p>4) They have terrible Geography from a military perspective and are not nearly as militarily strong as they project<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNaIKatux1E" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNaIKatux1E</a><p>5) And the biggest one. Chinese citizens are increasingly not prosperous enough to be ok with it. Also the gender imbalance is so severe that there are guaranteed to be 10s of millions of angry single men over the next decades, almost certain to increase social discord.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87R3Lp0jd0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87R3Lp0jd0</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaA69EvHGw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaA69EvHGw</a><p>They have also seriously mishandled their relationship with Australia who they really needed which was just long term cemented with the AUUKUS alliance.<p>Another interesting channel which I found because she was talking about evergrande default over three years ago:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHwYF8GGE-8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHwYF8GGE-8</a><p>Video on frequent structural disasters
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RElGXLwWTvI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RElGXLwWTvI</a><p>I think over the next 30 years, the US tripping over it's own feet is a bigger risk than anything China related
The ROC also 'vows reunification' with the Chinese mainland. It's a standard line in the One China diplomatic framework which both states follow.<p>Edit: can we get the title changed to "Xi vows 'peaceful reunification' with Taiwan"? This better reflects the content of the article:<p><pre><code> BEIJING, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to achieve "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan, and did not directly mention the use of force after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.</code></pre>
Obligatory Taiwan China relations comment: Taiwan was never a part of the PRC and doesn’t intend to be. While not officially a country (due to China’s whining), for all intents and purposes it absolutely is.<p>With that out of the way, does this present anything new?
Reunification in this case is as legitimate as speaking of German reunification before 1990 or Korean reunification now.<p>So are the quotation marks because they are actually quoting or because of some other reason?...<p>In this article it seems to me that they do beyond quoting.
Most commentators obsession with China possibly invading Taiwan is flabbergasting. How many countries has China invaded over the course of say the last 200 years and how many the US? Violating Taiwan's airspace from mainland China is fairly easy as due to their geographic proximity both countries airspaces actually overlap in places. Just a question on how the media paints the picture.