https://www.yahoo.com/news/bleak-warning-australia-over-china-military-move-030649254.html

What do the WH handlers say?

Just guarantees allies when the inevitable festivities commence.

From the article:
So, is Foreign Minister Wong bringing baskets of fruit with her, or actual proposals to these countries?

I'm pretty sure the US won't be doing anything of substance in the area. Ukraine certainly is not going either Ukraine's way or the US's way. Need to keep everything out of the news cycle except the January 6th Committee, Monkey Pox and Murder Hornets.

Sorry but if I were in charge I’d launch an overwhelming nuclear first strike on China while their capabilities are still on the low end. We would lose a few west coast cities but I’d argue that’s an improvement. Either we do it now or later.

Unfortunately and the shittiest if people seem to rise to leadership positions and get paid for doing Jack shit or fucking shit up or being a worthless piece of shit. Everyone posts clown world gifs well this is next level clown world to me because thousands if not millions are likely to die and the shitbags won’t have a single ramification or consequences for their failures, greed or incompetence.

You and me both.

What is he gonna do, crap himself twice?  That will teach them…

He will issue another strongly worded press release.

Yup, World War III is going to fix us good. We're surrounded by idiots who can only think to the next election cycle.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/06/17/what-it-looks-like-when-competing-with-china-comes-last/

To borrow CarmelBytheSea's link, here are a couple of excerpts (because some of these articles are written under "by the word" contracts):
This means the Biden Admin is planning to repeat it's performance and behavior if China actually does invade Taiwan.
The upshot here is that only China is making any sort of moves in furtherance of its political goals.

This is where we are as of today.

It brings to mind one very bad implication for our future.

The Biden Admin is playing "kick the can" with this issue.
Some of you may remember when the Obama Admin left power, they more or less did all they could to sabotage the incoming Trump Admin. I'm not talking about the hiding of information that went on, or the screwing with the phone systems etc. which was all the media was willing to report.
I'm talking about stacking up the National Security Council with pro-Obama admin people to gum up decision making process (up to 270 people for a council) and the constant stream of anonymous sourced media leaks, and then the "Resistance"  movements which eventually would become a books like American Resistance, Resistance At All Costs, and The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement and how much support these people received from those outside of the government. Plus, as the Obama Admin was sort of winding itself down, the sheer number of EOs created and agreements signed (one was the Paris Climate Agreement.)

All of these things were an attempt to make it harder for the new Trump Admin to succeed in a timely manner. It would also have lasting effects on the Country as a whole and most importantly us, the people. But those things didn't matter to the Democrats at the time, and they don't matter to the Democrats now. This isn't even covering what Congressional Democrats were doing in Congress or what the mainstream was also doing to undermine the Trump Admin. None of them cared about what is good for the Country and its people.

We have parallels here between Ukraine and Taiwan. Democrat Admins didn't want to arm Ukraine before the Russians invaded. (The Dems can state their own reasons; I won't bother with it.) (Also, for the record I understood that since 2015, Russia was eventually going to have to go in to link up the areas of Ukraine that Russia controlled since 2014, I didn't think Russia was going to actually do the plan that they did. I didn't believe the propaganda they created for us and themselves, but it looks like they did.) Now, that Russia has created the land bridge, the US is wiling to arm Ukraine. Of course, a lot of the modern weapons will end up in both Russian and Chinese hands for them to reverse engineer them. Sucks for us. But, overall, the Biden Admin hasn't helped a bad situation. In many ways, they are culpable for making things worse.

Comparing to Taiwan, the Biden Admin doesn't want to arm them either. Maybe they're waiting for the actual invasion as they did with Ukraine. Who knows.
On the other hand, the Biden Admin is being as quiet as they can be. Sure they send people to conferences because Biden isn't physically/mentally up to the task, but the Biden Admin doesn't use the power of the Press it commands. Not too many people knew that Austin was in Singapore for the Shangri La Conference. Since the news didn't cover it, the Biden Admin just went to express the status quo of what's going on in the region. Hardly helpful.

But, if we look at it in this manner, that the Biden Admin is trying to run out the clock on itself in an effort to fuck over the next Repub Admin, then it makes more sense since they have a history of doing these types of things.

go ahead, piss off china, they'll retaliate and won't let him bring his poopy diapers to Chinese laundry.

For the sake of argument, what do both of you believe those capabilities are?  Why do you think that those capabilities would only result in a few cities (assuming China went counter-value) going up in smoke?   The WaPo of all places, had an interesting article awhile back on some prof having his class do open-source estimation of the size of the PRC strategic rocket deterrent.  It was much larger than the 1960s estimates that keep getting used.  Nevermind that one ICBM bus on a major US city would be the worse public health disaster of all time.  

And I'm just talking about nukes, here.  Nothing exotic like, e.g., bioinformatics developmentally-guided CRISPR bugs.  It still would be a hideously bad idea.

Found some videos on youtube over the weekend. Australia is at least putting some effort into looking like they realize they have a problem. Good for them.
The past few Australian governments have been very close to the the US Democrat Party. One of their Ambassadors even tried to help with the "Russian Collusion" narrative. The Australians may have just realized that the Democrats may not be helping them in the future.

First video is Australian produced; second is from New Zealand, I believe; last video is from Singapore.


the Australians just elected a new government about 4 weeks ago.


ETA: just found this video:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-gop-warns-chinas-rapid-expansion-indo-pacific-significant-threat-demand-answers-admin.amp

I have my criticisms of MacArthur's conduct in WWII, but the man knew the score in Korea. Thwarted by that jizz gargler Truman, and look where we are now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/more-us-cabinet-level-officials-visit-pacific-island-region-2022-06-23/

This is the headline to the article:
I'm guessing the goons that monitor our board reported that the Admin needed to do something!!

Sounds like Obama's line in the sand.   LOL, poor Joe.  Go have an Ice Cream and a nap.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/australia-commits-pacific-islands-defence-025533637.html

They’ll call his bluff and he won’t do anything.

We don’t got the fuel anyway.

Fuckin Tonga. bucnh of traitors!

I like how this shit is shaping up to be another fucking US vs USSR except it's US vs China this go round.

I hope the music and pop culture will be just as good as it were in the 80s this time around

People say that DJT/45 would get the US into WW3, I think China may call JB/KH's bluff.

Impossible Attached File
Attached File

This new Australian Gov't has been in power almost 5 weeks, and they are moving at break neck speed. I'm impressed. Maybe they'll even free their own people!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pacific-islands-urge-unity-face-011109242.html

Chicoms would be absolutely apoplectic frothing at the mouth furious over the threat of a US base in Taiwan... it would be a fantastic gambit to deter Chinese expansion.

From the article Carmel provided:
I wonder whether the Chinese Embassy Spokesperson in Fiji went to Harvard or Yale to be able to write that statement.

Also from the article further down the page:

I guess we have two things to be thankful for: the new government in Australia and Sri Lanka for the at least a glimmer of a hope that China will be paying extra for any moves in the Islands.

LOL!

The one amazing thing is there is no rhetorical war at all regarding Taiwan. Everybody just shut up about it. There aren't even any non-profit think tanks out there propagandizing. It's a simple question: How can China reclaim something that was never Chinese to begin with? Make the PRC answer!!

yeah, they will make our military more jabbed, more gender fluid and use whatever they can as an excuse to bleed America of more funds.

https://apnews.com/article/china-sydney-joint-chiefs-of-staff-government-and-politics-501ab31991c9ea2d56fdc21dcbc6731a

From Carmel's link:
They must be having donuts if Milley's going!

Fat jokes aside, and even whining about they're late to the party aside, besides as we here have already pointed out that the PRC has managed to replicate the slimmed down version (one last fat joke) of the Imperial Japanese Co-prosperity zone without firing too many shots, or no where near just as many shots, I guess this is a case of "better late than never."

WW2 all over - maybe I can reup and get the 1940 American campaign medal before Pearl Harbor 2.0 happens https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/-/5-2572771/?tl=&r=-1&page=1&anc=bottom#bottom

Not me, Brother!!! It'll be the same arguments I had throughout the '80s about the lack of Training. I quit.

not enough civil strife here, yet. when it is time, they will know.

GD assures me that we can beat China in 1 day; Peter Zeihan, 3 Gorges Dam and Harbor Freight so it should be a cakewalk.

We can beat China. It certainly won't be fast or without cost.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2022/07/29/japan-warns-of-aggressor-nation-russia-threats-to-taiwan-in-new-whitepaper/

Not until we have people in charge that aren’t completely stupid.

I don't think there's anymore "winning" for the US.

Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan is evidence that if a country doesn't want victory, and all the risks and costs that it entails, it will not have it. All four of these cases involved the US creating a "condition" or a status quo that none of the other parties involved wanted, needed or desired. In essence, their survivability was never threatened or even in question. They believed their Victory was always attainable. It was only ever a matter of time.

I think that for the most part, the political elite just want the US to survive confrontations, so they can continue to extract and exploit.

Wars are good for business. It's also great for the lovingly long held Progressive position of getting rid of the undesirable human beings. Eugenics and forced sterilization, or taking the weak-willed and convincing them to self-sterilze for sexual practice reasons) will only get them so far, so fast.

Besides "Going for Victory" is too risky for the political elite. It might involve confrontation with other foreign elites or within their own cellular elite. It might create new elites who will be confrontational fresh from Victory. Look what happened to England after the WWII as the US rose to even greater heights than World War I gave it. They completely fell apart in a little more than 14 years. By the 1960s, England was just a place on a map almost totally divorced from its History.

Send in Boyington

dorobuta has hit the nail on the head why I don't think Taiwan is ready for invasion: no uptick in civil strife; no uptick in street level crime; no uptick in political strife; Taiwan's economy is fairly stable. Hard/Difficult to invade a country that isn't at War with itself. That Country becomes the Clauswitz' Ideal Country where the "Advantage" is the Defense.

Now, compared to the US, there are really good indications that invasions on either coast would go well. Antifa, BLM, and a host of other lesser known street/criminal gangs throughout the US how have international contacts,  and even the Dems would use an invasion to grab more power for themselves first. That's how bad things are here now. It's a complete redux of the late 1970s, but worse.

Here's a quote from the article:
First, Abe's murder changes nothing. They're still on their march. Good for Japan.

Second, it doesn't get pointed out enough, but before there was a Taiwan, the island was called Formosa. The indigenous people thought themselves culturally tied to Japan, not to China.

Calling Taiwan "an extremely important partner for Japan, sharing the same fundamental values such as freedom and democracy" is as close as Japan saying, "yes, we remember how things were," as we'll probably see for the near future.

I wonder what potato Joe would do?

Maybe host a pride parade?

I'm afraid that we are all just along for the ride.

If you've checked out any news stories about the phone call between Xi and Biden from the other day, you'd be able to tell that the Biden Admin is talking out of both-sides-of-it-mouth. It now refuses to prove it's assertions because they might not be true.

We're stuck in Ukraine because of payoffs to Biden through his family. That's why the US attempted to turn it into a proxy for to "Russia." That bigger problem will hide the littler problem of bribes to the Biden family.

Who knows what'll happen with China. The Chinese CCP needs to make some sort of move. It's choices are within its borders or outside of its borders. The CCP is just as trapped as Biden is, but more so. Due to Chinese politics of the last 7 years, any type of failure can only be seen as a failure of the CCP since they've taken everything over. There has never been a communist party that tolerated criticism. They reacted typically with deadly force authorized. Things are bad in China, very bad. Quarantining Shang-Hai was about controlling party members, not to eliminate Covid infections. That's how bad things are there.

Time is running out for the Chinese. In fact, Time is running out for all of us. The Obama Admin fomenting color revolutions around the World after (what they termed as a successful operation) destroying Libya in 2012 set us on the path toward WWIII. After all, the ending of World War I was actually the very beginning of World War II. No one saw it as that, but it was just that in the final analysis.