How would you respond?

[Serconea]

This is a thread where you describe how you as a particular political leader would respond to a hypothetical or historical RL crisis.

Here's a hypothetical scenario:

You're the President of the United States.
Taiwan declares its independence and China launches an invasion. What is your response?

[Bonaduce Alander]

Shouldn't this be in the RP forum?

I would help china then take over Taiwan myself. Of course in real life I would stay out of it and let everybody else decide what they want to do first.

[Sheynat]

If I were President (which, of course, this situation assumes), I'd respond pre-emptively by re-recognizing Taiwan and allying with them. If I didn't have warning, I'd just go ahead and do as follows and point out "Hey, they're invading a sovereign nation." I'd reinforce the hell out of Taiwan, and do a quick tactical strike on their (Red China's) nuclear silos, probably with very large conventional bombs, possibly with nukes of my own, depending on how distant the silos were from cities. I'd use smart bombs dropped from stealth bombers so they'd never see it coming. That'd be to force them to fight a conventional war. Since I'd have the element of tactical, if not strategic surprise, I'd bomb the crap out of all the industry and military I could find, especially air defense, bases, factories. I'd also kill the Politburo and military leadership ASAP. Then I'd pull a long, Desert Storm style bombing campaign to destroy their defense, and then do a blitzkrieg style invasion and grab Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and all the other major cities early as possible. Also, I'd grab Hainan, just for symbolism. I'd take advantage of the inevitable patriotic hacking of Chinese targets and suggest on the appropriate message boards targets to hack and methods to use in order to sow maximum discord. In short, I would invade the hell out of China.
Hey, I hate Maoist Communism. Sue me.

[Grub (Lenlyvit)]

Good topic, but this probably belongs in the RP section.

[Parthini]

I think I would follow the ways of Sheynat, and then after the leadership is dead, start a democratic country there. That, or I'd kick their arses and force China to free Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and maybe Manchuria.

GPP

[Sheynat]

That's pretty much what I'd do; create a democratic government there. I'd give Tibet the option to secede, but Chinese consider Tibet as much a part of China as Iowa is of the United States. The grabbing the major cities I mentioned; that'd be to force them into the countryside, rather than conquest.

[Parthini]

Yeah, but you don't want the biggest market in the world to go bac to pre-industrialization. That would cripple the world economy. Making China more like a really big Japan would work.

GPP

[Sheynat]

True. That is a very good point-how to overthrow Communist China and make them democratic without bringing them to 1700s level technology. I seriously have no ideas on that one. I'm a good strategist, but I'm more of a brute force kind of a guy rather than delicate operations.

[icouldhavelied]

I would declare war on China and completely hammer their nuke silos, then once they pull out of Taiwan to defend against my oncoming hoards I would move all of my forces to the China/Taiwan border in an attempt to prevent any second attempt at invading. I would then ally with Taiwan and suggest that they make a cheap trade agreement with me.