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(dramatic music)
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- [Johnny] In the summer of 1995, China sent a bunch
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of its troops to the province of Fujian.
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They then started testing missiles and putting it on TV.
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They then started running highly publicized combat
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exercises, very similar to what it would look like
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to cross this 130 kilometer wide straight
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to invade the island of Taiwan.
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A place that China doesn't think is a real country
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but rather a part of China itself
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a rebellious island province in an unfinished civil war.
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- Another round of Chinese war games
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near Taiwan has the us and other concerned.
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- [Johnny] China did all this saber rattling
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because Taiwan's president had asked
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for a visa to visit the United States
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and the US Congress voted to give it to him
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defined Beijing and undermining China's claim to Taiwan.
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Oh, and Taiwan was holding their first democratic election.
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- [Reporter] These are the first free elections
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of a Chinese leader in 5,000.
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- [Reporter] China announced Friday
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that it would start the new military exercises
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less than a week before Taiwan's presidential election.
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- [Narrator] China hated that all of this was happening
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on this island that they think is theirs.
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Hence all of the military flexing,
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but look who shows up next.
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- Diplomatic trouble may be brewing again
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between China and the United States.
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(dramatic music)
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- It's the US military.
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And they're sending their biggest show
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of military force in Asia
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since the Vietnam war right here in China's neighborhood.
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President Bill Clinton sent in all of the US's best stuff.
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Aircraft carriers, guided missile cruisers, destroyers,
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powerful weapon systems
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from the most powerful military on earth.
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So all of this concentrated US military power
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comes into the region
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and enters right here through the straight of Taiwan.
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It was a response to China
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and all of its efforts to intimidate Taiwan.
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The message was very clear.
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"China, we are way more powerful than you.
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So back off and let Taiwan do its thing."
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And guess what?
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It totally worked.
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China backed down and the US reasserted itself
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as the global powerhouse, a power that no one can mess with.
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Okay. So now let's fast forward to last fall.
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A lot has changed in this 20 or so years
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and China is at it again, flexing on Taiwan.
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Their favorite way of doing this lately
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is flying military aircraft into this air border
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Taiwan's air defense identification zone or ADIZ,
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and ADIZ is airspace that if you enter
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you should identify yourself
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or else the nearby country will assume
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that you're coming to attack them.
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China has started flying military aircraft
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over this airspace
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without asking permission, without identifying themselves.
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Not just like once or twice
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but like dozens of times per day, hundreds of times a month
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these are the actual recorded flight paths
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of Chinese aircraft flying over Taiwan's ADIZ.
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And then back to China, it's a giant F.U.
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to Taiwan or rather remember whose boss here.
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Luckily there's some really amazing data
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on every single one of these Chinese flyovers.
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They're all documented.
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- [Reporter] Taiwan's air force scrambled again today.
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- This is research
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from the Foreign Policy Research Institute
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and it's incredibly useful to see China's activity
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in Taiwan's ADIZ.
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You can see this massive surge late last year in flyovers.
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This is a graph that shows every single time
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a Chinese jet has flown over Taiwan's ADIZ in 2021.
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You can see that it comes
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to a peak in the first week of October.
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This was the week that China was celebrating its founding
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and they were sending a very clear message to Taiwan.
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You will be ours.
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That week, this Chinese state owned publication comes out
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with this headline: Time to warn Taiwan secessionists
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and their fomenters: war is real.
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This is not fair play.
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So guess who shows up to the region to calm things down?
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- A US war shit has sailed through the Taiwan Straight.
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(upbeat electronic music)
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- So right after this huge bulk of flyovers
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of Taiwan's aides, the US sends in guided missile destroyers
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through the Taiwan Straight.
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And there are accompanied by a Canadian show.
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- One of 25 Chinese aircraft that entered its defense zone.
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- Oh, but this time it didn't work.
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Here's when the US sailed through the Straight.
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And here's what China does after.
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Tons more flyovers of Taiwan's ADIZ.
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Looking at the raw data,
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you can see that these flyovers start happening
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almost every day.
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(upbeat synth music)
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It's not the 90s anymore.
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Things have changed.
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Bill Clinton can't just send a bunch of Naval ships
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to the Taiwan Straight and expect China to back down.
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We're living in a different era.
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The biggest difference is that
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China's military has become way more powerful
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in the last 20 years.
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Add to that, that there's zeal
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for taking over Taiwan to reunite it with mainland China
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has grown immensely every year since.
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The reason I'm telling you this story
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and showing you the difference between how China reacted
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in the 90s and how it reacted last fall
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is because that difference is really important
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if we want to think about
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what war looks like in this region.
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I've been talking to military experts.
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I've been diving deep into military reports
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and writings from the Chinese military itself
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to try to understand what war with Taiwan would look like.
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It's something that is becoming more likely year by year.
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So what's to follow is my best attempt
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at understanding what war in the Taiwan Straight looks like
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a war that drags in the United States and its allies.
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War is impossible to predict, and so we don't know for sure
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but what I hope we can do here is look at a scenario
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and learn how conflict works and what calculations
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all the countries involved would have to make
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in what might become the next world war.
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- I just wanna make China understand
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that we are not gonna step back.
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- China's aggression against Taiwan is accelerating
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and it's blaming the US.
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- [Reporter] Beijing has been getting
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increasingly tough on Taiwan.
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- [Reporter] So you are saying
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that the United States would come to Taiwan's defense?
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(dramatic music)
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- Yes. And yes.
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- Hey, before we dive into this
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And now let's dive into the scenario
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about potential war between Taiwan and China.
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(cheeky music)
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Okay, I'm gonna dive into a very specific scenario
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of how conflict could escalate in the Taiwan Straight.
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But first I have to say something.
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I have to get this off my chest
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which is I've felt a little bit conflicted
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making this video.
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I feel very against the sort of machismo fascination
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with conflict, like it's some sort of cool, good thing.
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When at the end of the day
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what we're talking about are people's lives.
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We are talking about valuable taxpayer money.
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We are talking about the future
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of entire societies being ripped apart by a power struggle.
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This is not sexy and cool.
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This is a nightmare.
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Secondly, let us all just acknowledge right now
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how easy it is to dehumanize China
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and its leaders and its military.
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But let me just remind you that China doesn't want war.
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They don't want bloodshed.
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They will probably try much less violent ways
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to try to force Taiwan to the negotiating table
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before resorting to all out invasion.
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But the reason I want to make a video
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about the nightmare scenario, because even
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if a military has a goal
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for a less violent intervention, that's not how war works.
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Conflict is very messy and one miscalculation can lead
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to an escalation in the conflict.
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And now you have a wildfire that is
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out of control on both sides.
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It's incredibly easy for the momentum
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of conflict to bring us into that kind of situation.
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And that's why I wanna suss out what it could look like.
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Okay. Those are my of disclaimers.
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Let's dive into this.
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(dramatic music)
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I'm gonna start rolling here.
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I'm two.
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Okay. I'm gonna clap here comes.
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Okay, I need to bring you over
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to my desk to show you some documents I've been staring at.
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Any invasion of Taiwan starts with this document.
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This is a Chinese law meant to stop any parts of China
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from succeeding from China itself.
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And it mentions Taiwan.
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It basically says that if Taiwan tries to assert
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its independence from China or, and this is the most
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important part, or if the possibilities
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for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted
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that China shall employ non peaceful means
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and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty
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and territorial integrity.
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Translation, if they run out of diplomatic solutions,
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China is required by law to invade Taiwan
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and force it to reunite with China
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and know I don't read or speak Mandarin
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but Google translate, come on.
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Listen, we're like 70 years into peaceful solutions
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being tried and not working.
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Meanwhile, on the island of Taiwan support for any sort
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of reunification is at an all time low.
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Like it's not looking like peaceful reunification
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is gonna happen,
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which is making the interpretation of this law
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more and more on the side of China should do this forcibly.
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Okay, so that's the legal justification
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from a Chinese perspective,