“Taiwan is not the end state for China” says Palmer Luckey
Anduril CEO says, after Taiwan, China will come for the Philippines, Vietnam, or Malaysia.
Palmer Luckey warns China will not stop with Taiwan
Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey freaked out a lot of people in his most recent interview on the Shawn Ryan Show:
Taiwan is not the end state for China. All the people who think this fight over Taiwan is the real fight are missing the point. China believes that the Philippines is their territory. They believe that Korea is their territory. They also believe that North Korea is their territory but they like them as a buffer state with South Korea but that would change the moment they could actually capture South Korea.
They even think that most of Japan belongs to them. They think that it's theirs. They've tried over and over for 1000s of years and even today, even publicly, they won't say they own all of Japan but they do maintain they own part of Japan.
It is really dangerous to let people with millennia long ambitions of ruling those areas go unchecked. Because even if you don't give a shit about Taiwan, which you should because our entire economy runs on chips from them and until we figure out how to make them better or as good ourselves we have to keep them around, there's a lot of reasons to make sure we're spooking China on Day 8, Day 80, Day 800.
Mapped: China’s Territorial Disputes
China has territorial disputes with a slew of neighboring nations.
Taiwan
Japan
India
Bhutan
Philippines
Vietnam
Malaysia
Brunei
Indonesia
South China Sea
Here’s a scary map from the Economist of the infamous nine-dash line. It shows China’s maritime disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
East China Sea
Here’s a map from Stratfor that shows the part of the East China Sea that China and Japan both claim:
China vs. Taiwan
China fought a civil war from 1927 to 1947 (with a break in the middle for World War 2). It was:
CPC vs. ROC
AKA Commies vs. Capitalists
AKA Mao Zedong vs. Chiang Kai-shekk
In the end, the commies won. They pushed the capitalists South until they fled mainland China for the island across the bay: Formosa AKA Taiwan.
To this day, both sides claim to be the one true China.
China vs. India
China and India didn’t share a border until China annexed Tibet. Ever since, there’s been a territorial dispute.
They’re Fighting Over Two Chunks of Land
Aksai Chin: Administered by China and claimed by India.
Wikipedia says “it is mostly uninhabited high-altitude wasteland but with some significant pasture lands at the margins.”
McMahon Line: Administered by India and claimed by China.
The McMahon Line was signed between British India and Tibet, but was never ratified by China. China says the McMahon Line is a BS agreement, because they say Tibet was not independent and sovereign nation at the time that it was signed.
In 2020, China and India had their first real battle over the territory in 45 years.
From the BBC:
De-escalation work has taken place since a major clash in June 2020. The Galwan Valley battle - fought with sticks and clubs, not guns - was the first fatal confrontation between the two sides since 1975.
At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died.
🤔 Who is Palmer Luckey?
He’s the wonder child that brought us virtual reality. Palmer Luckey founded Oculus at 20 years old. Just two years later, he sold it to Facebook for $2 billion. He worked at Facebook for a while, but his time there was cut short due to political controversy.
It was revealed that Palmer had paid for some billboards that were anti Hillary Clinton. The media made a huge stink about it and (according to Palmer) they kinda forced Facebook’s hand and they decided to fire him. (this was in 2015-2016 when it was REALLY TABOO to say you liked Trump).
Bitter, but undeterred, Palmer founded a new startup. It’s called Anduril. They build badass drones (and other wild shit) for the US military. They’re reportedly in talks to raise their next round at a $28 billion valuation.
Left-Leaning Economist Agrees?
I almost didn’t post this China-thing, but then I saw my favorite left-leaning economist
say that Palmer Luckey is totally correct. I figured “what the heck, a little bi-partisan consensus for once”.BUT THEN, when I posted on IG, I got like 300 nasty comments. Like this one:
I love these grifting accounts that operate under the guise of posting objecting data, especially when they post opinions disguised as “observations” with zero data! I also love when empires point at other empires for doing empire shit and be like Bad! like we don’t own Guam and over fourteen other territories across the entire globe
BUT ALSO, in a recent episode of Econ 102, Noah said that China doesn’t actually want to conquer the world. They just want the rest of the world to become irrelevant - so small in comparison to China that they don’t matter. Irrelevant in the same way that Chile is irrelevant to the USA today.
@isabellastallcup
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never heard Palmer Luckey say anything that isn’t in support of either Team Anduril or Team Republican. I put my favorite internet personalities into a vaunted club I call “Genuine Truth Seekers”. At this time, Palmer is not in that club. That’s because I’ve never seen him tell a story that doesn’t also conveniently align with a narrative that benefits his team.