Well, it disproved your claim that the idea itself is preposterous.
The only thing that is up in the air is: whether Xi has indeed given an order for military mobilization in preparation for an invasion of Taiwan has indeed been given.
There's nothing in the audio that states the US is a target. Maybe that's what the NOQ article is saying. It is also what Nyquist is claiming, who has yet to provide any reason for us to believe it. As I said before, we'll see.
If you think...
Again, I have not come to a firm conclusion about anything. Just correcting your impulse to immediately dismiss it. I don't know either.
The Chinese... take the long view.
Anyone with any experience of China can tell you that the CCP does not even think 24 hours in advance. The CCP embraces all sorts of completely stupid policy decisions which explode more or less immediately. Big examples of this include: the 1 child policy, promoting the construction of ghost cities just to pump up GDP numbers, the more than 90,000 dams and reservoirs in the country with most of them actually increasing the danger of catastrophic flooding, which they then compound by not performing any type of maintenance.
FReepers as a general have all sorts of weird ideas about China and Russia. Almost all of these ideas make them look better than they are. I don't know why this is so.
Yes, China implements crazy commie domestic policies.
When it comes to foreign policy, they tend to take a wiser and longer view. They’ve certainly taken the long view when it comes to Taiwan.
Their Road-and-Belt Initiative is another example, as is fostering US dependence on China for essential goods while our dollars help build their economic growth. We share our technology with them (willingly and wittingly or not), while the Chinese buy up our debt and invest in ownership of our assets, etc. Meanwhile, they have slowly but surely infiltrated our institutions.
The Chinese foreign policy establishment sometimes cleverly finds ways to turn their domestic policy blunders into foreign policy assets. The One Child Policy has left them with surplus young males, for example, ideal for beefing up their military and sending off on colonizing adventures in Central Asia, Siberia, Africa, and elsewhere. Rather than a handicap, the skewed male-to-female ratio among young adults can be seen as a window of opportunity for military and colonial expansion.
They mainly prefer “soft” colonialism over military conquest. Better cost-to-benefit ratio, especially the way they do it. (It may not work out as well for them in Africa, though, because Africa Always Wins — we’ll see.)
Also see my #46
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4065473/posts?page=46#46