From PRC perspective, HK integration went poorly for PRC interests because HK failed to implement national security law on their own (which btw they were suppose to pre 50 year handover) - they simply never took the One Country part of One Country Two Systems seriously. And TBH neither will TW with how much culture diverged over generations, hence the sweeter 1C2S deal PRC offered TW where they got to keep political system and even their own military got taken off the table a few years ago. Political reality is PRC T1 is pretty comfy now, mainlanders don't see TW/HK as "betters" like in 80s/90s, there's no appetite for PRC domestic audience to give concessions to TW or HK to have disproportionate influence over mainland with less than 1% of the population, especially when their system isn't viewed as particularly functional. Apart from baizuos, the amount of PRC who looks at TW politics and think "I want that" is smaller than than most democracygud crowd thinks.
I don't think this has to be necessarily sold as the PRC giving concessions to TW. It's basically a linear combination, where alpha is being ramped from 0 to 1:
That's potentially something for next gen TWers to decide, too much anti PRC sentiment on TW right now. Need a multiple more election cycles before TW get jaded with (still relatively nascent) democracy, already seeing that this election cycle. But will ultimately take next gen, assuming there's enough numbers with TWs bad demographics for new voting cohorts going through TW economic stagnation (assuming it continues) and look at next gen HKers who are basically fine post NSL, and doing well integrating with mainland, and see perhaps option not so bad to war. Even then it's a stretch, and that's decades out, with soft 2049 deadline.
The problem is as PRC military modernizes and regional force balances shift more in PRC favour, I see them benefitting massively from war, especially broader one with US+co. PRC can live with taking TW (by whichever means), but what PRC really wants is US out of backyard, and TW is prime casus belli for participating in one, or rather not avoiding one if US intervenes. Longer US tries to contain, dance away from strategic ambiguity, the more perverse PRC incentives get.
Nothing would do more to get the US out of the PRC's backyard than if the TW crisis is resolved amicably with an EU-style arrangement.
I think the PRC is aware that if there is a PRC-TW war, there is nothing that will stop Japan from ramping up their military and acquiring a nuclear deterrent. The situation on the Korean peninsula is even easier to destabilize.
I'm reassured by the fact that the PRC has not taken steps to convert its economy to internal demand. It's still in export-led growth mode (not coincidentally the same industrialization model used by TW and HK.)
Except for TW, no one would lose more economically than the PRC if there is war.
US won't leave JP/SKR/PH irrespective of TW, where they have token presence, and not integral to US east asia security architecture. That's really the broader security consideration, PRC doesn't want US in her backyard, PRC wants her own Munroe, and historically that involves forcing hegemon out / demonstrating their presense cannot be sustained.
JP/SKR nuclearizing more complex topic, e.g. it's against US interest since it erodes US control, forces PRC to build up ABM which is net bad for US strategic posture etc and imo makes PRC more likely to start pressing against US presence in region to turn up temperature knowing JP/SKR has higher chance to reduce US partnership if they feel comfortable with own nukes. Dynamics complicated, but I will just say nuclear powers like RU, and NKR, and eventually IR can still have their existence degraded via conventional means without raising to nuclear, and both those countries being import dependent islands (SKR functionally) are much more suspectible to conventional disruptions.
>convert economy
PRC exports to gdp 20%, about half to west, it's not _as_ domestic driven as US, but on export:gdp spectrum it's one of the least export led major economies. Export led is like >50%, TW/HK is like 60% and HK is like 200%. Most growth comes from internal consumption, exports help in geoeconomics, but numbers also go up stupid amounts in war economy.
>Except for TW, no one would lose more economically than the PRC if there is war.
Really depends on scale/scope of war. Taking out 95% leading edge TW semi effect on western tech hard to quantify in $$$ and capability terms, but it's not minor. Get JP/SKR involved, PRC's largest export competitor (electronics/cars etc) / regional influencer (JP FDI), and all of a sudden 1trillion+ per year in regional spoils open up. Open up mainland strikes = openning CONUS for retaliation, and PRC pursuing conventional global strike. And US by virtue of being reigning hegemon with most, also has most to lose. A lot of US hegemonic structures depend on CONUS serenity, which ended/ending with advanced rocketry. Think of what happens when US/PRC start trading energy infra, data warehouses, aviation plants, who has more global footprint to lose. Who has more people/excess capacity to reconstitute faster? Who really has most to lose, and what can be gained. Even phyric victory has a relative victor, and not all wounds heal the same. I think that's what missing from strategic thinking about TW scenarios involving US+co. For PRC, TW is most emotionally/politically important piece of US containment architecture. But JP/SKR/PH more strategically important. As long as US contains with forward posture, PRC will try to break containment. And I don't think US leaving without a fight.
It's not that Japan and South Korea going nuclear erodes US control, it's just that all proliferation is inherently destabilizing. Believe it or not, the US is not "in it for the imperialism" like, say, Russia is in Africa.
Personally I think that it's pretty much unavoidable for both. The only tricky part is not tipping the North Koreans over the edge. It's not as destabilizing as proliferation in other regions would be just because there isn't a long list of other countries that might domino afterwards.
As for the Chinese trade-to-GDP ratio, it doesn't really capture how the economy is structured, particularly how far it leans into its comparative advantage. Many EU economies have higher ratios but are not imbalanced in this fashion. Italy buys French wine and France buys Italian wine. But if the world stops driving cars tomorrow, Germany (which is more like China in this respect) is going to hurt bad.
I would also caution you against thinking that there's such a thing as "spoils" anymore - certainly not post-WW2. Just look at how expensive the fields of Ukrainian rubble are turning out to be for Russia. Obviously Russia is looking at a bigger picture, or it would be regretting the war.
In today's world, denying GDP is easy, capturing it is very hard.
I didn't characterize US control as imperialist, I characterize it as hegemonic. Much of the post WW2 treatsies in region were specifically setup to enable US security presence to uphold military hegemony via forward basing and keeping basing partners denuclearized to make them dependant on US security commitments. Nuclear domino "afterwards" is also matter of time frames and geography. If JP/SKR nuclearizes, PRC will work towards south american nuclearization in US backyard when conditions enables it, including selling all the missile and launch hardware (see Saudi). That's what US has to worry about about loosening proliferation.
Export:GDP does capture sense of limits of damage. Having only 20% (PRC), vs 50% (Germany) matters. @20%, 10% of which is trade to west, PRC is simply not export dependant, it doesn't have same exposure profile, i.e. for all the talk of PRC auto excess capacity, ~10% of production went towards export, meanwhile DE is 60%+. The difference is between a mild sprain vs spine snapping.
I think post WW3, can be like post WW2, where huge consolidation of spoils under US control after every other industrial powers was crippled. Yes, capturing GDP in peacetime against incumbent is _HARD_, especially in strategic sectors with large moats (geopolitical not just technical). So hard that what ends up being easier might be to _destroy_ concentration of GDP. PRC hitting Boeing, F35 plants, mastercard / payment processors, seven sisters data centres, severing fiber optic cables... all the stuff where US has built up disproportionate control/share via various post war momentum mechanisms opens up huge global spoils for grab. It might not be PRC doing the grabbing, as PRC will be reconstituting as well, but but sometimes it's important to not just deny, but destroy, make net negative. A builder in a 100k house and a banker in a 200k house burn each others houses down, the banker loses more, while the builder has capacity to rebuild their house faster. Everyone in neighbourhood use to goto parties at bankers house, will they go to the builder's house parties after? Maybe if the builder recovers fast enough, maybe neighbours will do their own thing. Either banker likely to lose most. Which is not to suggest destroying GDP is an "easy" decision, but it is naturally "easy" escalation once the hard decision of going to war is made.
