AHC- prevent the modern ‘pussification’ of Taiwan

[raharris1973]

Here’s the challenge, arrest, slow, or diminish the degeneration of Taiwan from the scrappy, militant outpost it was in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 21st century.

Even more, see if you can do this while still preserving the democratization process that unfolded in the 1990s.

To give you some illustrative examples of Taiwan’s pussification or decay of martial spirit, consider the following:

In 1949 the ChiNats repelled the ChiCom invasion of Quemoy after losing the mainland.

In 1950, ROC Taiwan offered to send troops to Korea.

In 1962 ROC Taiwan was trying to mobilize an invasion force against the mainland behind America’s back to exploit China’s post Great Leap Forward Famine and local revolts and face the US with a fair accompli

in 1965 ROC Taiwan offered to contribute troops to Taiwan.

When US-PRC rapprochement was announced in 1972, Making Taipei feel less secure, ROC Taiwan kept modernizing, sought to boost its domestic military-industrial base, continued to acquire arms, and twice (in the late 70s and again the late 80s) tried to acquire independent nuclear weapons capability behind America’s back and being pressured to stop.

Also, according to one of my college professors, when he was studying in Taiwan in 1979-1980, the students petition to hold a dance was rejected by the administration on the grounds that such frivolity would distract and weaken vigilance in the time of national emergency (then 3 decades old).

However, since the 1990s and democratization there has been a dramatic cultural turn. The number of people in defense industries fell. Defense spending in dollar terms basically flatlined in was cut by half in GDP percentage terms between 1994 and 2013.

Also, the required military service term shrank from two years to 8 months from the early 1990s to 2008, then, after the switch to the volunteer military, recruitment was very hard.

By 2011 polls of young Taiwanese were showing only a minority willing to fight in the event of a hypothetical Chinese invasion.

And this was all while the population was voting more often for ostensibly pro independence parties that were politically more provocative to Beijing.
Attitudes seemed to be, if China invaded, we can’t make a difference. America saves us, or China gets us, so why should we do anything?

is there anything that could avert this pussification and perhaps instead lead to more of an Israelization or Croatianization of Taiwanese attitudes?

 

[Bear Ribs]

China launches an ill-conceived and poorly-planned attack that's repelled by the Taiwanese military. An easy scenario might be China doing its usual thing sending military plans into Taiwan's airspace, but a pilot panics and shoots down a Taiwanese plane from a squad sent to chest-thump back. Several Chinese planes are downed in the immediate furball that follows. China finds itself unable to back down without losing face and some political appointee social general sends an invasion force of whatever he has at hand with no drills, no special training or plans beyond some old one he dusted off that doesn't reflect current conditions, and no supply chain set up because said social general is thinking politics rather than real war, and feels it's more important to be seen doing something now. Taiwan is hit by basically the Klendathu invasion from Starship Troopers plus sporadic missile fire that does significant property damage to random non-military buildings and kills several civilians. The half-ass invasion force gets plastered by Taiwanese forces in hours to days, well before help from the US, Japan, or Korea can even arrive. China eventually finds some face-saving way to explain that Taiwan is part of China anyway so this wasn't a defeat, it was just a tragic training exercise that could have been avoided it Taiwan would quit rebelling.

Taiwan's military morale is bolstered by the success, the military is seen as powerful and successful, and both funding and people flow to it. The dead on the Taiwanese side are revered and several movies are made that are mostly propaganda but appeal to wide audiences and draw even more attention to them.

 

[raharris1973]

China launches an ill-conceived and poorly-planned attack that's repelled by the Taiwanese military. An easy scenario might be China doing its usual thing sending military plans into Taiwan's airspace, but a pilot panics and shoots down a Taiwanese plane from a squad sent to chest-thump back. Several Chinese planes are downed in the immediate furball that follows. China finds itself unable to back down without losing face and some political appointee social general sends an invasion force of whatever he has at hand with no drills, no special training or plans beyond some old one he dusted off that doesn't reflect current conditions, and no supply chain set up because said social general is thinking politics rather than real war, and feels it's more important to be seen doing something now. Taiwan is hit by basically the Klendathu invasion from Starship Troopers plus sporadic missile fire that does significant property damage to random non-military buildings and kills several civilians. The half-ass invasion force gets plastered by Taiwanese forces in hours to days, well before help from the US, Japan, or Korea can even arrive. China eventually finds some face-saving way to explain that Taiwan is part of China anyway so this wasn't a defeat, it was just a tragic training exercise that could have been avoided it Taiwan would quit rebelling.

Taiwan's military morale is bolstered by the success, the military is seen as powerful and successful, and both funding and people flow to it. The dead on the Taiwanese side are revered and several movies are made that are mostly propaganda but appeal to wide audiences and draw even more attention to them.

When in the last thirty or forty years might something like this have happened without ending in China turning it into a serious invasion pretty quickly or a nuclear hellfire, or US forces ending up being a vital part of the rescue?

 

[WolfBear]

is there anything that could avert this pussification and perhaps instead lead to more of an Israelization or Croatianization of Taiwanese attitudes?

Have China attempt to invade Taiwan when it is sufficiently weak AND launch a lot of large-scale massacres of Taiwanese. Then, after this invasion fails due to US intervention to protect Taiwan, Taiwanese become extraordinarily anti-Chinese, similar to how Ukrainians right now are extraordinarily anti-Russian after Russia caused a lot of death and destruction in Ukraine.

Would that work for this?