Yesterday we went through China’s possible attack plan against Taiwan, and I must admit that I dusted off the Russian attack plan against Scandinavia and modified it slightly – no one in the whole world guessed it.
Now I’m reading some analyses – one should never convey others’ analyses without making their own, but then one should read.
In April, China had a major unannounced exercise “2025A,” suggesting that there may be a B, C, D with the focus on Taiwan.
They have smaller exercises most of the time, and not long ago they showed up off the coast of Australia and started practicing with live ammunition. Apparently, it was a civilian aircraft that reported the incident, causing some hurt feelings in the navy.
The exercises against Taiwan involve live ammunition and aim to target objectives in Taiwan in self-defense. China hasn’t really explained how landing on another country’s shores is self-defense, but apparently, that’s the case.
As a rule, it seems that China does not announce its exercises at all – now it has become some kind of new normal where 70 aircraft are inside Taiwan’s airspace and 20-30 ships sail around the island for a few days.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/01/china/china-taiwan-drills-live-fire-escalation-intl-hnk
We are not following this closely as our focus is on the Ukraine war, but since the global escalation is underway, it’s starting to get a bit interesting.
The bad weather season in the South China Sea is July – November according to Google. If I were China, I would try to strike just before the weather turns bad or in some window during the storm season. That would make countermeasures from the West much more difficult than if it were a calm sunny day when one’s fleet is sunk.
That would mean a Russian attack in the Baltics this summer already – the question is whose timeline takes precedence, and if the rogue buddy manages to keep to his schedule.
Just as Russia probably would have preferred to take its land in the Baltics just before the roads become impassable in October.
If you hit a severe storm while trying to board Taiwan, it could get really lively and even go down in history as one of the bigger own goals.
What has happened in the last six months is that Trump directly removed a lot of diplomatic text in the US Taiwan policy, so now it seems to China that the US supports Taiwan’s independence.
Taiwan accuses China of subversive activities and has taken action against all spies in the country. China accuses Taiwan of persecuting their peaceful and cheerful citizens (peaceful spies?).
Taiwan’s president wants peace and dialogue with China, while China calls him a violent separatist.
Hegseth has also been tough on China a few times, which perhaps did not immediately de-escalate the situation.
China also refers to Taiwan’s freedom movement as a “parasite,” which is an interesting choice of words.
The rhetoric from official Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs channels is quite harsh – “We solemnly warn the Lai Ching-te authorities: daring to provoke and play with fire will only lead to self-destruction and utter ruin.”
Below is interesting, especially the summaries at the end.
I had missed that the US managed to buy the Panama Canal from Hutchinson – the US was supposed to go hard in Panama, and then it went completely silent. I interpreted it as Trump chickening out, but they actually snatched everything from Xi instead.
Anyway – we are getting closer to a war between China and Taiwan according to the above Memri, they probably read my post from yesterday 🧐
Still quite interesting how Trump keeps pushing China – everyone is of the opinion that he is a bumbling idiot in everything, but in the case of China, he apparently manages to stumble in the right direction constantly.
As we guessed, the EU has now in its negotiations with the US also included a point on how to curb China’s overproduction – the US has brought the EU on board against China in trade matters.
Russia has also had submarines out firing Kalibr missiles at land targets during exercises in the waters around Japan.
The Philippines have promised to remove the US coastal missile battery from their territory – it should be gone by September.
China has had numerous naval exercises with ASEAN countries as well – they are not a military alliance but have some security cooperation. Pakistan and Russia are also approaching ASEAN. By the way, the Philippines are part of ASEAN.
If China has expansionist plans, Taiwan is a huge obstacle right in the middle.
If Taiwan falls, China can start moving north towards Japan via all the small islands, and they can also start working their way down towards Australia.
To the west (Indochina?), the countries in ASEAN are there except for India, which China has now started a war against.
To the north, there are only two countries, and they are with us in the West and against China and Russia – Japan and South Korea.
Russia does not intend to start a war against China – I think everyone understands that now.
To the south is a mix of ASEAN countries, countries with good relations with China, countries that do not like China, and the presumed final destination – Australia and New Zealand.
Just like during WW2, the West has the problem that we are not in the immediate vicinity – the US and Europe are far away.
Russia and China do have some plans – maybe that’s why several countries in the MENA region suddenly decided to become friendly with Israel and overlook Trump?
Israel then leads us to Gaza, which I never dare to discuss for the simple reason that I can’t find reliable figures on anything, but I’ll give it a try.
According to our opposition politicians, Gaza is starving to death now, and previously the entire area was leveled to the ground.
And then there’s this – protests against Hamas inside Gaza, and they don’t seem to be starving?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c175z14r8pro
And here is a Chinese site with photos from the markets in Gaza from February this year
https://english.news.cn/20250301/24176dd83cfd4d4dbd373d026e5e96bb/c.html
Or this one from a few days ago – there is still functioning healthcare in Gaza.
I believe that the strategy of crying wolf immediately has not worked – if you claim that everyone is about to starve to death and every building is leveled to the ground and it’s not true, credibility disappears. The UN, politicians, UNRWA, and all organizations have all pushed this narrative. I think it’s irresponsible because everything is built on trust, and this does not help the Palestinians.
What you can see, however, if you look at Google Earth and switch between years, is that there is a lot of damage to the infrastructure in Gaza – that is indisputable.
In Ukraine, the UN keeps saying “9000 civilians dead,” and we laugh because they are not even in the right ballpark. We then trust the figures Ukraine has presented and support them with independent reporting – such as the graves in Mariupol.
But the UN must rely on confirmed figures, and that’s why they’re lagging behind more than they should – that’s been the explanation from them. We’ve discussed the fallen and KWIA in Ukraine to exhaustion and really tried to come up with accurate numbers.
If I google the number of dead Palestinians in Gaza, I consistently get the figure of +50,000, which was reported by the Palestinian Authority in March 2025. All media outlets report this number.
70% are also women and children according to unanimous media sources – Palestinian sources.
Apparently, there are 2.1 million Palestinians still in the area.
Politicians and media in the West now consider it genocide.
We already know that they have included all dead militants in that figure as well, and Israel has reportedly around 15,000?
Early 2024, the death toll was over +30,000, with 17,000 confirmed dead. If militants were included in that figure, the number of confirmed civilian deaths should have been much lower, right?
I seem to recall that Israel claimed that during the first six months.
Israel seems to have completely dropped the reporting on this, or it’s getting drowned out in media coverage – I can’t find much from them.
UN, Amnesty, Swedish Peace, and many other heavyweights are now pushing the narrative that genocide is taking place in Gaza. Since these are the organizations the media relies on for their reporting, it is fully reflected, and the narrative is that genocide is occurring.
If over +50,000 have fallen and 15,000 of them were Hamas, then 35,000 civilians have been killed out of a population of 2.1 million in the area.
Here is the definition of genocide
“in whole or in part, to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
These are the same UN, Amnesty, Swedish Peace, and all the others who constantly downplay Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.
Guess how many of the above organizations come up if you search for “genocide in Ukraine” instead – you guessed it, none.
The ironic thing is that not even “ethnic cleansing Ukraine” generates any hits from the above organizations, and it’s undeniable that Russia is engaged in it in the occupied areas. These organizations are politicized and act with an agenda. They are not independent and do not treat all cases equally.
But that doesn’t make Israel’s actions any less difficult for the Palestinians, and they are quite harsh here – most sensible analysts probably think so.
When this started, I wrote that Israel would go in hard and then encounter problems in urban combat, leading to escalation – which has happened.
Most others commented under my post that “Israel will bomb for a few months as before, then it will be over” – they were wrong as usual.
Now Israel seems to have as its latest move, whatever number it is, to conquer all of Gaza and “destroy Hamas” – the latest statement from Netanyahu.
https://www.ft.com/content/8f1f3372-ecfc-46ed-9003-14b240613388
Hamas will simply flee to surrounding areas and then infiltrate back over time, resulting in the deaths of a few thousand more civilians.
It’s probably time for Palestinian self-governance, but who knows which areas should be considered?
If they couldn’t handle tiny Gaza, how can they leave the West Bank completely undisturbed?
The West doesn’t get any prize for that division in 1947…
The West also doesn’t get any prizes for funding the entire rearmament of Hamas – that has to stop.
Hamas has been completely intertwined in the entire aid apparatus, having their bases and weapon depots under/in UNRWA facilities, and UNRWA employees had dual roles as aid workers and terrorists.
Sinwar, who started his career as a broke terrorist, was worth $5 billion USD thanks to the aid money.
Similar to how the UN, which was supposed to protect the border against Hezbollah, only became a shield for Hezbollah’s bases that they built under UN bases, which the UN was well aware of because it was impossible to miss.
It’s a bit sad that the Palestinian citizens living in these areas never get any peace.
Hamas is the worst for Palestinian civilians.
Yes, Palestinians are a rather disillusioned group today, having learned to survive and would be difficult to reintegrate into their homeland, so redistributing the group is not a winning solution in my opinion. Just ask Lebanon or Jordan.
If we go back to the “beginning,” which would be 1947, the UN’s division was terrible, and after the first war, Gaza and the West Bank were no longer under Israeli control. Today, after several wars, the areas have reached a level of self-control.
If I look at the map from 1947, if I were Israel, I would have felt an imminent risk of being overrun, and with the areas controlled by Israel today, they have slightly better security.
But the West Bank is right in the middle, and completely relinquishing it is a security issue whether one wants it or not.
Israel tried to completely relinquish Gaza and got it on October 7, 2023.
Considering that the sensible countries in MENA have tried to improve relations with Israel, the “world community” may need to start thinking outside the box on how to improve the situation for the Palestinians, or else they will be left behind.
Israel probably needs to maintain control over the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, and Mount Hermon, which they recently snatched in Syria.
By the way, the West Bank is one of the most fertile areas in Israel – I bet Israel would gladly take it if they could get away with it 😀
https://www.gov.il/en/pages/israeli-agriculture
The “walls” around Gaza were absolutely formidable – it would have made Trump and his ridiculous border wall green with envy. And yet, the attack happened over it, despite warnings.
So, what to do?
If Israel improves relations with surrounding countries, isn’t there a looming risk that they will continue to pressure the Palestinians just because they can?
So, in some damn way, the situation probably needs to de-escalate.
I don’t believe in population transfers at all – it solves nothing.
(It doesn’t solve anything in South Africa either, but there the die is cast).
So we might as well stick with how things are today but try to normalize relations.
If things go awry in the West Bank, Israel as a country is threatened, and they will strike back.
If Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon move in the right direction, much can be resolved.
They need to establish some kind of MEU (their version of the EU) in the entire region where Israel respects the Palestinian state/states in exchange for MENA accepting Israel.
Then Russia should be kept as far away from this as possible, along with China and Iran.
I’m not entirely sure what Trump is planning for MENA, but his idea to pave over Gaza probably came from Netanyahu, and topping it off with that AI film was probably not one of his better moves.
The conference in Saudi and Qatar went much better.
If the MENA countries meet halfway, they may need to remove the most extreme settler advocates from decision-making positions in Israel, as they need to stop that too.
I don’t have high hopes for this, but I’m sure that Amnesty, UNRWA, Swedish Peace, all other peace organizations, and the UN will not be involved in this.
Neither are all the politicians who scream about genocide and annihilation. The other side of the coin is that our Western countries, the UN, and UNRWA have enabled Hamas, which led to October 7, 2023. It should be a very heavy burden for them to bear, which doesn’t seem to be the case at all – they lose no sleep over infants being thrown into ovens and burned to death.
Trump might not be so dumb, provided that he doesn’t listen to Netanyahu – he gives all sides a lot of trade deals, which he then feels are good for the USA, and all those countries feel that it’s good for them – and then a layer of security on top of that?
If that doesn’t work out, then it will probably be Norway as usual.
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https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social
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