Your looking at the differences, I'm looking at the similarities. Both leaders are/were facing dwindling public support. Both have territories that they believe belong to them and both have a population that has had years of indoctrination convincing them that the people living there really want to be liberated from their occupying governments. Argentinian soldiers were surprised by the amount of British citizens they encountered when they arrived in the Falklands. They were led to believe through years of indoctrination in the schools that the Falkland residents were Argentinians who desperately wanted to be liberated from the British.
I don't know much about the Chinese school system but I believe I am safe to assume they have been subject to the same type of indoctrination when it comes to Taiwan. Xi will be a national hero for reclaiming Taiwan and the CCP will not be able to remove him without looking like they are against China.
I agree with RangerRay's take that money talks and western countries will turn a blind eye to the war and continue to produce goods in China. I am continually amazed at what western people will accept from China. Ugyhur genocide and concentration camps, Taking Canadians hostage (Two Michaels), Blatantly copying western designs without paying royalties, Pressuring Chinese people living in the west by threatening their family still in China. If these have not swayed them war with Taiwan will not.
I myself actively avoid Chinese made goods where possible because of this.
Remember IBM made the punch card computers the Nazi's used to sort the Jews and Russian prisoners determining which ones to exterminate and which ones to send to labour camps. I do believe they knew what the were being used for and agreed with it in principle.
China will succeed if the west does nothing! I believe the west will do nothing because the western people do not want war, they are too busy arguing about Covid issues while giving losers trophy's for showing up. So what if Taiwan becomes a part of China again, it was theirs before! Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland all over again.
China will lie to the west that and say that they are only interested in reclaiming Taiwan and if allowed to do so they won't have to use their nukes or some other threat that scares the west more than the annexation of Taiwan. It worked for Hitler in the Sudetenland, it worked for Russia in Ukraine with Crimea.
The Chinese HAVE been playing the long game. They have been investing in cyber warfare and espionage for years now. China could very well have people in place in Taiwan that are in a position to prevent Taiwan reacting to a Chinese Invasion. They will likely shut down communications so the Taiwan military cannot coordinate their defense. Allowing them to just walk in and take the country.
My observation is China doesn't thread needles, they do what they want and if you disagree with them they cry foul and take a tantrum kicking and screaming like a toddler. I.e. Trump's trade war with China.
In the early days of Covid they had the World Health Organization convincing country leaders that if they closed their borders to China it would be seen as racist and harm their trade with China. Meanwhile they used their pressure tactics to have Chinese nationals buy up masks and medical gear and ship it back to China. While also convincing Canada's government to donate supplies to them effectively draining our supplies and causing how many cases of Covid in Canada?
They are like a spoiled child and will take what they want to hell with whoever gets in their way.
World War Three is coming and it will start in China. It's just a matter of when!
Again this is just my $0.02 and what do I know?
Rat's are unpredictable when backed into a corner or facing being ousted from their party!
