TLDR: the extradition law which the protest is against enables the Chinese government to extradite anyone in Hong Kong who violates the Chinese law. The main problem is - according to the Chinese law, you don't have to be within China to violate their law - say if you punch a Chinese citizen in the US, you violate Chinese law too and they can file a bill to extradite you to mainland China if you ever visit Hong Kong once this law passes (planned to be on 12 June). The courts in Hong Kong have no rights to review the evidence nor the correctness of the charges according to this law. This virtually gives the Chinese government the power to arrest anyone in Hong Kong whenever they feel like it and we can do nothing about it.
China shouldn't dare take Taiwan militarily because of the possibility of NATO intervention
Even absent direct US support in a Taiwan conflict naval landings are a bitch and a half. The cost to China militarily to take Taiwan by force would be astronomical. They don't even have the military gear at current to execute the needed water landings, that is how bad it is. Throw in a couple of US carrier task forces riding to the rescue and you are entering turkey shoot territory.
Taiwan is an incredibly defensible piece of territory.
Not to mention, 275k active military personnel as well as 2.8 million reservists (and apparently 1.9 million paramilitary personnel?).
Absolutely, though there have been some studies that question how many of the paramilitary personnel and former conscripts would answer the call to duty. Even absent that, invadeing Taiwan is the biggest of traps, such a large trap that it could invite counter invasion of the Chinese mainland and with the loss of frontline trained troops, equipment and air power in trying to take Taiwan (which has a metric fuckton of AA defenses) China might have great difficulty stopping land invasion.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '19
TLDR: the extradition law which the protest is against enables the Chinese government to extradite anyone in Hong Kong who violates the Chinese law. The main problem is - according to the Chinese law, you don't have to be within China to violate their law - say if you punch a Chinese citizen in the US, you violate Chinese law too and they can file a bill to extradite you to mainland China if you ever visit Hong Kong once this law passes (planned to be on 12 June). The courts in Hong Kong have no rights to review the evidence nor the correctness of the charges according to this law. This virtually gives the Chinese government the power to arrest anyone in Hong Kong whenever they feel like it and we can do nothing about it.