If China uses enough firepower to overwhelm Taiwan's defenses, will what is left be worth having?
China's leader has now decided the answer is - yes.
But Taiwan will only be the beginning. Once its absorption is complete, China has other ambitions.
Like the return of about one million square kilometers seized from China by Russia in the 1860s.
Russia knows this. But it still depends on money from sales of oil and gas to China for most...