Authoratarian dictatorships suck.
Why are people surprised by this?
Thank god for that, since the average voters knowledge of foreign affairs in on the zero level.

In all honesty, I find the scenario of China invading Taiwan extremely unlikely. People tend to greatly exaggerate China's willingness to go to war - remember that the last time they were at war with another country was over 40 years ago. Sure, they will try to eventually re-integrate Taiwan, it's their declared policy, but why would they do this by military means if they can soft power their way into accomplishing this goal without firing a single shot and thus avoiding all the bad optics a non-peaceful takeover would bring? Incidentally, there was a bit of controversy recently when a retired Taiwanese army general put up a youtube video in which he called on the military to overthrow the government - the Taiwanese government, mind you. The video is in Chinese, but there's a transcript in the video description, which you can use an online translator for. Even if you don't agree with what the guy says, it'll offer you a valuable alternate perspective on the situation.

I think it depends on developments in Taiwan, if Taiwan goes for a formal declaration of independence (instead of the ambiguous situation of the last 50 years where both sides agree there will be reunification..somehow, at some point in the future), then that would harden views in the PRC and maybe make them think "now or never". Also much depends of course on how China views its relationship with the US. I'm personally not anti-China and don't think they're some evil force bent on global domination, but imo there is potential for an armed conflict, which could have catastrophic consequences for the entire world (without anybody really wanting it, miscalculations could lead to an escalation that at some point can't be stopped anymore).

Even if Taiwan were to declare independence, I have trouble believing the Chinese would reply with an invasion. They're heavily driven by realpolitik and there's precious little upsides (uhh, hey, we finally got our wayward province back after 70 years! Yay us!) and a whole lotta downsides (they already got enough of a headache with Hong Kong, why would they willingly subject themselves to another island full of malcontents?). If Taiwan were to declare independence, I'd find it far more likely that China would turn the place into a Chinese Cuba of sorts by using economic sanctions.

Maybe, tbh I find the likelihood difficult to evaluate. There's also a view that China could try to show the US to be a paper tiger if they conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan and the US doesn't intervene, which could then lead to a total unraveling of the post-1945 system in East Asia. But of course that would be an extremely high risk strategy, and as you write China has been pretty cautious so far and hasn't waged a war for more than 40 years (which contrasts favorably with Western states tbh). So I don't know, very hard imo to come to any secure conclusions.
In any case, we probably shouldn't continue this discussion here, I kind of feel the ban hammer already hovering over our heads :-)

Honestly, there's nothing more prove after the US got pwned hard in the most humiliating fashion in Afghanistan. On the flipside, think how humiliating it would be for China if they were to get into a military conflict with the US and got their asses kicked. If they're smart, all they have to do is sit back, watch the West collapse in on itself and wait for Taiwan to come crawling back to them.

Peace, bro! It's been fun!

Disagree about the importance of Afghanistan, imo it's exaggerated.
I agree with you though about the prospects for China if they keep cool.

You should also care about the issue even from a purely gaming perspective, if China annexes Taiwan with its microchip industry, you can forget about getting a new gaming pc for a long, long time.

I'm not saying I don't care, I was just making a joke about how political threads show up like clockwork on the weekends to meet their inevitable demise on Monday.

Also having an arsehat war about showing the US capable of being butthurt enough to insanely lash out at nobodies, only strengthens their global identity as a psychotic brinkman with nuclear weapons; which is favorable if China is cruisin for a bruisin as the cool kids say (albiet bad for everyone under current world super power governance).

China has a saying 'there cannot be two tigers on a hill'; I say well yeah but fighting one another there is a high likelihood they'll kill each other not swat playfully until one runs off in tears.