WAR CHINA THREATENS TO INVADE TAIWAN

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#USA #StraitofTaiwan #China A US warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, the US navy said, a day after a top US commander warned of a Chinese invasion threat to Taiwan in the next six years.
The USS John Finn, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, made a regular transit yesterday through the waterway separating China's mainland and Taiwan, according to the US Seventh Fleet. This is President Joe Biden's third such voyage since taking office.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369893153143218176
View: https://twitter.com/Xy5Z89/status/1369893153143218176?s=20
 
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War Games Showed US Would "Lose Fast" Against China If It Invaded Taiwan: US General
BY TYLER DURDEN
ZERO HEDGE
FRIDAY, MAR 12, 2021 - 18:20

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be devastating to the U.S. military as a result of Beijing’s aggressive military development in recent years, according to a U.S. Air Force general.



The outcome was based on a classified Pentagon war game simulation carried out over the years, Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote said in a recent interview with Yahoo News. He said that U.S. forces were losing more quickly in recent simulations after taking into consideration the Chinese regime’s new military capabilities.

“After the 2018 war game, I distinctly remember one of our gurus of wargaming standing in front of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff, and telling them that we should never play this war game scenario [of a Chinese attack on Taiwan] again, because we know what is going to happen,” Hinote said.

“The definitive answer if the U.S. military doesn’t change course is that we’re going to lose fast. In that case, an American president would likely be presented with almost a fait accompli.”

"At that point the trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing faster."
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Around September 2020, the U.S. Air Force gamed out a conflict set more than a decade in the future, which started with a Chinese biological-weapon attack on U.S. ships and bases in the Indo-Pacific region, according to the outlet. Using military drills as a cover, Beijing then deploys an invasion force to attack Taiwan, while targeting U.S. bases and ships in the region with missile strikes, the outlet said.

Last fall, the U.S. Air Force simulated a conflict set more than a decade in the future that began with a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through U.S. bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region. Then a major Chinese military exercise was used as cover for the deployment of a massive invasion force. The simulation culminated with Chinese missile strikes raining down on U.S. bases and warships in the region, and a lightning air and amphibious assault on the island of Taiwan.
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This is the first time that the outcome of that simulation has been made public.

Since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, the Chinese Communist Party has escalated its war-mongering toward Taiwan, a democratic self-ruled island that Beijing claims as a part of its territory. In late January, a Chinese military official threatened war against the island.

Beijing also has sent military planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on a nearly daily basis since the start of this year. Most recently on March 10, a Chinese anti-submarine warfare aircraft entered southwestern Taiwan’s ADIZ, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.

Earlier this week, Adm. Philip Davidson, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned during a Senate hearing that the Chinese regime could invade Taiwan in the “next six years.”

When asked by a senator about the United States’ ability to defend Taiwan, Davidson said, “I think our conventional deterrent is actually eroding in the region,” citing the Chinese military’s “vast advances” in size over the past decade, and also in capability.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is now larger than the U.S. Navy. By 2025, the PLA is projected to have three aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific to the United States’ one, 12 amphibious assault ships to the United States’ four, and 108 modern multi-warfare combatant ships to the United States’ 12, according to estimates by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command submitted to Congress.

Hinote told Yahoo News that certain adjustments are needed to tilt a possible war with China in favor of the United States. They include moving away from relying on large military bases, ports, and aircraft carriers while fighting the Chinese military, as well as deploying dispersed and mobile forces with large numbers of long-range, mobile strike systems, anti-ship cruise missile batteries, mobile rocket artillery systems, and unmanned mini-submarines, according to Hinote.

What’s more, the adjustments call for greater use of surveillance and reconnaissance sources to allow U.S. policymakers to make quicker decisions.

“If we can design a force that creates that level of uncertainty and causes Chinese leaders to question whether they can accomplish their goals militarily, I think that’s what deterrence looks like in the future,” Hinote said.
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Air Force officials didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

War Games Showed US Would "Lose Fast" Against China If It Invaded Taiwan: US General | ZeroHedge
 
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Orchid Island, also known by other names, is a 45 km2 (17 sq mi) volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan Island. It is separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is governed as Lanyu Township of Taitung County, Taiwan, which also includes the nearby Lesser Orchid Island.

Source: Orchid Island - Wikipedia

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Coastal_landscape_Lan_Yu%2C_Taiwan.jpg

Fields along the coast

Lanyu_Ivalino_Ia-gin_village_hill_view.jpg

View of Jivalino


Out of a total current population of 5036, approximately 4200 belong to the indigenous Tao people and the remaining 800 are mainly Han Chinese.
 
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America Is Headed to a Showdown Over Taiwan, and China Might Win
A new Council on Foreign Relations report is a strong warning about Biden’s looming first foreign-policy crisis.
By Max Hastings
Bloomberg
March 13, 2021, 11:00 PM PST

The world has now endured upheaval by a pandemic for a full year, and the aftershocks will continue long after most people finally receive the vaccine to Covid-19. Thus, you may say, this is no time to frighten the horses by highlighting another peril. However, just as nothing says that if tragedy strikes a family once, it cannot do so again — ask the Kennedys — so fate can be mean on mercy, when it comes to epochal threats.

The Council for Foreign Relations has published a new report by two respected public servants, which urges the imminence of the risk of conflict between China and U.S. over Taiwan. That territory, 90 miles off China’s coast and inhabited by 24 million people, is not a nation, but for decades has been an unofficial American protectorate.

“During 2020,” write Robert D. Blackwill and Philip Zelikow, “we came to believe that a crisis was building over Taiwan and that it was becoming the most dangerous flashpoint in the world for a possible war that involved the U.S., China and probably other major powers … The horrendous global consequences … should preoccupy the Biden team, beginning with the president.”

The White House seems to agree. President Joe Biden held a virtual meeting with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan — the first summit of the so-called Quad since 2017. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are about to visit Japan and South Korea; next week in Alaska, Blinken will have the administration’s first face-to-face talks with the Chinese. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer conducted one of the U.S. Navy’s routine exercises to reassert its right of passage through the Taiwan Strait.

The new analysis from Blackwill, who has held a bevy of high government positions including deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, and Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, comes none too late. “Taiwan,” they write, “is one of the most successful societies on Earth.” Yet few Americans likely understand why the U.S. would risk war with China to protect it.

No matter that it might be possible to prevent such a showdown from going nuclear, or even from becoming a general conflict: The economic fallout would be horrendous. A clash between China and the West would almost certainly provoke cyberattacks, even if nobody fires guns.

A major cyberattack on the U.S. financial system could cost 2.5 times daily gross domestic product, according to the New York Federal Reserve. A cyber-induced blackout affecting just 15 U.S. states might cost up to $1 trillion in damage, not to mention many deaths resulting from disruption to health care, traffic and industry, suggests a projection by Cambridge University and Lloyds.

Coincidentally, just before the council’s study was published, I received an email from an Australian strategy guru who asked: “How do you rate the chances of getting through this decade without a Taiwan crisis?” He himself thought: poor.

A few years ago, during a period in which I frequently visited China, I was struck by how often ordinary Chinese raised the Taiwan issue. Their concern reflected years of state propagandizing. Westerners should understand that when President Xi Jinping rattles sabers, as he does with increasing frequency, he commands genuine popular support. Taiwan evokes the sort of sentiment among his people that Cuba did among Americans 60 years ago — and look where that story nearly ended.

Xi said two years ago that China would do its utmost to achieve peaceful reunification. However he added, “We do not renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary measures.” Blackwill and Zelikow take him at his word:

China is now in a prewar tempo of political and military preparations. We do not mean that we know that China is about to embark on a war. We simply observe that the Chinese government is taking actions that a country would do if it were moving into a prewar mode. Politically, it is preparing and conditioning its population for the possibility of an armed conflict.
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Xi may not yet have decided whether to trigger drastic action towards Taiwan. But China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, and in disputes with India and Japan, shows a high tolerance for risk.

There are legitimate fears that China will seek to exploit perceived Western weakness and disarray to foreclose the Taiwan dispute on its own terms. After four years of name-calling by President Donald Trump, the Biden administration needs a considered strategy toward Beijing, which America’s allies have long called for.

For more than four decades, the U.S. has sustained a policy of strategic ambiguity about Taiwan. Washington hasn’t provoked Beijing by challenging the One China principle accepted by President Richard Nixon half a century ago. Even Trump, speaking in August 2020, declined explicitly to commit U.S. forces to defend the island if it was attacked, saying only, “China knows what I’m going to do.”

In perhaps the most important passage of the Council on Foreign Relations report, the authors caution against an explicit U.S. pledge to commit its own forces in the event of a Chinese invasion. Instead, they urge assistance for the Taiwanese to strengthen their own defenses, which are run down. Taipei’s current capabilities do not offer a credible deterrent to a surprise assault from the mainland. Among other things, such assistance would include supplying a network of sensors and missiles capable of providing a tripwire, time-buying defense, similar to what the West prepared for Berlin in the Cold War.

Many in the Taipei leadership assume they can rely on a swift and overwhelming U.S. military response to Chinese aggression. Yet a former chief of staff of the island’s military, Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, has correctly challenged this strategy, saying: “All I can hear is that the United States will intervene. What reason is there to believe that the United States will sacrifice the lives of its own children to defend Taiwan? My best bet is my own strength, to stop people from bullying me.”

It is a recurring weakness of U.S. foreign policy to determine courses for other nations, often with little or no consultation with allies. Through two decades of decision-making in Indochina, for instance, no Vietnamese leader was invited to the key Washington meetings. The Council on Foreign Relations study argues that Taiwan’s independence can be protected only by a diplomatic and military strategy that has commitments from Australia, South Korea and, above all, Japan. The Australians need no awakening: They are suffering diplomatic abuse and Chinese harassment following their fierce criticism of Beijing’s recent behavior.

The Japanese are moving slowly away from their post-World War II rejection of rearmament. They recognize a need to be capable of confronting, or at least deterring, Chinese naval and military initiatives, not least against the disputed Senkaku Islands. Blackwill and Zelikow write, “We believe Japan would regard a violent Chinese takeover of Taiwan as a threat to the vital interests of Japan, even to its future independence and existence.”

It seems significant, and welcome, that Biden’s first important foreign visitor to the White House is reportedly to be Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga. It will be surprising if Taiwan is not prominent on the agenda for their meeting, which may take place next month.

Taiwan is excluded from many international organizations, denied observer status by the World Health Organization and membership of the criminal-information exchange Interpol, because such bodies are unwilling to cause friction with Beijing. The council report urges the U.S. to conclude a bilateral trade agreement with Taipei, and also integrate it into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the U.S. abandoned under the Trump administration.

A reader of the Blackwill-Zelikow report who is not Taiwanese or American may well notice one big omission from its 65 alarming pages. Nowhere do the authors stress an issue that looms large in the eyes of the rest of the world: the possible validity of Chinese claims.

For two centuries, Taiwan was Chinese-ruled, until seized by Japan in 1895 as part of its wider Asian land grab. In 1945, when the Japanese were dispossessed, Washington did not hesitate to deliver Formosa, as it was then known, to China’s Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, America’s foremost Asian client.

In 1949, when Chiang suffered defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong in China’s civil war, the generalissimo retired to Formosa with his remaining supporters, and made it a personal fiefdom. He sustained the myth of his own legitimacy as president of all China, solely thanks to the might of the U.S. Navy, which made it impossible for Beijing’s forces to unseat him. Until his death in 1975, Chiang and his Kuomintang Party ruled Taiwan as a dictatorship, harshly regulated by martial law.

Yet in 1972, Nixon visited China, and seven years later the U.S. belatedly acknowledged the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate government. Ever since, the U.S. has been formally committed to the “One China” policy, while continuing to assert the minority right of the Taiwanese to autonomy.

Taiwan’s martial law was abolished in 1987. For the past quarter of a century, it has been a vibrant democracy. It endorses religious diversity, and behaves as a responsible international actor. Its technological achievements are remarkable, especially in the field of chip manufacture, in which it is a decade ahead of China.

The question today is whether the human rights of the Taiwanese and the economic triumph of their society can be sustained against Xi’s impatience to assert control.

Almost three decades ago, China and Britain signed a “one nation, two systems” treaty, establishing terms for the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Beijing. Optimists argued that it would suit the mainland to govern the former British colony with a light touch — that the treaty terms would be respected, if only to serve Chinese economic interests. This hope has been dashed. Beijing has crushed freedoms and Hong Kong’s treaty right to semi-autonomy.

The people of Taiwan have taken heed — indeed, they are appalled. They want friendly relations with the mainland, because of the close cultural bond, as well as their own self-preservation. Xi’s recent record, however, gives the clearest warning that if Taiwan becomes once more subject to Beijing, its inhabitants will be governed as cruelly as the rest of China’s 1.4 billion people.

Can the wishes and human rights of the Taiwanese people prevail over the power and iron will of the new China? Blackwill and Zelikow have no doubt that while Washington should avoid direct provocations, it should also seek to create a military and political reality that raises the price of an enforced mainland takeover too high to be acceptable even to Xi.

They cite the precedent of Czechoslovakia, which Britain and France permitted Hitler to seize by installments between October 1938 and March 1939, allegedly to assert the rights of the country’s ethnic German minority. The lesson Hitler took home from the infamous deal struck at Munich was that aggression paid; a few months later, he invaded Poland. Britain and France, realizing that his demands were insatiable, then belatedly declared war.

The authors argue that, just as 1938 Czechoslovakia’s fate was sealed by Britain’s lack of will to fight for it, so Taiwan’s future now depends upon American strength and consistency of purpose. I am unconvinced, as a historian, by this comparison. The relationship between China and Taiwan is not analogous with that between Germany and Czechoslovakia. The latter was an independent country, and its majority had little social and cultural affinity with its conquerors. The U.S. may find it hard to persuade the rest of the world to stay in town for a High Noon with Beijing, unspeakably ugly though a Beijing takeover of Taiwan would be.

Moreover, the circumstances created by the pandemic and America’s profound political divisions make it hard, perhaps impossible, for the Biden administration to focus with conviction on foreign policy. The hardest part of the council report’s recommendations to fulfil would be re-arming Taiwan without precipitating a violent Chinese response.

Diplomatic dialogue between Washington and Beijing has almost broken down, not least because China’s representatives have become so rude and aggressive, apparently uninterested in compromises. There is no hope of a grand bargain between the two sides, but they need to get talking again, if only to clarify positions.

The best chance of deflecting a Chinese assault is surely not military. Even if the White House summoned the will to commit U.S. forces against Chinese aggression, they might not prevail in Xi’s backyard. The goal should be deterrence, with a focus on economic incentives for improved Chinese relations with the U.S. A forcible occupation of Taiwan would incur a massive cost to all parties.

Unfortunately, recent history — the oppression of Uighur Muslims in Western China, for example —suggests that Xi is willing to bear economic pain, and to shrug off international abuse, in order to assert and extend Chinese power. The world will be fortunate to escape a Taiwan showdown. Whether or not we accept Blackwill and Zelikow’s prescriptions, they are right that the U.S. needs urgently to dust off its options to meet a looming threat.


This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Max Hastings at mhastings32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

Max Hastings: China Might Defeat America In War Over Taiwan - Bloomberg
 
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M. Taylor Fravel@fravel

Studying China's foreign and security policies @MIT and Director@MIT_SSP . Author of Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 http://bit.ly/2E3WDE3





M. Taylor Fravel
@fravel

Is Taiwan a US treaty ally? Is the PRC's "One China" principle the same as the "One China" policy of the United States? No. A brief thread on some useful reference sources. 1/

12:36 PM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter Web App
Here's a short explainer from
and Mike Green
: https://csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-why-does-it-matter 2/
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1371877933657288705
View: https://twitter.com/fravel/status/1371877933657288705?s=20


Here's a primer one from brookings.edu
www.brookings.edu

A One-China policy primer | Brookings

In the latest East Asia Policy Paper, Richard Bush provides historical and analytical context for understanding the U.S. one-China policy. He examines how the policy has evolved and is interpreted by Washington, Taipei and Beijing, and provides recommendations for the Trump administration.
www.brookings.edu www.brookings.edu

For one of the definitive studies, from the late Alan Romberg of @stimson
, his 2003 book on US policy toward Taiwan and US-China relations can be downloaded here:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1371877935813165064
View: https://twitter.com/fravel/status/1371877935813165064?s=20


Until early 2015, the@CRS4Congress compiled US government statements and the evolution of the "One China" policy:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1371877936991764484
View: https://twitter.com/fravel/status/1371877936991764484?s=20


Or, just follow
@jessicadrun
/END

Addendum:
@julianku
examines the language to the Taiwan Relations Act passed by the US Congress in 1979:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1371884067386494976
View: https://twitter.com/fravel/status/1371884067386494976?s=20


www.ccpwatch.org

One China, Multiple Interpretations

When discussing cross-Strait relations and broader contacts involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC), two “one China’s” are consistently referenced: the “One China” Principle (一个中国原则) and the “One China” Policy (一中政策). This article will explore the...
www.ccpwatch.org www.ccpwatch.org
 
jward

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passin' thru
I don't know if anyone knows, NORTH. I had the feeling that Biden put in some weasel clauses re: Taiwan, that allowed him to suggest support, but imply he'd honor their Decision should vote to go with china...of course votes are not worth the air they are spoken over these days, so.... I also keep seeing people using the 5-7 years out timelines for this issue, though we here treat it as imminent, it may in truth only be in it's nascent stage.
 
danielboon

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jward said:
I don't know if anyone knows, NORTH. I had the feeling that Biden put in some weasel clauses re: Taiwan, that allowed him to suggest support, but imply he'd honor their Decision should vote to go with china...of course votes are not worth the air they are spoken over these days, so.... I also keep seeing people using the 5-7 years out timelines for this issue, though we here treat it as imminent, it may in truth only be in it's nascent stage.
Click to expand...
We are ripe for the picking China could careless about Biden China will also go after Guam as the Duduman prophecy unfolds
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
danielboon said:
We are ripe for the picking China could careless about Biden China will also go after Guam as the Duduman prophecy unfolds
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guess I should investigate this prophecy of which u speak, eh? What would you estimate as to how far along the time line we are- percentage wise, or days wise...?
 
danielboon

danielboon

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jward said:
guess I should investigate this prophecy of which u speak, eh? What would you estimate as to how far along the time line we are- percentage wise, or days wise...?
Click to expand...
This could happen at any time but in truth God knows the day and hour and when it happens it will go quickly .it truly grieves me to see how far we have fallen. This was such a great country and now it has turned into a cesspool my kids and grandchildren will never know the goodness that we had only pain and suffering .we must continue to strive and carry out his will as long as we are able .time is short
 
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northern watch

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danielboon said:
This could happen at any time but in truth God knows the day and hour and when it happens it will go quickly .it truly grieves me to see how far we have fallen. This was such a great country and now it has turned into a cesspool my kids and grandchildren will never know the goodness that we had only pain and suffering .we must continue to strive and carry out his will as long as we are able .time is short
Click to expand...
There are just too many areas going hot all at once
 
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Rumors of War in the Taiwan Strait

Prospects of an imminent Chinese invasion are overblown – but that doesn’t mean Taiwan can be complacent.



By Denny Roy

March 20, 2021
Rumors of War in the Taiwan Strait

Credit: U.S. Navy photo
Fears that China will soon launch a military attack against Taiwan have spiked.

Three factors are feeding this anxiety. The first is the assessment by many outside experts that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which includes China’s navy, air force, and strategic rocket arsenal, has reached or is very close to reaching such a level of strength that attempting to forcibly compel Taiwan to politically unify with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a feasible policy option. Among these assessments, none carried more weight than that of Admiral Philip Davidson, chief of the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command. Davidson opined before a U.S. Senate Committee in February that China might try to seize Taiwan by military means “in the next six years.”

Lonnie Henley, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and now a George Washington University professor, said he thinks the Chinese government set a goal of being able by 2020 to successfully invade Taiwan, and probably now believes it has succeeded. Oriana Skylar Mastro of Stanford University and the American Enterprise Institute reported in early 2021 that “Chinese military leaders have told me that they will be ready within a year.”

The second factor feeding fears of a cross-strait war is the recent intensification of PLA military pressure on Taiwan. Chinese warplanes flew near Taiwan almost daily in 2020. Up to 37 PLA aircraft at a time flew across the midline of the Taiwan Strait, breaking what was previously a taboo that both sides generally respected. This intimidation has continued into 2021. On one occasion in January, 13 Chinese military aircraft flew through Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. Chinese media said a PLA military exercise near the Taiwan Strait in September 2020 was “not a warning, but a rehearsal for a Taiwan takeover.” Chinese military activity prompted speculation that Beijing was preparing to capture the Pratas Islands, which the Republic of China (ROC) controls but which lie some 250 miles from the main island of Taiwan.

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Military analysts say Beijing likely intends this extended period of harassment to weaken not only Taiwan’s morale — by signaling that its people will never be safe until they agree to unification with the PRC — but also Taiwan’s military readiness. The constant incursions force Taiwan to scramble its own aircraft in response, stressing the maintenance capacity of the ROC’s smaller air force.

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The third factor contributing to the war anxiety is the perception of a general increase in the aggressiveness of Beijing’s foreign policy. Observers point to China’s violent border clash with India, stiffening Chinese defense of the “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea as a Chinese territorial boundary, and the rise of “wolf warrior” diplomacy. But many observers particularly believe that China’s treatment of Hong Kong has immediate ramifications for Taiwan. One argument is that Beijing’s brazen dismantling of civil liberties in Hong Kong, contravening China’s previous commitment to leave Hong Kong’s political system intact until 2047, makes clear that the Chinese government is not deterred from taking military action against Taiwan by the anticipated negative international reaction. Another argument is that Hong Kong is a harbinger of aggressive PRC action against Taiwan because both are part of the Chinese government’s irredentism project. With Hong Kong now truly subjugated, Taiwan is next because it is, in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the last large piece of unrecovered territory. Finally, some argue the lack of effective U.S. pushback against the Hong Kong clampdown will embolden Beijing to move more forcefully to impose its will on Taipei.

To be sure, the PRC threat to Taiwan has grown steadily, and the trends are still adverse. China’s military budget is estimated at $250 billion annually, compared to only $11 billion for Taiwan. The PLA has 12 times the manpower of the ROC armed forces. Last year the PLA Navy added 25 ships to its fleet, a rate neither Taiwan nor the United States can match.

For Taiwan and its friends, however, the situation is not as dire as portrayed by those warning that Beijing will soon opt for war even in the absence of a major provocation from Taiwan.

For domestic political reasons, China is extremely unlikely to embark on a war of choice against Taiwan in the next year. In February 2022 Beijing will have the opportunity to present itself in the best possible light to a massive international audience when it hosts the Winter Olympics, in which the Chinese government has invested lavishly. A cross-strait war would ruin this party. In October 2022, the CCP will hold its 20th National Party Congress. Xi Jinping will be up for a third term as CCP general secretary. It is hard to imagine Xi starting an unnecessary war with Taiwan prior to his re-appointment because of the high risk that war-related economic and even political turmoil would erode Xi’s popularity.

Even with the PLA’s improved capabilities, military action against Taiwan is an extremely risky proposition for China. An attempted invasion across the strait would involve the largest and most complex amphibious operation in history, and this by a military with no significant combat experience since 1979, when it performed badly in a border war against Vietnam. China could more confidently capture one of the ROC’s smaller outlying islands or impose a blockade on Taiwan’s major ports, but neither of these approaches would guarantee Taipei’s surrender.

Chinese analyst Cui Lei of the China Institute of International Relations recently argued that Chinese leaders feel compelled to maintain an image of toughness toward Taiwan, but have no intention to launch a military attack in the foreseeable future. Cui argued that military action is daunting because Taiwan’s people will not submit without a fight; the United States would help defend Taiwan out of fear of losing U.S. leadership in the region; China is not as militarily strong as the United States; war would cause discontent in China; and the international backlash would derail China’s progress toward modernization.

As is required of any paramount leader in China, Xi affirms his commitment to unification. But how deeply Xi is committed to the objective of making Taiwan a province of the PRC during his tenure is unknown. There are other issue areas where he could strive for accomplishments to bolster his legacy, such as cleaning up and rejuvenating the CCP, presiding over successful restructuring of the Chinese economy, ushering China out of the “middle income trap,” and of course blessing humanity with Xi Jinping Thought.

The notion that Chinese aggressiveness on other fronts presages an attack on Taiwan is questionable. The consequence of that aggressiveness is that China simultaneously suffers from poor or damaged relations with India, Japan (due to the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands dispute), Australia (economic coercion), some of the Southeast Asian states (the South China Sea dispute), and the United States (on several issues). On top of this, China is battling against accelerated economic decoupling, which could slow Chinese economic development. Already dealing with multiple crises in its foreign relations is more likely to give Beijing pause than to encourage the Chinese leadership to initiate an additional, larger crisis. The situations of Hong Kong and Taiwan, their relationships to Beijing, and the PRC’s policies toward them are completely distinct. The imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong is the culmination of political struggle that dates back to 2002 and is disconnected from PLA readiness to go to war with Taiwan.

None of this is reason for complacency. For decades Taiwan has settled for a suboptimal defense capability. But Taiwan no longer has the luxury of underperforming. The ROC military suffers from several serious but fixable problems. Under the Overall Defense Concept announced in 2018, the ROC military will evolve away from small numbers of large, prestigious, and expensive platforms and toward larger numbers of smaller, more independent, and survivable combat units along with more emphasis on mundane but important capabilities such as rapid airfield repair and mine laying and sweeping. Taiwan’s government, however, has met entrenched opposition to these reforms from some senior commanders. Moreover, military effectiveness is limited by unmet recruiting targets, insufficient training of both conscripts and reserves, and ammunition and spare parts shortages. Taiwan’s leaders must explain to their public the need to raise defense spending above the accustomed 2 percent of GNP.

With efficient use of its limited resources, Taiwan can continue to keep the risks of attempting forcible unification unacceptably high for Beijing.

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A war scare, rather than actual war, remains the optimal policy for the PRC. The top leadership may see it as a chance to “win without fighting,” and it demonstrates to the Chinese masses and potential political rivals that the Xi government is doing something to prod Taipei toward negotiating unification. Unfortunately for Taiwan’s people, even if the risk of war is low, persistent tension is the best they can hope for.

thediplomat.com

Rumors of War in the Taiwan Strait

Prospects of an imminent Chinese invasion are overblown – but that doesn’t mean Taiwan can be complacent.
thediplomat.com
 
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Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
So, how long until.....

- India starts doing naval and air exercises with Taiwan?
- An Indian SSBN does a "steel beach" off the east coast of Taiwan?
- Japan, RoK, RoC and any other of the capable neighbors break out their "special" screwdrivers?
- One of these challenges to RoC or Japanese ADIZs by the PLAAF goes "loud"?
 
H

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
danielboon said:
.
Pentagon chief, Japanese counterpart agreed to cooperate on Taiwan: report | TheHill
.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/544190-pentagon-chief-japanese-counterpart-agreed-to-cooperate-on-taiwan?amp&ved=2ahUKEwizprHqrMHvAhUSXM0KHcaQA8MQ0PADegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw2Op2wNpA_a8oRWH1DsaAYR

33 mins ago
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Considering Japan's grasp of the art, I expect to see then deploy some "expedient" IRBMs" to go with the multi-role "anti-shipping" cruise missiles they've paired with their F-2s and F-15s in the near future.
 
O

Oreally

Right from the start
Housecarl said:
So, how long until.....

- India starts doing naval and air exercises with Taiwan?
- An Indian SSBN does a "steel beach" off the east coast of Taiwan?
- Japan, RoK, RoC and any other of the capable neighbors break out their "special" screwdrivers?
- One of these challenges to RoC or Japanese ADIZs by the PLAAF goes "loud"?
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what is this?

"steel beach"
 
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