Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
China started and finished the recent war in the Himalayas with India. It warned Hong Kong to stifle the democracy protests that went violent in 2019. When Hong Kong failed to do so, Beijing acted and is now completing the full absorption of the city into the mainland. On its warnings and threats, China tends to follow through.
Monday, four dozen Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone, climaxing a weekend of provocations that saw nearly 150 sorties of China-based fighters and bombers.
The U.S. State Department countered by issuing a stern statement warning Beijing about the adverse effect on regional “stability” of such “provocative military activity.”
Yet even as the waves of Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone, President Joe Biden was reassuring Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that the U.S. would defend the Senkakus from any Chinese attack.
Controlled by Japan but claimed by China, the Senkakus are uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea.
Our alliances in the Pacific dating to the 1950s have put us in an odd position. The Biden administration says it will fight to defend the Senkakus and fight if the Philippines attempt a military retrieval of atolls and reefs in the South China Sea that China has seized, occupied and fortified.
For Taiwan, however, a democratic island of 14,000 square miles and 23 million people, and for Hong Kong, a formerly free city of 7 million, we will not commit to fight — though human rights and democracy are said to be central to the Biden foreign policy.
We will fight for Japan’s right to hold the Senkakus and Manila’s right to retrieve Mischief Reef, but not to ensure the rights of the 30 million people of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
What is China, dispatching bombers and fighters around the southern and eastern coasts of Taiwan, up to?
This is an unmistakable message to America that, about Taiwan, Beijing is serious. China is warning the U.S. and its allied and associated powers — Australia, Japan, India — that it will, in the last analysis, fight to prevent an independent Taiwan.
Taiwan is a red line for China. Is it for us?
This latest challenge comes after the public humiliation of the United States in Afghanistan, about which China has been crowing since August.
Yet, these four days of Chinese intrusions into the air defense zone of Taiwan do not necessarily portend an imminent invasion or attack.
For such an attack would risk a U.S. response in East Asia and a political and diplomatic confrontation if not a military one. The impact on the world economy of a collision between the world’s largest militaries and the world’s largest economies would be devastating.
The stakes involved here are huge, but who would benefit from such a war?
If after the fall of Afghanistan and the humiliation of the U.S. defeat and departure, the U.S. abandoned Taiwan, U.S. credibility would be shot in Asia. Asia and the world would conclude that China owned the future.
As for credibility, China has a well-established record.
China started and finished the recent war in the Himalayas with India. It warned Hong Kong to stifle the democracy protests that went violent in 2019. When Hong Kong failed to do so, Beijing acted and is now completing the full absorption of the city into the mainland.
On its warnings and threats, China tends to follow through.
Of all the islets and reefs in the South China Sea it has taken from Vietnam, the Philippines and other neighbors, China has surrendered not a one. Though charged with “genocide” against the Uyghurs, it has persisted in its persecution, as it has in its suppression of Tibetans and Christians.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his party are unapologetic about their Communist values and Marxist beliefs.
Still, China has its problems, none of which would be solved and all of which would be exacerbated by any major clash with the United States.
China is facing energy shortages and blackouts from a lack of fuel for its coal-fired power plants, its primary source of energy.
After decades of a “one couple, one child” policy, China is facing a demographic crisis. In parts of the country, deaths now exceed births. China’s women have a fertility rate below replacement levels. China is aging and shrinking, and declining populations correspond with declining powers.
But if it is hard to see any benefit to China to come out of war with the United States, it is equally hard to see any benefit for the USA.
China will never relinquish its claim to Taiwan, whose independence is recognized today by only a handful of nations.
China is a nation many fear and respect, but whose regime few see as a friend. For Beijing has historic claims in every direction — on lands held by Russia and India, and to islands and reefs claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines and Japan. It has a claim on Taiwan and on all the islands Taiwan claims in the East and South China Seas.
Yet, though facing the world’s most menacing power 100 miles away, Taiwan, as of 2019, was still spending less than 2% of GDP on defense.
Refusing to invest in your own defense, and relying on America to come and fight your wars, seems to be a tradition with America’s allies.
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There are only 3 entities that give a flip about Taiwan: Taiwan, China, and Globohomo.
Since most(about 85%) of semiconductor chips are made in Taiwan you may want to rethink your statement.
Are they actually 100% made there or are some sourced and made on mainland
I have been watching China from close up for a very long time. There is no doubt in my mind that independence for Taiwan is a big red line. Official propaganda has clearly stated they will accept whatever sacrifices are necessary to regain control of the “island of Taiwan” in such a situation.
All recent American war games have shown a quick and absolute defeat for America if war breaks out over Taiwan with some US generals openly admitting they do not have a chance. Carrier battle groups are sitting ducks for the hypersonic missiles available to China (and Russia) in their home waters. The US would have only one winning option: to go nuclear.
What official language is spoken in Taiwan? Chinese.
What major dialect is spoken in Taiwan? Something from Quanzhou, Fujian, China.
Isn’t it obvious that Taiwan is Chinese instead of American?
Yes.
maybe that Chine doth protest too much
I am an ethnic Chinese, a self-claimed libertarian, and living in US.
We, almost all the Han-Chinese (maybe 99%), regardless of supporting communists or not, can not accept an independent Taiwan. We treat Taiwan as a province of Mainland China.
We have been humiliated by the Western power for over 100 years. Thanks to ever increasing corrupt West and slightly stronger China, We Chinese now can at least try to stand up for ourselves. In this regard, I am so grateful for the Beijing government.
Please don’t talk about democracy and liberty. The train of democracy and liberty has long left USA.
We have seen so much tyranny in US, such as forced vaccination, unlimited taxation etc. The extent of tyranny in US is almost similar to that in China now.
What happens in Taiwan is none of the West’s business. Besides the West will never win a war with the CCP with it being just 100 miles to the mainland.
Air superiority is impossible.
The causalities would be enormous.
The worst part is the American taxpayer made China the superpower it is.
the taxpayer played their part but most of the credit has to go to the millions of folks who flooded into the coastal cities of China from farms in country to work in the factories for cheap.
It is my understanding that the rural Chinese were living worse in the country because they were starving. I don’t know what’s propaganda and what’s fact, but I do know (((who))) orchestrated the Chinese communist miracle, and who funded it.
I was born in early 60s in rural China. In 60s and 70s, people in rural areas did not have enough to eat. In the late 50s during the Great Hop, maybe 10-20 million Chinese starved to death. However, people were nice and had integrity at that time.
China opened herself to the world in 1978 and liberated her economy since then. Politically China is not communist, but totalitarian. (Quoted from Marc Farber), Economically, China is freer than US. However, corruption in China is even more wide spread.
There are huge environmental issues there.
People in rural areas do have enough to eat. China imports a lot of food from Brazil, USA etc. I do worry if Chinese would have enough to eat in near future.
I hope that Taiwanese keep the current status instead of seeking independence. People in Taiwan have suffered tremendously. They suffered first from Japanese occupation. In 1949 when the Nationalists lost Mainland China and had to flee to Taiwan, many of them left family members in Mainland. People in Mainland and Taiwan are all Chinese. We should not kill ourselves.
I have first hand seen that the American government is treating American people so miserably. They will not be kinder to Chinese including Taiwanese.
USA helped China a lot fighting Japanese invasion during the world war 2. However, USA has been exporting “democracy”, namely bombs wrapped with soothing words. China only very briefly invaded Vietnam (a few days) in 1978 in the last 100 years.
Hope peace and prosperity in the world.
Highly corrupt American elites voluntarily and gladly sent American jobs to China decades ago. The Chinese government took full advantage of the golden opportunity. Due to lack of welfare system, Chinese work to death.
My first and second child are both alumni from MIT, studying the most challenging subject in all the natural sciences (guess what). My youngest child looks very promising. Most Chinese are hard working.
Young people in US are so lazy. Current policy and social trends are systematically destroying the social fabric here. I do love the Western civilization. Unfortunately it is being destroyed in front of my eyes.
Great field report. I’m lazy too. Why bother if the state and the population essentially hate you? In front of our eyes indeed. Just another decline for history.
As RiNS, son of Odin, rightfully says (emphasis mine) — “What happens in Taiwan is NONE of the West’s business.”
HOWEVER! You write, “We, almost all the Han-Chinese … can not accept an independent Taiwan.”
Well! Goody gumdrops for you Han Boi! What about the people from Taiwan?? What if they want independence? DO THEIR OPINIONS EVEN MATTER???
Clearly, not. You Han’s think you’re all that. Your shit don’t stink. You’re mostly a bunch of war-mongering neocon fucks. That’s historical fact. Well the Brits were just like you …. and a ragtag bunch of rebels defeated the mightiest most powerful nation on earth. I hope Taiwan does the same to you Han.
All the PRC has to do is quietly flip a few hundred billion$ to the decision makers in Taiwan.
Most Taiwanese don’t give a rip as to whether their oligarch masters live in Taipei or Beijing.
That implies quite the prediction. Imagine if you will the annexation of Taiwan by ‘consensus’, a yellow-red Glorious Revolution. We shall see.
I believe we shall.