“A successful landing would be a Pyrrhic victory for China. Far from completing their missions, the amphibious landing ships would potentially be required to go back and forth the Taiwan Strait (becoming extremely vulnerable and lucrative targets) in order to provide onshore forces with supplies,” Liao said.
NANCY PELOSI’S ASIA VISIT ITINERARY LEAVES OUT MENTION OF POSSIBLE STOP IN TAIWAN
Just because invading Taiwan would be a painfully bad idea does not mean China will not attempt it, but the realities of an invasion, some observers believe, meant it’s more likely a last, rather than first option.
Many military experts and China watchers agree that “strangulation” scenarios such a quarantine blockade, would be much more effective than consigning possibly hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers to death, and thereafter committing perhaps a million troops to pacify Taiwan.
“Xi Jinping could be suffering from a god complex that blinds him to the terrible risks associated with an invasion of Taiwan. A rational strategic leader would choose another course of action, such as a long campaign of coercion to isolate and blockade Taiwan,” noted Taiwan expert Ian Easton.
When asked whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should visit the island nation, Easton told Fox News Digital that the U.S. should not be intimidated by Beijing’s threats. “It is vital American leaders visit Taipei and signal that the U.S. stands in solidarity with democracies in peril,” he said.
“Foregoing visits in the face of coercion would play right into the Chinese Communist Party’s hands.”
For China’s military planners, Taiwan is not an easy island to invade | Fox News
List of ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy – Wikipedia
After all this publicity of her visit and Joe attempting to dissuade her in public, if the nation’s top options trader doesn’t visit Taiwan now, it will be widely read among the CCP and Xi that the US has no resolve to defend anyone in the Pacific. She could have of course held her cards closer to her vest and then visited the island in surprise?
CCP is very vulnerable. They are not self-sufficient in food and their big export machine which is heavily dependent on imports of raw materials and components could be substantially curtailed.
The real question is how well prepared is Taiwan militarily? Are they trained to fight a long running guerrilla war? Do they have a large cache of sub launched ballistic missiles? From a manpower and sheer quantity of material the PLA is overwhelmingly larger it would seem.
I believe this entire PSYOP is political theater, benefitting the already outed globalists, “than consigning possibly hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers to death” – that’s nothing and nobodies. I think that messing with Taiwan will be like messing with Ukraine. The tigers will be loosed and the western countries (woosies) will be dragged into it to become men once again.
Of course CCP is not self-sufficient in food and has to import other resources and raw materials. Thing is, China is sitting next to another big country which produces plenty of food and other raw resources, whose exports are blocked in the West, but who can be safely exported to China without any possible external interference (unlike grain from Africa or oil from Arabia). You have to consider Russia and China as an integrated economy and see which resources they would have to import to have a safe view of their odds if things go bad. For an even safer bet, you’d have to consider the West as another integrated economy and see what kind of resources US and allies would lack in the long run and then estimate who would be in trouble first.
I’m currently reading The Tiger Leading the Dragon by Shelley Rigger:
https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Leading-Dragon-Propelled-Economic-ebook/dp/B095VVFQ8V/
It describes, in detail, the symbiotic relationship that China and Taiwan have enjoyed for the past 25 years … a relationship that has been very good for both Taiwan and China. I think that China prefers this status quo – but China will go to war if it feels that it is at risk of losing Taiwan from its sphere of influence.
“China will go to war if it feels that it is at risk of losing Taiwan from its sphere of influence.”
this sounds familiar…
https://twitter.com/niubi/status/1554125515623104515?s=21
I believe that Bill Bishop from Sinocism is spot on. The US should have an independent relationship with Taiwan based on our mutual interests. Xi should not dictate US behavior. While the CCP have bought many Americans from Hunter & Joe, Eric Swalwell & Mitch McConnell, Tony Fauci, Wall St, Walmart, Intel and so many of corporate America that should not mean we should prostrate ourselves at the feet of the CCP.
Let’s not forget some years back that the CCP tried to muscle Vietnam with a border skirmish. The Vietnamese military did not give an inch.
Please correct me if I am wrong, this is of interest to me. As I understand it, China screwed Vietnam and Cambodia by splitting Vietnam at the 17th parallel, severing the relationship between the Vietminh and the Cambodian Isaraak. Then, fastforward, Pol Pot attacked the western border villages of Vietnam at China’s behest, weakening Vietnam for the Chinese invasion in 1979. The Vietnamese, war weary and war hardened, reinforced their cities and did not take the bait to meet the vastly outnumbering Chinese in the field. The Chinese raped, pillaged and murdered for a few weeks and went home = essentially defeated. That is my understanding…
Here’s couple of articles. The Vietnamese are not ambiguous in their concerns for Chinese military aggression in the region.
https://www.cfr.org/report/china-vietnam-military-clash
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/forgotten-war-how-china-was-crushed-vietnam-1979-conflict-83341
The people I talk to feel strongly (i) that Vietnam and China will fight a major war within the next 10-15 years, (ii) that the political people have decided that accommodation is the only way forward, and (iii) that the military intends to fight, and does not plan on playing to lose.
Cobo –
I suspect you are right that China was the one that pushed th 17th parallel. And apparently they convinced the Geneva Accords to go along with that. Ho Chi Minh wanted the 13th, which would have been a couple of hundred miles further south giving him the Central Highlands and a border with Cambodia. But China messed up big time by screwing over the Khmer Isaraak. Cambodia would have been 1000% better under them than under Pol Pot.
Re the China/Viet War: My understanding (poor I admit) was that China won some tactical victories, killed a lot of civilians and destroyed towns and cities, and then went home & declared victory. But strategically the Viets stayed in Cambodia for another ten years. Wasn’t that China’s main reason for starting the war? To get Viet-Nam out of Cambodia?
Thank you Sam, Leith:
The current situation in Cambodia under Hun Sen is interesting. Hun Sen is deeply connected to Vietnam and has been letting them overrun Cambodia, pushing the Khmer off of their ancestral lands. Then add in China, which is “buying” out portions of the country for its own uses. The Cambodian diaspora is vocal about their hatred for Hun Sen and what he is doing to the country and no less infuriated at the Chinese. The only hope that I see for the Khmer to regain their country is if the western powers are building a deep resistance network that can work to overthrow the current regime and push the Chinese out. The situation there looks pretty sad, and I don’t a way out.
Cobo –
Sen is part Chinese himself. As are many or the commercial and political elite within the country. That is an open door for PRC influence.
I think the Cambodians would have been 1000% better off under just about any damn random person picked from everyone in the whole world, than they were under Pol Pot.
An out in case the tooth fairy can’t be found in time: Nancy Lugosi in a last minute mixup gets to land in Tie One On. Or so it seems. (Hee hee). But no US ships pass through the straits, (or so it seems, tee hee hee), and the Chinese government claims credit for preventing it. Score: Zero Zero. Win Win. Boo hoo hooey.
They should send Hunter Biden to smoothe things over with the Chinese.
I hear conflict mediation is one of his many specialties.
It seems to me not an easy island to defend. All the valuable terrain is on the west coast. I comes down to control of the strait.
Blue Peacock, China cannot feed itself …yet. However it has made huge strides in the elimination of poverty over the last 25 years.
Yes, they should continue to focus on that. They shouldn’t contemplate invading Taiwan. That will set them back years! The Japanese, South Koreans, and the Vietnamese will want a strong response to Chinese military aggression in the South China Seas.
Deng unleashed a virtuous cycle for CCP led growth with China becoming the world’s largest manufacturer. Of course ably assisted by the greed of the western oligarchy. Xi’s reversion to Maoism to protect his hold on absolute power will likely reverse those gains.
On a visit across China in 1998, everyone, and I mean everyone was eating hardboiled eggs. Constantly. They were proud of being able to feed themselves back then, all 1.2 billion of them at the time. Obviously plenty of chickens offered sufficient protein, and then later spent out chickens became their much beloved deep fried chicken feet.
We also laughed at the tiny start up coffee company in one of the very few high rise malls in Beijing, where a first McDonalds had also opened. Why would anyone think they could sell coffee to a country that brought tea to the rest of the world? In 1998. When the family relatives would gather around a single bag of McDonald Fries, which had been purchased for their one child and then proceed to eat them with chopsticks.
Who changed more in these past two decades? China or California. My head spins. But even then there was already regular commercial intercourse between Taiwan and Mainland China, since the Taiwanese had the money to buy whatever emerging goods CCP China was now providing the rest of world. Mao’s communism was becoming Dutch mercantilism. And Suchow was more than happy to sell intricate silk embroidery panels to Taiwanese capitalists. In 1998.
I would imagine the Chinese have gathered a fair amount of dirt on Pelosi over the years, so what if they just ignore her, then dump it all into world media immediately after she leaves? Along with a lot of other US politicians, starting with our Dear Leader.
Time is on China’s side. In a century Taiwan is much weaker due to the demographic development. Ditto for the West.
Who knows who will be running the US and what their policies will be if the existing immigration policies persist for a century. Same for Europe. They made care little for Taiwan or democracy for that matter.
As for the occupation of Taiwan. You just use the ancient imperial Chinese tradition of forcing a disloyal population to other parts of China and replaced them with loyal peasants.
China would argue that forcing “Chinese” citizens from one part of China to another is an internal matter. No different than what the Turks did to the Kurds in the 1990’s. With no protests from the West.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_villages_depopulated_by_Turkey
Although the current administration in Taiwan would like to attach a huge outboard engine and sail the island away, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
In my view, the prospect of an attack on Taiwan by China is emanating mainly from the US media and establishment, which is controlled by neocon thought. When the neocons and their mouthpieces start talking about “Pearl Harbor moments”, it’s time to sit up and take notice. In October 2019, Jake Sullivan, who became U.S. National Security Advisor in 2021, stated in an interview that the U.S. needed a clear threat to rally the world and play the role of savior of mankind and that China could be that organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy. In the 2019 interview, he acknowledges that the problem was that people were not going to believe that China is a global threat, that their view of China is too positive and that the United States would need a “Pearl Harbour moment,” a real focusing event to change their minds, something he calmly stated that “would scare the hell out of the American people.”
Now, to reality. I am sitting here in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and I follow the China/Taiwan issue rather closely; it has great impact on the lives of my family and I. I interact closely with MANY Taiwanese people here in southern Taiwan, and for those who are unaware of demographics and politics, southern Taiwan is traditionally far more supportive of Taiwan independence than the north, where most of the KMT and other Chinese who lost the Chinese Civil War settled. Even here in the south, people are practical. I can not emphasize enough how much the US-driven debacle in Ukraine has opened the eyes of the people here. They are now FULLY aware that there will be NO help from the US in the case of belligerent action, besides limited material aid, which Taiwan is currently buying. People here are MUCH more aware of the economic integration between Taiwan and China. Even after the US made the rule that TSMC could not sell semiconductor wafers to Huawei and the government of Taiwan followed the order (that is the “Rules-based international order”), 43% of Taiwanese exports leave the island and cross the Taiwan Strait to China. I should mention the overall atmosphere and attitude of the people here. They do not believe that China will attack Taiwan; they see no evidence that Xi and the CCP want to attack Taiwan; they are coming around to the idea that an attack on Taiwan by China will only result AS A RESULT of US provocation.
By the way, “noted Taiwan expert Ian Easton” is a neocon shill. I see his editorials frequently here in the Taipei Times. He is among those who are trying to foment war between China and Taiwan in the hope that the US can then cobble together the international community to sanction and contain China with security agreements and sanctions protocols. Does anyone think this fact is not fully understood by Xi and the CCP?
To the US, Taiwan is a tool; no, it’s a containment tool; no, it’s a disposable containment tool.
My priority: no belligerent action in Taiwan. Negotiations between China and Taiwan WITHOUT the involvement of the US. The US is the primary danger to the safety of Taiwan. Now, let the name-calling begin.
frankie p,
Beautiful insight. I have a few questions. Do the Taiwanese speak Chinese (mandarin) and do they consider themselves Chinese? Do they think that the CCP is a menace that will swallow them or do they think that the reunification is logic? Are Hong Kong and Macao good examples, for them, how reunification can happen without too much change in the lives of the local people? Please tell us a little bit more how the locals think, not their government, but the ordinary people.
frankie p
Good to have an on the ground view from Taiwan.
Have you actually listened to that 2019 interview with Blinken? I have, and the way it has been portrayed by the Chinese propagandists (I’m here including Moon of Alabama who characteristically parroted the propaganda uncritically) is plain wrong. When asked about the possibility of rallying the American people via a Pearl Harbor like event Blinken described such thinking as “a profound mistake”. Nevertheless, he does say of turning China into the next ideological enemy “there’s something in it for everyone” in a matter of fact way that marks him out as in the ends-justify-the-means camp. And he goes on to cite the movie Independence Day as the kind of ideal rally round the flag event he is looking for, immediately after which he cites – wait for it – “climate change” and “disease” as two issues which could be used to scare Americans into behaving appropriately.
This is where we are. US foreign and domestic policy is captive to an utterly amoral set of manipulators who think the exaggeration of threats for legitimate ends is an acceptable way to herd the American people into doing what is best (best in their enlightened view of course). The cooperative media are happy to play along (there is something in it for them; viewer ratings) and so here we are, all residents of Plato’s cave where our perceptions are cynically manipulated by a class who know what is best for us. I guess it would just never occur to the Philosopher Manipulators that the American people might be quite capable of discerning what was best for themselves, if they were simply permitted to see the world as it is and order their fears on that basis.
I am quite convinced that the next major war will start as a result of a theatrical show put on for the benefit of the voters, the kind of which we are witnessing with Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. The problem with habitually manipulating the reality of others is that it is all too easy to lose touch with it oneself.
Anyone interested in the relevant part of Blinken’s 2019 interview should listen from the 19 minute mark to around 27/28 minutes.
As far as I can see, this is a perfect example of a situation that will benefit from being kicked right on down the road as long as possible. In some sense, a solution will find itself when all the people who created the initial problem are dead, and their children basically say, who cares?
“Xi Jinping could be suffering from a god complex that blinds him to the terrible risks associated with an invasion of Taiwan. A rational strategic leader would choose another course of action, such as a long campaign of coercion to isolate and blockade Taiwan,” noted Taiwan expert Ian Easton.
Ian Easton’s rhetoric is hyperbolic horse-cocky.
In regard to reunification with Taiwan – China (including Xi Jinping’s oft stated policies) has been practicing/preaching strategic patience for decades.
Side note: Peaceful reunification of Hong Kong and Macau are bright/shinning examples of Chinese strategic patience.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website jstor.org from within a book titled:
Taiwan and China: Fitful Embrace
Chapter 13, page 242 – 2nd paragraph
Xi Jinping may not want to push any further in the cross-Strait relations and may wish merely to maintain the stability of the statue quo. This is clearly suggested by Xi’s speech at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in March 2015, during which he emphasized that maintaining the 1992 Consensus as a foundation for cross-Strait relations was indispensable for peace and stability between the two sides of the Strait, while reunification was a long-term goal that could be achieved only after substantial development took place across the Taiwan Strait
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1w76wpm.16?seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website foreignaffairs.com from within a report titled:
Beijing Is Still Playing the Long Game on Taiwan
But fears of an imminent Chinese attack are misplaced. For decades, China’s policy toward Taiwan has been characterized by strategic patience, as has its approach to other territorial claims and disputes—from India to the South China Sea. Far from spurring China to jettison this approach in favor of an imminent military assault on Taiwan, the war in Ukraine will reinforce Beijing’s commitment to playing the long game. The price Moscow has paid, both militarily and in the form of international isolation, is but a fraction of what China could expect if it were to attempt to take Taiwan by force. Better to wait patiently for Taiwan’s eventual surrender, as Beijing sees it, than to strike now and risk winning the island at too high a cost—or losing it forever.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-06-23/beijing-still-playing-long-game-taiwan
Any Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan by force would be telegraphed for all the world to see weeks if not months in advance – as it marshaled the men/material to launch any such endeavor into place.
Could the Chinese resort to missile/air strikes? Yes
Could the Chinese seek to blockade/quarantine Taiwan at sea? Yes
What would China hope to achieve and to what effect?
The same question must be asked of Nancy Pelosi’s ill-timed public-relations stunt (ie visit) to Taiwan.
What does she hope to achieve?
How does her visit benefit the regions status quo?
How does her visit result in continued regional stability?
How does her visit benefit Main Street USA?
Persona,
“What does she hope to achieve?”
She has distracted attention away from $5 gas, $5 milk, baby formula shortages, Ukraine!, FBI testimony Wray is making Wednesday, the primary elections, Dutch farmer protests, the EU energy crisis over sanctions, the EU economy collapse over sanctions, and even her husband’s DUI arraignment. Plus she showed she could boss Joe Biden around and rally the neocons together for yet another provocation. After this visit does anyone still think Biden is setting US foreign policy?
As a non-foreign policy expert, why is my layperson cynicism radar going on high alert right now:
1. Confused signals about Pelosi visit to Taiwan, including a planted WH leak
2. China media lackie threatens to shoot Pelosi out of the sky – to mixed US reactions
3. Biden -inhouse “exper”t Eastman states US will not support Taiwan independence
4. UN President states we are one inadvertent mistake awayfrom nuclear annihilation
5. Biden announces he will renegotiate new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and China.
All in the span of only a few days – from zero to 160. Climate change still had a few more years before mass extinction, so Biden had to ramp things up to get our attention.
— Biden poll numbers continue to sink and US 2022 midterms ramp up, and
— Ukraine has lost its appeal or urgency, and
— Hunter’s lap top and Biden crime deals gets more exposure, and
— Even more 2020 election fraud in various states gets uncovered, and
— Pelosi family history of insider looks trading looks bad, and
—Kamala Harris continues to lazily yammer only about climate change now, plus
—Covid has played out its last FUD hand, as even liberal Beverley Hills rejects any more mask mandates from the Democrat deep state master race, and
— Monkey pox is just not going to be “Covid Zombie Apocalypse 2.0”
Perfect time for Biden to now rush in stop global annihilation by knocking heads with Putin and Xi. At last Biden puts his keen foreign policy chops on full display for the world to turn its grateful eyes to the US and Joe Biden who will save us all.
A very busy last few days ……………….
So the choice is between averting WW3 and Nancy Pelosi getting shot down? Hmm…
Gallows humor aside, if Speaker Pelosi had made this trip two years ago the CCP would have largely ignored it. How do we know? Because that’s how it handled other recent congressional delegations to Taiwan. So the globalists have struck a nerve, regardless of whether or not Nancy sets foot on Taiwan (and here’s a reminder that it’s the globalists currently running Washington, and Brussels, and London, and that Ukraine is still very much a globalist project).
Why did the CCP take the bait this time? Well, it so happens that August marks the 8th Party Congress–or somesuch–and the two main factions within the Party are squaring off for dominance of the Party and of China (and the world, as they see it). So far Comrade Winniepooh has kept a lid on things, but cracks are definitely showing. An upset is far from out of the question, and the globalists are intensely interested in the outcome.
Anyone who doesn’t understand why the globalists are so interested in internal CCP politics really ought to pay better attention to China.
Jim S –
Comrade Winniepooh? Wrong country I believe. That is the pet name used by Igor Strelkov and other Russians for Vladimir V Putin.
Leith,
This is referring to a 2013 meme that cast Winnie the Pooh as Xi and Tigger as Obama as they walked together in a California meeting. China blacklisted the bear of little brain in response. They also banned the “Christopher Robin” movie. South Park brought up the meme again in 2019 which led to renewed Chinese furor.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-comparisons
The meme was used rather affectionately by Chinese netizens in the beginning, but someone apparently thought it beneath the dignity of the Chairman’s true successor nonetheless. Only after the organs of state security declared it to be doubleminus badthink did its main usage become pejorative.
Cartoons and video clips with violin accompaniment of an old woman with a tattered flag riding a broomstick flying furiously up down and around Taiwan. Pursued by various Dr Seuss characters in biplanes. A six month media campaign. Send the trailer in an encrypted smartphone message to the Speaker of the House. Carbon Copy president, Vice President, senate leadership and major media outlets. Prediction: story goes away.
On a more serious note – the US can be made into a laughing stock over this too easily. Why? The pretense of Nancy riding her broomstick and Joe having no say over it is preposterous beyond normal comprehension. Too many questions will arise. Pocket the al-Zawahri bird’s feathers and call it a day.
Retaliate against Taiwan? Or against the US? Or against Pelosi as a person, and everything she stands for? What would Sun Tsu do?
Jake Chop Suey Clausewitz.
Pat, all I’m saying is that the Chinese may have some rather unorthodox ways of responding. Not in line with NATO-doctrine, or expertly prepared models, taking advantage of NATO’s vulnerabilities in a surprising manner.
Which could just as well be something like not doing anything, not taking the bait, and let the west figure out how to deal with growing discontent within the western world, as the people are left without Russian ‘everything’ and Chinese ‘everything’. Riding it out, so to speak. Not too long ago ‘everybody’ said Russia would collapse in no time at all without our ‘market’, and no lack of experts who are convinced that China needs us more than we need China. But what if all of that proves to be an epic failure, because of economic models which are utterly useless outside ‘Financial Capitalism’? What if they no longer need our ‘services’, and ignore our BS-ing-at-a-fee? While ‘Everything Climate’ is killing the last vestiges of agriculture and industry where we live? At this point we might benefit from turning our gaze inward to find our own weaknesses, instead of staring our opponents down like we’re in some WWE-act. But then again I might be wrong, and China might accommodate NATO and throw it a lifeline by invading Taiwan. Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure. Ukraine was not that difficult to predict, but this war with China is baffling. Why would anyone risk it? I know the RAND-corporation wrote the script in 2016, ‘Thinking through the unthinkable’, but what if the Chinese read it too, and refuse to follow the script?
Pelosi’s husband will be sentenced for his drunk driving arrest tomorrow (Wednesday 8/3). Good time for wife Nancy to be out of the Country, doing the Lord’s Work for America.
Remember when President-Elect Donald Trump took a congratulatory phone call from the President of Taiwan back in 2016 and Team Obama claimed Trump was starting WWIII with mainland China?
Well, Nancy did land in Taiwan. After all the public media leaks and the CCP threats, not going would not have been good.
Ball is now in Xi’s court.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11073085/Nancy-Pelosi-lands-Taiwan-amid-warning-pay-price-visit.html
Nancy, would you like to comment on your husband’s drunk driving sentencing?
Would like like to comment on your husband’s insider trading investigation?
Would you like to comment on how hard it was for you to foment WWII with China, instead of standing by your husband’s side in California on the exact same day?
BP,
Nancy didn’t have a choice after all the media publicity of the trip. Yeah, let’s see what Xi does after all their media belligerence.
The West needs to rapidly disengage from the CCP run China. Or else we’ll see a reprise of the German dependence on Russian energy. Trump was laughed at when he told the Germans in 2018 that their current energy policy would make them completely dependent on Russian energy. They had time then to reorient but head-in-the sand mindset and outright corruption with previous Chancellor Schroeder on the board of Gazprom has led to their current situation.
Similarly, the US needs to rapidly reshore manufacturing in all critical areas where the supply chain extends to transit through the South China Seas, which could be blocked for an extended period in the event of any military conflict.
The below paper is well worth a read.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-china-rivalry-costs-of-deglobalization-by-george-magnus-2022-06
The CCP.China/Taiwan Threat Looks very REAL and Unstable to Me…
The “T”… Water….Look Pretty “HOT” ..And Cina Has Prepped a
Full Coarse HOT Delivery..Like Pearl Harbor.. Very Public..
I Would put every Scenario..Every Option ..on The Table..for The
“BOSS”..Right Now..In Every ICC Agency We Have..You have Mulyiple Threat Events..Russian..Chinese..Middle East..Terrorist..Here and There..Assassins
Here and There…We we Are Leadless..Rudderless…Full of Holes..Like a
Leaking..Sinking Aircraft Carrier…With No one on The Bridge..
That Old Dog..Licking His Bowls Again..Huh Joe..
JT