Posted on 04/27/2005 6:00:47 PM PDT by CHARLITE
What will America do if someday China attacks Taiwan? Beijing recently authorized the use of force if Taiwan ever declares its independence. America has a defense treaty with Taiwan, but honoring that treaty would likely mean war with China.
Even though the Taiwanese have never been ruled by the People's Republic of China, the mainland has made absorbing Taiwan a national crusade. And China's new anti-secession law now gives the Chinese military the green light to attack Taiwan if the island pursues formal independence.
Taiwan says the new law is tantamount to preparation for war. And that could mean war for the United States, which has pledged to defend Taiwan. Although most analysts say the U.S. would defeat the Chinese in a conventional conflict, the fighting might not remain conventional.
Defense expert John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, said, “At the end of the day, China may gamble that it cares more about Taiwan than the United States does, and if the United States is faced with a choice between backing down on Taiwan and seeing Chinese atomic bombs detonating over American cities, that the United States will back down.”
How might a Chinese attack unfold? The prospect of a giant Normandy-like invasion has been jokingly dismissed as the "million man swim," because China does not yet have enough naval vessels to transport a large invasion force across the Taiwan Strait. Experts say a quick decapitation strike is more likely.
Pike commented, “China's strategy, I think, would be a missile attack on Taiwan's airfields, which are not well defended, hoping to seize air dominance.”
This would allow for the insertion of Special Forces, who would seize key command and control sectors. The publication Jane’s Defense suggests that Chinese sleeper cells, already on the island, would move into action, assassinating key leaders and attacking radar and communication facilities.
It says that China might even preemptively hit U.S. bases in the Pacific, believing war with the U.S. is inevitable. Chinese forces would then seek to install a new government within a week, one that would tell the U.S. Navy to go home.
Dan Blumenthal was Senior Director for China and Taiwan under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Now with the American Enterprise Institute, Blumenthal remarked, “Beijing strategists are thinking about it this way: Taiwan will fold quickly. You can make them come to their knees quickly, not necessarily by invading Taiwan, but by launching ballistic missiles at Taiwan, there are many, many pointed at Taiwan right now -- by trying to bring down their critical infrastructure, by making it seem like the Taiwan government has lost control. [And by] using information and computer network attacks, and blockading the island, starving it from its economic resources.”
Pike said, “I think that Taiwan's military strategy is to hold out for the week that it would take American forces to arrive in large numbers. China's military strategy has to be to have a government in power in Taipei before the end of that first week, [one] that tells the American military to go away -- we're happy that we've rejoined China.”
But China also hopes to win without ever firing a shot. The Chinese military classic, "The Art of War", says that the height of military skill is to conquer without the use of military force, and that seems to be precisely what China is trying to do to Taiwan.
China employs a skillful version of the carrot and the stick, aiming 700 ballistic missiles at the island, while building trade and cultural ties with it. Some feel that time is on Beijing's side, and peaceful unification is inevitable.
But from a military standpoint, Taiwan is too strategically important to simply give to China. And if the U.S. does not intervene on Taiwan's behalf, there are growing indications that Japan just might.
Blumenthal says that the U.S. needs to make sure such a war never starts in the first place. He said, “Making it clear to the Chinese that this is a disastrous course for them, if they want to become a great power, a great economic power. This will backfire on them in a very big way.”
And it could backfire in a way most analysts never expected. Beijing has made unification such a big deal, that if it fails to defeat Taiwan and the United States, its tremendous loss of credibility in the eyes of its own people could shake the nation to its very core.
Blumenthal does not mince words, “If the Chinese government goes down this path and loses, I think that it's likely that the government will fall.”
And Taiwan might not be the pushover that Beijing assumes it is. Taiwan has some of America's best weaponry, and has vowed a counter strike against Chinese cities if it is attacked.
Pike remarked, “There's always the possibility that somebody on one side or the other is going to misread the situation, and suddenly we find ourselves in a much more serious crisis than anybody had anticipated.”
Washington hopes that Beijing is aware of the risks, because experts say a war over Taiwan is simply too dangerous to be fought.
This is "hot" -- a copy should go to Tom Clancy as an outline of his next novel -- :-) You never know about communist China..I hope our intel systems have become a priority now (post-9/11) and we are getting better info.
Why would anyone listen to a thing this guy has to say? Unless to do the opposite?
The good thing about this scenario is that N. Korea would then be a virtual freebie for us.
I think this is most likely, although not certain. However, I also think that, counter-intuitive as it may be--China could be changed by reunification more than Taiwan.
John Quincy Adams 1821:
And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
Basically, the chicoms must be made to answer this question: "Are you claiming to own an island, or are you claiming to own 30 million people who moved to that island to avoid living under your fubar government, along with their technological and industrial infrastructure?"
I don't see how we can defend Taiwan in perpetuity given it's location, nonetheless it's not obvious we should have to. None of the nationalist Chinese have any more than about 60 years history of living on that island, and we own lots of islands. The basic idea would be to take everything we have which moves over water, pick a particularly dark night, and move the Nationalist Chinese along with as much of their machinery and infrastructure as can be moved all back 6000 miles away from the coast of China either to one of our own island possessions or to that northwest corner of Australia which is mainly populated by poisonous snakes and estuarian crockadiles and then tell the fricking chicoms if they want an island (Taiwan), hey! feel free, rejoice dear hearts, it's all yours.
The Taiwanese would be back in business as if nothing had happened in less than six months and the chicoms would be snaffed.
Peter Schultz, CEO of Porsche, once noted that the only asset a company like Porsche really had which was meaningful was its people. He noted that you could bomb the entire plant to ashes and dust and if the people survived, they'd be building cars again in less than two years. Take away the people on the other hand, and the plant would revert to forest in the same time. The Taiwanese people of course aren't into heavy manufacturing far as I know, and the tools for making microchips and circuit boards would have to be easier to move and transport on ships than machine tools and the wherewithal for building Porsches.
"She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, . The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force...."
There it is.
UN, NATO, WTO, GATT, NAFTA, Defense Treaties, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom
You forgot the urban renewal project. The instant urban renewal. The island would probably stop glowing in a few weeks, but wouldn't be a garden spot for quite a while.
I think you're right about that. I commented years ago when the Hong Kong lease expired and was transferred back to China, that Hong Kong would ultimately affect China more than China would affect Hong Kong.
China is getting close to the point where they will have become capitalist more than they thought, are dependent on the markets they have for their products, and they will not be able to afford to do anything "unacceptable" in the eyes of the rest of the world.
I once moved a family of four 800 miles. I don't think your idea of moving 30 million people in a single night is workable. You couldn't do it in a year...even if they were all willing.
Taiwan is the 2nd largest recipient of arms sales from the US in the entire world. If i remember right, 5018 BILLION dollars worth of weapons have been sold to them so far. Also, President Bush has said that the 1980's "6 standards" treaty that Reagan sent to Taiwan WILL be upheld. He said this in January 2005. Again, if i recall, one of the stipulations of the "6 standards" agreement is that the US WILL defend Taiwan if it is ever invaded.
My foreign policy prof is from china and was on Reagan's advisory board in the 80's, i feel so lucky to have a prof that isn't a total douche bag!
Just like ungreatful western europe was in the Cold War Taiwan will be defended (so long as there is no RAT in office at least).
It's funny how the people who say we don't have an empire suggest we have to defend the world.
Not the world. Just our allies. Taiwan is one of them.
"It's funny how the people who say we don't have an empire suggest we have to defend the world."
i wouldn't define having an empire as simply coming to another country's aid. I'm sure kuwait was happy we were there to lend a hand
Is there no difference between allies and empire?
Wal-mart purchased $18 billion worth of Chinese goods last year. Wal-mart had $288 billion worth of sales last year. All goods imported to the U.S. in 2004 from China only equalled $196 billion dollars. You don't know what you're talking about, you're just mindlessly repeating some nimrod who bashes a successful American company that satisfies millions of consumers.
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