China to fight at all costs for reunification with Taiwan: Defense Minister

The Hindu ^ | 2 June 2019 | Reuters

[Cronos]

Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe salutes attendees ahead of the fourth plenary session of the 18th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual defense and security forum in Asia, in Singapore, on Sunday, June 2, 2019.   | Photo Credit: AP

Interference on Taiwan “doomed to failure”; Wei says war with U.S. would be a disaster

China will fight anyone who tries to interfere in its “reunification” with Taiwan, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday in a combative speech peppered with threats against the United States over its military presence in Asia.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia's premier defence summit, Mr. Wei said China would “fight to the end” if anyone tried to split China from Taiwan, which Beijing considers a sacred territory to be taken by force if necessary.

China has been incensed by recent moves by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to increase support for self-ruled and democratic Taiwan, including U.S. Navy sailings through the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from mainland China.

“No attempts to split China will succeed. Any interference in the Taiwan question is doomed to failure,” said Mr. Wei, dressed in his uniform of a general in the People's Liberation Army.

“If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military has no choice but to fight at all costs ... The U.S. is indivisible, and so is China. China must be, and will be, reunified.”

The United States, like most countries, has no formal ties with Taiwan, but is its strongest backer and main source of weapons.

China translates the word “tong yi” as “reunification”, but it can also be translated as “unification”, a term in English preferred by supporters of Taiwan independence who point out the Communist government has never ruled Taiwan and so it cannot be “reunified”.

China-U.S. ties have become increasingly strained due to a bitter trade war, U.S. support for Taiwan and China's muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.

On Saturday, acting U.S. Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan told the Shangri-La meeting that the United States would no longer “tiptoe” around Chinese behaviour in Asia.

In May, Taiwan's national security chief David Lee met White House national security adviser John Bolton, marking the first meeting in more than four decades between senior U.S. and Taiwanese security officials.

Taiwan is gearing up for presidential elections in January, and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly accused Beijing of seeking to undermine Taiwan's democracy and has vowed to defend the island and its freedoms.

Self-defence

Mr. Wei, the first Chinese defence minister to speak at the Shangri-La Dialogue since 2011, said its military operations in Asia were purely aimed at self-defence, but it would not hesitate to counter an attack on its interests.

“China will not attack unless we are attacked,” Mr. Wei said, cautioning that there would be dire consequences to any clash between China and the United States.

“The two sides realise that conflict, or a war between them, would bring disaster to both countries and the world.”

Mr. Wei, in a clear reference to the United States, also said: “Some countries from outside the region come to the South China Sea to flex muscles in the name of freedom of navigation.”

On the ongoing trade war, which has shaken financial markets around the world, Mr. Wei said China would “fight to the end” if the United States wanted a fight. But if Washington wanted to talk, “we will keep the door open”.

[Cronos]

Sabre-rattling for a trade deal?

[cba123]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Vendome]

So now they want to steal a sovereign nation?

[LeoWindhorse]

We should have nuked them back to the stone age in 1949 , when only WE had the bomb

[LeoWindhorse]

Ask any Tibetan how they feel about their forced ‘reunification’ with the PRC chinks .....

[dp0622]

Truman thought it was better to have our men face a zillion chinese in NK than to use WEAPONS that only we had.

They were SO unafraid of Truman that they poured in no our men.

KNOWING that we had the bomb.

Talk about a lack of respect for an American president by a foreign country.

What a shame.

[PIF]

Its not the lack of respect for an American President, its the lack of respect got human life - a condition that prevails in most of the world.

[LeoWindhorse]

MacArthur and LeMay should have defied Truman and just done it .

[Does so]

Truman was known to have rejected use of The Bomb.

It was said (here at FR), it was Britain's gay spies of the "Cambridge Group" Intel of Truman's reticence that was relayed to China.

So instead, we lost 45,000 troops in the Korean "War".

[Gen.Blather]

“So now they want to steal a sovereign nation?”

Well, no. Taiwan never declared independence since they maintained the fiction that they would one day take over China again and reunite. China has always said that Taiwan was a rogue province and they would reassert control. Several times the issue has come up that Taiwan should declare independence. Each time China has threatened war.

What Taiwan needs is nuclear weapons. But any attempt to develop them would surely precipitate a war as it would be impossible to develop them without China’s knowledge. China has publicly stated a policy that they would nuke Taiwan at the beginning of any war. Of course, China has said the same thing about America.

The best possible source for the security nuclear weapons would promise is to buy a preloaded delivery system complete from the Indians. India has a motive to supply such a system, the deterrence would be the US reaction to such a deal. Also, it’s unlikely the Indians could keep it secret either and such a deal might precipitate a war.

Imagine the situation we have here where the Democrats, for domestic reasons, were willing to push the US into war with Russia to cover their embarrassment over losing to Trump. Transfer that kind of idiocy to a Chinese leader threatened with loss of face over blustery and intemperate statements about Taiwan. I was surprised that Taiwan survived the Obama presidency as his passivity must have emboldened every dictator on Earth. Now, imagine Congress has saddled whoever is president with a no-first-use law.

Frankly, if I was Taiwanese, I’d immigrate someplace safer.

[MrEdd]

Taiwan has had nuclear weapons for three decades.
That is why China didn’t invade during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

[Gen.Blather]

“Taiwan has had nuclear weapons for three decades.”

The problem with “secret” weapons is they have no deterrent value. This is why the Pentagon issues pictures of almost every new development. It’s because the largest value of a weapon, in today’s world, is that the enemy knows you have it, which reduces the possibility you might need to actually use it.

If China believed Taiwan had an effective nuclear weapons delivery system and the weapons ready to go, they would have calmed down the face-damaging rhetoric decades ago and instead adopted a brotherly love approach. The consumer of the rhetoric is the Chinese populace, which is continually being primed for war with Taiwan. That approach would be suicidal if Taiwan had the weapons and China knew it.

[Gay State Conservative]

I'm convinced that the Butchers of Beijing are perfectly willing to destroy Taiwan in order to “save” it.

[Gay State Conservative]

+1000

[Rumplemeyer]

China knows full well that any aggression against Taiwan would result in the closing of American markets and the collapse of their economy.

Resulting in civil war and the end of the current government.

[MrEdd]

They aren't secret anymore than the Israeli nuclear arsenal was secret though.

Officially pretending things don't exist doesn't make them truly secret, and if they were not a deterrent then the mainland would have taken over Taiwan when their bought and paid for butt boy was president during the nineties.

In the early eighties Taiwan was testing its nuclear warheads, and it rattled the communists. They began gearing up and the SR-71s flew a heavy schedule of missions out of Kadena monitoring them.

Reagan held a meeting with the Taiwanese and the detonations stopped. Pretty all of us in theater concluded that Taiwan was given proven designs so they wouldn't need continued testing.

It produced thirty five years of reduced aggression from the mainland.

[beancounter13]

I think maybe it’s time we parked TWO carrier groups just east of Taiwan and a few dozen subs in the Taiwan Straight. Once done, President Trump could unilaterally declare recognition of the Independent State of Taiwan.

What could go wrong?

[beancounter13]

p.s. Isn’t that how we effectively handled Panama?

[beancounter13]

p.p.s. With the Chinese scrambling, hoping to drag out the ‘trade war’ until a new president is elected in the U.S., NOW would be the perfect time to go on offense.

[Uncle Miltie]

All Costs = Nuke Peking.

Okay dokey.