Taiwan Situation Going From Bad To Worse As China Preps For War

Taiwan Situation Going From Bad To Worse As China Preps For War

Taiwan made big headlines last August and earlier this year when China did mini blockades and US officials met with Taiwanese leaders. Since then, it’s largely been out of the news. But the situation is deteriorating at an alarming rate. 

The US has essentially thrown its official policy since 1979 in the trash can and is provoking China in the worst possible way. 

Meanwhile, China has shown every possible indication of preparing for war in the next 18 months, with three identifiable windows for action. China will HAVE to act to secure its interests and save face. It has gotten so dangerous for them that there is no way they will let this continue.

What has happened in the past few months? 

Not a lot of good news. First, a document that we have discussed before emerged from the Chinese Foreign Ministry called “US Hegemony and Its Perils”. 

It’s a comprehensive indictment of US policy in all fields, and essentially a call for the US to stop messing around in the Chinese sphere of influence. This is about as close to a declaration of war without saying it as we have ever seen. Some journalists with a better understanding of Chinese history have said that it’s closely patterned off of ancient Chinese official declarations of war, and so is in fact a start of war. But we cannot confirm that. If it is, Taiwan is going to be the first battlefield.

Then the Chinese have refused to talk to the US Defense Department on multiple occasions. Anthony Blinken and Janet Yellen went groveling to China in the past month, and came back with nothing.

This statement was released in May, which shows just how determined Chinese officials are. When will people accept this language at face value? It never makes the front page of the New York Times.

From the article:

A recent increase in exchanges between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries is an “extremely wrong and dangerous move,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei said in a statement and video posted online.

China’s People’s Liberation Army “continues to strengthen military training and preparations and will resolutely smash any form of Taiwanese independence secession along with attempts at outside interference, and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Tan said, in a reference to Taiwan’s closest ally, the United States.

But the headline that is certain to make China act came last week. The Taiwanese Foreign Minister revealed that the island nation has been talking to the US about joining its ‘nuclear shield’ policy.

To call this a redline for China would be the understatement of the year. This a red alert for China! This is de facto recognizing Taiwan as a nation, arming it with potential nuclear weapons, 100 miles off the Chinese coast. And it means that in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, the USA would use nuclear weapons against China itself. China cannot allow this, similar to the red alert for Russia of NATO ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

The timing is pretty clear, as it was rehearsed last year and we have discussed before. 

Weather wise, the only two windows that are open for invading Taiwan are in March and in October. If China wanted to have an effective invasion in October, it would be best to blockade the island ahead of time. We guess that a two or three month blockade would be more than enough to see the island deprived of food and fuel and vulnerable to a quick strike. 

The Chinese have rehearsed a blockade several times in the past two years and constantly fly airplanes into Taiwanese air space, so they would be prepared to implement this. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry releases statements like this daily, showing the amount of incursion.

The Military Scenarios from Here

So starting around early August into November, be prepared for tensions to skyrocket. 

And then two more windows next year- next April and next October. 

China has essentially two ways to retake Taiwan. The first is a blockade to starve them out, as Taiwan is a huge importer of food and energy. The second would be to launch a quick, massive strike rapidly followed by an amphibious invasion when the conditions look right. The initial strike would be a massive, Desert Storm style bombardment to knock out all the key points on the island and the innumerable artillery and military systems dotting the island.

After that initial strike, China would have to capture and hold the impressively fortified beaches of Taiwan. That task is formidable – it would take 3 to 5 days just to transport all the troops and equipment to be able to land, and then would have to be continually resupplied for weeks in order to establish a beachhead. They would almost certainly have to seize a port in order to make this operation work. From there, it could move on the two major cities and major transportation points.

These two are not mutually exclusive- it could be a blockade followed by an invasion weeks later, or a blockade could be a complement to the invasion.

Without foreign assistance, the Chinese Navy and Air Force would ground down Taiwanese troops, given the vast discrepancy between population size and military capabilities. There would be fierce fighting at the landing sights. China would have to send more waves of troops, similar to the Korean war. But Taiwan would eventually run out of the supplies to conduct a war.

We encourage anyone looking to dig into this more thoroughly to hit the Project 2049 website or read their book The China Invasion Threat by Ian Easton. It goes through all scenarios and variables in great detail and we rely on it much of its findings.

The Global Response

How would the rest of the world react, if we one day woke up with Chinese missiles and jets raining over Taiwan and troops on boats? First, let us remind you before the media muddies the water: No nation has an obligation to do a thing to help Taiwan. Let’s go through the major players’ strategy piece by piece.

Taiwan itself has several advantages and a few disadvantages. The country has a massive geographical advantage in the initial stages even though the island is only about the size of the state of Maryland. The first advantage is that it has many small islands between itself and any coming Chinese invasion forces. All of these are rocky, small, and filled with weapons systems that could harm the incoming Chinese troops – the three green island chains are owned by Taiwan.

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