This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
China-Japan Before China-Taiwan
By EconMatters
Some long time readers probably know I occasionally write about Asian geopolitics related to China and Taiwan. Since Taiwan typically goes under the radar of major news media, I usually google browse both Chinese and English news about Taiwan. Over the weekend, I came across one disturbing piece of article by Hugh White who's a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Excerpt below:
[T]he harsh reality is that no country is going to sacrifice its relations with China in order to help Taiwan...... China is simply too important economically, and too powerful militarily, for anyone to confront it on Taiwan's behalf.......
Even more worryingly, this reality does not yet seem to have sunk in in Washington.... Any US effort to support Taiwan militarily against China would be almost certain to escalate into a full-scale US-China war and quite possibly a nuclear exchange. That would be a disaster for everyone....far worse than reunification [for the people of Taiwan itself].......
Everybody Scared of China?
The article basically tells the world to give a nod of approval to an act of invasion to appease China as everybody is in dire need of China's money and helpless against China since "China can sink the carriers, and their economies are so intertwined that trade sanctions of the kind the US used against Russia recently are simply unthinkable."
Simpleton Defeatist
Judging from the lack of action by the international community against Russia in Russo-Georgian War in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, I should not be too shocked by this kind of defeatist mentality that is all too prevalent. What I find ludicrous is that a university professor specialized in strategic studies would come up with a view so simplistic and as un-strategic as one can get.
White thinks "Taiwanese overestimate the international support they can rely on if Beijing decides to get tough", but he obviously gives too much credit to China's resolve to go to war with the U.S. over Taiwan, and under-estimate the alternatives of a non-military war.
Let's just ask this 'strategic' question -- Is it even plausible that China would go all nuke on the U.S. over Taiwan?
Nobody Wants A Military War
The fact is that NOBODY, China and U.S. included, wants to go to a military war, let along a nuclear one, regardless what the justification is. In this day and age, non-military alternatives are often employed to avoid an outright war. Look at how Russian economy suffered from sanctions and low oil price directly threatening Putin's political position (Conspiracy theorists long posit that the current oil price war is actually a pact between Saudi and the U.S. to crush Russia.)
What International Support?
Next, I'm going to respond to White's comment regarding 'Taiwanese overestimate the international support'.
Due to the island's political tension with China for the past 65 years, Taiwan has experienced countless betrayals and back-stabbing by many so-called allies. So Taiwan has long learned not to rely on the 'international support', while striving for an independent economy and national defense (Taiwan has never asked or needed international handout like, for example, Greece).
Nothing's Free in This World
Don't think for one second that the support from the U.S. in the past 3 Taiwan Strait Crisis as purely honoring the commitment the U.S. made to the people in Taiwan via the Taiwan Relations Act (of course, it'd still look pretty bad if the U.S. were to break its own Congressional Act.)
Bear in mind, the 'apparent support' from the U.S. in the form of defense weapon or equipment is not a freebie. In order to beef up its own defense against potential military threat from China, Taiwan's purchase has benefited many companies in American and European defense industry (It is well known in Taiwan that the selling price is always jacked way up, which I guess is the 'China Risk Premium').
Most importantly, Taiwan has something the U.S. needs.
As noted in my previous post, currently, the U.S. can't really do anything about China's increasing military and financial (i.e. AIIB) influence over the region. But U.S. has a gaping hole in its regional defense layer exposing U.S. Guam, Hawaii, even the U.S. West Coast to direct threat from China. Taiwan is the only friendly suitable and effective response to China plugging that hole in the U.S. regional defense network.
The continued existence of Taiwan (or the Republic of China) as a free, democratic and independent state is a chess move the entire international community, not just the U.S. cannot afford not to make.
China-Japan Before China-Taiwan
My observation is that China would leave Taiwan status quo as long as Beijing 'feels' Taiwan is part of China. So China may become difficult with Taiwan's presence in international settings, and may act aggressively towards any local island independent movements, but would unlikely resort to actual military actions against Taiwan (although Communist China did try some 60 years ago when Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist government first retreated to Taiwan).
In fact, the increasing nationalism in Japan, the visit by Japan cabinet members, including Abe, to pay respect to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, and the ongoing dispute over diaoyu islands, probably anger China more than Taiwan could ever achieve.
Japan has been a long-time ally of the U.S. who almost always has Japan's back. So Mr. White should spend more of his energy 'strategizing' how Washington and the international community should best handle the 'delicate' scenario should a war or military conflict break out between China and Japan instead of a China-Taiwan scenario described in his article.
© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | Free Email | Kindle
- advertisements -



The last battle between China & Taiwan was the Battle of Kinmen Island in which the Nationalists stopped the invading communist forces & protected Taiwan from a full invasion. Since then, there has been small skirmishes & almost none today.
The first aerial kill between jets using air-to-air missiles happened between the Taiwanese & chinese. An F-86 Sabre shot down a Mig-15 using a Sidewinder missile.
This is an interesting program about a Japanese general helping the Nationalists defeating the communists although his feat was erased from history books. It's in Japanese but very informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgxKmScdT_s
Assuming the story is true (I don't understand Japanese and didn't watch the video), it's quite understandable that KMT (not Taiwanese) omitted it in history texts - after all, KMT forces lost millions on the battle field in their disasterous campagin against the Communists before being forced to retreat to Taiwan. Besides, the Communists back then didn't have a navy and air force. Attempts to cross the Taiwan Strait with fishing boats and sanpans were not much of a challenge.
BTW, the first air to air missile kill had occurred elsewhere, before the encounter between KMT and Communist jets. Sidewinder wasn't the first air to air missile used in battles.
It takes just a couple of days to get a 10 year visa for China... just a data point that indicates how normalized relations currently are.
My guess is that if motivated, it would only take 2 to 3 years for the US to re-create sufficient manufacturing infrastructure to replace the absence of China as a trading partner... and it would all be state-of-the-art. We might not have the diversity of choices but we would have brand new robotic factories and still have sufficient access to raw materials.
By necessity the EPA and other government entities would be gutted and it would be a boom time for the US.
Neither the Chinese leaders nor the globalists want to see this happen. They want a US that is weak and dependent on Asia.
What I find ludicrous is your Russia bashing, EconMatters.
Look at how Russian economy suffered from sanctions and low oil price directly threatening Putin's political position .
Yes, pushed Putin's approval rating up to 84% and allowed him to tighten his grip on power even more, it also pushed China and Russia much closer enabling them to finalize several important agreements in their favor.
That will teach him a lesson!!
China-US before China-Japan. Gold-Paper before China-US.
I used to worry about China someday invading New Zealand. I recently realized I dont have to worry, they have already bought it!!!
It is the USA that owns NZ. The 5eyes crap and the sending of troops to support USA in its aggression in Vietnam and Iraq shows you which global hegemon wants to keep NZ in line. Moneyed Chinese buying property is pretty international these days. Zero Hedge has reported recently wealthy Americans are buying properties with airstrips in NZ. What is the difference what country the wealthy pricks come from
Man, I'm so sick of hear about how China is a military threat to anyone but the smallest of it's near neighbors.
The author of this article is easily one of the biggest ignorant / brain dead simpletons in the world.
Should we allow rubbish articles like this on Zerohedge??
It is rubbish....In peace time, that's how all countries say.
But in war time, they wouldn't hesitate to unleash their firepower.
Liberate Tibet.
And Siberia for the Siberians, not the rapacious European overlords.
Heh, heh, heh... Not even my troop's dumbest burro could think up such a moronic endeavor...
Japan needs to tell the current facist US to fuck off, stop printing money as ordered and sign a treaty with China and Russia.
Well, it's going to be hard. Anyone who dare do that will be eliminated in no time. The Japanese government is firmly in the grips of Washington. Japan's status as a US vassal will not change in the foreseeable future.
The part that worries me is that a Taiwan war is avoidable with good diplomacy. Unfortunately, we are short of good diplomats. The idiots that brought you the Iraqi war should have been tried as war criminals.
John Kerry:
Horse in a China Shop.
I have to disagree with the author's assumption that Taiwan will be left to fight alone.
An increasingly assertive China has been piling up a solid phalanx of alarmed neighbors--
Border incursions with India
High-handedness with Burma
Invasion of Vietnamese territorial waters
Invasion of Philippine territorial waters
Promises, or threats, to reabsorb Taiwan.
Continued support for crazy North Korea who constantly provokes South Korea
Long festering disputes with Japan on a whole raft of subjects.
China is utterly dependent on the sea lanes for critical supplies, yet it has aggravated the entire string of nations sitting athwart its sea communications. All of these nations are increasingly swallowing their worries of American colonialism because of the promise of support offered by the US Navy.
As every one of these nations begin to rearm (against who else but China?) and sweeten up relations with Washington, China's military and particularly naval position is continuously eroding from an already very weak one.
China is a box at the very far end of the world's communications lines. It is surrounded by an arc of increasingly worried and increasingly vigilant neighbors, who are backed by the largest military force, particularly air and naval, in the world.
The trickle of access that can flow across the Trans-Siberian railway is utterly insignificant in regards to China's peacetime requirements, much less its wartime needs. Cutting China's sea lanes would prove catastrophic.
China needs several decades of niceness to its neighbors while it builds a credible blue water navy able to fight against the USN plus all of its NATO supporting cohorts.
It won't happen. China is in too much of a hurry for a lot of internal economic and political reasons.
Lunatic article from people who want to think globally but have no knowledge whatsoever about the local situation.
There is no "international community" supporting Washington. It died in the cinders in the 2000 useless wars of the Middle East.
Japan is sinking contrary to the old days boasting of "unsinkable Carrier" and Abe will soon follow in the steps of his absurd Abenomics which is only hastening the process.
Europe? Well, it will be too busy over the coming years over its long delayed restructuring for even caring to support anything beyond kicking Africans out of its shore.
China has no right whatsoever upon Taiwan: It was before 1949 a non Chinese Island populated by non Chinese people, just as the Ryukyus. But neither has the US any rights upon Hawaii, Guam or Saipan. These islands where just grabbed at opportune times.
Feable attempts after the 2WW to create an international community have long disipated on the heap of forelone dreams. Naked American imperialism will be confronted by naked Chinese Imperialism. Vassal states will acquice or knowtow to whichever nation but no independant country could ever support either position!
Ethnic Chinese from the mainland coastal provinces settled on Taiwan before the Mayflower arrived in the USA. They've been the dominate population there for over 200 years, so yes, China's claim to Taiwan is much stronger than most current territorial disputes. Or do you believe Taiwan belongs to the Polynesians that were there beforehand?
Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese who currently live there. It has never been a part of the territory under the physical control of the PRC ever. So who do you think it belongs to?
Nope. There is no chance China would go all Newt on Taiwan. Newts are expensive. Geckos, maybe.
I assume that was the question, since nuclear power plants are hard to use in a war.
Gecko wrestling is fun to watch.
1) Taiwan is no friend of the U.S.
2) In a fight between Taiwan and China, China would suffer major hurt.
"...But U.S. has a gaping hole in its regional defense layer exposing U.S. Guam, Hawaii, even the U.S. West Coast to direct threat from China..."
So they think China is going to sail across thousands of miles of the Pacific and attack the US unopposed ??
Lunatic thinking to justify more MIC spending.