GRANT NEWSHAM
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been clear that he intends to get Taiwan – one way or another. He has good reasons. It would establish Xi as one of the immortals by accomplishing something Mao Tse Tung couldn’t.
By taking Taiwan, China breaks through the first island chain – the island nations stretching from Japan to Taiwan and on to the Philippines and Malaysia – that constrain China’s freedom of access to the Pacific and beyond. Break the chain and the PLA then gets easy access to the Pacific and potentially can surround Japan, cut off Australia and move onwards. These are operational advantages.
As important are the political and psychological advantages. Take Taiwan and Beijing has demonstrated the US military couldn’t save the 23 million free people of Taiwan. Neither could American economic and financial pressure. And US nuclear weapons didn’t stop China either.
In capitals all over Asia, the calculus will change and many will cut the best deals they can and turn “red” overnight rather than try to withstand Chinese pressure on their own. The United States will be finished as a Pacific power. And globally nobody will trust a US promise of protection – explicit or implicit.
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