John Grady
War in the Western Pacific would shatter global economies, run the risk of spreading nuclear conflict and leave half a million “deaths of despair” in its wake, the senior American commander in the Indo-Pacific told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
When asked why Americans should care about Taiwan’s future, Adm. Samuel Paparo said closing the waterway separating it from China, one of the world’s major trading channels, could be more devastating than the Great Depression in the 1930s globally. It would also expose the United States’ dependence on Taipei for semiconductor production, essential to modernizing and growing the domestic economy.
Chinese aggressive military actions toward the self-governing island have increased by 300 percent. As he has noted in the past, these are “not exercises but rehearsals” for a possible forcible takeover.
War in the region Paparo said, could produce “a 25 percent reduction in GDP [gross domestic product] in Asia, an effect of 10 to 12 per GDP reduction in the United States of America, unemployment spiking at 7 to 10 percent” above normal levels “and 500,000 excess deaths of despair.”
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