Turns out this may not be so hypothetical after all. With everything going on all over the world for the US military at the moment, what would happen if China decides to pull the trigger and take back Taiwan? Since Taiwan is such a bastion of capitalism right off the godless Commies’ coast, would we have any choice but to intervene? Will we risk a direct conflict with China when we’re already executing operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Philippines, as well as attempting to get a handle on Iraq?
What would be the international consequences of open hostilities on behalf of Taiwan?
By the way, our very own super_head just gave me a heart attack by forwarding a fictitious headline to me: “TAIPEI - Chinese warships reported to be approaching Taiwan. Details to come.” I think I shall kill him.
In any given conflict involving Taiwan & China, you must assume a naval war.
In any given naval war, even a fraction of the US Navy can wax the @ss of the entire Chinese Fleet, plus their Air Force to boot.
Might depend on the attack. If Beijing sent warships heading for Taiwan, about to invade, I think the US would draw the good old quarantine “do not cross” line around the island, backed up by sending navy units there (then again, I wonder whether there would be enough time for this, since China is not that far away from Taiwan and the ships would reach the island pretty quickly). On the other hand, since the attack would require some preparations, maybe Washington would know some time (days? weeks?) in advance there’s something going on (concentration of Chinese navy and troops on the coast, etc) and could make its decisions, consisting (I suppose) in the quarantine line and maybe sending ground units to Taiwan to show the Chinese the US are protecting the island. This would be likely to deter Beijing, since an invasion would result in direct combat between Chinese and American troops which would not be very desirable. The Soviet Union always tried to avoid this in the Cold War.
You almost might as well ask what the US would do if Germany invaded Poland again. It ain’t gonna happen in this world (well, with perhaps one unlikely and slow-unfolding scenario below). Beijing needs Taipei as a business partner as much as the reverse is true. You hear all the traditional, face-preserving boilerplate bluster that’s been going on for ages, but not nearly as much about all the business deals the same people are working. Probably the fundamental rule of business is that you don’t kill your customers, or your partners. Ignore the rhetoric - it’s simply a tradition in cross-straits relations. Watch the actions.
But here’s the only way I can see this working: Bush’s saber-rattling encourages the long-marginalized militarist right wing (the one in Beijing, that is, not Washington) to execute a coup. They try sending the PLA (huge but poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly motivated) against everyone they don’t like, in a failed repeat of the failed Cultural Revolution. To try to prop up their legitimacy, they prop up an external enemy (sound familiar? it’s an ancient tactic), and send those poor bastards across 200 miles of open water against a large island that’s ready for them. Historically-gigantic fiasco. Democratic countercoup. Back to normal. Argentina would stand a better chance trying to take the Falklands again.
So the thing to worry about is Bush’s nuclear saber rattling, just like the “rogue countries” he denounces except he’s actually doing it.
Taiwan has been preparing to repel an invasion for over 50 years. China still does not have a sea born invasion fleet capable of landing the massive amounts of troops required to invade. It is also highly likely that Taiwan has the bomb, and would take out a few of the major Chinese cities in the event of an invasion and then China would nuke Taiwan and it would be all over. That’s MAD for you.
A much more scary scenario is that China harrassess shipping in a game of chicken.
If China really wanted to mess with everyone, they would retake Quemoy, which is right off of their coast.
Or China has come to the realization that they have effectively hollowed out at least half of the Taiwanese economy and certainly within the next 1-2 decades Taiwan’s economy will be largely integrated with China. So, China could try an invasion that will not succeed at a massive cost in terms of international trade and investment as well as destroying the island they want to regain OR China can just wait an let economic integration drive a political solution.
Heh, heh, heh. That’s why those simple-minded Canadians shouldn’t be so complacent! Sure, it’s been 188 years already, but mark my words, the US will finish the holy mission of North American reunification that we started in 1812!
Well, the first thing I’d do is grab my passport and my cash and flee the country. That’s my reaction.
However, like China Guy said, the two economies will soon be irrevocably linked. There is considerable debate right now in Taiwan about the closer links between the two countries. Former President Lee Teng-hui has been going around the country accusing the KMT (his former party) of selling out Taiwan to China. Tax breaks are being proposed for companies that stay in Taiwan rather than move to China. According to this article, about 75 per cent of Taiwanese businesses had operations in the mainland.
There doesn’t seem to be much talk about an invasion here. Most people are focussing on economic problems rather than military ones. Personally, I think that full economic integration with China is inevitable at this stage, probably within the next 10 years.
China is not some military giant as most people seem to think. They’re actually really really weak when it comes to force projection. They can’t do anything outside their own borders.
The Taiwanese air force is technically superior to the Chinese by a generation or better. China has no real naval carrying capacity - so even if there were no air force to defend, and no navy (Taiwan isn’t a slouch in that department either), China couldn’t ferry enough men across to forcibly take Taiwan.
The only real chance they have is amassing conventional missiles across from taiwan completely secretly, and managing to hit the taiwanese airforce on the ground, and the navy in port - and that’s not very likely with US satellite intel.
In any case, people are quick to assume China has force projection capability simply because of it’s size. It does not. China would have an extremely hard time invading Taiwan in a strictly military sense, on it’s own - weigh in the political factors, and throw in even a small US naval battle group, and there’s no chance in hell…
The mainland Chinese are utterly misguided if they believe that closer economic integration is certain to–or even likely to–bring Taiwan under their political umbrella. Canada isn’t pledging fealty to Washington any time soon, nor is New Zealand to Australia, nor is Great Britain to the Continent. And those are all countries with fairly similar political systems.
Taiwan’s robust democracy makes the mainland’s kleptocracy look rather pitiful by comparison, and the island’s increasing investment in the mainland might help an increasing number of mainlanders aware of this fact. Who knows, after the revolution maybe some coastal provinces might petition to join the Republic of China on Taiwan . . .
I have no desire to start a Taiwan-China mudslinging, and for the record I have close ties to both places. Taiwan has done a pretty good job the past few years but puhleeeese TV Soong and Chiang Kai-shek are certainly in the top 10 if not first and second place for being the biggest thieves in modern history. Taiwan’s gangster involvement in government, political assasinations, lack of democracy, censorship, money politics, cronyism, martial law, etc are pretty well known in Taiwan if not elsewhere. The Taiwanese should certainly be applauded for the strides made to clean things up in the past 10 years, but let’s not pretend they have been this wonderful model of democracy and human rights for most of their history or that they do not have some substantial strides yet to go. China of course has it’s own problems, which are also well documented.
And really, I don’t think anyone in the world wants to see a Chinese revolution. Evolution yes, but revolution no. And China is evolving at a pace perhaps unparalled in modern history. Remember its only been 25 years since Nixon went to China, and just over 20 since they started to liberalize everything.
I would argue that the Taiwan China case is a lot different from the examples you have put forth. First, the economic integration is becoming overwhelming. Second, over 5% of the Taiwanese population now live and work in China. Third, the language and cultural ties are extremely close and getting closer each day via pop and TV culture. Fourth, the economic integration is much greater between Taiwan and China and your examples and is getting closer each day. Fifth, Taiwan is opening it’s domestic market to foreign investment, and China will be investing. The ascension of both parties to the WTO last year are also creating a more apolitical framework for economic integration. I could just keep going here but you will see at least a loose federalist system evolve in the coming decades.
Contrary to your belief, Dubya is capable of doing stupid things, too.
Now, if you have a thoughtful response to the OP, kindly stand and deliver. Or let the impression of yourself left by that post stand and simmer; your choice.
I’m sure China Guy is right about increasing trade ties etc. leading to greater political ties between the mainland and Taiwan, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that Taiwan will be simply absorbed willingly. The process certainly involves a lot more of the introduction of free-enterprise economics to the mainland than it does the introduction of Stalinist-Maoist politics to Taiwan. Taiwan is becoming much more democratic and nationalist than ever before, not less, and the mainland is becoming more capitalistic by far.
Left also unmentioned is that it was much more in the mainland’s interest to try a takeover at almost any point in the past than it is now, and they never seriously tried it - even in the Quemoy and Matsu incident, which also looks in hindsight more like the usual posturing and face-saving stuff (i.e. the 2 sides agreeing on which days they’d shell each other).
If at some future point the transformation process in both countries has reached a point where Taiwan decides to accept a merger, that’s their choice, but then what’s there for the rest of the world to worry about? The system over there will be what we’d like it to be, won’t it? I could be wrong about it, but it seems to me that Taiwan’s sense of its own nationhood is growing with the dying off of the mainland-refugee social class, and the coming to power in every way of those who have never known life as non-Taiwanese.
We’ve done this discussion before, but the Langoliers ate the threads. Back to basics.
Well, I can retort that Mao Zedong was one of the top three genocidal butchers of modern history. What’s your point? Today’s China is not the China of Mao, and today’s Taiwan is not the Taiwan of Chiang.
And for the record, where is the party of TV Soong and Chiang Kai-shek nowadays? My goodness, I do believe that the voters of Taiwan have kicked the bums out! (The KMT doesn’t even have a legislative majority anymore.) Can the people of China look forward to such a happy prospect?
China will indeed face either a popular revolution or a right-wing coup d’etat once it becomes clear that the current regime can no longer deliver the economic bread and circuses upon which it has staked its legitimacy. No sane person would want that, but that’s just what’s going to happen if the mainland doesn’t find some way to introduce a self-correcting, self-renewing mechanism into its politics.
And perhaps the best way the mainland can do this is to look to Taiwan’s experience in transforming itself into a real, multi-party democracy (which aside from human rights concerns, has had the very real benefit of inducing the island’s politicians to stamp out corruption).
That’s why this discussion is not a hijack: some sort of “reunification” might indeed happen (call it “federalism” or “confederacy” or what you will), but Taiwan’s position is much stronger than many people appreciate. If the leaders in Beijing were to take military action against Taiwan, it would not only damage China economically, but probably also cut off their only hope for political survival.
As for your other points:
More “overwhelming” then the examples I cited? Does China and Taiwan have a free trade regime like NAFTA, or free movement of labor like the EU or Australia/New Zealand?
You assert that over one million Taiwanese live and work in China? I’d like to see a cite on that, please.
Yeah, right. How many Taiwanese (language) songs have reached the Beijing top 40? BTW, aren’t Taiwanese schools introducing more local history and language into their curriculums?
Yeah, right. See my comments above about NAFTA and the EU. And you are still deluded by the idea that closer economic integration has some positive correlation with political integration.
Giving the mainland all the more disincentive for military action.
That may very well be so, but it’s China that faces the big challenge in evolving its political system to a point where this is possible.
I agree Chinese agression is unlikely if things continue to evolve smoothly but no one knows the future and unlikely things can happen and do happen more often than we would like.
China is not a monolithic entity any more than the US or any other country. In fact it probably is much less in spite of them trying to present themselves differently.
If an attack were to happen I think it would be more likely as a result of internal tensions than tensions with Taiwan.
The economic power in China is drifting away from the Communist Party and the army to a new class of business people who came from those institutions but are more and more having different interests. The party and the army do not like the idea of losing power to these but also realise they are the motor of the economy… so you have different groups (composed by different subgroups) with different interests and saying different things trying to keep each other happy while they try to expand their own power.
The business community obviously has zero interest in any talk of invading Taiwan. They know they have everything to lose with this. As has been pointed out, there is much trade between both sides. Many Taiwanese businessmen like to spend time in the mainland or even settle there. maybe they are only small businessmen in Taiwan but in the mainland they are big fish with second wives etc. The business community would do all it can to avoid an attack but they do not have all the power or even a majority of the power.
The PLA have a sense that they are losing power as they are being stripped of their businesses etc If things go smoothly they will slowly adapt. The old will retire and new generations will come with a more proffessional attitude. But you never know what may happen. Events sometimes take unexpected turns, history is full of examples and China’s history even more.
Some event or internal struggle could make the military take over and they do not care if the business community loses or if China loses. It is not likely at all but it is not impossible.
China’s history, especially in the last 50 years is full of examples like this. Also, China’s different provinces and regions have very different interests. I have just come back from spending some weeks in Guangdong province and the general attitude of the people is pretty much “oh, we leave the politics for the people up north as we are just too busy getting rich”.
So I gues my point is that an attack on Taiwan, while extremely improbable is by no means impossible. Such war, obviously, and everybody knows this, would be disatrous for both sides and China would lose so much it would only do it in madness or desperation.
Another point is capability. As has been said China does not have the capability but the new economy is providing plenty of money to rearm… The capability is increasing over the years… but over the years the old guard of the PLA will die off and new, younger people, with more international understanding will replace them…
And to the question of what would the US do, the answer is “nobody, not even the US, knows for sure”. If the US sees a situation where tension is escalating they would probably make a show of force to discourage and defuse the situation. If they were confronted with a surprise attack well under way… they would probably say some harsh words in the UN but I doubt they would get involved in a real war except to help Taiwan.
This is all very enlightening. Let me add that if I were US President, I would explicitly treat Taiwan as an ally, & make it clear that in the event the Beijing government tried to absorb Taiwan, they could expect a war. Geopolitically, a US-China war would be a lot more dangerous to China than to the US.
Of course the Taiwanese themselves aren’t crazy about that kind of talk…