We seem to be saying this, but I have not tried it myself. Apparently, if you put a frog in a pot of water and have it boiled above a slow fire, you will see the frog sitting still there all the time – only to be cooked in no time without showing any sign of any discomfort. This metaphor, I believe, is precisely the strategy Uncle Sam is adopting today to help Lai Ching-te realise his Taiwan Independence mission.
And this is also Xi Jin-ping’s dilemma.
There is no doubt that China can militarily retake Taiwan, but the cost will be very high. Many lives would be lost. Once started, China would also be trapped – its assets in the western and many parts of the pro-West world frozen, and its commitments to the Global South curtailed – and it would have to nurse wounds for a long, long time even if it succeeds in bringing Taiwan back to its fold.
The Biden administration knows Xi’s reluctance to use force against Taiwan. In every previous encounter, America had been assuring China that it was sticking to its One-China commitment. But we knew they never meant it.
China can keep protesting and staging military exercises around the island. Lai will not be bothered. In no time, Taiwan becomes by any measure an independent country. A fait accompli.
With a subservient Taiwan, coupled with existing allies Japan and South Korea, the US can go ahead to reassert its hegemony.
All of us know America is bent on retarding China. This is their crusade. They know they cannot compete with China on level playing fields. The only way is to play spoilt-brat – do everything to pull back China or trip it, economically and militarily. They are not going to be bothered by WTO rules, or any sense of natural justice. Xinjiang, Tiananmen Square, Xichang (Tibet), Hong Kong can be stale rice to us, but they will remain America’s ready stock-in-trade each time they have, or want to have, a bone to pick with China. (As a matter of fact, US lawmakers, led by Republican Rep Michael McCaul and including Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are now in Dharamshala, India to present a “certificate” – a bill that has been passed by both houses of the Congress demanding China to renounce itself with respect to its sovereignty of Xichang – to “Suck-my-tongue” Dalai Lama. How absurd the American leaders can be now!)
America has been sanctioning China left, right and centre, even at the expense of its own economy and the welfare of its own people. They do not believe their efforts are futile, even though the world is seeing the opposite – in the examples of Huawei, EVs and space exploration. They are not going to relent, until China yields, so they believe.
On the military front, America knows that they no longer have an upper hand in China’s eastern and southern seas. They also know they themselves cannot fight a hot war with China. Regardless, it will continue to mobilize its hoodlums to threaten China. And Marcos Jr is a godsend. Whereas countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, etc have sent ships to lend support, they understand the score and are unlikely to act rashly. Filipino soldiers are different; irrationality and “playing victims” usually take precedence in their mindsets and actions, like what they are doing around near Ren’ai Jiao (仁爱礁, Thomas Shoal Second to the western world).
Like in the war in Ukraine, they need a proxy. And there are many countries which are happy to act as proxies for them in the region – Taiwan, Japan, Korea and, last but not least, the Philippines.
It is very difficult to believe that Joe Biden is truly in control of the White House. His incoherence in the recent G7 Summit in Italy speaks volumes of his mental state. Who is making all the decisions in the White House then?
Antony Blinken’s brain is too small for big issues. Moreover, he feels very insecure. He is only capable of ranting the same old lines each time he faces the press. I suspect it is Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan that is calling the shots in the White House now. Sullivan is the “still water runs deep” type. He does not talk much, but I think he manipulates Biden like a puppet. (Their offices are in the same building; this makes his effort simple!)
There are three other attack dogs in the peck: overrated economist Janet Yellen, China-hating Gina Raimondo, and “Qing Hui” Katherine Tai. Defense Secretary Llyod Austin is largely a humpty-dumpty (big sweet potato in our Chinese jargon), which makes him dependent on a team of uniformed hawks, notably Samuel Paparo Jr., the commander of Ind-Pacific Command, who recently promised China “Hellscape” if it tries to retake Taiwan.
How did you earn your four stars?
Joe Biden may have to say goodbye to the Oval Office in January next year. Donald Trump will surely continue America’s anti-China stance; tougher likely. His people are usually more hawkish.
In a recent article, Robert O’Brien Jr., who was Donald Trump’s fourth and final national security advisor, writes that if Trump returns to the White House, he should sever all economic ties with China and consider deploying the entire US Marine Corps to Asia and resume live nuclear weapons testing. This man might be Trump’s choice if the latter gets elected!
Another Mike Pompeo?
Hollow undertakings will not be Trump’s way;
instead, this peahen will be very blunt and blatant in doing everything possible
to pace the way or facilitate DPP’s independence pursuits, as long as Taiwan is
happy to pay the bills.
Taiwan is drifting away not-too-slowly and surely. Xi’s prestige will take a deep plunge if he cannot bring back Taiwan to China’s fold during the next couple of years. It looks like he has no choice to but exercise a “forced” unification move soon. There is a small window.
America will hold their presidential election in November. It looks like Trump is going to win. Trump wants to be treated like an emperor; no one should be above him. He does not quite care about NATO and America’s other allies. Despite his tough talks, he is at the end of the day a less-than-scrupulous businessman and will always be happy to settle for a good bargain. The hoodlums that Biden has built up are also crumbling. Many will be voted out soon. (In much of Europe, Far-Rights are taking over, and even die-hard US-follower and pseudo-White Rishi Sunak is likely to lose UK’s July election.) Chances of their intervening militarily in the Taiwan issue are lower.
January next year might be a good time for China to retake Taiwan – if it thinks that its other options are hopeless. The operation must be fast and overwhelming, and I am pretty sure PLA has already had their plans in place.
I sense that something is already brewing. Lately, Xi has been talking to his top generals often. Also, China has just issued judicial guidelines, effective immediately, on punishments against “Taiwan Independence” separatists. The separatists could face death penalty in severe secession cases. Much has been publicised about this. Is this a signal?
Alternatively…
In 2023, China exported USD3.38 T of goods to the world and imported USD2.56 T. It alone accounted for about 12.5% of the world trade. The latest available statistics (2022) shows the US accounted for 16.2% of China’s exports. 6.6% of China’s imports was from the US. Both percentages are unlikely to grow much in the wake of US paranoia about China.
Chinese population is 17.8% of the world’s, its share of the world trade is still below this percentage. If the law of averages should hold, then its share should go up to 20% or more, given its people’s productivity. (Of course, much of its production is consumed by its huge population.)
The decoupling desire from the US has already prompted China to shift’s development and world trade priorities. They are being accelerated. But China should always be more mindful of the quality (or political vulnerability) of its “strategic” partners. They can change colour or allegiance with little notice!
My crystal tells me that in five years’ time, America hegemony will be history.
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ReplyDelete.....
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ReplyDeleteBarely two days after Moscow initiated its special operations into Ukraine, the western media conflated Ukraine with Taiwan as if to forewarn China not to take back her island. To the US in particular, Ukraine was the ballistic bait against Russia, and Taiwan was the propaganda prize against China.
But the West ignored a chapter from its own history which came close to engulfing this planet in WWIII, a cataclysm which the likes of Herman Kahn had though was still winnable for his US based on his argument in Thinking The Unthinkable that who wins in a nuclear exchange was who first recovers from it.
Any takeback of Taiwan is thus lesser the danger for the world than Cuba and the fact the West is oblivious to that reminder is verdant proof of its utter hypocrisy if also juvenile irresponsibility.
At that time, Russia had had to move nuclear missiles to Cuba as bargaining point for the US/Nato to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey. Kennedy surrounded the island, Khruschev removed them, and in response the US quietly removed theirs from Turkey - but then installed them in its nuclear subs off the Turkish coast.
The bottomline calculation remains time-to-target and Ukraine creeping towards Nato membership would mean US/Nato nukes would be only five-minutes strike onto Moscow, too fast for countermeasures - which thus justified the special operations. Which the US and EU blame on Beijing for not doing enough to solve of something not of her doing!
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DeleteSome of the western thinkers have been busy waxing again about the need for the west's liberal democracies to fight against some axis of authoritarian regimes. They seem to be running out of lines.
Perhaps they should first ask the Chinese tourists in Europe and Asia inasmuch the Russian tourists in Thailand and Bali why their authoritarian regimes have let them out and about.
But do that after asking the US Pentagon why it had badmouthed China's covid vaccine to the Filipino's. Could it, conceivably, be perhaps it's because the lives of the Filipinos are less valuable than US geopolitical hold over their country?
Ditto Fushida's Japan. His pro-US hawks out of University of Tokyo's law faculty can't possibly have missed the significance of the two hug's.
Xi hugging Putin before latter left, and latter hugging Kim on arrival. While there is no tripartite alliance to talk about, it can quickly come about should Japan remilitarize under the wings of an anti-Russia US in the Pacific. And, no Zelensky, Yoon of SKorea should also not be remiss that the Korean war hasn't really been annulled; only a no-mans land separates the two states, one with Thaad's, the other, alas, with nukes.
The US Pentagon's fire-and-brimstone hellscape to cover the skies above Taipei with drones needs a qualifier. It has first to find a supplier that can make to replenishable quantities required those drones. Most of its own drones are said by one former buyer to be to be too glitchy and pricey. Most of the world's best and most affordable drones that can be supplied to any quantity are made in China. Orders payable on FOB basis with LC established with a prime bank in renminbi currency or bitcoin or gold bullion will be taken come this Monday. While Lai and his lackeys may be stupid to think his US doesn't know this, realists are better informed.
Meanwhile, Beijing is encouraging business links from Fujian to the island over which substantial trade is still conducted. However if the US-and/or-Lai's bunch continues to think they can salami-slice using Japan's Sakai knives the Shanghai agreement with regards the One-China policy, then expect the same Kennedy-style encirclement of the island which in turn will trigger the explosion of insurance costs of all exports from the island, and bring down its economy, the US' six-assurances to Taiwan or otherwise. Washington DC must also know China can also supply body-bags in ample quantity.
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DeleteThe key point about Taiwan is its present coterie of peoples doesn't want or expect any conflict with their counterparts on the Mainland, and while Beijing has broached peaceful reunification, it is US and the separatists who have only been the ones advancing offensive militarization and military basing while forking status quo. After all, if anyone wants to talk about maintaining status quo, it should be what was maintained as at 11.55 pm February 27 1972 when the Shanghai Communique was signed, not when the next hellscapes of Dante are concocted.
It should not be lost on the islanders that the moment the US has TSMC's knowhow on how to finetune ASML's EUV in Arizona and elsewhere, the TSMC's plants on the island can be blown up by just throwing a few switches; the US has said as much; the island's present economy mostly depends on those chips lines when it could be more in expanded trade with the Mainland.
Three other points: one, if ever there is some misguided rebuttal that drawing too much the past enchains one in the present, be mindful what had happened before - entire generations were wiped out at the hands of invaders; those who remember and honor their ancestors and forefathers in elaborate ceremonies at memorial halls bring home this crucial cultural point. Those in Fujian will also explain the significance of the sugar-cane. Today, that chain is called the first island chain.
Second, the 'boiling frog' has been replaced by Pottinger's The Boiling Moat. Pottinger, as was told, was a reporter stationed in Beijing; one day he had a tiff with a local policeman. Ever since he went back to the US, he has been a virulent anti-China hawk. Perhaps like Navarro who once had an encounter in NY with a Filipino who he mistook to be a Chinese.
Lastly, perhaps the US (and Lai in toe) should review the situation and think it up again as to what they are doing leading the locals on the island down its road to no return:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96rC4X_KWl4