The key here is the extent to which the Communist leadership cadre are still captives of their own ideology. Ideologues often ignore both pragmatic financial and economic considerations (at least until such realities finally bite them in the derrier). Look at Ho Chi Minh. LBJ thought he could bribe him with a TVA-like MeKong delta water project like any other “politician.” We saw how well THAT went.

And even if no longer Communist ideologues, we should take cold comfort when considering that plain ole’ cultural Imperialism is more than enough to drive the leadership of the PRC to risk even nuclear war if they think that by losing, say, 600 million peasants (A drag on the economy anyway) in exchange for the obliteration of 300 million Americans as a force never again to be reckoned with is an acceptable risk/trade-off.

Remember, to preserve the Communist party in WWI Lenin voluntairly sacrificed the heart of it’s economic base at the treaty of Brest-Litovsk–approx. 94% of it’s steel mills. 89% of it’s working coal mines, and 20% of it’s most highly educated and trained population. What makes anyone think that the leadership of the PRC would hesitate to risk less if it meant their triumph, preservation and the elimination of America?

Gee, I now am caught up with a fear of Viking raiders taking over Canada :)

The theory that people on both sides of the straits want intergration should take another look at the recent UN referendum in Taiwan. Althought the referendum failed because it didn’t get the necessary 50% participation the fact that close to 100% of the 35% who participated voted for Taiwan gaining a seat in the U.N. The irony is that if another 16 to 20% of eligible voters turned out and voted against the referendum it would have realised the 50% participation rate and passed. Anyway the fact is that despite the referendum being sabotaged by the U.S. State department and Bush administration as well as the fact that the referendum would have had little practical impact due to U.N. veto vote possesed by the Chinese Communist Party that over 34% of elegible Taiwanese voters felt strongly enough to go out and make their opinions known. So to make the unqualified statement that unification is wanted by people on both sides of the strait is not valid. Face the facts if the Taiwanese really wished to be brought back into the “embrace of the Chinese Motherland” why was the C.C.P so outspoken in condeming the Taiwanese U.N. referendum. I mean why didn’t they say “We know it is the true desire of out Taiwan compatriots to be reunited with the motherland so we will let them have the referendum and respect their decision”. I think we all know the answer to that one.

It is simply unfair to criticise Taiwan for not shouldering its share of it defence when the Bush administration against the will of house Republicans vetoed a 12 billion dollar arms sales to Taiwan. Which included F-16 C/Ds which are badly needed by the Taiwanese airforce to replace fifties vintage F-5s which are barely in a fit state to fly let alone fight. So don’t criticise the will of the Taiwanese to defend themselves direct that criticism at the Bush administration and the US state department.

I think the whole logic that the fact that the economies of Taiwan and the P.R.C are becoming increasingly intertwined so there should therefore be a political union makes no sense. Firstly why can’t there simply be economic agreements signed betweeen the two sides to allow for freer trade. Using greater economic exchange to justify a political union makes no sense. Secondly through the C.C.Ps policy of strangling and isolating Taiwan the C.C.P has sought to annex Taiwan through forcing it to become economically dependant on the P.R.C. Many in Taiwan are aware of this predicament and are keen to development lifelines by closing closer economic relationships with Japan and the U.S. What’s more closer economic relationships with high tech economies like Japan would have the added benefit of stimulating technological development in Taiwan and creating higher income jobs. But Beijing has gone out of its way to stop this. If the EU and the U.S.A were prepared to champion Taiwan’s quest for international space Taiwan would not be drawn into this web of economic strangulation.

Finally I really hope that comment that went along the lines of “Taiwan was a part of China since Jesus wept was said in jest.” As most educated Chinese I have met many of whom are university lecturers will concede that Taiwan only became under Chinese control during the Qing Dynasty. In the late sixteenth century and even then conrol was nominal and limited to the west coast of Taiwan.

As someone deeply familiar with military issues and in favor of keeping our commitments I did think this post was semi-heretical.

But the purpose of a blog like this is to say what you think and then get intelligent (and not so intelligent) comments back from others, some who know more than me, and some who know far less.

I was just reading about the British reinforcement of Singapore that led to the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse and reminding myself about how bloody any actions would be off the coast of China.

I also am hopeful that it never comes to a shooting war; this certainly would be terrible for both sides on many dimensions.

And I thought honoring a defense commitment to a democratic country who is an important trading partner might actually be in our interests.

Maybe we could update the old JFK speech to read “Let the world know, that if it looks difficult, we will bear no burden, support no friend and oppose no enemy…”

The US and China are now too intertwined in just about every way possible. Any confrontation would be devastating for both economies. We better get used to the idea of a strong China (absolute GDP will be larger than ours in at least 10 years, although per-capita GDP will never surpass the US unless we completely melt down our economy). There are major cracks in the foundation over there, though. Spend time there and you’ll see it.

The Soviets collapsed without firing a shot; we need to focus our efforts on supporting a similar outcome from the remaining “People’s Republics” of the world. They’re simply not sustainable and are going to come down eventually regardless. The question is whether they take down anyone with them or not.

Besides, it might anger the PRC that we facilitated a level playing field with the nuclear arming of their neighbors/antagonists, but by more or less leaving the region we would force a Chinese re-evaluation of the threat we posed to them, and ultimately we would have a less tense situation than we currently have now. And nuclear detente seems to work generally, so what the hey.

yours/
peter.

We are not right wing enough for Anon around here.

Life gets more and more demanding every day.

Tell that to the Czechs in Prague in 1956. And the Vietnamese
in 1975. And the Iraqi Marsh Arabs in 1993

The only reason we don’t ditch Taiwan is inertia. When
it costs us too much, maybe the PRC will raise the price
of Mattel toys, we’ll toss them out of the sled too.

America has the choice to fight our enemies or surrender.
Since the chattering classes running the media and academia
don’t want to study war no more we won’t be fighting any
time soon.

Thousands of years from now historians will wonder why
when America had the world by the balls, it dropped it’s
pants and let itself be sodomized instead.

You lefties who think your new masters will let you
share their pie didn’t pay attention in history class.

Cutting and running might make (very slightly) more strategic sense in Taiwan than it would have in Iraq, but it would also have amounted to image suicide, as no freedom-loving people would have ever trusted us to protect them again.

People don’t realize this but Taiwan is the focus of much of speciality manufacturing in the world. I did some research on another matter back in the 90′s and discovered that mid-sized family owned Taiwanese produce a wide range of vital goods, everything from the worlds supply of nuts and bolts to critical electronic components. Most high end items marked “made in china” are in fact made in Taiwan. 90% of the high quality bolts nuts and general fasteners come from Taiwan. Without them we can’t build guns and aircraft.

Most people don’t understand how utterly interconnected the planetary supply chain is. Frankly, we cannot write off any major manufacturing country without suffering immediate crippling harm. We have to defend critical areas all over the globe.

Maybe they’ll do a joint attack! It will be like in Red Dawn where the Nicaraguans (who also speak Spanish, so, close enough) are being used by the Russions to hunt down the Wolverines. (Best scene in the movie, totally from memory, the Nicaraguan commander, after committing some atrocity as part of the counter-insurgency, says in disgust at his own bloody handiwork, “I used to be a revolutionary!”)

Good thing that Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar, and the high desert redoubt of Twentynine Palms are at the forefront of the resistance to the imminant Chinese invasion.

And another tangential point: It looks like the Chinese and the Mexicans are going to have to fight it out.

Arnold better start laying mines and stringing barbed wire on the potential invasion beaches.

It will disrupt surfing and other recreational activities, but that is the price of freedom.

Our interests in regard to China are the same as Britian’s interests in regard to Germany, 1870-1945: to prevent it from totally dominating its continent. This can be done without war so long as the US remains consistent and prepared, and maintains rational alliances. Trouble begins if the US gives off signals of weakness or inconsistency; or if one of the many overhanging disasters disrupts China and brings non-rational government to power again. (Cultural Revolution China was non-rational.) We need to maintain a reasonable position in Taiwan to help maintain consistency and as part of maintenance of an alliance chain – - Taiwan is a minor player in the “Baseball-Cricket Alliance” (US-Japan-Australia plus, less formally, India) that should be the foundation of US policy in the Indo-Pacific cockpit. Also, in naval terms, it would be useful to maintain the Taiwan-Japan and Taiwan-Phillipines gaps as barriers to Chinese naval operations in the event of China going non-rational and seeking to aggressively deploy naval power. So maintaining naval and air bases on Taiwan, or at a minimum, preventing China from having naval bases on the eastern side of the island would be important US goals.

The best outcome is a happy, ever-more-prosperous China maintaining good relations with the US in a ever-more-prosperous multi-power Indo-Pacific region not dominated by any one hegemonic power. I this this is achievable with a little good luck and consisent US policy.

China is fundamentally irridentist. Has been for 3000 years. China is currently using The New Economic Policy to rebuild and modernize its infrastructure and military power. The Chinese government is committed to restoring the empire to the limits reached by the Tang and Qing. Taiwan, which has belonged to China (as have all the civiled world) before Jesus wept in the Garden, is only the first of many areas the Chinese leaders plan to reunite with the Fatherland.

Never forget, the first humans in California were Chinese, a causa belli, and we are on their list. The Chinese have not forgotten California and the Americas were originally settled by Chinese.

We can fight them now or fight them later or we can surrender now by simply learning to order our food by name rather than by number. I for one will always order by the numbers.

Winner, best comment award.

We should “squeeze” China because it is “in our interest that China democratize”. I don’t see the cost/risk/benefit here. The immediate and actual costs of “squeezing”, which I presume to be a metaphor for military threats, against some remote, intangible and highly unlikely “democratization” of China.

The people I know who go to China a lot and deal with the Chinese all say the same kinds of things. The leadership there is an oligarchy of very wealthy families who essentially own the whole country as a result of their Communist Party connections. They have zero ideology and want only to develop the country and keep their families secure and rich and in control. Nationalism is simply a legitimizing device, something they feed the masses to keep them placated. The leadership all studied abroad, speak English and don’t really care about that stuff.

This kind of regime presents little prospect of a threat to us. To try to push it toward “democracy” is asking the leadership there to cut their own throats. It is a waste of time and we should drop it. They have 700 million people in serious poverty. Democracy is a late-blooming flower. The Anglosphere had all kinds of economic and political freedom for centuries before it had democracy. Leave the Chinese alone to run their own country their own way.