FROM OUR REPORTER
TAIPEI — “I have three children, two of them are in college and are therefore old enough to do compulsory military service, which we will soon increase from four months to one year. When I asked them if they are ready to fight in case of a Chinese invasion, the answer was this: we don’t want war and we hope it never happens, but if they attack our land and our homes we will have no other choice». So speaks the deputy Wang Ding-Yu, who belongs to the Taiwanese majority party Dpp (Democratic Progressive Party) and sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense committees in the House.
Wang hands me another message: «I say this to the Italians: don’t leave us alone. We are one of the most advanced democracies in the world, perhaps the most advanced in all of Asia in terms of respect for human rights. Our fate concerns you. If the Chinese regime were to prevail in Taiwan, it would not stop there.’ That the fate of Taiwan concerns us is indisputable for various reasons: starting with our dependence on the semiconductors produced in this small island which is a global technological superpower; to end up with the risk that a war between America and China will start from here, with all that it would entail for the whole world.
When he mentions the age and position of his children, it is because Wang answers a direct question of mine: Would you Taiwanese be ready to fight like the Ukrainians? It is a question full of concern, which I have heard repeatedly expressed in the United States, where unflattering analyzes circulate on the state of preparedness of the Taiwanese armed forces and also on the determination of the local population (just 24 million compared to 1.4 billion Chinese ) to defend themselves. The American perplexities about the Taiwanese are part of a more general picture of pessimism, about the effective possibility of countering a military invasion from the People’s Republic, should Xi Jinping decide to launch it.
The wargames regularly organized by the Pentagon to simulate the scenarios of a battle over Taiwan give less than encouraging results: the People’s Republic almost always emerges victorious from these virtual exercises. The admiral chief of the US forces in the Indo-Pacific in a testimony to the Washington Congress said that from 2027 onwards the balance of forces will have evolved in a direction favorable to Beijing in a perhaps irreversible way. 2027 is not a randomly chosen year: it is the deadline that, according to American intelligence, Xi Jinping has given to the People’s Liberation Army (the name of the Chinese armed forces) to be ready for the invasion of Taiwan.
Before arriving in Taipei I studied one of these wargames, not carried out by the Pentagon but by a think tank in Washington, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Csis). The advantage is its public accessibility, unlike wargames conducted by the military which are largely covered by secrecy. For those interested, I recommend listening to the synthesis of this wargame made by the Sinica podcast with the expert advice of Lyle Goldstein, professor at the US Navy academy. The site is TheChinaProject.com.
The juice that I extract is this. The People’s Liberation Army has been preparing for an invasion of Taiwan for many years and works methodically on the surprise effect, so we must know that many of our scenarios, forecasts and preparations will prove completely useless. Among the possible surprises: an attack launched when America finds itself in the near-impossibility of responding. Let’s try to imagine, for example, a chaotic transition from Biden to Trump II, just to make a concrete case?… This, the time window, is just one of many components of a surprise.
Another conclusion that I draw from the Csis wargame is that the American losses – if the United States actually intervene to rescue the attacked island – would be very heavy, higher than expected, and perhaps such as to make every president waver, not to mention of public opinion. Again: it is imprudent to count on the support of allies such as South Korea and the Philippines, perhaps even Japan cannot be relied on 100%. Finally: most of the weapons Taiwan has to defend itself will prove useless; in any case the ammunition will run out very soon; ditto the fuels. After all, the island has 14 days of autonomy for gas in the event of a naval blockade.
Such a bleak picture makes the question even more crucial: would the Taiwanese show the same determination as the Ukrainians? Although the sacrifice of the Ukrainians was not enough to move Joe Biden from his two initial “no”s of February 2022 (no to sending American soldiers, no to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia), nevertheless the proof of courage of Kiev has been essential in mobilizing Western aid and sanctions against Moscow. Before sending American soldiers to die for Taiwan, Biden or his successors will want guarantees on the resistance put up by the Taiwanese armed forces and the island’s population.
Since my arrival in Taiwan, I have also encountered many skeptical voices. An authoritative local journalist tells me an anecdote that he considers worthy of note. A famous Chinese comedian in a show aired on national TV makes fun of the excessive kindness of the Taiwanese, their good manners, obsessive education. He recounts his trip to the island with a group of Chinese friends, all equally surprised and amused by the local customs. He imitates a restaurant waiter, full of shyness and hesitation in asking him to make a little less noise so as not to annoy the customers sitting at nearby tables. Conclusion of the Chinese comedian: “To annex Taiwan we don’t need to send the army, we just need a few traffic policemen”.
Folklore aside, in Taipei the perplexities concern its own armed forces, surrounded by suspicions of corruption and infiltration by Chinese spies. Infamous accusations that must, however, be placed in the right historical context: during the presidency of Ma Ying-Jeou (of the nationalist KMT party) from 2008 to 2016, the rapprochement with the People’s Republic was so advanced that it seemed bound to lead to a reunification, for which the collusion of Taiwanese military leaders with Beijing was in the order of things. Among the other doubts expressed by many Taiwanese is the insufficient training and motivation of their armed forces, hit by waves of criticism and delegitimized following some episodes of bullying.
As for the training of civilians in resistance, it is small: signs are seen around Taiwan indicating the location of bomb shelters, but few participate in evacuation exercises. High-level preparations are said to be a bit more serious, such as what the Ministry of Digital Affairs is doing to make Taiwan less vulnerable to crippling cyber-attacks from the People’s Republic. Foreign observers are always struck by the ease with which Taiwanese experience frequent Chinese military incursions, such as the trespassing of air squadrons. Even when those raids simulated a total strangulation of the island, including missile launches, just after Nancy Pelosi’s visit a year ago, there were no reports of panic or even great alarm.
There are those who fear that this imperturbable calm is playing into Xi Jinping’s hands, and evoke the apologue of the “Chinese frog” left in the pot while the temperature of the water is brought very slowly to the boil: China with its maneuvers military would be generating an addiction, which numbs reflexes and will make Taiwan too slow to react to the final attack.
I return to my interview with Congressman Wang, who wants to offer a more reassuring version of Taiwanese combativity. It starts right from the visit of the then president of the US House who a year ago started a pandemonium. What have the various parties involved learned from the Pelosi incident? “First of all – the parliamentarian replies – we cannot allow the People’s Republic to intimidate us militarily to decide who can or cannot visit Taiwan. If we give in to this armed blackmail, we encourage the Chinese leaders to use force. Wars break out when the balance of forces is altered, when one side thinks it can attack with impunity and prevail. If we leave the Chinese leadership free to exercise its bullying, it is not just Taiwan but the entire Indo-Pacific that will suffer the consequences, and then other parts of the world. If the Chinese get away with the current aggressions, they will continue their escalation until some incident occurs.’
That Taiwan is not an isolated, local, or “domestic” problem as the Chinese Communist Party defines it, according to Wang, is demonstrated by the effects of a naval blockade: it would close routes through which strategic supplies pass, including for South Korea and the Japan, two important allies of the West. On the links between the current economic crisis in China and peace, the Taiwanese parliamentarian makes a worried analysis.
«We must remind you Westerners that Xi Jinping does not think like your politicians, he does not have an electorate to win. Faced with unemployment that is growing especially among young people, faced with the real estate crisis, if Xi feels that his leadership is threatened, how will he react? First, he will increase the level of control and coercion over his people, then he will try to divert attention from internal problems with an external conflict. The People’s Republic today faces many headwinds: there was Trump’s trade war, then Covid, now it suffers from capital flight. Our intelligence tells us that the grip on Chinese civil society is being tightened. Beijing spends a lot on armaments but spends even more on its police force. Looking for an external diversion, Xi can blame Hong Kong or Vietnam, the Philippines or Taiwan, Japan or South Korea. But right now I find it reassuring that the scale of Chinese military maneuvers in the Strait Taiwan has been reduced, even in the presence of a trip abroad by our vice president (with two stops in the US) which Beijing has condemned as a provocation. Perhaps at this stage Xi is testing the advantages of maintaining an open dialogue with the United States.
To the United States and Europe, Congressman Wang wants to deliver this warning: «Abandon any strategic ambiguity about your attitude in the event of military aggression against Taiwan. The strategic ambiguity of the West is what encouraged Putin to launch the attack on Ukraine. The People’s Republic must be confronted with the prices it would pay. Xi Jinping is indifferent to the cost of a war in terms of human casualties, much less economic damage. But if this war threatens to bring about his downfall, if the cost is the loss of power, then he will think twice.’
2023-08-23 14:02:17
#Taiwan #Xis #dangerous #Chinese #frog #game #year #Pelosis #visit
