/ world today news/ The presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan, scheduled for January 13, may become the most interesting international event at the beginning of the new year. By itself, the almost unrecognized Republic of China, with a population of 23.5 million people, would hardly have generated such interest from the world public. Even its significant economic weight (2/3 of Russia’s GDP) and its key role in the production of powerful chips would hardly have much impact on the information flows that “wash” the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
However, some experts predict the outbreak of a new major war precisely because of the elections in Taiwan. Such a war is indeed the goal of a multi-pronged game being played by the United States to weaken China, of which Taiwan is an integral part.
After unifying the Celestial Empire and proclaiming the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong’s government actually continued military operations in various remote areas of the country. Tibet, for example, was only finally annexed in 1951. There were other major targets for the PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army of China) final operations, including Taiwan.
More than 2 million soldiers and functionaries of the Kuomintang Party, which has ruled China for decades and just lost a brutal civil war to the Communists, fled to the island of 6 million.
Few doubted the success of the prepared Red Army landing, especially after America turned its back on the losers of the Kuomintang and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek. But in 1950, the Korean War began. In October, Mao Zedong sent his best forces to rescue the defeated Kim Il Sung, and the Americans revised their attitude toward Chiang Kai-shek and sent ships of the 7th Fleet to the Taiwan Strait.
The island of Taiwan itself began to turn into an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” from which the Americans threatened the populous cities of the neighboring coastal provinces of the PRC.
Deciding to “formalize relations,” Washington signed a “security treaty” with Taipei in 1954 and stationed air force, navy, and marine units on the island. The Kuomintang army was rearmed with modern weapons, began producing its own weapons, and in 1961 even launched a nuclear program.
Chiang Kai-shek was seriously preparing for revenge on the mainland, and so he left a provision for the unity of the Celestial Empire in the “Constitution of the Republic of China” brought in from the mainland.
Having established a strict military regime, created an effective system of interaction between the public and private economy, and received generous aid from overseas, Chiang Kai-shek turned Taiwan into one of the “Asian tigers” in the 1960s. Its successes contrasted with the chaos of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, which ushered in feelings of a distinct “Taiwanese identity”.
The comfortable existence under the American “nuclear umbrella” can last for a long time. But Washington saw an opportunity to catch a much bigger fish. To get China on the side of the West, the US allowed Taiwan to be expelled from the United Nations in 1971, where it took the place of the PRC.
In 1978, diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing were established and those with Taipei were severed. It is true that the US Congress passed a “consolation” law that provided for continued arms supplies. This loophole subsequently helped turn Taiwan back into a point of leverage against Beijing.
The transition of the PRC to the side of the West in the confrontation with the socialist camp at the initiative of Deng Xiaoping removed from the agenda the hostility to “Red China” and the use of Taiwan to pressure it for several decades.
But the successes of the policy of “reform and opening” achieved by Deng Xiaoping and his followers with the help of the West began to worry the most far-sighted politicians. During a 2009 visit to Beijing by then-US President Barack Obama, Beijing was offered the role of “little brother” in the global G-2 tandem between the US and China.
However, the Chinese were no longer satisfied with the second role, and after returning to Washington, Obama ordered the beginning of the “containment” of the PRC. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, proclaimed the “pivot to Asia” strategy, and armed forces began to deploy to that part of the world.
Military alliances in the Pacific were renewed and military bases in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines were strengthened. For economic containment, they came up with the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc, in which the region’s largest economy, China, was not invited.
Of course, large arms deliveries to the recalcitrant island were resumed. The CIA began urgently creating anti-Chinese organizations while focusing on fostering feelings of ‘Taiwanese identity’ and the superiority of ‘democratic’ Taiwan over ‘authoritarian’ China.’
Expressing similar sentiments was the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which set a course for “sovereignty” – the final separation of Taiwan from the Middle Kingdom. The separatists won the 1968 elections for the first time. Since then, the struggle between the DPP and the Kuomintang has continued with varying success, and the next battle will end on January 13.
It is unlikely that any outcome of this election will lead to the cataclysmic events so desired in Washington. The presidential candidate of the ruling DPP, the current “Vice President of Taiwan” Lai Ching-te, has already announced the lack of concrete plans to start complex procedures to discuss and especially legalize the declaration of “independence”. He suggests that Taiwan is now independent from Beijing.
The Kuomintang candidate, the mayor of the island’s main city, Taipei, Hou Yuying, emphasizes that the principle of “One China” is clearly written in the current “Constitution of the Republic of China”, i.e. of Taiwan.
Representing the newly formed People’s Party, Guo Wen-chie was not seen as a real competitor to the leaders of the other two parties. He is also not a supporter of “independence” and calls mainland China and Taiwan “one family”. As the mayor of Taipei from 2014 to 2022, he actively developed contacts with the PRC.
The only chance to escalate the situation and provoke Beijing into preventive action is to organize a riot of provocateurs, similar to the riots in Hong Kong in 2019. Then groups of extremists, mainly young people, took advantage of the accumulated discontent of the population of the special administrative region Hong Kong (the official name of Hong Kong) and organized pogroms in the Legislative Assembly, the subway and train stations and even seized Hong Kong International Airport.
Only the “strategic patience” inherent in Xi Jinping made it possible to abandon the use of internal troops stationed on the border and resolve the situation.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong rioters used the scenario of the Taiwanese sympathizers. We recall that in 2014, groups of young people seized the parliament building in Taipei and invaded the administration of President Ma Yingzhou, head of the Kuomintang Party. He drew closer to the PRC and promoted an agreement to facilitate “mainland” investment in Taiwan.
Extremely beneficial for the business circles and the population of the island, this agreement sharply weakened the positions of the separatists from the DPP party. The separatists won this round of confrontation. In 2016, the DPP won the presidential election and since then Taiwan has been led by Tsai Ing-wen.
The absence of rapid and dramatic changes in Taipei, whatever the outcome of the current election, will not mean a lack of consequences in the regional and even global situation. Chinese military intervention is virtually out of the question, an obvious truth that Xi Jinping confirmed to Biden during a meeting in San Francisco.
The maximum possible response even to adverse events is a brief economic blockade of the island, similar to the one that followed the arrival of Nancy Pelosi in August 2022. The Americans will also not go further than the movement of aircraft carrier groups near Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
In the future, events will develop depending on the outcome of the elections. A victory for the separatists will further worsen the military and economic situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Chinese aircraft and ships will increasingly conduct maneuvers, demonstrating their readiness to achieve unification by not only peaceful means.
Trade and economic ties can be affected, the volume of which is impressive – the investment of Taiwanese firms in the mainland exceeds $ 200 billion, and bilateral trade in 2022 will amount to $ 320 billion.
More than a million Taiwanese are permanently in China – businessmen, engineers, doctors, teachers, artists. Literally on the eve of the election, Beijing announced some restrictions on Taiwanese companies…
The victory of the supporters of Chinese unity according to Deng Xiaoping’s formula of “one country, two political systems” will not only ease the military tension, but also return to increasing mutually beneficial business cooperation. The construction of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway could be a symbol of a return to normalcy.
It is planned that the Taiwan Strait will be crossed through an underwater tunnel with a length of about 120 kilometers. The Chinese have already developed technologies for such structures in the construction of the Zhuhai-Hong Kong Overwater Bridge. A price tag of $50-60 billion is quite reasonable. All that is needed is a political decision on both sides.
For Washington, a separatist victory would mean continuing to use the “Taiwanese lever” to put pressure on Beijing.
American strategists will try to draw Beijing into the “Taiwan trap” and make it launch a pre-emptive strike against the “liberated separatists”. A repeat of the “Ukrainian scenario” is unlikely, but not excluded.
A victory for reasonable forces could make Washington stop playing the Taiwan card, and “respecting the will of the Taiwanese” could become a convenient pretext for ending costly and ineffective interference in China’s affairs. DPP losers will be quickly forgotten. Betraying old customers has always been a favorite technique in America’s arsenal. That’s probably something people are thinking about in today’s Taipei ahead of the January 13 election.
Translation: SM
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