On January 23, 2021, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said China sent eight bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons and four fighter jets into its air defense identification zone just southwest of the island. The next day China sent six J-10 fighters, four J-16s, two SU-30s, a Y-8 reconnaissance aircraft, and two Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft. Taiwan’s Air Force was sent up to respond.
China was clearly testing the Biden administration. America declared its support for Taiwan. The State Department on January 23 said it was concerned by China’s “pattern of ongoing attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan.” “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected representatives,” Ned Price, a spokesman for the department, said in the statement.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has improved the island’s defenses purchasing billions of dollars in U.S. weapons, including upgraded F-16 fighter jets, armed drones, rocket systems and Harpoon missiles capable of hitting both ships and land targets. She has improved the defense of her nation by building new submarines to counter China’s enormous and expanding fleet.
Taiwan and China separated after the Nationalist government and army were defeated by the communists under Mao Zedong in a bloody civil war in 1949. They found refuge in Taiwan. China has always claimed that Taiwan, a prosperous capitalist, and democratic nation of more than 24 million, as a part of China. Beijing has stated many times that it is determined to bring the island under its control by a military invasion if necessary.
Taiwan is officially called the Republic of China (ROC) and lies about 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait off the coast of southeastern China. In addition to the main island, the ROC has over 22 islands in the Taiwan group and 64 islands to the west in the Pescadores archipelago. Two island Matsu and Quemoy are just off the coast of China’s Fukien province.
The United States changed diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but is legally required to help Taiwan to defend itself from a military invasion by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In spite to the proper response by the Biden administration on China’s war planes provocation and intimidation, Taiwan is in a clear and present danger of being invaded by Communist China now that Joe Biden is president. China may feel that it may get away with a military takeover of Taiwan since it has given millions to Joe, Hunter, and other members of the family. Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law is a billionaire who runs transportation with the Chinese regime and has given him millions. China has given funds or lucrative business deals to other politicians.
China has stolen by cyberattacks America’s military and industrial technology as well as that of America’s allies. It has filled America with spies and works with many Communist organizations in America, including our best universities, to advance Beijing’s agenda. China unleashed the Wuhan virus upon America and the world without any push back and with complete impunity.
China believes America is a declining power since it has gotten away with interfering in the 2020 election to defeat President Donald J. Trump. John Ratcliffe’s Intelligence Report accused China and other enemy nations of stealing the election. China thinks the Biden administration is weak and will not defend Taiwan. If America allows China to military conquer Taiwan, America ceases to be a superpower and China will rule the world!
Dictator Xi Jinping was born on June 15, 1953. He is the General Secretary of the Communist party of China, President of the People’s Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He has taken direct command of the PLA with the title of Commander-in- Chief. Xi is sometimes referred to as China’s “Paramount Leader.”
Xi has made himself the most powerful dictator of China since the bloody tyrant Mao Zedong. Like Mao, he has created a “cult of personality” with songs written to him as well as a book with his writings. Xi does not tolerate any criticism of his regime and has sent to prison and concentration camps many opponents. He does not tolerate a free press or freedom of religion. Xi assaults Christian churches, incarcerates Christians, and oppresses Muslims. He is exercising imperialism in the East and South China Seas, which is provoking a serious confrontation with the United States and its allies.
Xi Jinping has revamped the armed forces into a smaller and more lethal force capable of projecting power far away from China. One objective is to push the United States away from the East and South China Seas.
China’s territorial and maritime disputes with its neighboring countries
China is in violation of international law by claiming islands and reefs which belong to U.S. allies as well as vast portions of the South and East China Seas. Beijing is implementing a more aggressive and assertive foreign policy since 2010. The People’s Republic of China is engaging in territorial and maritime disputes with its neighboring countries. In addition to claiming all of Taiwan, China has been involved in many other international territorial disputes with India, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. China is claiming ownership of several small islands in the East and South China seas as well as the airspace. In the East China Sea, China is claiming ownership over the Japanese Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu in China).
China has claimed 90% sovereignty of the entire South China Sea, which includes Paracel and the Spratly islands. The waters around these small islands and rocks in the East China Sea and the South China Sea are known to have enormous reserves of oil and gas.
China is violating international law and the United Nations Law of the Seas Treaty which it signed. The U.N. treaty gives nations an “exclusive economic zone” that expands 200 nautical miles from their coastline, with the rights to resources in the water or under the seabed. China is drilling oil and gas close to the coast of Vietnam in violation of the treaty and sending its fishing fleet. It is also harassing Vietnamese ships.
Incredibly, China is claiming ownership of almost the entire maritime and space of the South China Sea. Beijing has seen the response of the United States to its new imperialism–the so-called “pivot” and later known as “rebalancing”–as an attempt to contain Chinese power. China wants to push the United States Navy further out into the Western Pacific.
Can Taiwan survive?
On January 26, 2021, Elbridge Colby wrote an article titled “America Can Defend Taiwan” that was published in the Wall Street Journal. He wrote that over the next four years it is likely that China will try to invade Taiwan. Xi Jinping has said Taiwan must be part of China and has signaled he intends to do something about it. Colby explained Taiwan has a most important geographic position. If Taiwan is conquered, China would have immense military power throughout Asia. America’s allies Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands would all be more vulnerable to China’s military. America has for years opposed China’s belligerence toward Taiwan and sold the island billions in armaments.
If America allows Taiwan to fall it would seriously undermine America’s credibility among already Asian allies. Colby pointed out that for these reasons, the 2018 Indo-Pacific strategy specifically ordered the Pentagon to implement a defense strategy that will make the U.S. capable of defending Taiwan. But can the United States even defend Taiwan from a China that has become so powerful?
Colby stated the following: “The People’s Liberation Army is growing stronger at an astonishingly fast rate. The PLA Navy already has more ships than the U.S. Navy, its air forces are the largest in the region, and Beijing also boasts the world’s largest missile force. Beijing seeks to reach technical parity with America’s armed forces by the 2020s and surpass us by 2030. Despite all this, the answer is yes. Defeating a PLA attack would be far from easy or cheap and being ready to do so will involve wrenching changes in the U.S. and Taiwanese defense establishments. But it is doable…If China faced a sophisticated and prepared defense, especially combined with Taiwan’s resolute population that has watched Beijing bludgeon Hong Kong’s freedoms. But taking a Taiwan backed up by a well-prepared U.S. military is a far different proposition. Amphibious invasions against a capable, prepared defense are very hard.”
But the question is will President Biden and other members of his administration, who have been so compromised by China, have the will to risk a war with a stronger China over Taiwan? If the Biden administration cuts the budget of the Pentagon to pieces as the Obama-Biden administration did for several years, a weaker Armed Forces will encourage China to take over Taiwan. Additionally, all the misguided executive orders signed by President Biden in the last two weeks are very damaging to the economy and the national security. Sadly, if America allows China to invade and conquer Taiwan, China will become the strongest superpower in the world and America’s allies will abandon our nation and will try to accommodate as best as possible to a terrible Chinese New World Order.
It should never have come to this. The United States helped Chiang Kai-Shek defeat the Japanese in WWII. We then essentially abandoned him and his coalition of Pro-Democracy forces in their existential war against the Communists under Mao, until they were forced to flee to Formosa (now Taiwan).
The government on Taiwan has always been the legitimate government of all of China, and the Communist PRC on the mainland has always been the illegitimate usurper. Unfortunately, the US lost its desire to effectively fight Communists and Communism at the critical juncture in time when it would have made all the difference. We allowed Communism to swallow all of Eastern Europe when we could have easily prevented it, and we allowed the mass-murderer Mao to take over all of mainland China when we could have also prevented that.
Now we are faced with a Communist China that is fully engaged in unlimited warfare with America by every means except direct military attack. They have been stealing our industrial and military technology for decades. Likewise, they have been waging economic warfare against us for decades. They have engaged in unlimited cyber-warfare against us, the blatant theft of our 2020 election just being the most recent and most visible example. They have put into orbit satellites designed to kill our communications satellites, and they probably also have deployed satellites capable of an EMP attack on our power grids. And now they have unleashed a biological weapon on us.
If you read the writings of Communist Chinese generals and high up party officials, they express the clear sentiment that North America by all rights should have been settled by the Chinese and not the Europeans. They view it as an unfortunate and unjust accident of timing that Europeans got here a mere 150 years before the Chinese were capable of doing so. They want North America badly, as room for expansion for the Chinese people. They plan to redress what they feel was an unjust imbalance of fate that allowed Europeans to get here first. It is said that an EMP attack that successfully takes down our power grids would result in 90% of Americans being dead within one or two years. To the Chinese, eliminating the ten percent (roughly 35 million) American survivors would be nothing more than a mopping up operation.
And now with the help of the Chinese Communist Party, a criminal, illegitimate, anti-American, and Communist-in-all-but-name-only regime has been installed in Washington, DC. God help us.