What are we to make of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the subsequent rumpus?
Eighty-two-year-old Pelosi was the first senior representative of the US administration to visit Taiwan over the last twenty-five years, and she made the trip in the face of fierce opposition from the Chinese government and even against the expressed wishes of President Biden. Clearly, nobody tells her what to do!
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The US government’s policy towards China has often been described as one of strategic ambiguity; it officially recognises the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping whilst supporting Taiwan militarily and economically. Others have characterised its policy as one of strategic confusion, and there was much rowing back by White House officials after their President’s assertion on three separate occasions that if China attempted to invade Taiwan, the USA would intervene.
Taiwan is important internationally because it manufacture’s something like eighty per cent of the world’s computer chips. The thought of China gaining control of such a near monopoly does not bear thinking about. It is also of more immediate importance to the US and its allies in the region – Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, to name but a few – because it’s at the centre of the inner ring of island nations which are seen to curtail China’s expansionist ambitions.
The Chinese Government Reaction
The Chinese government’s reaction to Speaker Pelosi’s visit has been like that of a baby having a tantrum and throwing all of its toys out of its pram. Military exclusion zones have been declared just off Taiwan, ballistic missiles have been fired into the sea near Taiwan and Japan, naval vessels have patrolled, and fighter jets have carried out practice attacks. And, although many international commentators are near hysterical in their doomsday predictions, the Taiwanese themselves seem to be mainly non-plussed.
According to the Chinese state-affiliated media, which few people outside of China read anyway, the people there are somewhat underwhelmed by Bejing’s response. There has been much spluttering, and expressions of outrage but not much follow through, really. President Xi Jinping certainly talks the talk, but clearly, he is not yet ready to walk the walk.
The truth of the matter is that even for the mighty Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA), the two million-strong military wing of the Chinese Communist Party, launching an assault across the eighty miles wide Taiwan Strait that separates the island from mainland China is fraught with difficulties and danger. The PLA has neither the doctrine, training, or experience of such an operation, which in the face of predictably fierce Taiwanese resistance would make D Day look like a paddle along the shoreline.
Invading Taiwan wouldn’t be easy, even for China
Consider the task that would face the PLA. An opposed assault across the dauntingly wide and dangerous Taiwan Strait against a fully prepared and motivated Taiwanese defence equipped with modern weaponry and troops who would be fired up to defend their homeland. The likeliest scenario that would ensue would be the delay and attrition of the invader until such times as the USA, Japan, and South Korea came to Taiwan’s assistance. It’s a no-win prospect for China.
Other commentators have speculated that China might take a more softly-softly approach. It could, for example, try to take the Matsu and Kinmen Islands, recognised as part of Taiwan by the US-Taiwan Relations Act, to test American resolve. Would the US and its allies go to war over these small island groups that are home to around 20,000 people? It’s a moot point, but I think it’s just an option which China will deem just not worth the risk at the moment.
China has never governed Taiwan, which it regards as a wayward province which needs to be brought back into the fold, in modern times. The Taiwanese, for their part, have no wish to go down the route of Hong Kong and be subsumed by Communist China. The only correct way for the (re)unification of Taiwan with mainland China is through the democratically expressed will of the Taiwanese people. I don’t think we have to hold our breaths for that one to happen.
This festering sore of a stand-off will persist for some time yet, I fear.
The Chinese navy is set to be double the size of the USN by the early 2030’s it’ll be interesting to see how a force that size can maintain training and discipline in a combat environment and how are the build quality of the 100s frigates etc can hold up to any hits.
Seeing as being double the size involves mass producing small combatants, it’s not exactly a straight comparison. An Arleigh-Burke has the firepower to take on 3-4 Chinese escorts, but depending on the scenario that may or not matter.
If I recall, the Chinese frigates bought on the export market haven’t been popular with their new owners, with technical and reliability issues commonplace. I’ll have a check, see if I can the article.
PLAN has plenty of large escorts & many more coming. We can either dismiss them or plan accordingly. We dismissed the Imperial Japanese fleet before WW2 but they whipped us in the first engagements. When your enemies are gearing up for war it’s suicidal to be complacent.
Frank I suspect you’re overestimating China’s current and future capabilities. China: 2 light carriers 0 fleet carriers (1 being built) 50 destroyers 32 frigates (4000t) 9 SSN 49 SSK (of which around 20% is obsolete Ming class) US: 11 fleet carriers 9 light carriers (LHA/LHD capable of fixed wing operations) 92 destroyer/cruisers (to shrink with loss of 22 x Tico, whilst smaller numbers of destroyers and frigates will be introduced) 51 x SSN BUT! Taiwan 4 destroyers 22 frigates 2 SSK (exclude 2 ancient WWII class boats) Japan 2 light carriers 36 destroyers 7 frigate (some classed as destroyer escorts)… Read more »
Hi Dead1, only just seen your post as the notification went to my spam folder weirdly. I’m well aware that China’s neighbours combined outmatch the PLAN comfortably as they’ve not raced to disarm like we in the West have, but have engaged intelligently in the arms race to deter China. The problem is the PRC believing their own properganda, ramping up their fleet at rapid pace, fomenting dissention amongst our friends & allies, cyber attacks, etc. The USA whom most of the free world relies upon is on the brink of civil war(God forbid & I hope dearly the law… Read more »
BTW China’s carriers are far from light, similar or larger than our QEs & the 3rd(80,000t+) was launched in June & currently fitting out.
Light in terms of function- those lumbering J-15s can only launch with a limited fuel and weapon load due to ski jump. They are point defence only unlike a US or UK which offers full strike capability.
Callum wrote:
Callum,
I read one such article the other week I hope you dont mind if I post the link and a happy snap of the article:
China’s forces are massive. They have over 750 flanker variants and another 130+ in the navy. At lot of them Chinese developments of the flankers. Nevermind all the other types. I don’t know if even america could deal with them so close to the Chinese mainland.
This guy (millennium7*) does the best videos on YouTube about aircraft etc
https://youtu.be/bar0Ua2_JIw
That is a great video about Chinese flankers.
Believe ChiComs will not deliberately choose to invade Taiwan until assured of overwhelming superiority in conventional weapons (circa 2035), and more importantly, achieving a significant increase in nuclear warhead inventory (circa 2030+). Then ChiComs will practice the same intimidation of the West as Mad Vlad and the slobbering Orcs. If they succeed, Taiwan will merely become a stepping stone to further conquests. There is, however, a possibility that ChiComs may be baited into invasion before becoming fully prepared, by unanticipated events. The die has probably already been cast re WW IiI, the principal questions remaining are when it occurs, number… Read more »
…WW III…
It’s not a great advert for no more nuclear nations in the world but maybe that could stop China. I really pray they can just live separately happily ever after.
You would think the Ukraine situation should be showing everyone with an interest of invasion that it’s not a good idea and the population will not just roll over and play nice.
If the free world declares a resolute NO to any plans for the PRC to try to retake Taiwan, then they’ll have to back down. We’ve appeased the PRC too far & too long. It’s bad enough it oppresses its own people, but colonial/world ambitions are chilling.
Sure close to Chinese shore, Chinese have control. Further out of the range of these jets including key choke points in Philippines Sea, Malacca Strait, the US has complete dominance. But note Chinese Flankers like any Flankers are not stealthy, most aren’t networked (newer ones are) and lack modern avionics (especially J-11S which are basically Chinese Su-27SK which is essentially 1980s tech that has not been upgraded much). Like the Russians Chinese lack ISTAR and lack things like dedicated SEAD. So it’s possible to erode any Chinese numbers using F-22s. Chinese J-20 is an unknown and I don’t want to… Read more »
All I would say is beware of hubris, western systems can have just as many catalogues of errors and problems, but it does not mean they don’t get sorted out quickly. China is a super power, with probably the greatest manufacturing capability on the planet, it’s also way ahead in a number of key areas of scientific development. Yes it’s got less experience that the western industrial military complex, which shows in its issues with complex systems, but that can suddenly get fixed very quickly. If the West does not rebalance it’s industrial capacity quickly it may find itself on… Read more »
excuse the pun but I fear that ship has already sailed.
The west’s love of ‘everything cheap’ consumerism has put paid to our general manufacturing capability.
There were some rumblings of addressing that following the issues COVID identified but enough Tory MPs have stamped on that particular ‘revolution’ – many fingers in many pies methinks.
The problem is grizzler the west has two pretty stark choices and any amount of defence spending uplift will not change this as armies and navies do not in the end dictate the geopolitical winners from the losers, manufacturing, access to critical resources, wealth, political and population will win this ( you don’t even need population mass in the end, just will). So the west can either: 1) accept a slow slide into chinese hedgmony and accept its place in the world, which will include a slow degradation of economic wealth and power. 2) End 3 decades of Neoliberal, the… Read more »
Totally agree with your statement. We also need to pay engineers, scientists and the military better wages in the west. At the moment we seem to pay accountants, celebrities, footballers, bankers and managers too much for doing too little. At the end of the day…its the scientists and engineers that win the battles for us…and provide the products to sell…too much paper shuffling in the west and not enough “doing” and “creating” with the foot soldiers…
Cannot disagree, we do tend to undervalue the doers and overvalue those that work to realise more profits for shareholder ( bankers, accountants and CEOs).
I wonder how many western ordinary consumers really wanted so much of our manufacturing moved to China? Was it not rather our buisness leaders & major investors who chose to throw our workers under the bus to make them even richer far quicker?
I doubt many consumers want smartphones that cost £5000 so it’s not cut and dried.
no but they want phones as cheap as possible, and laptops, and TVs and …well you get the picture…so its the cheap end they are supporting not necessarily the high end.
The power pojection capabilty of the US Navy will not be matched in the foreseeable future.After all the US has a 6000 mile ocean to the west and a 3000 mile ocean to the east
Irrelevant.
As Callum said Chinese navy is based around small combatants.
It has very limited blue water operational capability and lacks logistics for any major power projection outside first island chain.
Well done Nancy P for giving Taiwan a boost. We must no allow the PRC to bully & dictate to others. We’ve been way too soft on them for too long. We either stand up for freedom, democracy & international law or see it snuffed out, along with our freedoms & democracy. Taiwan is threatened with extinction. Few of us were ever asked if we wanted most of our manufacturing jobs were experted to China. That was the pure greed of our evil leaders. It’s fed the monster that has its sights set on world domination. When will the Chinese… Read more »
When will the people of the free world realise that they have no vote with the PRC other than the decision to Not Buy the products that are produced there with the specific intent to destroy our manufacturing and dominate us economically.
good luck with that – cheap laptops , phones and whatever else fuelled (literally) by cheap power stations.
Whilst over here those beloved pious climate warriors put concrete in the holes in golf greens.
You couldnt make it up- pathetic.
If your freedom is of no value to you and you have no idea of the real cost in blood and treasure that was already paid, then you might think that Chinese junk is good value. I would see that as woefully ignorance and a severe criticism of our education system. It’s not enough to remember the fallen once a year, rather we need to understand the evil that led to world wars, and take responsibility to prevent it again. We don’t need to send our youth to die if we can give them some insight now.
Whats pathetic is the govt having a hosepipe ban but golf courses and bowling greens are exempt. (imo)
I think it these people spent half as much time & effort trying to identify & address the real issues they may at least get a little support from the populous.
However that would require some insightful thinking so I doubt thats going to be forthcoming.
I have no time for their virtue signalling, truly symptomatic of the modern subversive detritus prevelant on social media.
Water companies impose hose pipe bans not govt.
was about to write the same. Bravo sir! Beat me to it.
Companies are totalitarian organisations.Ever met anyone who has been sacked?
You really come across as a very sad troll, seek help
In your Russia they don’t get sacked they disappear!
Perhaps the water industry should not have been allowed to sell of reservoirs, the cost of their maintaining them was bad for profits, also if you have a big big pile of debt servicing the loan can reduce taxable profits !
Following Speaker Pelosi’s visit (to ‘secure’ her legacy?) I am reminded of Adm Yamamoto’s words following another, but clearly very different, ‘unwelcome visit’ to a far away island’ – “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”.
Exactly, would not have thought to draw the parallel to Pearl Harbor. This is an example of the type of provocation by which the ChiComs may be baited into precipitous action before they are fully prepared.
Thanks for the comment. After ChiCom’s extreme reaction to the Pelosi visit, I am surprised that the US is now sending 3 senators to Taiwan on Sunday, arriving in a USAF military aircraft. Does Biden understand China?
Biden can barely remember his own name….and Kamala Harris (or Her, they, them, Mrs Cackle or whatever her pronoun this week) is equally brainless…
Has Kamala actually done anything apart from standing two paces behind Biden on a podium and once taking a trip to look at the border with Mexico – Trump’s wall!
US Congress used to be dangerous only when in session; expanded remit to include periods in recess. 😁
Exactly. Would not have thought to draw the parallel w/ Pearl Harbor as a provocation.
US economic sanctions provoked Pearl Harbour.America always thinks up wonderful fairy stories.
Yaaaaaaawn
There is no evidence Yamamoto ever said any such thing?Media fantasy.
Maybe, but it is ingrained folklore now. My point is that the US has stirred up China with the Pelosi visit then the visit of the 3 US senators barely a week later, both visits seemingly being non-essential. China has massively over-reacted and clearly a nerve has been touched. They seem to be expansionist and really wanting that superpower label. Conflict could break out.
The problem here is that according to international law Taiwan is China and China is Taiwan, it’s simply a civil war that has never ended. They are one nation with separate governments. Taiwan is not a recognised county according to the UN and is still classed as a province of China.
Your greed and my greed too. All us westerners love cheap goods made in slave labour conditions
Shortly after American tyranny over ite minion vassal states in Europe and Asia is removed,
And a very close post to the other sad troll dead1! Damn even decent covert trolling for you russkie fetishises seems hard to do!
How do you successfully land troops across an 80 miles straight faced with a determined enemy? Air power. You can bet in no time that the computer chip factories will take some hammer. The level of tooling etc is not easily replaced.
If PLAN air dropped to secure the plants, the ensuing fighting would likely destroy them. If Taiwan are losing they’d aim to prevent these plants being used and would look to destroy. Whichever way you look at it, China may not get hold of 80% production, we may just end up with a huge global gap
The tooling is Dutch(ASML) and the rare earths come from PRC.Without Chinas rare earths no one make chips,that includes TSCM.
There are plenty of rare earth metals. They aren’t even rare.
It’s just extracting them is very nasty stuff, that we’d rather pawn off to China. If push came to shove though, we’d do it in our own countries.
Australia and US have formed partnership for exploration, extraction and processing. Australia has the sixth largest proven reserves, US has one mine.
Although part of China as such has the PRC got any claim to Taiwan as its never been part of the PRC? You could turn this around and say Taiwan has as much of a claim to the rest of China.
That’s pretty much it. Taiwan was where the nationalist forces went to when the communists took over mainland China. Then the government in Taiwan had thoughts that they would take back control over mainland China at some point. This thought faded as the PRC became stronger and countries stopped recognising Taiwan as the government of all of China switching to the peoples republic communist China. So then instead of 2 countries you have both saying they are in the legitimate of both areas. What a mess Just to add I’m not a historian and may have bits wrong but that’s… Read more »
Yes and that’s the point Taiwan does claim China in the same way as China claims Taiwan.
Some of our number feel sure that China is the West’s next enemy. What should our response be if the unthinkable happened and China invaded Taiwan? I guess the UK would mirror the US response?
I don’t really think the U.K. can do much at all. Send a fleet based round a carrier to sail round the area and pray they don’t get attacked. Even a coalition of all willing countries would struggle to take on china in there back yard. I hope China knows how devastating a war would be and sticks to non military action. As far as I can tell the U.K. hasn’t been a big Taiwan supporter. If Taiwan had been recognised as an actual country maybe more could be done. It should of happened decades ago before PRC became a… Read more »
We could do a lot as part of an alliance.
Of course the US would be at the head, but the UK could block various access points and special forces could be sent in to cause trouble at China’s other borders in an attempt to draw forces away from the east.
There would be plenty of pipelines to destroy and trade routes to blockade.
Not sure how realistic your SF option is: British troops are NEVER going to operate from the following countries, not even SF: Russia, India, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Kyrgistan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Pakistan.
Mongolia? Maybe, but you’d have to fly them in over either Russia or China ….
Kazakhstan? Again flying from where? Pakistan and Afghanistan… given that PAK is aligned to China unlikely
Nepal? Maybe, but can’t see India sanctioning our overflights even to annoy the Chinese.
We should start moving production to India and other more stable countries !
I’m not even sure what the US response would be, the US has never formally made clear it response.
China is not our next enemy; it is our enemy today, and a responsible Govt would be preparing to fight that war, now – good luck on 8 T26 and some Astutes.
We could never mirror the US response and if China moves on Taiwan, be sure Korea will kick off at the same time.
The next war will suck up all the resources we have, we really need a competent Govt.
David, thanks for this. Our Government isn’t even preparing to fight Russia (no defence enhancements or extra cash for Defence annnounced since the February Russian invasion in Europe), let alone China. By ‘mirroring’ the US response to any invasion of Taiwan by PRC, I did not of course mean that we would deploy the same weight of resource! I meant that if the US opted for sanctions, we would. If they opted to send military equipment and supplies to a beleagured Taiwan, we would. If they sailed a naval task force, we would. All the above, subject to UN Resolutions,… Read more »
She looks older than senile, old Joe. lol
maybe they share the same brain cell as well…it does make me wonder about the US with Mrs Pronoun or Mrs Cackle calling the shots if Biden soils his man nappies…
In way, it feels like it could be the 1930s all over again. We could start by getting our own house in order and shutting down the CCPs malign influence in the UK itself, especially technology theft, and the CCP’s influence in so many British universities.
yep – exactly, its a disgrace universities cow- tow to their chinese benefactors…
Still what do you expect now they have to pay their own way?. Univesitity Chancellors don’t get their expensive cars by not knowing whopays for their integrity.
It’s very interesting as their is a lot of miss understanding around the Chinese Taiwan question, it’s just not simple and people’s assumptions of what will happen possibly very mistaken as well as the legal implications of what would happen in any conflict around Taiwan. And whose actions would end up being illegal. The very first thing to remember is that Taiwan and mainland China are the same country. Both Taiwan and mainland China agree on this one very important point. Infact the government of Taiwan still hold the constitution position that they are the true government of China and… Read more »
Legally the Qing government agreed to make Hong Kong Island a crown colony, ceding it to the Queen Victoria of Great Britain, in perpetuity. Does that mean we should be given Hong Kong back? Only the new territory parts of it were leased for 99 years…Realistically keeping Hong Kong under the treaty obligations of Nanking wasn’t feasible (Thatcher tried) but threats of force were made…I guess what I’m saying is might is right even in the 21st Century… Iwould add that people actually make the mistake that Britain went to war because of Opium. It was a small factor and the major issue… Read more »
I truth Hong Kong was a bit different legally as it was a negation between two sovereign nations. But it does give a lessons: 1) Although Hong Kong Island was UK sovereigns territory in perpetually and we had every legal right to keep it. No other nation would have supported the U.K. and going to war a whole world away with a nation like China on its own coastline was and still would be impossible. And however the world may go on about the international rule of law, there is and always has been a what you cannot defend you… Read more »
Although I would say China was not at that time Mercantilists, the British empire was ( it’s how we got and empire) China at that time was protectionist ( which is the only way it could protect itself from an aggressive mercantile power like the British empire). The irony is the role is now reversed and China is a rampant user of mercantilism as a way to destroy western hedgmony and as we are obsessively Neo liberal we will not even use protectionism to defend ourselves.
We should keep in mind foremost that millions of free Taiwanese would be thrown to the wolf & live in fear or be snuffed out if the PRC took Taiwan.
But frank and this is utterly brutal and the simple truth, Nations don’t care about those millions and the suffering of other populations is never a deciding factor in war. Just look at Ukraine or any Rwanda or any number of any African populations broken by the evil of the totalitarian authoritarian. Nations have no morals or moral compass, they are not individuals and you cannot ever use a moral equivalence in regards to the geopolitical play of nations (even over the modern historical (enlightenment to mid 20c) period we in the west have killed Or let die untold millions… Read more »
Taiwan has a long and complicated history as a colony of the Chinese Empire, western power plays, the rise of the Japanese Empire, the Chinese civil war and US China relations… like a lot of historical stories much of what constitutes ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ comes down to power and politics. Taiwan is a political football. The US used it to help lever China away from the USSR’s influence and now to castigate the CCP for its authoritarian / anti-democratic system. The CCP sees uniting Taiwan with the PRoC as the inevitable conclusion of the civil war and reclaiming a Chinese… Read more »
I wasn’t aware of all of that – maybe I shoud do some reading about the history of Tiawan.so I can better understand the upcoming war. I will agree with a couple of points: its the computer chips manufacturing that all sides really want & the political parties will do absolutely nothing about Chinese influence and control in either the UK or the EU on a larger scale. For example the UK should be stopping any and ALL Sales of UK Chip manufacturers to Chinese companies – There should be no investigations, no consultations ,as are currently being undertaken, they… Read more »
Yes it’s essential to understand that Taiwan has been part of China for 450 years, with an episode form 1895 to 1945 when it was ceded to the Japanese empire ( might is right). It then returned to Chinese’s rule in 1945. The republic of China (ROC) was the losing side of the Chinese civil war and retreated to Taiwan and fortified it. The ROC still maintains its the government of China and would if at all possible overthrow the present Chinese government (reunification is still part of its constitution). Until 1987 Taiwan had been under martial law in which… Read more »
Yes. Do they actually believe in the free market mantra, or is it just complacency?
Yes to all of that, but I differ from you in the fact I think the west would have no option but to fight a war over Taiwan….most of the worlds production capacity in a core part of all modern tec, means the US and the rest of the west would have no other option geopolitically. China gets Taiwan’s production it’s probably game over long term for western hedgmony.
You could be right. There’s always the element of the unknown when figuring out what might happen in the future! Right now, the western economic decoupling with China is already underway. The US government has just passed the Chips and Science Act (investing over $52 billion in US chip fabrication). It’s not a lost cause by any means. It looked like game over for the US with the cultural turmoil of the 1960s and Vietnam, but they bounced back.
Yes it sort of depends where the west goes really. Each western nation as well as the west as a whole need to have a clear strategy to manage china’s very successful mercantile strategy. If they ( the western nations) can get their acts together and redeveloped industrial and tec capacity across the board then I think we will have less flash points/tensions that would force a war with China. In reality I think if China is left to its own devices it would probably move to a cycle of introspection/isolationist policies , Han exceptionalism linked with a continental mindset… Read more »
Technically Pelosi visiting ROC (Taiwan) is like China’s 3IC (Li Zhanshu) meeting with Taliban back when America’s puppet government ruled Afghanistan and treating them as legitimate government and not the American stooges in Kabul.
Legally both PRC and ROC claim Taiwan is part of China. Additionally ROC constitution still claims legal control over all China. Literally ROC is an outpost held by an alternative mainland Chinese government.
So you can understand why US 3IC visiting Taiwan will ruffle feathers in Beijing.