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October 19, 2020 - 10:00am
The People’s Republic of China has escalated its military preparations for the invasion of Taiwan, according to the pro-Beijing South China Morning Post. Advanced hypersonic missiles have been deployed to military bases facing the breakaway island across the South China Sea, while satellite images show Marine Corps and Rocket Force military bases in Fujian and Guangdong steadily expanding over recent years.
Taiwan, an island in the South China Sea about 100 miles from China, has long been the subject of sovereignty disputes, with stints governed by imperial China, imperial Japan and even (for a short time in the 17th century) Netherlands. It’s been governed separately from China since 1949, when then-leader Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to the island after losing the civil war with the communists on the mainland.
This history means that the government of Taiwan sees itself as the legitimate government of all China, exiled following communist treachery. But the Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as a rebel province, and Xi Jinping has not been shy about his plans to retake Taiwan, stating that “Taiwan’s independence is a reversal of history and a dead-end road”.
When Xi decides to move, we should expect a few Western commentators to say anguished things, but Western powers to do nothing. When Disney thanks the government of Xinjiang province for permitting filming in a region where the Communist regime has incarcerated more than a million Muslims, and the NBA walks back support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, it’s clear that at least as far as the American cultural and entertainment industries are concerned, the ideals of universal freedom and democracy have been weighed in the scales and found (at least relative to commercial considerations) wanting.
This reflects a pragmatic, and accurate, assessment that America no longer has the economic and military clout (and, importantly, self-belief) it once possessed to back up the global spread of its worldview with force if necessary. For all the tortured noises made in the West about parallels between China’s re-education camps and the Holocaust, the reality is that no state today has the power to compel China to do anything.
The fantasy of an ‘ethical foreign policy’, promulgated by the likes of Robin Cook in the days before the Iraq debacle, should be understood as the luxury belief of a regime that — after the end of the Cold War — briefly considered itself unassailable. Anyone still clinging to the tatters of that fantasy would do well to reflect on the playground jibe thrown at anyone trying to compel a reluctant playmate to their viewpoint: “You and whose army?”.
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SubscribeThe fall of Taiwan will be Act one of the tragic collapse of the West. If we fail to stand up for a functioning, civil democracy in the face of Maoist aggression then the full scale and extent of our depravity will be clear. But is it any wonder? Our societies are top heavy with parasitical bureaucracies, peddling and imposing Marxist policy regardless. To this end they have accelerated inward migration to the point where old notions of freedom are little more than a fiction – see the fate of poor M. Paty in France or the litany of sackings and prosecutions for “wrong-think”. Our military spending has been piffling and our economies are mired in bottomless debt. Even in terms of sheer demographics, we do not have the numbers of young to staff an army of any size. And on top of all this, Marxists are in control of our institutions, broadly apologising for Lenin, Stalin et al and relentlessly accusing anyone not signed up to their programme of “fascism”. If anyone doubts this, consider the BBC’s way of marking the hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s coup, in 2017. Instead of calmly anatomising the criminal and increasingly psychotic regime of communist Russia, it allowed apologists a free hand to gloss and skew the history – properly unthinkable had they been discussing the German election of 1933. As Yoram Hazony has noted, the left is making its big push; it is doing so now because Brexit and Trump have frightened it and somewhere at the back of it all lurk the power brokers of Beijing.
Yes, you spell out the reality with perfectly clarity. In just 30 years we have gone from defeating the Soviet Union to becoming, if we are not careful, the Soviet Union.
Depravity to not engage in war with China? Extraordinary idea. Given that Taiwan still claims leadership of the whole of China and given that it is geographically obviously a part of China I suggest its time Taiwan started changing their policies to align with political realities. I agree entirely with your comments regarding the drift of Western establishments to fairly hard left positions but that could never excuse a war with China that would kill millions.
China doesn’t have to invade Taiwan. If it chooses to do so, then the depravity is theirs.
A war to stop that depravity would (even if successful) be a cure far worse than the disease.
Portugal is obviously a part of Spain and Alaska is obviously a part of Canada
“Given that Taiwan still claims leadership of the whole of China”
In the sense of pragmatic diplomacy, it would be Taiwan *not* nominally claiming leadership of the whole of the China that would be seen as intolerable by the Chinese Communist Party. That nominal claim – the government in Taipei of course has understood for many years that it has neither the means nor the will to enact it – is a key part of the “one China” idea to which the CCP is firmly committed.
The logical means by which the government of Taiwan would relinquish that nominal claim would be for it to request formal international recognition of de facto reality: that Taiwan is an independent, separately governed country that’s distinct from mainland China.
Actually getting involved would be the tragic fall of the west. Not that most of Europe will get involved, but the US feels an imperial duty to expend there.
Defending Taiwan against Chinese aggression is anti-imperialism.
It’s also imperialism. Get rid of the toy soldiers, mate, and live in reality. China is on the other side of the world.
Who exactly is being conquered?
Eugene, you must know that the longest range of an ICBM is about 10,000 miles.
Even here in Arcadia, both you and I are within range of ‘something’ from Shanxi Province, as it is only a mere 5,000 miles away.
The USN has spent trillions developing the Ohio class nuclear, ballistic, submarines, and for now, and perhaps the next five years, the CCP has no creditable alternative.
It’s time to use them before it is too late. Prevention is better than cure. Taiwan will offer the perfect casus belli.
A very clear sighted and realistic article, although I don’t believe Cook ever promised an ‘ethical foreign policy’. Instead, he talked of a foreign policy with ‘an ethical dimension’. Anyway, he did at least have the decency to resign over Iraq.
Of course, had the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya not taken place, the West might still have had the credibility and confidence etc to resist the Chinese over Taiwan and various other issues. But all that is gone.
I remember advocates of the Domino theory putting the question, “Would you rather fight them in…. or San Diego, Chicago?”, etc.
It would take a greater will and ruthlessness to stop China now than the West possesses.
The fact is that if the Dems get in will they will, essentially, hand San Diego and Chicago to the Chinese anyway. No fighting necessary.
Oh ffs. The Chinese are taking over San Diego or Chicago in what fashion?
You might not be aware of the fact that the Chinese gave Hunter Biden 1.5 billion to play with. The Chinese own the Bidens.
And imagine if Chicago or another corrupt and collapsing Democrat-run city declares bankruptcy. There is every chance that they will turn to the Chinese for the money.
Added to which, the Chinese have already made considerable inroads into US educational, cultural and financial institutions.
I’ll take that fantasy with the same grain of salt as I take the Russian interference nonsense.
What considerable inroads? I’d believe that Chinese were dominating the US institutions if the US were less hostile to China. In that case you too would be less hostile to china.
The supposed takeover of Taiwan has no effect on you. If you want the “west” (meaning the US”) to overcome China then the case being made for a population of 1 billion by 2100, or earlier, makes sense. The Chinese may well catch up in per capita income by then. That’s good for the military and the capitalists, not so much for the average joe. Not much good either for what’s left of western values in the US.
Otherwise who cares about Taiwan? The term isolationist is used as an insult these days for US politicians who don’t want to fight whomever the new hitler is. ( It changes every 2-4 years. Xi is the new hitler, taking over from Putin) but the US was founded on isolationism from all conflicts.
Meanwhile a genuine threat to Europe (Turkey) is largely ignored in the Anglophone world.
To be blunt, as someone who grew up there and whose family lives there, I do. I can see your point around non-interference and of course the general pacifist overtones, but I think both of those are significantly better arguments than “it’s on the other side of the world, so no one cares”.
Erm… have a look to see from where the money goes in to Vancouver and NW Canada.
And if Communist China decides it wants to conquer Korea or Japan? Would we help those countries defend themselves? Appeasement does not work with China; we already let it take Tibet to our shame, while stopping the Uygher genocide is probably too difficult. But we should defend Taiwan as long as it continues to be willing to fight hard for its rights.
After you into the front line !
If you embrace cynicism, that in itself can lead to fantasy.
“We have no option but to give in.”
“Oh yeah, and you think they’ll leave you alone?””
Embracing cynicism is at least better than embracing carnage.
Honestly people here are insane. China is a threat to our way of life? The 19C is over and the cost of empire is always a disaster for the people at home, particularly as the elites will not just run the empire but guilt you and yours for their actions during the empire.
It’s so easy to get the population riled up. China is on the other side of the world. So is Taiwan. There was little talk about the ever present threat of Hitler Xi until the last year, last few months really, as Putin was the the more worrying Hitler.
Assad was the Hitler a few years before that along with Putin, but now it’s mostly all quiet on the Assad as Hitler front. Maybe if he offers a few concessions to the west on airports to fight Hitler Xi, he won’t be Hitler anymore and we will embrace him as part of the democratic world along with Time man if the year Saudi leader Mohammed Al Choppy Choppy.
(And that would be nice for Assad because he liked meeting the queen that time when he was helping to fight Hitler Hussein.)
Getting rid of Hitler Ghadaffi and Hitler Hussein (both also threats to our way of life) has worked out great for the West so more of that. The supposed actual threats to our way of life by the increase in refugees from North Africa and Syria after we got rid of the Hitlers is only believed by very bad people. Let’s invade all of North Africa, China, Russia and the Middle East, if we want our way of life to continue. Particularly China which is 5000 miles away.
Faster, please, as the neo cons, say. Kill all the Hilters
“A quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”…
Sure. Except this time it is far away.
This really is the great unknown – would the US defend Taiwan? Okinawa, home to an enormous concentration of US troops and planes, is nearer Taiwan than the main islands of Japan. The Chinese have as much historical claim to Okinawa as they had to Tibet..(not much, by any modern standards, but that didn’t help Tibet). And to defend Taiwan the US would have to use Japan-based assets. At which point it’s Japan and the US.
If the US doesn’t defend Taiwan it would be an admission of utter defeat, since it would be a naval and air-power war. For all the US may struggle to win a continental war, one for Taiwan (sea and air), given the enormous military assets the US has in the region (in Okinawa but also in South Korea) ought to play to US strengths. Not fighting that one would be an admission they’re not going fight for any reason.
The US allies in NE Asia are Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Given where US forces are based, they’d need Korean and Japanese support, even if it was just using bases/airspace. So either those alliances are worthwhile, or they’re not. You’d find that out too in a PRC-Taiwan invasion attempt.
As gutless as US cultural and entertainment industries might be, if the US didn’t fight for Taiwan, it’d be over for them in NE Asia, and one can only hope the PRC can see that, and don’t overplay their hand. Unless the PRC can win a naval war with the US, they cannot invade Taiwan. Which means it’s a question of will – of how much the US is prepared to defend an ally. Given who will be watching, they cannot back down with Taiwan.
I agree and it is high time we faced up to this harsh fact. However, no mention of what US deployments there may be on the island. I think there are no actual troops and if USA attempted to put troops there it would spell immediate war. But are there arms deployments belonging to USA?
I fear the author may be right, and the West is fundamentally too now
soft and decadent to do anything meaningful to assist Taiwan, which on any accounts has evolved into aremarkably succesful democratic and vibrant society. The ‘wokeists’ wouldn’t acually last 5 minutes in the ‘people’s Republic’, though they may be despite hir universalist rhetoric be too Euro or West-centred to even have a view on China and for example the incarceration of a million Uighurs in concentration camps.
So I am not sure as per other comments that we can posit a conspiracy here but certainly the idea that Western values (which they are parasitic upon) are in any way worth defending anywhere would be anathema to them. Much better to demonstrate about Palestine, or chant ‘hands off Iran’ (a ‘theofascist’ republic). Wokeys never demonstate outside the embassies of China (Uighurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong and general represson and surveillance state), Pakistan (where they actually kill transgender people rather than quibble about pronouns), Iran (kills gay people), Jamaica (ditto) – andjust too many other examples to mention etc etc. But of course it is always, everywhere, the West’s fault. As long as the states are non-white, anything pretty much is forgiven,
It is however mistaken to think that the the Western left would make any real sacrifices even to oppose an actual right-wing fascist regime. Despite the International Brigades, they certainly supported appeasement in the main in the 1930s, opposed British ‘militarism’ etc.
But in all honesty it isn’t just them. It seems that the majority of Western people are, with a few exceptions in the armed forces perhaps, essentially too soft and decadent to do anything to fight – even in terms of our thinking and writing – for our own nations or democratic or liberal values elsewhere. I am no exception, a soft gay man who likes his comforts and public sector pension, so I am in no position really to criticise, but I do really think our society has become too dominated by what we might call the feminine values of caring, fairness (life isn’t), demands that we don’t have prejudice (we do), that we love people (or more accurately purport to) who are very different culturally etc (contrary to our essentially tribal nature), the value of longevity for its own sake (not to live any kind of good life). In the meantime we can be sure that China is not teaching its people to hate its own government, history and society. None of this bodes well for standing up against tyrrannical regimes or the long-term strength of Enlightenment values
“America no longer has the economic and military clout (and, importantly,
self-belief) it once possessed to back up the global spread of its
worldview with force if necessary.” What’s ethical about spreading a worldview by force if necessary? Might makes right, yes, but that’s nothing to do with ethics.
Thing is appeasement fails over and over again. We need a united west and the will especially in the States to actually rein in the amoral capitalists. Big tech is a good starting place for that at least (obviously only if Trump wins will any of this even be attempted). As for a united west pie in the sky right now. The China backed wokeists (see who fiunds BLM) will have to be totally vanquished and the anglosphere reclaimed for liberal democracy and then pressure exerted on the EU to rein in their comfortable corruption and realpolitik in the service of liberal democracy (yeah right).
I am probably as bleak as the OP about an ethical foreign policy at least until we have no choice but by then it will probably be too late without world war 3.
It very much looks like the future for most of us – or at least for our descendants – will be Islam or China. On balance, I prefer China.
“the government of Taiwan sees itself as the legitimate government of all China” – Not sure I’d agree with that, yes the constitution of Taiwan is ostensibly that of all China but the DPP government inherited that and it is in fact a Taiwanese nationalist party that promotes a distinct Taiwanese identity.
I agree that the idea of ‘ethical foreign policy’ is nonsense and has led us into ridiculous interventions that have been counterproductive, in the UK this was largely the responsibility of Blair and New Labour and their faux Conservative successors (Cameron et al); Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. I’d suggest a PRC attack on Taiwan is different, not that the UK or European countries would be involved but for perfectly valid, realist strategic reasons the US would react very severely.
On the general subject I’d recommend an excellent recent book History’s Fools by David Martin Jones https://books.google.nl/boo…
“Pick your battles”
There’s no way the West should get involved in this one.
And would almost certainly lose if it did.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute published estimates that showed 2019 defence expenditures by the US exceeded those of China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined. So it should be no sweat for the US to beat back a Chinese assault on Taiwan given its overwhelming military superiority. Or maybe not. These estimates are “in U.S. dollars converted from local currencies using market exchange rates”. Similar estimates are often quoted to show America’s unassailable might, but when a real military threat emerges, people recognize that they describe a dream world, not the real world. Richard Conolly, in “Russian Military Expenditure in Comparative Expenditure” noted that when one tries to cobble together purchasing power parity estimates of defence spending, “the sum of Russian and Chinese military spending amounted to 43 percent [of US spending] in 2005; by 2018, it was 97 percent.” This was mainly due to increased Chinese spending. Beijing does not release accurate cost data for military goods and services, making it difficult to make calculations on a PPP basis. Nevertheless, it is likely that soon Chinese and Russian defence spending combined on a PPP basis will exceed US spending, if that is not already the case.
The comments here are telling. If China takes over Taiwan its a regional issue. The only “fall of the west” involved is the fall of US imperialism. The West quite happily survives.
What imperialism? Fantasy is not an argument. If China can take over one sovereign nation, it can do so with another.
Why should it ?
Very few sovereign nations are Chinese, as Taiwan undoubtedly is.