The continuing discussion of the potential imminent Chinese assault upon Taiwan is the kind of exaggerated concern that affects semi-informed opinion at times of uncertainty.
If the United States and NATO had been unambiguous about accepting the possibility that some Ukrainians (including the Crimeans) might prefer to be Russians but that Ukraine had an absolute right to exist as a sovereign country, and that the West would sponsor serious negotiations but would come to the defense of Ukraine if it were invaded, the Russia-Ukraine war would not have occurred. Hundreds of thousands of casualties, the displacement of more than 10 million people from their homes, and tens of billions of dollars of physical damage would not have occurred.
If the Trump administration’s policy of maintaining heavy sanctions on Iran had not been altered, Hamas and Hezbollah would be in no position to have harassed and provoked Israel as they have, and the Houthis in Yemen would not have had the ability to threaten international commercial traffic through the Red Sea as they have. And there would be no discussion whatever of an imminent Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Because of the appalling fiasco of the American departure from Afghanistan, there has been considerable question and concern about the stability of the arrangements governing the policy of the United States and that of the People’s Republic of China toward Taiwan.
Chairman Mao Tse-tung advised President Richard Nixon in 1972 that China would not focus seriously on Taiwan for a century. He also said the best course was to stabilize during that period the recognition that in principle there is one China including the People’s Republic and Taiwan and there is acknowledgement by the People’s Republic that it will not attempt to reunify China by force.
What naturally generated speculation that China could be tempted to invade Taiwan were the Afghanistan debacle, the outbreak of war in Ukraine after President Joe Biden waffled over whether he would object to Russia invading the country, and the bumbling chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States General Mark Milley announcing at the outbreak of that war that Russia would occupy the entire country within a few weeks.
A good deal of uninformed speculation was bandied about on the subject despite limited recognition of what such an enterprise would entail. The Chinese would have to move at least 500,000 men in slow-moving craft across more than three times the stretch of blue water that separated southern England from the Normandy beaches. They would have to do so without an absolute assurance of air and sea superiority that the Western Allies had in 1944.
There are only six beaches on the Formosa Strait coast of Taiwan that could receive such amphibious arrivals. And they have all been fitted with extremely sophisticated in-depth defenses against seaborne invasion, including large flamethrowers that can be mechanically raised up from the seabed to attack landing craft from behind. Any significant intervention from the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which sails from Yokosuka, Japan, and always contains at least one giant Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, would assure that practically none of the Chinese expeditionary force would land successfully and that most of them would be drowned.
Because of the uncertainties that the vacillations of his own administration had incited, Mr. Biden stated explicitly in his visit to Japan in May this year that if there were a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the United States would intervene militarily to defeat it. The government of China would have noted that statement and noted that the president’s entourage conspicuously declined the opportunity to walk it back.
