A new study by Robert Kaplan — to be printed later this month in Foreign Affairs magazine — concludes that Washington and Taipei should work together to make the prospect of war seem “prohibitively costly” to Beijing.
“The United States could then maintain its credibility with its allies by keeping Taiwan functionally independent until China became a more liberal society,” Kaplan says.
According to RAND, a major Washington-based think tank, by the year 2020 the US will no longer be able to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.
China, the RAND report says, will by that time be able to defeat the US in a war in the Taiwan Strait even if the US has F-22s, two carrier strike groups and continued access to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.
Kaplan, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, writes that in the 21st century, China will project hard power abroad primarily through its navy.
“The Chinese navy sees little but trouble in what it calls the ‘first island chain’: the Korean Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan (including the Ryukyu Islands), Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia,” Kaplan says.
Aiming to block the US Navy from entering the East China Sea and other Chinese coastal waters, China has modernized its destroyer fleet and has plans to acquire one or two aircraft carriers and could field a submarine force larger than the US Navy’s — which has 75 submarines in commission — within 15 years.
“As part of its effort to control its offshore waters in the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea, China is also improving its mine-warfare capability, buying fourth-generation jet fighters from Russia and deploying 1,500 Russian surface-to-air missiles along its coast,” Kaplan says.
China’s aim, he says, is to dissuade the US Navy from getting between the first island chain and the Chinese coast whenever and wherever it wants.
“Since the ability to shape one’s adversary’s behavior is the essence of power, this is evidence that a Greater China is being realized at sea as on land,” he says.
And most important to the advent of a Greater China is the future of Taiwan.
“The issue of Taiwan is often discussed in moral terms: Beijing talks about the need to consolidate the national patrimony and unify China for the good of all ethnic Chinese; Washington talks about preserving this model democracy. But the real issue is something else. Taiwan is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ midway up China’s seaboard,” he writes.
Kaplan says that if Taiwan returned “to the bosom” of China, the Chinese navy would not only be in an advantageous strategic position vis-a-vis the first island chain, but would be free to project power beyond it to an unprecedented degree.
“China’s strategy to deny the US Navy entry into certain waters is designed not only to keep US forces away generally, but also, specifically, to foster its dominance over Taiwan,” he says in the study.
Beijing, he adds, is preparing to envelop Taiwan not just militarily, but economically and socially.
“If the US simply abandons Taiwan to Beijing, then Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and other US allies in the Pacific Ocean, as well as India and even some African states, will begin to doubt the strength of Washington’s commitments,” Kaplan says.
Strengthening US air and sea power in Oceania would be a compromise approach.
“This approach would ensure that China paid a steep price for any military aggression against Taiwan. It would also allow the United States to scale back its so-called legacy bases on the first island chain but nonetheless allow US ships and planes to continue to patrol the area,” he writes.
“The very fact of China’s rising economic and military power will exacerbate US-Chinese tensions in the years ahead. The United States, the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, will try to prevent China from becoming the hegemon of much of the Eastern Hemisphere. This could be the signal drama of the age,” he says.
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
The Republic of China (ROC) is celebrating its 114th Double Ten National Day today, featuring military parades and a variety of performances and speeches in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. The Taiwan Taiko Association opened the celebrations with a 100-drummer performance, including young percussionists. As per tradition, an air force Mirage 2000 fighter jet flew over the Presidential Office as a part of the performance. The Honor Guards of the ROC and its marching band also heralded in a military parade. Students from Taichung's Shin Min High School then followed with a colorful performance using floral imagery to represent Taiwan's alternate name
COGNITIVE WARFARE: Chinese fishing boats transmitting fake identification signals are meant to test Taiwan’s responses to different kinds of perceived incursions, a report said Chinese vessels are transmitting fake signals in Taiwan’s waters as a form of cognitive warfare, testing Taipei’s responses to various types of incursions, a report by the Institute for the Study of War said on Friday. Several Chinese fishing vessels transmitted fake automatic identification system (AIS) signals in Taiwan’s waters last month, with one mimicking a Russian warship and another impersonating a Chinese law enforcement vessel, the report said. Citing data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the report said that throughout August and last month, the Chinese fishing boat Minshiyu 06718 (閩獅漁06718) sailed through the Taiwan Strait while intermittently transmitting its own AIS
CHINESE INFILTRATION: Medical logistics is a lifeline during wartime and the reported CCP links of a major logistics company present a national security threat, an expert said The government would bolster its security check system to prevent China from infiltrating the nation’s medical cold chain, a national security official said yesterday. The official, who wished to stay anonymous, made the remarks after the Chinese-language magazine Mirror Media (鏡周刊) reported that Pharma Logistics (嘉里醫藥物流) is in charge of the medical logistics of about half of the nation’s major hospitals, including National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The company’s parent, Kerry TJ Logistics Co (嘉里大榮物流), is associated with the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the
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