Mon, Jul 10, 2023 page2

• Losing Taiwan ‘disaster’ for US: intelligence report

  DECLINE: While giving China more clout, technology and access to the region, taking Taiwan would weaken the US and remove the only Chinese-speaking democracy, it said

  • By Chang Pei-yuan and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  China winning control of Taiwan would be “disastrous for the US,” while Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party “are not being held sufficiently accountable for their actions,” Air & Space Forces Magazine cited an unclassified US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) report as saying.

  The ONI brief, released under the signature of ONI Commander Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, reportedly says that the US and China “are engaged in an international struggle between competing visions.”

  “China is executing a grand strategy, and has been unified in pursuing it comprehensively and aggressively for many years,” the magazine last week cited the brief as saying, adding that Beijing seeks to become a regional then global hegemon, “wresting influence away from the US, and imposing a new world order that favors Beijing.”

  

  US and Chinese flags flutter outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 9, 2018.

  Photo: Reuters

  Calling Xi the “most dangerous leader since Mao [Zedong, 毛澤東] in terms of willingness to use creeping expansionism and force to resolve territorial issues at his neighbors’ expense,” the brief reportedly says that China’s military has become “a formidable, highly lethal fighting force” that is “very much a peer” of the US military.

  “The US cannot afford an ‘anemic information instrument’ and must challenge China’s narrative about its peaceful rise and intentions,” the magazine said, citing the brief. “Not speaking out ‘makes the [US] more vulnerable.’”

  “The survival of Taiwan’s democracy is a critical geostrategic issue that carries long-term consequences for China, the US, and the broader international community,” the ONI document reportedly says.

  Air & Space Forces cited the brief as saying that Beijing winning control of Taiwan “would be disastrous for the US even if China did not use military force.”

  Taking Taiwan “would give Xi ‘extraordinary new legitimacy’ both domestically and internationally,” and “signal an ‘ideological win over democracy, freedom and the West,’” the magazine said.

  In annexing Taiwan, Beijing would absorb a significant economy, while growing its military power and gaining “greater reach into the Pacific domination of China’s near-abroad sea lanes and chokepoints,” it said.

  It would also give Beijing control over critical technology in Taiwan, such as semiconductors as well as US weapon systems, including fighter jets and air defenses, the magazine said.

  Possessing Taiwan would also give China considerably more influence with more countries, while the US’ credibility would “sharply decline,” with regional allies and partners reassessing their relationship with Washington, it said.

  Ultimately, “it would be much harder for the US to ‘forestall further erosion of international norms [and the] rules-based order,’” while creating “a perception of ‘US decline,’” Air & Space Forces cited the brief as saying, adding: “There would be no Chinese-speaking democracy in Asia.”
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