Beijing increases pressure on Taiwan: the real test of the Biden presidency
In recent days, a record number of warplanes from the People's Republic in the defense zone of Taiwan, which Beijing considers one of its province. Is the Biden administration really ready to defend the island from an aggression by Communist China?
The possibility that Taiwan will be invaded by the army of the People's Republic of China, and therefore forcibly annexed to the "mother country", ceases to be a science fiction hypothesis. We have confirmation of this from the increasingly aggressive behavior of Beijing in recent times.
In early October, and for several days, some 150 Chinese warplanes flew around the island in successive waves. Although they did not go beyond the limit of 12 nautical miles from the coast – a limit that Taipei considers its sovereign airspace – they nevertheless penetrated the island's defense and aerial identification area several times.
The problem is that this zone officially only applies to the Taiwanese government. It is known, in fact, that the People's Republic has managed to almost completely isolate Taiwan, on the international level, which for its part proudly continues to call itself the "Republic of China".
But the People's Republic, after the historic 1972 meeting between Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon, with the participation of Henry Kissinger on the one hand and Zhou Enlai on the other, managed to impose the principle that there is "only one China". Moreover, both Mao and Zhou immediately made it clear to the American guests that no derogation from this principle would be allowed.
As a result, only a handful of unimportant states now recognize Taiwan's independence. And, in this regard, it is worth remembering the courage of little Lithuania, which opened an official representative office in Taipei, without excluding full diplomatic recognition in the future. Obviously attracting the immediate threat of economic and commercial retaliation by the Chinese leadership .
The real problem with Taiwan, however, is the highly ambiguous attitude of the United States in this regard. In fact, Washington severed diplomatic relations with nationalist China after Nixon's visit to Beijing, while committing itself to defend it in the event of external aggression. But there is no real treaty that guarantees this commitment.
In short, the Taiwanese must take their word for it, and this leaves them far from calm. Also because they see Chinese warplanes scurrying undisturbed over their heads practically every day. It is a veritable war of nerves, in which the island's defense systems are put to the test on a daily basis.
In the face of this situation, the United States has increased the supply of sophisticated weapons, and has undertaken to adequately train the Taiwanese army so that it can repel the possible invasion.
It is easy to understand, however, that by itself the island – which is very close to the coast of mainland China – is absolutely unable to block any invasion due to the enormous gap between the forces in the field. In that case, the only possibility of salvation lies in a direct military intervention by the US, as, for example, occurred in Korea in the 1950s.
Given the current air, however, it is legitimate to ask whether Joe Biden would really be willing to send troops, ships and planes to the rescue of his faithful ally. Many doubt it, and in this regard the president of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen wrote in Foreign Affairs that, if the island falls, "there would be catastrophic consequences for the peace in our region and for the whole system of democratic alliances".
Beijing responded with great cynicism through the Global Times , the Communist Party's English-language newspaper, claiming that "the great military parade of the People's Republic Day, on October 1st, instead of Tiananmen Square took place over the skies of Taiwan". Proof of the fact that the aggressive expansionism of Communist China no longer knows limits.
Among other things, it should also be remembered that in American political and economic circles there is a lobby that is completely opposed to acts of force against the People's Republic. The members of this lobby are well present in the US Congress, and do not intend to damage the flourishing commercial traffic between the economies of the two superpowers, notoriously interconnected, precisely, on an economic and commercial level.
Precisely for this reason Biden seeks dialogue with Xi Jinping, aware of the fact that a direct military intervention in the Strait of Formosa would not be viewed favorably by much of the American public opinion. At the same time, it tries to involve Japanese, British and Australians in the dispute with Beijing.
Is Taiwan therefore expendable in the name of commercial trafficking? Just a few years ago everyone would have answered with a clear "no". Now the situation has changed, another sign that, in the world, the influence of what was once called the "West" has dropped drastically.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/pechino-aumenta-la-pressione-su-taiwan-il-vero-banco-di-prova-della-presidenza-biden/ on Sat, 09 Oct 2021 03:55:00 +0000.