78 Comments

Here is why your article is shocking:

You have cited the Taiwan Relations Act a 'justification' for your position regarding China.

The Taiwan Relations Act was merely concerning the U.S. Government and NOT America's relations with China and with its province of Taiwan. It is logically SUBORDINATE TO the Shanghai Communique, which is an agreement BETWEEN China and U.S. Anything in the Taiwan Relations Act that contradicts the Shanghai Communique of 1972 is null and void automatically.

The Shanghai Communique, in 1972, committed the U.S. Government to -- and agreed with China's Government that -- "Taiwan is a part of China." Consistently since the 1972 Shanghai Communique, the official policy of the U.S. Government is and has been "Taiwan is a part of China."

Your article logically implied, instead of overtly said, that Taiwan can declare independence from China — DESPITE BEING “a part of China. Here is the (il)logic of your position:

Your article alleges that Taiwan should be able to declare independence from China despite America’s Government having formally committed itself that Taiwan is a part of China, and that U.S. taxpayers should fund this U.S. aggression against China.

Furthermore, you are assuming (likewise falsely) that Taiwan is of such vital national-security interest to the safety of America (protecting the safety of the residents in the USA), so that America, which is legally committed to Taiwan’s being a Chinese province, ought to arm Taiwan so that Taiwan can declare itself to be NOT a part of China, so that China can then be defeated by LOSING that “part of China.” That’s what you want. You want U.S. taxpayers to fund this U.S. aggression against China. It is crazy. It is loaded with false assumptions. And the very IDEA that U.S. taxpayers should fund U.S. aggression isn't merely crazy, it is evil, and I, as a U.,S. taxpayer, recognize this.

Expand full comment

Your well argued comment pre-supposes that China has no hegemonistic intentions for the South China Sea and East China Sea and in the Pacific. Can we really be sure that a totalitarian state like the PRC that has been building up its armed forces for decades has no such intentions? I think not. So we must learn from the strategic failure of ceding Czechoslovakia before WW2 and not only entrench ourselves in existing positions but fortify them as much as possible to deter Chinese aggression in the South and East China Seas and beyond.

Expand full comment

"Hegemony" is a universalized form of imperialism, and refers to a nation (such as "abcd") grabbing one that ISN'T on its borders and that therefore is not necessary to control its foreign affairs such as its ability to ally militarily with a nation that seeks to conquer abcd. America IS hegemonic. Russia and China are NOT.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the reply but I maintain that claiming sovereignty over uninhabited islands and shoals in the territorial waters of the Philippines is extremely imperialistic, especially since that claim is based on a disputed 200 mile EEZ extended from an archipelago of uninhabited and UNINHABITABLE islets that are admittedly within the 200 mile EEZ of the PRC.

Expand full comment

Both Russia and China -- UNLIKE USA -- are NOT imperialistic. America is hyper-imperialistic -- seeking to conquer ultimately the entire world.

Expand full comment

How about America stay out of foreign entanglements?

Expand full comment

Not in America's DNA. They are an imperial power with the divine right to meddle in the affairs of every country on the planet.

Expand full comment

Delusional. But to be expected from the country that couldn't even subdue Afghanistan (the poorest and most backward country in the world - no offence) despite 20 years and a trillion dollars expended.

The worst fate in the world is to have the USA fight for your "freedom."

Expand full comment

I think whether Afghanistan or Yemen is poorer and more backward (in neither case helped by the Christian benevolence of America, or their crazy local proxies) is debatable.

But if the mighty US Navy and its token buddies can't sort out the Bab el Mandeb in over a year, they might also have a few problems in the Taiwan Strait.

Why can't Uncle Sam just fade quietly from the glow of Empire?

Expand full comment

Both countries are very poor. In 2001 when US/NATO forces invaded Afghanistan it was the poorest country in the world with a GDP of US$2.8 billion. Yemen had a GDP of $9.8 billion that year. In 2022 Afghanistan's GDP was $14.5 billion, and Yemen's was $23.5 billion.

The USA: spreading freedom and prosperity wherever it lays its gentle hands.

Expand full comment

The next book should be entitled Starting WW3 in Taiwan.

Expand full comment

There won't be WWIII, fortunately. Just a series of proxy conflicts.

Expand full comment

What a dumb thing to do. China is no threat to the American people. China is a threat to the Washington blob because they don't have to take orders from the U.S. and our corporations cannot compete with China. It's all about hegemony. Two thirds of all the shipping in the seas surrounding China are either going to or leaving China with cargo. China has no desire to attack shipping. It depends on it. It's time to dismantle all our bases surrounding China, remove the weapons and spend the money at home. NO MORE WARS and NO MORE PROVOCATIONS. The neo-cons like you have been wrong all along. Engage with China and Russia and stop all this bullshit of non-stop wars.

Expand full comment

It is interesting what a difference a few years and some real-world experience can make.

2022: "The Russians have had major problems trying to counter HIMARS"

2024: "the Russians have learned how to intercept ATACMS strikes fairly efficiently and in the first dozen or so ATACMS launches in Kursk and elsewhere on Russia's territory, not much has been achieved other than to anger the Russians."

We can take it as given that the lessons Russia has learned about neutralizing HIMARS/ATACMS have been passed on to China -- and are now probably being further improved. But all of this is irrelevant.

China will do to Taiwan what it has already done so successfully to the US -- which is to buy off the leadership. If any level of force is required to make the Taiwanese people go along with Their Betters eventual decision on ending the Chinese civil war and re-uniting with the mainland, it will be a naval blockade -- not an invasion. With the US at the end of a Pacific-wide logistics chain and having the support of only a tiny commercial shipping industry, it is clear that the US will not be able to interdict a blockade by China on China's shoreline.

People and nations should choose their fights carefully. Taiwan is not the place for the US to fight.

Expand full comment

The last election in Taiwan seemed to indicate that there is some moderate support for re-unification with the mainland. If this sentiment is growing amongst the population in Taiwan, are all these preparations for naught? Maybe it might just be easier to move TSMC and those that want to escape the CCP to Guam or another US territory.

Expand full comment

The most popular position is also the most sensible, which is maintaining the status quo, a sort of ambiguous neutrality. Something PRC is quite happy with, as the actual pronounced timeline for reunification is the distant year of 2049. Of course US policymakers aren't interested in this, and not only prefer a bloody loss of a proxy over a peaceful one, but are systematically violating the promises of the last generation to hasten that outcome.

Expand full comment

This is my belief, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't fortify existing positions to deter the PRC from further expansion. An invasion of Taiwan would simply be the final battle of the 1949 civil war and if the US was not prepared to help the Kuomintang then doesn't the same policy still apply?

Expand full comment

Support for actual reunification is quite minimal, I think. There is support though, probably, for an arrangement whereby Taiwan and the Mainland would see eye to eye on most geopolitical issues--something akin to the Anglo-American special relationship.

Expand full comment

Note that, in case it is not clear, Yonaguni is a _Japanese_ island, not a Chinese / Taiwanese one. Putting missiles there is not a violation of the one China policy.

Expand full comment

Correct.

Expand full comment

It doesn't matter whose island it is if they are threatening China like the Ukraine was threatening Russia.

Expand full comment

I completely disagree with your attitude. The PRC have been illegally appropriating and militarising islands and shoals in the South China Sea for decades, even, I might add, some areas within the territorial waters of the Philippines, and I'm not talking about the 200 mile EEZ. We are therefore fully entitled to militarise OUR OWN territory where no disputes over sovereignty prevail.

Expand full comment

Stephen, how can you be saying that we should arm Taiwan so that Taiwwan can declare indepence from China, given that consistently since the 1972 Shanghai Communique the official policy of the U.S. Government is "Taiwan is a part of China"?

Expand full comment

I never said we should arm Taiwan so that Taiwan can declare independence. We arm Taiwan based on the Taiwan Relations Act. It makes clear this is to assure China does not try and take over Taiwan with military force.

Expand full comment

Taiwan is safe from military invasion from China until the CCP has duplicated the ASML machines using extreme ultraviolet to make the world's tightest IC lithography.

Expand full comment

Why do we care?

Expand full comment
10hEdited

China! China! China!

If the US was ringing your peaceful country with military bases and arming your neighbors from across the world, you’d do exactly what China is doing to protect itself.

How can anyone who sees how NATO provoked Russian In Ukraine think that the same exact approach isn’t being used in regards to China?

Japan, the Philippines and other countries are being made into little barking dogs to provoke China so the US can continue its hegemonic activities to control the entire planet.

Yes, we ARE the baddies.

Expand full comment

This is so ridiculous it deserves no reply.

Expand full comment

Why would China invade when a blockade would cause Taiwan to capitulate within a month?

Expand full comment

I understand the People's Republic of China is preparing a new law, 'The Puerto Rico Relations Act.' Under this Chinese law, China will arm the island with weapons to deter the USA from invading again, should Puerto Rico decide to declare independence. (I'm kidding.)

On Taiwan: US weapons are not what is keeping China from reuniting with Taiwan. No amount of US weapons will ever prevent the reunification. China refrains from forcibly reuniting with Taiwan because China is a patient and peaceful country; they do not wish to create an armed conflict with people they see as brothers and sisters. They're also Taiwan's biggest trading partner, so why rock that boat? But should the boat get rocked due to US provocations, I imagine the first serious consequences will occur at Taiwan's world-leading semiconductor manufacturing companies.

Expand full comment

"Pacific security is important to checking Chinese power, supporting US economic interests, and demonstrating we can protect allies and friends where concrete interests are at stake"

..or, to adapt Coolidge: America's bottom line is America's bottom line.

But I'm not American, so don't wholly understand why America has to always talk up simple economic self-interest as a crusade for global freedom, and why I should, er, buy that?

And on the subject of US mythology, can you please explain, Stephen, why you agree with the Blob on the Yellow Peril, but not on the Red one?

Expand full comment

As far as I can tell, the blob as you call them, have not in any way drawn attention to the PRC's hegemonist manoeuvres. Maybe that's deliberate because they, along with much of Western multinationals have been corrupted by the Chinese corporatocracy which works hand in glove with their oppressive government. The provocation of Russia is a huge mistake on our part because Russia is our only hope against the spreading yellow peril.

Expand full comment

For some time now, I've read that numerous war games has China prevailing nearly everytime. The factor that a massive missile strike by China would decimate our forces was often cited. It sounds to me that we lack anywhere near enough air defenses to come close to changing the equation. At least for now. What are your thoughts?

Expand full comment

We have the Aegis destroyers and some Ticonderoga cruisers with excellent air defenses.

Expand full comment
20hEdited

China has its own equivalent destroyers and cruisers. Not as quite many but more in theater than the U.S. Navy can put into the fight. But all that kind of numbers game is pointless anyway.

The real numbers that count are the Chinese fishing fleet. By the time China would invade Taiwan, they would have at least tens of thousands of their hundreds of thousands of fishing craft in theater. Each one would be A.I. integrated providing acoustic, imagery and radiation sensing inputs. Many are lightly armed already and have experience in swarming foreign fishing fleets.

The U.S. navy facing ten thousand craft with shoulder mounted missiles and comparable drones controlling air access up to five hundred feet. A thousand larger craft with substantial anti-air controlling air access up to two or three thousand feet and the actual much larger than the in theater U.S. Navy, Chinese naval fleet as well as shore based anti-air controlling access above that.

If it comes to it, the U.S. Navy won't even try to get close to Taiwan and will stand off hundreds of miles and simply lob missiles. .

Expand full comment

They'll intercept the first salvo of drones and missiles, and perhaps even the second. But then they'll have to leave station and reload, likely in Japan. And that assumes they have enough interceptors stockpiled there.

Does the US Navy have enough interceptors to absorb everything China throws at them?

Expand full comment

The short answer to your question is *no.* Especially since the key parts to make replacements will be blockaded in Taiwan because that is what the whole thing is all about. By the very nature of the conflict, Taiwan will be out of the picture at least temporarily. So will every thing it produces.

Expand full comment

Ukraine itself is of no interest to the Empire. Russia is of great interest.

Expand full comment

More importantly is their $75 trillion worth of resources.

Expand full comment
21hEdited

Ukraine doesn't have any thing of great interest to Russia. There is nothing of importance in Ukraine that Russia doesn't already have plenty of.

The issue with resources is: are they present in sufficient high grade, in sufficient quantity distributed in such a way they can be extracted at sufficiently lower cost than other sources? Once extracted, can they be brought to existing, feasible markets in real world scenarios? And at the end produce, a profit?

But most importantly, are they more than wild eyed guesses exaggerated beyond comprehension to fulfill some political objective? (as is always the case when talking potential Ukraine resources)

Expand full comment

If you write "China is alarmed" instead of "China is angry" (Voice of America), you can give the appearance of shakiness and uncertainty in China. You see, with such speech "turns" - and it's not far to "victory over the PRC"...

Expand full comment

Speaking of China and Taiwan... according to the Chinese zodiac we are all in the year of the Wood Dragon, which implies the existence of great energies, changes, creativity, etc. It depends, of course, on how wisely we use energy...

Expand full comment

However, if the CCP had still been guided by horoscopes, China would not be the way the United States fears it now.))

Expand full comment

China's ever-growing economic and technological strength is causing concern...

China is a gentle conqueror, but it should not be continually provoked... Anyway, in Chinese mythology the Dragon is a beneficial, lucky and extremely long-lived creature.. :)

Expand full comment

Precisely! "Don't threaten South Central!"©))

Expand full comment
Error