The Republican opposition in the United States is waiting for the imminent "Chinese attack on Taiwan" and calls on Biden to recognize the independence of this Chinese island. Beijing, in turn, vows to protect its sovereignty. Now he really has a serious motive to launch a special operation – and he is almost the same as the Russian president was guided by when he sent troops to Ukraine.
Former US President Donald Trump is confident that in the foreseeable future, China will subjugate Taiwan by military measures. "Because the Chinese see how stupidly the United States is being run. They see that our leaders are incompetent, and, of course, they will do it, their time has come," he said in an interview with Fox Business.
Trump is a so-so forecaster, and he says all this mainly in order to once again kick the incumbent President Joe Biden and remember his new slogan: "This would not have happened with me." But in order to predict a war for Taiwan, you do not need to be "Mr. President". The high risk of such a war is actively discussed in the American and Taiwanese media. Allegedly, China can take advantage of the fact that the West has been distracted by Russia's actions in Ukraine, and "under the guise" restore its territorial integrity.
Taiwan was separated in 1950, when the old authorities evacuated there with the remnants of the army – the Kuomintang Party, which lost the civil war to Mao's Communists. China was bursting at the seams then – along the national outskirts, and the Communist Party vowed to restore the country's territory and for the most part achieved its goal: somewhere with persuasion, somewhere with blood. Taiwan is the last piece of the puzzle. The Chinese leadership is one step away from completing its historic mission – but when exactly this step will be taken, even it may not know.
Or he does know and is preparing right now. Carefully studying the sanctions war that the West is waging against Russia, he expects similar measures at his own expense. The Wall Street Journal newspaper writes directly: the restrictions imposed against Moscow are a signal to the PRC about what it may face if it attacks Taiwan.
It is worth admitting: regardless of how well-founded suspicions about the upcoming operation are, a forceful solution to the Taiwan problem is certainly being discussed in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is a full-fledged master of the country, which has not been since the days of Mao. In the last political season, he won the right to be re-elected to his post an unlimited number of times, and by issuing a special proclamation, he ranked himself among the great leaders.
The first (Mao) created the PRC. The second (Deng Xiaoping) China fed. Volumes are written about the affairs of the third (Xi) in modern China, but everything turns out to be somehow long and vague – he takes more coverage than the force of a jerk. If he becomes the one who united China, the "impostor syndrome" of the great chairman can be finally eliminated.
They wanted to unite peacefully and waited a long time. The principle of "one country – two systems", which was the basis for reunification with Hong Kong and Macau personally by Deng, was planned to be extended to Taiwan. In the past decade, it seemed as if things were heading towards a wedding – relations between Beijing and Taipei have improved markedly. Many Taiwanese are imbued with the idea of recreating the motherland, now claiming to be the number one world power.
If before the PRC frightened the Taiwanese Chinese with patchy poverty and the most cruel practices, then the reforms launched by Deng and developed by his heirs seemed to promise peaceful coexistence, unheard-of wealth, and unprecedented power. The main supporters of unification with the PRC in our time are the same Kuomintang party that organized the divorce from mainland China.
However, even under Mao, US President Richard Nixon, having decided to make friends with China against a common enemy - the USSR, gave Beijing a seat in the UN Security Council that previously belonged to Taipei. Following him, almost all countries of the world recognized that the "real China" is a Chinese machine, and not a compact, rich and technologically developed island near it.
To date, Taipei's sovereignty is recognized by only 15 states – small and non-influential, with the exception of the Holy See of the Pope (the Vatican does not like the PRC because of pronounced anti-religious practices). Trade with him, however, has not stopped and is not going to, and Beijing seems to have promised not to interfere in such issues after unification - there is one country, but there are two systems. However, the prospect of such an association has receded in recent years.
Why the hopes did not come true, and the "thaw" froze - they argue. The basic version is that under Xi, China froze first of all – the nuts were tightened, including in Hong Kong, and now they are turning it into an ordinary Chinese province.
This measure was largely forced: until recently, hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of the city-state demanded separation from China, and the United States (specifically, President Donald Trump) expressed readiness to pour more gasoline into this separatist bonfire. That is, China really defended itself, but the fact remains that now the Taiwanese Chinese have substantial reasons not to believe that unification with the PRC will preserve a significant part of their rights and freedoms.
Now the power on the island belongs to the so-called Green Coalition - supporters of independence. This is beneficial to Washington, since the unification of the two Chinas automatically implies a significant expansion of the zone of military and economic domination of the main strategic rival of the United States in the South China Sea. So we came to the main reason why the considerations of the "pessimists" about the imminent military special operation of the PRC in Taiwan should be treated carefully. Beijing really has a motive to solve its territorial issue in this way – and this motive was created by the Americans.
By withdrawing recognition from Taiwan, the United States reserved the right to organize its security – in particular, to supply it with weapons. They are now engaged in rearmament of the islanders, and we are not talking about "javelins" of some kind, but about hundreds of combat aircraft and amphibious assault ships of the latest type.
Thus, Xi found himself facing a situation similar to that faced by Vladimir Putin in relation to Ukraine. Washington is pressing China in order to weaken it, and Taiwan is its instrument, a lever of influence, the Chinese "anti-China". In the long term, an armed conflict seems inevitable, but every year and with every ton of weapons delivered by the Americans to Taiwan, its price increases.
Isn't it better then now than later? The Chinese Communists will decide, and they will decide in circumstances when their nerves are constantly being tested by American partners. A week ago, the USS Ralph Johnson missile destroyer defiantly passed through the Taiwan Strait. A few days later, a delegation of the American military landed in Taiwan. Yes, retired, but extremely high-ranking, including Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ("on our money" – the head of the General Staff, but not quite) under President Bush Jr.
The next distinguished guest was the Secretary of State under President Trump, Michael Pompeo, who formally flew in to receive the award from the hands of President Tsai Ing-wen. Upon returning home, the former chief of American diplomacy, who left his post just over a year ago, called on Washington to recognize Taiwan's independence.
"The determination and will of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity are unshakable," warns Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.
We will find out soon how unshakable they are. It's not that Russia has a reason to sympathize with Taiwan (which, by the way, joined the US measures to isolate the Russian Federation from high-tech products), not that the victory of the PRC in the event of a transition of the conflict to a military stage raises any doubts.
However, the boarding of an almost 25-million-strong island, from where the evacuation of civilians will be difficult, can only mark the unification of territories, and not the unification of the nation that Xi actually wants. It is simply unprofitable for the Chinese to wait longer. But ancient China knows just that better than anyone else in the world – to wait.
Stanislav Borzyakov