One Mountain, Two Tigers 一山不容二虎
Why China MUST Take Taiwan - the New Normal
China In Arms BOOKSTORE and GIFT SHOP!
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6 December 2022
Two Tigers, One Mountain 一山不容二虎
Why China MUST Take Taiwan - the New Normal
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - In early October, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he does not "see an imminent invasion" by China, but the tense situation in August should be regarded as the “New Normal”.
Is being surrounded by the enemy the “New Normal”? If there was a nuclear weapons exchange between Russia and NATO, I am quite sure the SecDef would utter the same words. But if you had stage three cancer and your doctor said this was your New Normal, I am quite sure you would find Jesus.
Austin’s “New Normal” was in reference to the below maps from the August 2022 air and naval exercise. For the first time demonstrated China’s ability to encircle Taiwan in a pincer movement (aka double envelopment).
China has no choice but to take Taiwan. Either by military force or subversion. It makes no difference. Democracy is dead here. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) membership list, no doubt already in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, will serve as a menu for revenge.
FYI: I recently asked my wife, from an old KMT family, to renew her party membership…a “get out of jail free card” when Chinese troops begin rounding up the DPP folks for “re-education camps” somewhere in remote China where no one can hear them scream. There are other dark possibilities, such as organ harvesting and war brides; China is a pragmatic nation.
The problem outlined in Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate is that Taiwan is physically in the way of China’s ability to project military power into the Pacific. China cannot fly around the island. There is no “line-of-sight” between mainland China and the Pacific.
Thus, it must place bases on the east coast of the island to project military power into the Pacific, control the East Asian shipping lanes, and push the U.S. military out of East Asia.
Today the Pacific is considered an American lake, but with Chinese submarines based at Suao and fighter aircraft at Hualien and Taitung, complemented with long-range missiles scattered along the mountainous east coast of Taiwan, the Americans will have trouble convincing our allies and semi-friends (South Korea, Japan and the Philippines) that we can safeguard their deliveries of oil/gas from the Middle East. Particularly, since most of it transits the now Chinese-controlled South China Sea.
These countries might have to pay tributes to their new Emperor in a variety of ways that include the closure of U.S. military bases.
This is an all or nothing proposition. Without Taiwan, China is trapped behind a mountain chain that serves as the backbone of the island.
These tectonic plate boundaries that created islands from volcanoes, later named Japan, Ryukus, Taiwan and the Philippines, are now a wall of fire for China’s military.
Often called the First Island Chain and/or the Great Wall at Sea, a term coined by the legendary Bud Cole, this wall contains China like a honey badger in a reinforced steel cage.
Taiwan has Stage 3 Cancer:
In 2005, China finally established Air Parity with Taiwan (Stage 1). Where no side held any level of control.
Later China slowly reached the status of Favorable Air Control (Stage 2), where Beijing had limited air superiority depending on conditions.
And now, China has Air Superiority (Stage 3). Obvious from the below map:
Next is Air Supremacy (Stage 4) where China holds complete control of the skies over Taiwan.
What will Taiwan’s big brains in the DPP do then? Perhaps they will build more windmills and shutter more nuclear power plants? Or perhaps they will have a referendum on cross-dressing for city police officers?
Perhaps they will stop giving millions of dollars to despotic regimes around the world for temporary diplomatic status and, if history is any guide, start using that money to begin secretly relocating their elite Tier 1 DPP members to new homes in the West?
When Taiwan falls and they are safely in the U.S., they will start an NGO in Washington, D.C. dedicated to retaking Taiwan and pushing China to democratize. There will be testimonials and lectures from victims who survived Chinese human rights violations after the invasion. There will be big fund raiser banquets with members of Congress attending. Then, as all refugee NGOs do, it will begin to loose steam. Fewer members of Congress will show up. The money will slowly dry up. Former members of the elite DPP leadership will focus on their families and new careers. Then one day, the so-called NGO, will get caught up in a scandal involving missing donations or money laundering. It will be shut down and forgotten. Just like Taiwan.
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