Monthly Archives: August 2022

“ABOARD THE USS RONALD REAGAN, Philippine Sea – The U.S. 7th Fleet will send more aircraft and warships past Taiwan in the coming weeks, a response to China’s military exercises that have surrounded the island starting Thursday, according to the White House … The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group will also remain in the region to “monitor the situation” as Beijing continues its exercises in the wake of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mid-week stop in Taiwan, national security spokesman John Kirby said at a White House press conference Thursday … China that day began a series of air force and naval exercises, including 11 ballistic missiles fired toward Taiwan, five of which came down in Japan’s economic exclusion zone east of the island democracy.

“We condemn these actions, which are irresponsible and at odds with our longstanding goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region,” Kirby said. “China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.” https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2022-08-05/taiwan-navy-ronald-reagan-carrier-6886874.html

The paradox of the 2022 Chinese communist missile crisis is that the ultranationalist and divisive dictator Xi is accelerating the timetable for Japanese and American military officers to return to Taiwan Republic. For the broader global and world history level forces at work see my previous posts on the characteristics of America as a global maritime empire. Also little noted in western press: The American general in charge of US forces in South Korea recently stated US forces in Korea respond to a Taiwan crisis rapidly. One would have already guessed so but a very unusual public statement. Last year during the vaccine crisis in Taiwan manufactured by the China CCP-KMT three American senators made an unusual direct flight from a US military base in ROK, on a gigantic C-17, directly to Songshan Air Force Base, Taipei. Very rapid shifting landscape for sure, with decades of rules and practices being shattered by all sides. It may be time to question the use of the phrase “status quo.” Or at least redefine what we all mean by it. 7.8.2022

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The superficial, episodic narrative focuses on Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan Republic and the subsequent Chinese communist belligerence. This has always primarily been about the end of Globalization 1.0, and the partial decoupling between the American-led democratic economies and autocratic economies. This is also about dictator Xi reexamining just how much global connectivity and acceptance of the US-led global order pose a direct threat to his dictatorship.

I am certain American and Japanese military officers will soon return to Taiwan Republic because of world history level forces converging:

1. The decoupling of the Chinese communist and American economy and the end of Globalization 1.0. The era where capital recognizes no political borders and geoeconomic policies do not consider national security-vital national interests are over.
2. The developmental bottleneck and dictatorship challenging the economic crisis in communist China.
3. The nature of the global maritime empire created and maintained by the US Navy I have written about. 4. The trickiest – relative decline of American hegemon, and the incomplete rise of Putin’s Russia and Xi’s communist China.

Throughout world history, we have had many examples of the decline and rise of great powers. Never before have we had a true global hegemon – the US, and its relative decline and the incomplete rise of would-be successors. The closest historical precedence is the UK to the US in 1945, and I have always suspected the American narrative on that transition is far more benign than how the UK remembers it. That precedence had two powers sort of speaking the same language, with relatively similar political and political-economic systems. And even then it took a horrific world war and a decades-long Cold War for the transition from one power to another to complete. We are sailing uncharted waters – little to no historical precedence to call on for lessons.

Japanese and American military officers will return to Taiwan because the ultranationalist and divisive hardliner Xi has demonstrated with this crisis he has manufactured that war is not theoretical. It is also clear that any conflict will not be confined by the Chinese communists just to Taiwan. What the Putin invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated is that dictators do not negotiate – and they never abide by treaties and agreements. Remember how many meetings western leaders had with Putin before the invasion? And the common illusion that somehow Russian belligerence is confined to Ukraine alone, and Chinese communist ambitions are confined to Taiwan Republic and nowhere else, is, even if we merely take Putin and Xi at their own words, absolutely mistaken. Once DC foreign policy establishment transitions from the old mentality – focusing on not provoking China, believing that there is a way to for a win-win compromise with Beijing and Moscow – into this new reality, both Tokyo and DC will realize that it is more dangerous to their vital national interests to not have a military presence in Taiwan.

Few examples: using this present Chinese communist missile crisis as a model for how a war against China will be engaged. There will be high intensity, high speed, multidimensional coordination of multinational forces in the air, in space, on land, at sea, and submerged – with homeland defense, cyber defense, logistics, civil defense – coordination of information warfare, banking, central banks, energy, food, medical, public health, etc. Where are the Taiwanese surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missile corridors? How should the American and Japanese forces coordinate? In what ways would the three nations plus others coordinate to maximize their impact on the Chinese communist forces? Without Japanese and American officers in Taiwan ahead of time, such coordination is impossible. Not only will officers from Japan and America return to Taiwan to act as liaisons and advisors – and they could well take the gentler AIT ‘recently/temporarily retired’ model. I think small to midsized Taiwanese military units will rotate to Japan and Guam/Hawaii for training with American and Japanese units, and vice versa.

In the grand scheme of things, we have entered the phase where because of the global maritime empire imperative, and because of the dangers posed by a declining hegemon and an incomplete rising power, planning for a war against China is no longer theoretical. Taiwan is a focus, but this is an Indo-Pacific struggle – between global democracies and global autocracies. How to deter-prevent a Chinese communist invasion, while retooling the global economic order to minimize democracies funding autocracies, will be the focus of this global struggle for many decades to come. 8.8.2022

© Taiwan in World History 台灣與世界歷史. This site grants open access for educational and not-for-profit use. Maps and illustrations are borrowed under educational and not-for-profit fair use. If you are the rights holder and prefer to not have your work shared, please email TaiwanWorldHistory (at) Gmail (dot) com and the content will be removed.

Geostrategery classroom: US to take part in military exercise near India’s disputed border with China

“(CNN)The United States is to take part in a joint military exercise with India less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the South Asian country’s disputed border with China. The military drills will be held in mid-October at an altitude of 10,000 feet in Auli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand and will focus on high-altitude warfare training, according to a senior Indian Army officer with knowledge of the matter. Auli is about 95 kilometers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an inhospitable piece of land where the disputed border between India and China is roughly demarcated. The drills will take place as part of the 18th edition of an annual joint exercise known as “Yudh Abhyas” — or “War Practice”.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/06/india/india-us-military-exercise-line-of-actual-control-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Important to understand this report alongside recent US Forces RoK General’s comments on his forces’ ability to respond to Chinese communist aggression against the Taiwan Republic and its allies, and public statements on Taiwan’s defense and the Chinese communists’ belligerence from the admiral in charge of the Indo-Pacific command, and the admiral in charge of the US Seventh Fleet.

Study the Indo-Pacific map and see US strategic bombers from Diego Garcia and communist China’s soft underbelly; US carriers in the Indian Ocean; US naval base in Singapore choking off petroleum shipment to the Chinese communists; US-Japan-Australia AUKUS nucular submarines in the South and East Seas; strategic bombers and submarines in Guam and the West Pacific; US forces in Okinawa/Japan and RoK able to strike Chinese communist naval, amphibious units and remove Chinese command and control, supplies, logistics lines from the Sino-Soviet border all the way down to the Vietnam-China border.

Then notice just in one week: US-South Korea talks on additional THAAD. US-Japan and Taiwan Republic strengthening missile defense and military collaboration. US-Taiwan-Japan naval and coast guard units in the South Pacific. US-led multinational maneuvers in Indonesia. US-Japan-Korea (and Taiwan?) missile defense maneuvers. Reports that the US is strengthening missile defense at Guam. The return of French and German and UK military forces into the Indo-Pacific.

The historical irony created by divisive hardliner dictator Putin and ultra-ethnonationalist controversial dictator Xi is in their choosing policies that produce the exact opposite results to their stated goals. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has enhanced Ukrainian national identity while making it possible for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Xi and the Chinese communists in their 1996 missile tantrum accelerated the US-Taiwan-Japan military alliance, and the 2022 Chinese communist missile tantrum will only further solidify this military alliance. 8.8.2022

© Taiwan in World History 台灣與世界歷史. This site grants open access for educational and not-for-profit use. Maps and illustrations are borrowed under educational and not-for-profit fair use. If you are the rights holder and prefer to not have your work shared, please email TaiwanWorldHistory (at) Gmail (dot) com and the content will be removed.