207: China vs Taiwan

 

Pic: courtesy internet (foreign affairs)

 

Recently Beijing sent more than 150 military planes towards Taiwan over four consecutive days amid celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. These jets (including J-16 fighter jets and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers) entered into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), forcing the Taiwanese air force to scramble its jets in response. This was China’s largest-ever incursion into Taiwan’s air defence zone. Taiwan scrambled its jets and deployed AD missile systems against the Chinese ‘air incursion’.

 

The ADIZ is not the same as Taiwan’s territorial airspace, but includes a far greater area that overlaps with part of China’s air defence identification zone and even includes some of mainland China.

 

Taiwan

Known formally as the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan is a self-ruled island that lies about 161 kilometres (100 miles) off the coast of mainland China. It is a democracy with a separate government and a military. But despite its de facto independence, most countries do not consider Taiwan a separate state due to China’s claims over the territory.

 

Taiwan: History

Taiwan was at one time a backwater of Imperial China. It was colonised by the Japanese during the World Wars. In 1949, the Chinese nationalists fled there after losing a bloody civil war to the communists who established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with its government in Beijing. In Taipei, the nationalists’ ROC government continued to claim to represent all of China and even held a seat on the United Nations Security Council. But from 1971 onwards, most countries, including the US, began dropping diplomatic recognition of the ROC in Taipei in favour of the PRC in Beijing.

 

Chinese Claim

Beijing claims the self-ruled island of 23 million as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal of unifying it with China. While Beijing has repeatedly threatened to use force if Taiwan ever formally declares independence, the sabre-rattling has increased under Xi, who sees reuniting Taiwan with mainland China as an issue of legacy. The historical dispute is at the crux of Beijing’s much hyped “One China” principle. Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taipei since 2016.

 

Taiwan’s Concern

Taiwan feels a threat to its independence, its democracy and its way of life. Taiwan is concerned that China is going to launch a war against Taiwan at some point. Taiwan is resolved to do whatever it takes to defend itself.  Taiwan needs to “strengthen itself” and Taiwan President has made modernising the armed forces a priority, enhancing its capacity for asymmetric warfare, so as to make any Chinese attack difficult and costly. Taiwan is looking at smart mines, portable missiles and enhancement of its Air Force capabilities.

 

Fear of an all-out conflict is growing higher. Some defence analysts predict that Beijing could have the ability to mount a full-scale invasion of   Taiwan by 2025.

 

Taiwan Internal Political Dynamics

Taiwan has the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which supports the vision of a Taiwan distinct from China. It also has the more China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT is known for fostering closer economic ties with China and is supported by big business interests in Taiwan. The KMT’s more conservative factions, however, continue to call for unification even though that view is now at odds with mainstream Taiwanese society.

 

US – Taiwan

The United States condemned the Chinese military activity near Taiwan describing it as “provocative” and “destabilising”. US asked China to cease its “military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan”.

 

While the United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with the island, but is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. The legislation mandates the US to “preserve and promote extensive, close and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan”.

 

The United States does not even have a formal defence treaty, but the legislation further obliges the US to make “available to Taiwan such defence articles and defence services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self- defence capacity”.

 

US is Taipei’s biggest source of military and political support. The US has committed to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region. It has promised to “continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defence capability”.

 

China – US – Taiwan

Relationship involving China, Taiwan and the US is a complex diplomatic dance of its kind.

 

One China Policy.  This policy means different things to Beijing and Washington. For the former there is only ‘One China’ and that is governed by Beijing (it is the pretext for its claims that Taiwan is simply a province of the mainland and not an independent state). For the US, however, ‘One China’ is more ambiguous.

 

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday criticised the US over its ties with Taipei, saying that selling weapons to Taiwan, as well as US ships navigating the Taiwan Strait, was “provocative action that harmed US-China relations.

 

China has blamed the US for the increased tensions, with the two economic giants at odds over not only Taiwan but other issues including trade, Hong Kong, the situation in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang and the coronavirus.

 

Analysis

 

  • Actual invasion would be a big challenge for the PLA.

 

  • Recent military activities are an effort at intimidation.

 

  • China is trying to pressure Taiwan and draw some red lines and markers in the sand.

 

  • China is trying to escalate a campaign of psychological warfare against the island.

 

Bottom Line

Unification of Taiwan with China is the top most priority of China at the moment.

 

Question

Will US defend Taiwan in case of military invasion by China?

Or

Is Taiwan just a piece on the chess board of world politics?

 

Coming Up

There is much more to this complex issue.

More on the subject coming up including Indian options.

 

Suggestions and value additions are most welcome

 

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206: Multilateralism: Indian Engagements

While researching on the subject of “Multilateralism and Flexible Security Cooperation”, came across various list of formal and informal groups that India is part of.

 

Some are global while others are regional. Some are large groups while the others are smaller. Some are specific issue based while others have number of issues on their charter.

 

Comprehensive list (in alphabetical order) is as follows:-

Continue reading “206: Multilateralism: Indian Engagements”

205: Shark in the Tank

There are many management theories which we use in our day to day life. Some knowingly and some unknowingly.

 

I was lucky to have number of command appointments in my service career.

 

I always shared my experiences with the young budding commanders.

 

One of the advice used to be – “As a commander you have to put the shark in the tank at the right time”.

 

The Story

 

The Japanese love eating fresh fish. But the fish got depleted, in the waters close to sea shore, due to over fishing. So the Japanese fishing boats got bigger and went farther from the shores.  The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish would lose their freshness.

 

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the frozen fish did not taste the same as fresh fish and the frozen fish brought a lower price.

 

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. This solved the problem to a certain extent. However, to make adequate profit, the fish tanks started getting overstuffed, with little room for the fish to thrash around. The fish stopped moving and started losing their freshness once again.

 

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they added a small shark to each tank. The shark would eat a few fish, but most of the remaining fish would remain active and fresh.

 

Lesson & Recommendation

 

“Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.”

– L. Ron Hubbard

 

So in the unit, establishment or group an optimum level of activity and excitement has to be maintained to keep the group and the people productive, active, healthy and happy.

 

Too much of work for too long would burn them off with fatigue and too little work would cause reduction in output due to boredom and inactivity.

 

As a commander and leader one has to maintain that optimum level of activity and know when to put the shark in the tank and for how long.

 

Addendum

Some times as a commander one needs to become the shark himself.

 

Coming up

Tyre pressure theory

 

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