Just minutes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday, China began military exercises around Taiwan to “rehearse” ways China could take the country “by force” in the future.
According to CNN, “Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said 27 Chinese warplanes made incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, and 22 planes crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday — an unprecedented number since Taiwan began publicly releasing information about China’s air incursions about two years ago.”
Chinese military official Song Zhongping told China’s government-run Global Times, “In the event of a future military conflict, it is likely that the operational plans currently being rehearsed will be directly translated into combat operations.”
“It means that our battle plan has been made clear to the U.S. and the Taiwan authorities, and we are confident enough to inform them of the consequences of further provocation in this way,” Song added.
The Global Times claimed that the exercises would “enter area within 12 nautical miles of the island and that the so-called median line will cease to exist.” They added that the Chinese warships would be “surrounding” and “completely blockading the island demonstrating the Chinese mainland’s absolute control over the Taiwan question.”
Late last year, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development Elbridge Colby warned that China is “likely to go for an invasion” of Taiwan and explained some of America’s interests in the country.
“I actually think China’s most likely, if it really wants to solve the Taiwan issue, which I do think is really consequential for American’s interests in a concrete way, I think they’re likely to go for an invasion,” Colby said during an interview with Fox News’ Steve Hilton. “I mean, the basic thing is these shows the force that you’re showing, they’re not going to work to subordinate Taiwan, if China’s really serious about it, it’s going to go for [inaudible], it’s going to move in, take it over, and then present us with just simply too difficult of a reality to reverse.”
“And why should we care about that? So what if they invade Taiwan would be the provocative question back to you?” Hilton asked.
“Well, I think it’s a completely legitimate question, actually. And I think there’s a lot a lot to it,” Colby responded. “I mean, our interest in in Taiwan are very significant, but partial. The fundamental reason is that Taiwan is connected to the fate of what I think of as our coalition in Asia. Look, our lives would fundamentally change if China dominated the world. And the way for it to dominate the world is for it to dominate its region, which is going to be over 50% of global GDP, the way to get there is to break apart any group of states that tries to block it from doing so.”
“That group is going to be led by us, there’s nobody else who can do it,” Colby continued. “But it’s gonna include countries like Japan, Taiwan, India, maybe Vietnam, Australia, etc. If China wants to do that, it’s got to put a sort of a knife at the heart of our coalition. And to do that, Taiwan makes a lot of sense for two reasons. One is Taiwan, MacArthur called it the unsinkable aircraft carrier. If China gets Taiwan that its operating in the Central Pacific. Think, in a way, almost World War II in the Pacific.”
“The second reason is whatever people say, our credibility is tied to it,” he added. “And credibility isn’t something that matters all the time. But it sure matters if you’re in Japan, or the Philippines, or an archipelago in the western Pacific, and you say, well, the Americans have backed down from defending another archipelago in the western Pacific, namely Taiwan. So the key though is that we got to find a way to be able to defend Taiwan in a way that’s consistent with how deep our interests are, our interests are important, but they’re not existential. And that’s a real kind of core point in my book.”
