Even the media has noticed China threatening Taiwan, flying fighter jets into their airspace as well as other threats. Currently, China and Russia are holding joint military exercises exceeding any former troop, air and naval movements. Russia, like China, has designs on the Ukraine as well as the former Soviet states neighboring Russia. Israel is also feeling some insecurity resulting from the same catastrophic wholesale retreat by United States forces from all of Afghanistan with the exception of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, leaving chaos and Taliban forces in their wake. For once being in Israel makes one feel more secure than so many other people facing even greater threats. Of all the threats on the horizon, Taiwan has the privilege of being the closest. Mainland China (Communist China we’re old school) has placed articles equating the American betrayal (the Commies said that) of Afghanistan with the presumed coming betrayal of Taiwan when the unification comes, implying its imminence.
China and Taiwan
There are two opposing forces within the government establishment, one centered around the military and the other centered on the State Department. The military wants to hold onto the promises given Taiwan from so far back it was called Formosa. Back so far, it was a promise made before I was born. It was the result of the Communist revolution in China forcing the capitalist and democratic government to flee to the Island of Formosa where the United States promised to protect them from Mainland China. Back then even the State Department was on board as the leader of the Free World. This was the status-quo until that fateful date, February 21 to 28, 1972, when President Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, China.
Resulting from the Nixon-China visit was the One China Policy which resulted in Mainland China being the sole recognized nation and Taiwan was but a wayward province which would be welcomed home sometime in the future. No longer would the Portuguese name Formosa be used and it was to be Taiwan, the Chinese name for the island province. The promise to defend the democratically elected government island nation, whether you wish to call it Formosa or Taiwan, was not voided as far as many in the military will argue; but the State Department went with Nixon and the One China Policy hook, line and sinker. They will argue that the absorption of Taiwan into Mainland China is inevitable and should be permitted to occur naturally. Mainland China is of the opinion that this inevitability should occur imminently rather than some more distant eventuality. After witnessing the complete collapse of the American forces’ mastery and control of Afghanistan, President Xi Jinping of China has to be feeling emboldened by what he has witnessed, as have all the other expansionist powers (Russia, China, Iran). Russia has a region which they believe are breakaway provinces, not actual nations. Iran desires solidifying their control of the Iraqi Shiite government and the rebel forces in Yemen, reestablishing their control of Syria, and cementing control of Lebanon while also arming Hamas in Gaza; all in order to threaten Israel and Saudi Arabia. How fast the other so-called bad actors will surface requiring some response is debatable. Their existence is, unfortunately, all too real. But we believe the initial tripwire will be the absorption of Taiwan as a province of Mainland China. What we fear is the reclamation of Taiwan will be far more difficult and violent than the ongoing pacification of Hong Kong. Further designs held by President Xi Jinping of China mostly in the Pacific will have to wait for a later article.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 