A LINK BETWEEN THE UKRAINE WAR & TAIWAN ?
THE WEST WOULD DO WELL TO SUPPORT IT !
Further to our earlier piece, we felt there was an important connection between the war in Ukraine and any potential invasion of Taiwan by China.
As the war drags into its seventh month and with an eye on Taiwan, China is mining valuable data on how Western countries react to invasions, Ukrainian analysts say.
"China is learning valuable information about the West's sanctions, capabilities and response mechanisms," Lesnyak said.
Savchuk said China "actually wants to see what is going to happen" with the invasion, adding that it is a huge data set for Beijing to see what "modern war looks like" and to understand where the weak spots for China's army are.
"China has witnessed how crucial logistics are. You can have literally thousands of tanks, but if you fail to deliver fuel, as Russia did during the invasion, all that armour is completely useless," Savchuk said. "China really wanted to see how the chips would fall, so that they would know how to prepare their troops even better for a potential invasion of Taiwan.
This is the important bit:
"If the West's reaction is going to be weak -- then the answer is clear -- invade Taiwan! No one will stop you. If the whole world comes together to help Ukraine fight Russia, then China would think twice before launching the invasion [of Taiwan]."
The West is helping Ukraine enormously and there is much more help coming. Short of sending in troops, the Sanctions have played a major role in damaging the Russian economy – but not enough. We have a communist ally in China willingly helping Russia by buying (no doubt heavily discounted) oil and fuel. The Russians are now learning to deal in a different currency – Yuan or more officially, Renminbi. Once again, China has them by the proverbial short and curlies!
The West must do whatever it takes to end the Russian war, without encouraging any nuclear response, in order to strengthen the case against China invading Taiwan.
Taiwan’s saviour in the region, if any, will be the US and its allies. There are many who are disparaging of the US – many just love US-bashing, others simply get it wrong. We all know the US has until now maintained a stance of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to Taiwan. There are however, aspects of their position on China and Taiwan that has largely escaped attention until now.
It is common knowledge that in 1979 (April 10th), the US enacted their Taiwan Relations Act – largely as a result of dialogues with China and various resultant communiqués. The US however was well aware that the Act would not go down that well with the Taiwanese government. To that end, in 1982, Ronald Reagan offered Taiwan assurances – 6 of them. Ironically, it was Trump who made the assurances public and the context in which they were offered. And yes, they had been properly de-classified between 2019 and 2020.
We have presented those 6 assurances below as they were tabulated at the time for all to read.
This year, the US has further extended their commitments in a more definitive way. One which leaves nobody guessing. Their new Taiwan Policy Act 2022 is many ways a light on the hill and serves to reinforce their previous initiatives of 1979 and 1982.
Regional allies of the US, including Australia importantly, would do well to carefully assess all these documents, both past and present, and see how they form, in our opinion, stable guidance on Taiwan’s future and its place in the world.
Let’s also hope that China learns not to follow Putin’s ill-conceived lead and leave Taiwan to its independent peace. We also hope that one day, Taiwan will once again take its place in the UN simply as another sovereign and independent nation – and with no connection to the PRC as the sole rulers of China.
GB / AB Sources: Nikkei Asia; Congressional Research Service
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