It is 1938 in the Taiwan Strait
Peace in our time, says the smiling Xi Jinping
The Sudetenland 1938
Over the past several years, the People’s Liberation Army Navy has been saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea, and South China Sea, with warships conducting "’intensive’ combat exercises”, as noted by Newsweek and, more recently, practicing what long-time China watchers James Fanell and Bradley Thayer have referred to in The Washington Times on 23 May as “a Joint Fire Strike [exercise] in August 2022 and [a] Joint Anti-Air Raid [exercise] in April 2023.” They also speculate that the PLA will conduct a “Joint Island Landing” exercise this fall that will be a practice run for the full-on invasion of Taiwan. These exercises go far beyond psychological warfare and the intimidation of Taiwan, which Beijing has been escalating at Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s direction since 2020.
Xi’s minions are gradually moving toward “absorption” of Taiwan into communist China in much the same manner as the freedoms and liberties of Hongkongers (香港人) have been snuffed out by the communists since the national security law was mandated in Hong Kong on 30 June 2020. Capitulation by Taipei would doubtless be the preferred approach, ergo the ratcheting up of PLA-N operations, including increased sorties by new ships and aircraft in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan. However, if Taiwan retains its resolve, Xi may have to resort to the use of force to achieve the Chinese Communist Party’s top political goal since 1949.
Are the United States and the rest of the world doing enough to deter what Xi and the PLA seem to be telegraphing with their military escalation in the vicinity of Taiwan? Let us examine the issue.
Taiwan 2023 is the Sudetenland 1938
The Communist Chinese have been pursuing a “Greater China” policy for years. The goal is to consolidate all overseas Han Chinese around the world, both economically and politically. This includes not only majority Chinese places like Hong Kong and Singapore, but also countries with minority Chinese populations such as Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, and even New Zealand. And of course, the big prize for Beijing is Taiwan, which is where Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (the Kuomintang) fled after being defeated by Mao’s Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army in 1949.
“History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” – a quote frequently attributed to Mark Twain. And indeed, such is the case with the Sudetenland 1938 and Taiwan 2023.
In the late 1930s, German Chancellor Adolph Hitler was hard at work consolidating a “Greater Germany” – first through the Anschluss in which Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. Then, he set his sights on the Sudetenland, a region in northwest Czechoslovakia with a majority German population. In order to avoid war over Hitler’s desire to seize the Sudetenland outright and thereby violate a French alliance with Czechoslovakia, Britain and France met with Germany and Italy in Munich in late September 1938 to conclude the “Munich Agreement” – a complete sellout allowing Hitler’s Germany to annex the Sudetenland peacefully: [Upon his return to London, Prime Minister] Chamberlain told the British public that he had achieved “peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.” That “peace” lasted exactly 11 months.
Now, let us look at the “historical rhymes” with respect to Taiwan in 2023:
Xi Jinping’s Greater China is analogous to Hitler’s Greater Germany
Xi Jinping is a totalitarian Communist while Hitler was a totalitarian Nazi; both have/had megalomaniacal geopolitical goals
Hong Kong is analogous to the 1938 Austrian Anschluss, and the communists continue to tighten the screws under the national security law as they absorb the former British protectorate into communist China
Taiwan is analogous to the Sudetenland: both are/were flashpoints that could trigger a real shooting war; will the Franco-British surrender to Hitler in 1938 be mirrored in a capitulation to China by the US and its allies? Will appeasement of Xi Jinping in 2023 be a harbinger of a major war in the same manner as was appeasement of Hitler in 1938?
There are many appeasers in the US like Chamberlain who seek to give Beijing the green light to absorb Taiwan into communist China to “avoid war.” Here is one particularly execrable article from 2021 that postulates a future PLA military operation to “reunify Taiwan.” Quote: “[B]y staying out of a China vs. Taiwan war, not only would we [the US] maintain our current strength, our national security would be stronger. Conversely, if we foolishly insert ourselves into their fight, we will suffer severe damage to our Armed Forces at a minimum, placing our national security around the world at higher risk; in a worst-case, American cities could smolder in radioactive waste for years to come.”
Translation: it is in America’s (and the world’s) best interests to let the PLA take Taiwan militarily without any US or allied military intervention. That’s appeasement worthy of Neville Chamberlain. The author (and many others of a similar mind) neglect to mention the other end results of his proposed scenario: Xi’s communist regime will be emboldened, the Taiwanese semiconductor industry which supplies the world will be controlled by the communists, and the Quad countries will be demoralized and likely seek accommodations with Beijing because the US will have failed to support Taiwan’s sovereignty (while also wondering what the US would do on their behalf when the inevitable push comes to shove with Beijing).
Real Deterrence
Joe Biden was quick to rise to the defense of Asian Americans during the SARS-CoV-2 “pandemic” will his toothless executive order entitled "Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States." All well and good, but how about an EO with some real teeth in it that extends the US nuclear umbrella over Taiwan to protect 24 million Taiwanese from the delayed wrath of the Chinese Communist Party? That would be “instant deterrence at the stroke of a pen” and a shot heard round the world against the communists.
It should be noted that the Taipei Times stated that “Taiwan’s national security doctrine explicitly rejects the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction,” but that does not preclude the acceptance of a US nuclear shield or even the deployment of future US theater nuclear weapons to Taiwan.
Another concrete action to deter Beijing would be a ramped-up US Seventh Fleet show-of-force presence in and around Taiwan in conjunction with a continuing series of joint exercises with Quad and NATO navies in the area. Such actions would be clear statements that the US and its allies will not simply stand aside and allow the PLA free reign in a cross-strait invasion.
Lastly, the US should accelerate the delivery of arms to Taiwan and coordinate rotational deployments of US and allied military forces to Taiwan, e.g., F-35 detachments from the US and Japan and US Army HIMARS and ATACMS support detachments.
Words won’t deter Xi Xinping, but concrete military measures almost certainly will do so. It is 1938 in Taiwan, and there is no time to lose!
The end.