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GOP Warning: Threat of Chinese Invasion of Taiwan at All-Time High

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The threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan “remains unabated, if not heightened” as a result of the Biden administration’s “slow, manipulatable, and self-defeatist posture” toward the war in Ukraine, according to a group of Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress who are pressing the White House to confront Beijing.

“We are concerned that Beijing may be learning different lessons from the ongoing crisis [in Ukraine], and the risk of a People’s Liberation Army assault on Taiwan remains unabated, if not heightened,” eight Republicans, including those on the House Armed Services Committee, wrote to President Joe Biden on Tuesday, according to a copy of the missive obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “To proactively deter China from attempting an invasion of Taiwan, we call on your administration to commit unequivocally and publicly to uphold Taiwan’s security and the intent of the United States to act in the event of Chinese military aggression against the island.”

The Biden administration has sent mixed messages on Taiwan. The president committed to defending the island’s sovereignty from a Chinese attack before having his staff reverse course on that stance. China, like Russia, watched the Biden administration fumble through Afghanistan—abandoning allies in the country and millions of dollars in military equipment—and believes American military power across the globe is waning. The bungled evacuation fostered uncertainty among allies and stoked confidence in adversaries, the lawmakers said. Now, with Russia waging a war in Ukraine, the Biden administration has flip-flopped on sanctions, slowed military aid to Ukraine, and provided critical economic lifelines to Russian president Vladimir Putin, the lawmakers said.

“The way your administration is handling the Russian invasion of Ukraine has immense repercussions on Taiwan’s security,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), an Armed Services Committee member. “China is taking note of the slow, manipulatable, and self-defeatist posture of the United States in a scenario very similar to the one it envisions vis-à-vis Taiwan.” (Read more from “GOP Warning: Threat of Chinese Invasion of Taiwan at All-Time High” HERE)

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Taiwan’s Fighting Spirit: ‘Rational Assessment Does Not Favor Beijing’

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Taiwan’s indomitable fighting spirit would pose a serious challenge to Beijing’s military ambitions in the event of an invasion, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The starting position of any substantive and rational assessment does not favor Beijing if its goal is to invade, occupy, and sustain control over Taiwan,” Steve Yates, senior fellow and chair of the China Policy Initiative, told the DCNF.

Taiwan’s military preparedness and will to fight has received renewed attention, following what some outlets, such as The New York Times, have called Ukraine’s “tenacious” defense against Russian aggression.

“Support for sovereign Taiwan has grown and shifted over the last three or four decades, mostly as a function of the fact that the people who support unification with China are older people with a stronger, more direct connection with the Chinese people that came over with Chiang Kai-shek in the late 1940s when the Civil War was coming to an end,” Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, told the DCNF. “Now you’ve got a younger base who passionately support and believe in a sovereign Taiwan and that speaks to the view that they would fight for their country.”

Yates also believes the Taiwanese possess a formidable fighting spirit, citing the island nation’s unique history as a source. (Read more from “Taiwan’s Fighting Spirit: ‘Rational Assessment Does Not Favor Beijing'” HERE)

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The Ukraine Crisis Is A Wake-up Call For Taiwan And Japan

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the concern that China’s leader Xi Jinping may be emboldened to invade Taiwan soon. Such fear has shifted attitudes and strategic thinking in Taiwan and its ally Japan.

The last time Taiwan faced military assault by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was in 1958. On August 23, under Chairman Mao Zedong’s directive, the PLA heavily bombed Quemoy, Matsu, and other surrounding offshore islands. The PLA’s bombardment of Taiwan only stopped after the United States demonstrated its will to defend Taiwan by sending six aircraft carriers, three heavy cruisers, 40 destroyers, and two air force divisions to Taiwan strait.

Since then, the Taiwanese people have enjoyed several decades of peace and prosperity. The Chinese Communist Party changed tactics and had hoped that deepening economic ties between Taiwan and mainland China would eventually “reunite” Taiwan with the motherland peacefully. To the CCP’s disappointment, a poll shows that most Taiwanese don’t identify as Chinese.

China’s Xi Jinping vowed never to rule out taking Taiwan by force. The PLA has increased both the frequency and the number of fighter jets it sent near Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), hoping to intimidate the Taiwanese people. Still, most Taiwanese didn’t take Beijing’s military threat seriously until Russia invaded Ukraine. (Read more from “The Ukraine Crisis Is a Wake-up Call for Taiwan and Japan” HERE)

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Taiwan Reports Chinese Aircraft in Its Air Defense Zone After Russia Invaded Ukraine

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Nine Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, Taiwan’s defense ministry said Thursday, on the same day that Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Tawian reported eight J-16 sorties and one Y-8 reconnaissance aircraft flying over an area to the northeast of the Pratas Islands, at the top end of the South China Sea, which prompted the island nation to scramble its air force. According to Reuters, the number of aircraft involved in the incursion is smaller than the last large-scale incident, when 39 Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwanese territory on Jan. 23.

China claims Taiwan, the seat of the exiled Republic of China government, as its own territory, and over the past two years it has regularly conducted fly-over missions in Taiwanese air space.

Taiwanese fighters were deployed to warn the Chinese aircraft to back off and air defense missiles were set up to “monitor the activities,” the defense ministry said, according to Reuters.

The government in Taipei is paying close attention to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the response from Western governments over concerns that China may use the situation to move against the island. (Read more from “Taiwan Reports Chinese Aircraft in Its Air Defense Zone After Russia Invaded Ukraine” HERE)

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‘Wait and See’: China Vows Strong Response as U.S. Prepares to Arm Taiwan

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China has demanded the United States revoke a possible arms agreement with Taiwan in support of its Patriot missile systems—a deal Washington believes will improve the island’s security and help maintain political stability.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington. D.C, requested the purchase of equipment and services worth $100 million over five years, said the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).

Congress was notified of the State Department’s approval on Monday.

Taiwan’s armed forces operate a number of the American-made, surface-to-air and anti-ballistic missile systems, whose sole purpose is to deter and intercept Chinese aircraft and projectiles in the event of a conflict across the Taiwan Strait. The foreign military sale—the first involving Taiwan this year and the second under the Biden administration—will “sustain, maintain, and improve the Patriot Air Defense System,” according to DSCA’s statement. (Read more from “‘Wait and See’: China Vows Strong Response as U.S. Prepares to Arm Taiwan” HERE)

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Expert: U.S. Has ‘No Choice’ but to Go All Out Against Xi Jinping

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China has been rattling its sabers, and other articles of war for several years already in what appears to be a longterm plan to take Taiwan by one means or another.

But with Joe Biden now in the White House, and a new level of weakness on foreign policy being transmitted daily, it would surprise few if that move by the Communist regime in Beijing happens sooner rather than later.

Which means that the United States “has no choice but to go all out and do what it can to rein in Xi Jinping’s ambitions.”

That’s according to Chris King, a senior research fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute.

He explained the tripartite China-U.S.-Taiwan game “will certainly be fierce,” and actually already has begun. (Read more from “Expert: U.S. Has ‘No Choice’ but to Go All Out Against Xi Jinping” HERE)

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Chinese Media Warning: If Taiwan Changes Name of Office in U.S., China Will Respond With ‘Military’ Action

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Chinese propagandist Hu Xijin, editor of China’s state-run Global Times, warned in a video that if the United States allows Taiwan to change the name of its representative office in the U.S. from “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to “Taiwan Representative Office” that China will respond with military action.

The Global Times is known for being a jingoistic publication that often makes more extreme statements than the Chinese Communist Party. . .

“Beijing will definitely take economic and military actions against the arrogance of the U.S. and Taiwan,” Hu continued. “At this point, it is foreseeable that the mainland fighter jets will fly over the island of Taiwan. The mainland has been planning it for a long time. I’d like to point out that the U.S. and Taiwan have continued to increase the mainland’s cost of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Straits. More than half of China’s diplomatic troubles have to do with the Taiwan question. Calls for a thorough solution to the Taiwan question through force are consistently increasing in the mainland. The Taiwan question is getting very close to the tipping point.”

(Read more from “Chinese Media Warning: If Taiwan Changes Name of Office in U.S., China Will Respond With ‘Military’ Action” HERE)

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Chinese President on Taiwan ‘Reunification’: Those ‘Who Betray Their Motherland’ ‘Will Come To No Good End’

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On Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during which he pushed for “reunification” with democratically-governed Taiwan.

“National reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the Chinese nation as a whole, including our compatriots in Taiwan,” Xi stated.

“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should stand on the right side of history and join hands to achieve China’s complete reunification, and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Xi continued, later adding, “Those who forget their heritage, betray their motherland, and seek to split the country will come to no good end; they will be disdained by the people and condemned by history.”

In response to Xi’s latest remarks, Taiwan’s China-policy-making Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement asking that China “abandon its provocative steps of intrusion, harassment and destruction.”

The communist dictatorship has recently ratcheted up its intimidation of Taiwan, sending nearly 150 military jets into Taiwanese airspace over the course of several days at the beginning of October. The island nation responded by scrambling jets “to warn away the Chinese planes, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them,” according to Reuters. (Read more from “Chinese President on Taiwan ‘Reunification’: Those ‘Who Betray Their Motherland’ ‘Will Come To No Good End’” HERE)

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Report: U.S. Special Operators Secretly Trained Taiwanese Forces

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The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Thursday quoted unnamed “officials” who said a contingent of about two dozen U.S. special operations and support troops have been deployed to Taiwan for at least a year to train their Taiwanese counterparts. The report drew a terse response from China, which objects strenuously to any number of American soldiers being stationed in Taiwan.

According to the WSJ, the clandestine training has included U.S. Marines teaching the Taiwanese small-boat combat tactics.

The officials quoted in the report described the training mission as “a small but symbolic effort by the U.S. to increase Taipei’s confidence in building its defenses against potential Chinese aggression,” with an eye toward teaching the Taiwanese how to take fullest advantage of simple and easily protected equipment that might not be targeted for immediate destruction in the event of a Chinese invasion.

The WSJ noted that Asian media has occasionally printed unconfirmed reports of U.S. Marines operating in Taiwan, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Christopher Maier told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a special operations training force should be deployed to Taiwan, without mentioning that one might already be there. (Read more from “Report: U.S. Special Operators Secretly Trained Taiwanese Forces” HERE)

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Taiwan President Says Country ‘Will Do Whatever It Takes To Defend Itself’ Against China

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Taiwan will not bend the knee to an increasingly aggressive communist China, the country’s president says, warning that the defeat of the island nation would signal that “authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy” in today’s “global contest of values.”

Writing in the November-December edition of Foreign Affairs, President Tsai Ing-wen stated that while Taiwan does not seek military confrontation with China, it “will do whatever it takes to defend itself.”

“Amid almost daily intrusions by the People’s Liberation Army, our position on cross-strait relations remains constant: Taiwan will not bend to pressure, but nor will it turn adventurist, even when it accumulates support from the international community,” she wrote. “In other words, the maintenance of regional security will remain a significant part of Taiwan’s overall government policy.”

“Yet we will also continue to express our openness to dialogue with Beijing, as the current administration has repeatedly done since 2016, as long as this dialogue proceeds in a spirit of equality and without political preconditions,” she added. (Read more from “Taiwan President Says Country ‘Will Do Whatever It Takes To Defend Itself’ Against China” HERE)

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