Volume 10, Issue 30
The criticism is founded upon the sensitivity in reference to China’s relationship with Russia. President Putin’s invasion of his neighboring state of Ukraine has not gone as planned. The war has been more costly in lives and equipment than expected. President Putin briefed China’s President Xi before the invasion. Projections were that the entire effort would take less than six weeks with no world outcry. Economic sanctions and universal outrage have given China pause.
The Chinese economic experiment is failing. The real estate market is in contraction. Heavy government debt is threatening the liquidity of rural banks. The brutal one-child policy of several decades ago has left China with an aging population. For the foreseeable future, there will be more deaths than births. The Chinese currency (the yuan) has not achieved the status of a reserve world currency. Dollars are needed to buy strategic materials. They are now being rationed inside the country.
There have been rumors for months that China was planning an invasion of Taiwan. President Xi has made mention of a short timeline for reunification, either by negotiation or force. Bringing Taiwan back under Chinese communist party authority has been an emotional mandate since the founding of both The People’s Republic of China and Taiwan in 1949.
Chiang Kai-shek escaped the advancing armies of Mao Zedong to the agricultural island of Formosa to establish The Republic of China (Taiwan-ROC). Both Taiwan and China claim to be the legitimate leader of the Chinese people. Reclaiming Taiwan as part of the Chinese mainland is crucial to the psyche of the communist party.
In 1991, I was dispatched by the United States government to maintain communications regarding certain diplomatic matters and to help China reopen the Shanghai Stock Exchange. During the project, I was afforded the opportunity to conduct discussions with Chairman Deng Xiaoping. One of the things he emphasized was his desire for reunification with Taiwan during his lifetime. He stated that hardliners were advising Chinese government leaders to invade Taiwan immediately. Such an invasion would likely be bloody and costly. They advocated the timing because, in their opinion, the United States was unprepared and unwilling to defend Taiwan in a war. Chairman Deng emphatically declared that it was not necessary to invade Taiwan. He was confident that Taiwan would seek in the future reunification for economic reasons. The advice to invade was overruled.
Ten years after the fall of the former Soviet Union, documents came to light that confirmed hardliners advised President Gorbachev to exercise a nuclear strike on the United States. Their estimate of loss of life was between 100 million and 200 million citizens collectively between the United States and the Soviet Union. Their argument was that the Soviet Union had more core services secured underground and that the Soviet Union would emerge the only remaining super power.
Why would hardliners render such advice? Because the handwriting was on the wall that the Soviet Union was about to fail, and a nuclear strike kept them in power, which is all that matters to such men of totalitarian regimes.
Russia today is in need of military assistance from China to sustain its war effort for the invasion of Ukraine. In particular, China is a leading manufacturer of sophisticated drones. The Biden Administration has asked President Xi not to lend aid to Putin’s war effort. So far, Xi has complied. With such a request so tenuous in nature, it is a mystery as to why Speaker Pelosi would go ahead with her trip when everyone from the President of the United States to the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked her to stand down.
There is internal pressure on President Xi to invade Taiwan. The world’s reaction to Putin’s invasion makes President Xi’s decision much more precarious. China cannot withstand worldwide economic sanctions. It is critical that they export 80% of what they make to Western markets. Without access to Western markets, and especially to the United States, the Chinese economy will collapse. Putin’s economy is based on the export of oil. They export very little in manufactured goods. Oil can be sold on the black market and still generate revenue. No such opportunity exists for large flat screen TVs.
The hardliners are gaining the upper hand in China. President Xi was reluctant to crack down unmercifully on Hong Kong protestors seeking more freedom. Hardliners threatened to remove him as head of the communist party. President Xi is up for reappointment as party chairman this fall. The real fear in US-China relations is that hardliners are advising Xi in exactly the same context that hardliners advised President Gorbachev. If they know their system is failing, invading Taiwan may be seen as the only way to stay in power.
Taiwan is not defenseless in its own right. An amphibious landing is not a foregone conclusion for success. Even though the Chinese army outnumbers Taiwan’s over ten to one, forces can only land so many troops on the island’s shore at one time. If one of the objectives is to secure the chip manufacturing facilities on the island, then the alternative of heavy bombing and direct missile attacks are not available. Even if China invades Taiwan and is successful, they still have to face world economic sanctions.
This is the debate being conducted behind closed doors in the Chinese Politburo between hardliners and pragmatists at this time.
For whatever reason Speaker Pelosi chose this time to agitate Chinese mainland leadership, she may have played right into the hands of the hardliners.
Regardless, in playing the Chinese card, the United States must stand inviolate by its commitments and principles to freedom and democracy.
Living with a gun to one’s head is not a life worth living.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?