Post–Invasion Nightmare: Taiwan Becomes America’s Enemy
Wendell Minnick
Security, Asia
If Taipei fell to Beijing control tomorrow, then Xi Jinping could use the country's bases to launch new wars.
TAIPEI — Those focusing on whether China can sink a U.S. aircraft carrier or lob missiles at Guam are missing the larger problem. And it is not about the tragic loss of a democratic friend in Asia.
The nightmare is how the strategic landscape will radically change if China controls Taiwan, either by political or brutal force.
China views Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines as one long wall. Bud Cole, the celebrated specialist on Chinese naval issues, dubbed it the “The Great Wall at Sea” for good reason. Insurmountable in geographic terms; with no line of sight for its aircraft, let alone navy, Beijing has no other choice but to take Taiwan.
Taiwan’s central mountain range runs the length of the island with heights ranging from nine thousand to twelve thousand feet. This is the problem China faces in its efforts to project force into the Pacific. The Chinese air force must fly around Taiwan, the navy must sail through the Japanese-controlled Ryukyu Islands chain that stretches from Japan to Taiwan, and mainland’s ground-based radar cannot peek over Taiwan.
What would a post–invasion Taiwan look like?
The occupation of Chinese military forces on Taiwan would basically turn the tables on the United States. The “wall” would now be a U.S. problem in terms of line-of-sight.
China has radically shifted the power balance in the South China Sea with the same island occupying philosophy. Islands are taken, then armed, and territorial lines are expanded via dubious “legal” declarations, such as exclusive economic zones, fishing grounds, historical claims that go back hundreds of years.
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