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Look at a map of that zone, and other zones declared by Japan and China. They are flying within Taiwan’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone.
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Chinese aircraft are not overflying Taiwan. Let’s look at the boilerplate articles about Chinese “incursions” into Taiwan’s air space. That many of those American bases predate the founding of the People’s Republic, and all have survived the fall of the Soviet adversary they were built to, um, deter, tells the real story. The US maintained troops on Taiwan until 1979 and recently began sending Special Forces there again on training missions. That includes formal facilities in eight Asian nations, with some 53,000 troops in Japan and 24,000 in South Korea alone. In contrast, the US maintains 750 bases across the globe, a few less now that the Afghan adventure is over. I’m going to guess a lot of people who consider themselves informed on this topic could not have named more than one of those. China has four overseas military bases, to include a small logistics operation in Djibouti, a listening post on Great Coco Island (not near the Bahamas, it’s off Myanmar), navy outpost in Gwadar (it’s in Pakistan) and of course a military post in Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. The Chinese on both sides of the strait understand well there is much to be gained from economic ties amid political ambiguity and much greater risk in anything like an invasion that would accomplish little besides tidying up the leftovers from the creation of the PRC in 1949.Ībout that deterrence versus provocation thing. More importantly, there is little need for the military deterrence many advocate for, such as Professor Galston this evening. The concept of deterrence itself is not without its uses, and in the end likely kept the Cold War a lot cooler, but military deterrence as argued for here holds the risk of accidents and misinterpretations. What looks like deterrence against American hegemony in Asia - overflights - might look like provocation from the other. What looks like deterrence from one side - forward deploying an aircraft carrier - might look like provocation from the other. You would hate to have some sort of strategic clarity embolden independence “trouble makers” on Taiwan, one of those unintended consequences.ĭeterrence is a funny word. Nobody expects the ambiguity to stretch as far as Taiwan launching military force.
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Though we don’t think of it much, the current policy of strategic ambiguity keeps Taiwan in line as well. You laugh but that was indeed Chiang Kai Skek’s plan, with US help of course, in the early years. The ball keeps bouncing, history remains. That is not going to change in our lifetimes, so there is not much more to say. Putin got away with Ukraine and the Mainland has not invaded. China has gone from the agrarian isolation of the Cultural Revolution to a fully-integrated if not essential part of the industrialized global economy, and the Mainland has not invaded. The Chinese military has gone from peasants with rifles to a blue water navy backed by ICBMs and the Mainland has not invaded.