With the Russian-Ukrainian war raging on, people have tended to forget about the tense situation between China and Taiwan. Communist China has made no secret of its intention to militarily conquer Taiwan if it cannot peacefully absorb it into the domination of the Communist Party on the mainland. I think it is time to revisit this topic as, I believe, the longer the Russian-Ukrainian war lasts, the greater is the likelihood that China will attack Taiwan.
As readers know, the USA and NATO nations are sending mega-billions worth of military weaponry and ammunition to Ukraine to fight off Russia’s war of aggression. I saw a chart on a news broadcast that the USA has sent far more military equipment, in dollar terms, than all other nations put together. Even the small amounts that have been sent by some NATO nations is enough to nearly exhaust their meager supply of military equipment. The first link reports that the United Kingdom has so depleted its supply of ammunition in its efforts to aid Ukraine that the UK has only retained enough ammunition to fight for one day in an all-out war with Russia. If that is true, it is is a shocking testimonial to the extreme foolishness of the British government in disarming itself so extensively. Germany has had an understrength military for many years, but it has woken up to the danger and has authorized a large increase in military spending. However, when nations commit to funding much new high-tech weaponry, it does not appear by magic. It takes years to actually produce the weaponry that is now being funded.
You can be sure that China is very carefully watching the expenditure of ammunition and the loss of military equipment in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Its intelligence services surely had a fairly accurate picture of the war reserves possessed by each NATO nation before they began shipping large amounts of military supplies to Ukraine. China is surely deducting from the American war reserves the amounts of weaponry shipped to the Ukraine for a very important Chinese strategic purpose. The more weaponry the USA sends to Ukraine, the less it will have to militarily resupply Taiwan in the event China invades that island. The more the USA depletes its own military reserves, the more likely it is that China will attack Taiwan as it will feel it can do so without having to fear the USA coming to Taiwan’s rescue or resupplying Taiwan’s army. There is a caveat to this picture. The vast majority of the weaponry that the USA has sent to Ukraine are for armed land conflicts. Some aerial attack and defense weaponry has been sent, but the USA has not drawn down its naval weaponry reserves due to the Russian-Ukrainian war being a land war. The USA still has much naval weaponry to assign to the defense of Taiwan. Japan and South Korea have also retained all their weaponry in case they are also drawn into a war in Taiwan.
China lusts to control Taiwan so it is surely hoping the USA depletes its army war supplies to such a low level that it will be unable to reinforce Taiwan’s army in the event of a Chinese invasion. The USA would almost have to come to aid Taiwan in the event China invades Taiwan (or imposes a military blockade). The US Congress has long had bipartisan support for helping Taiwan resist any Chinese invasion, and President Biden would have no choice but to come to Taiwan’s rescue for two reasons. The first is that Taiwan dominates the global, high-end computer chip market. If China were to seize Taiwan, it would control the world’s super-fast computer chip supplies. The West cannot allow that to happen as it would put the West in a very dangerous and risky position–both militarily and economically. The second reason is that Biden has a severe credibility problem already among the nations. His cowardly and unnecessarily rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan at the start of his administration manifested great weakness for all the world to see. Also Biden’s refusal to protect America’s own borders from illegal immigrants and illegal drugs further weakens his credibility. If Biden were to abandon Taiwan if it were invaded by China, he could find himself removed from office by the US Congress (most likely via the 25th Amendment).
The second link examines the possible aftermath of a Chinese occupation of Taiwan and finds it would be “catastrophic” for the world. It predicts that various nations would quickly develop and deploy nuclear weapons of their own, and it looks at how such an event would affect six major nations in world geopolitics. The third link cites American military leaders as saying they are convinced that China will not attack Taiwan for years to come. I hope that assessment is right, but it smacks of complacency to me. China would like to attack while the USA is complacent as that would mean the USA would not be ready for such a war. One point in favor of an early war is that China would also like to make such an attack while America is weakly led. The panicky withdrawal from Afghanistan and Biden’s refusal to protect America’s own borders make Biden the type of weak leader China would want to have as an adversary. That factor favors an attack within the the next two years before Biden could be replaced by a strong, pro-American president.
What are the latest developments in the Taiwanese-Chinese potential combat situation? The fourth link reports that Taiwan has developed and is test-firing a new missile that has a range of at least 1,200 kilometers–allowing it to hit many Chinese cities and strategic targets on mainland China. No nation gives an enemy the full capacities of its new weapons systems, so the range of this new missile may be even greater. This means that Taiwan may have missiles that can reach, for example, the Three Gorges Dam–China’s massive dam holding back an immense reservoir of water. If China attacks Taiwan and Taiwanese missile counterattacks breach the Three Gorges Dam, it could potentially end the war. China would experience a massive fresh-water tsunami that would sweep downward across China toward the ocean, drowning innumerable people and flooding numerous factories, military bases, etc. in the process. China needs to think seriously about this very real threat before attacking Taiwan.
Taiwan has also reported that on its outlying islands, internet service is periodically blocked due to undersea cables being cut (fifth link). Taiwan regards China as the logical culprit to do such actions. That makes sense and it may have a military purpose. Taiwan surely has early-warning radars and listening posts scattered on its outlying islands to give a rapid warning of any Chinese invasion being launched. China may be rehearsing how to block such warnings from reaching Taiwan’s leaders by practicing now to break such necessary communications at the beginning of an invasion. Finally, the Western allies have just caught a break. The Philippines, under a new leader, are aligning their nation firmly with the USA and the “Quad” nations of the USA, Australia and Japan. The sixth link expresses doubts about India’s commitment to the Quad, but I do not think India wants to confront both China and Pakistan (nuclear-armed nations) without any nuclear-armed allies of its own. Having the Philippines closely allied with the USA is important due to the Philippines’ strategic location. If the USA or Japan lose a carrier, the carrier’s planes will need land bases at which they can land, rearm and carry on the fight. The northern part of the Philippines is just south of Taiwan so its territory offers secure alternate landing fields for American or Japanese naval pilots.
A prophecy in Matthew 24:6 warns that “wars and rumors of wars” will characterize the latter days of our age. The Russian-Ukraine war is a very large war–the biggest in the European theater since World War II. A China-Taiwan war, an Israeli-Iranian war and a war on the Korean Peninsula are all major examples of “rumors of wars” that could ignite at any time. While the Chinese-Taiwanese confrontation is slowly sliding toward open warfare, a step back from conflict occurred in the Mideast. Saudi Arabia and Iran signed an agreement in China to normalize relations. It is very significant that this agreement was reached in China under Chinese sponsorship (seventh link). The Saudis are traditional US allies, but this action reveals that the Saudis are so disgusted with the Biden administration that they deliberately excluded the USA from this negotiation. It is easy to show evidence that we are living in the period called the “latter days” in the Bible. My article, Are We Living in the Latter Days?, contains that evidence. We are not yet at the end of the latter day period as the current global “Babylon the Great” system has not yet collapsed, the Two Witnesses are nowhere in sight and the “beast” power prophesied in the book of Revelation has not yet formed. However, we are surely progressing further into the biblical “latter day” period of time.
- https://www.breitbart.com/
europe/2023/03/07/uk-running- dangerously-low-on-ammo-after- sending-munitions-to-ukraine/ - https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/
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02/high-cost-of-taiwan- invasion-will-dissuade-china- pentagon-official-says?utm_ source=sailthru&utm_medium= email&utm_campaign=mil-ebb& SToverlay=de88742f-46f7-4f2c- 819d-3b36a47d6a7e - https://asiatimes.com/2023/02/
taiwans-new-cruise-missile- has-mainland-china-in-its- sights/ - https://apnews.com/article/
matsu-taiwan-internet-cables- cut-china- 65f10f5f73a346fa788436366d7a7c 70?user_email= 1bb5bae2fa018f8f383f58bb0f5029 8e01b91f994fbe23068ed7dcf86c4c 9509&utm_medium=Morning_Wire& utm_source=Sailthru&utm_ campaign=March8_MorningWire& utm_term=Morning%20Wire% 20Subscribers - https://asiatimes.com/2023/02/
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middle-east/iran-saudi-arabia- agree-resume-ties-re-open- embassies-iranian-state-media- 2023-03-10/
