It’s easy to forget – as conflicts simmer in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East – that a vastly bigger potential flashpoint is still glowing red hot in East Asia.
Communist China, currently in the gunsights of US President Donald Trump and his tariffs, remains committed to annexing the island democracy of Taiwan, separated from the mainland by just over 100 miles of water.
Just this week, Taiwan identified 2027 as the potential year for a Chinese invasion for the first time during annual military drills. 2027 is also the year of the next Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress when Chinese leader Xi Jinping surely has to have
something to say on the subject of Taiwan.
Having marched the Chinese people all the way to the top of the hill over Taiwan, it will be tough for Xi and his cronies to march them back down again.
This isn’t simply about semiconductors or settling old scores from the Chinese civil war. Taiwan’s major significance for Beijing lies in its geography, sat as it is in the middle of the ‘first island chain’, a network of Western-allied states which currently blocks China’s military – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – from controlling the Pacific.
Without that control, the CCP can kiss goodbye to its long-held ambition of equalling and surpassing American military dominance. If China cannot even dominate its own backyard what hope has it of dominating the wider world?
Of course the stakes are no less high for Washington. Chinese control over Taiwan would devastate America’s Asian alliance network, while Chinese control over Asia’s strategic sea lanes could significantly impact the US Dollar since a major reason for its reserve currency status – upon which so much American prosperity hinges – is the US Navy’s role as guarantor of the sea lanes.
The recent news of newly-built Chinese ‘barges’ should be particularly alarming therefore.
The Shuqiao ships could create a loading dock from almost a km out to sea, overcoming some of the logistical problems with amphibious invasions, thereby allowing direct access to Taiwan’s considerable road network (Taiwan has few good landing sights for invading ships and the Taiwan Strait really only has two openings per year for an amphibious invasion).
Coupled with news about revision of PLA recruitment, the hoarding of huge stockpiles of grains, as well as building more nuclear missile silos, the barges surely indicate China is gearing up for at least the possibility of an invasion or a blockade of Taiwan, choking the island democracy to death before outside support arrives.
While Donald Trump‘s unpredictability might give Beijing pause for thought, the greater the impact of tariffs the more China may consider it has less to lose.
Moreover, if China’s draconian ‘zero Covid‘ episode demonstrated anything it is a) politics trumps economics for the CCP, and b) people power counts when it came to ending zero Covid (and, dosed up on years of propaganda, many Chinese netizens are getting impatient for the Taiwan question to be settled).
Closer to home, the risk of war in Asia – one whose economic impact would dwarf the impact of Covid and whose human impact would be many, many times greater than Ukraine and Gaza combined – makes the British giveaway of the super strategic Chagos Islands to Chinese ally Mauritius seem especially myopic.
It also makes the case for greater defence spending even stronger. While Ukraine may dominate the headlines today, it is quite likely that war in Asia will be the big story of the late 2020s, with its impact felt globally.
Could the UK sit this one out given the likely involvement of allies such as Australia and the US? Who knows. But it seems unlikely the UK could exist in splendid isolation.
Whatever else may be going on right now – Ukraine and Gaza, Trump tariffs, and closer to home the rise of Reform UK – we should not take our eyes off the prospect of war in Asia, something which would have ramifications far beyond anything seem since the Second World War.
Xi and the CCP will not give up on Taiwan, Trump remains unpredictable (not least on his attitude to Taiwan), and the rise of AI makes the prospect of super weapons greater, with China having both the home and industrial advantage over the West. The democratic world may again find itself asleep at the wheel.