Hello defence lovers! Recently the fear of a Taiwan invasion is on an all-time high. Things got escalated when the Speaker of the House of Representatives (US Parliament), Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan amidst China’s strong protest. China has been conducting aggressive military drills near Taiwan. In this article, we would discuss the possibility of war between these countries and its effect on the World and Global trade.
Why Would China Invade Taiwan?
Also Read, Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan: A Possibility?
Communist China has been planning for the invasion of the island nation of Taiwan for many years. These ambitions are as old as the second world war and the Chinese Civil war. The CCP defeated the KMT party which fell back to the Island of Taiwan. Since then the Chinese Communist party had claimed Taiwan to be their territory. We won’t discuss this historical aspect here in detail as it is irrelevant in the modern context.
As we had discussed earlier, the Russia-Ukraine war provided China with an opportunity to measure the American response. However, Joe Biden has been one of America’s weakest presidents so far under whom the Taliban got Afghanistan and Putin is about to get Ukraine. The extreme economic sanctions have failed to cripple the Russian economy so far. China knows very well that such sanctions cannot be imposed on it since it is the largest exporter and biggest manufacturing hub in the world.
Taiwan Invasion: A Distraction
When the initial waves of the Chinese Virus were causing devastation in China, the CCP used the Ladakh standoff as a distraction for its people to divert their attention from CCP’s covid mismanagement. Two years later China is facing internal economic turmoil and needs a similar distraction. Since China has very much understood that India is not the same country it used to be in 1962, Taiwan is a suitable choice for raising nationalism waves among its people.
Evergrande Crisis
The 2020–2022 Chinese property sector crisis is a current financial crisis sparked by the financial difficulties of Evergrande Group and other Chinese property developers, in the wake of new Chinese regulations on these companies’ debt limits.
Read more about this on Wikipedia
The Evergrande Crisis triggered a chain of events that led to a recession in China’s real estate industry. Since the real estate industry contributes more than 30 percent to the Chinese GDP, it could result in massive shockwaves in the entire Chinese economy which can bring the CCP to the brink of economic collapse. This situation is further deteriorated by Covid waves across China.
Thus raising the tensions with the United States over Taiwan would aid Xi Jinping in maintaining good control over the Chinese common people by raising nationalistic sentiments and distracting them from serious economic issues.
How Taiwan Invasion Would Affect the World?
Taiwan is the biggest supplier of semiconductors in the world. A company called TSMC has more than 50% share of the global semiconductor chip supply. The world has not yet recovered from the global chip shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. An invasion of Taiwan can lead to the complete collapse of the electronics industry worldwide
Moreover, one-third of the global trade passes through Taiwan straight. If this region becomes a warzone, world trade would be adversely affected. We can get an idea of the economic devastation that the Taiwan straight blockade would cause by the example of the Suez Canal blockade by Ever Given and its impact on the world economy.
Conclusion
We must understand that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Billions of dollars of trade of major world power are at stake if Taiwan is invaded. When there are economic interests involved, the Superpowers would find a moral excuse to defend Taiwan. Moreover, conquering Taiwan is not at all going to be a cakewalk for China. Using its porcupine strategy, Taiwanese forces will make sure that China has to pay heavily for every inch of Taiwanese soil. Tell us in the comments if we should cover this “porcupine strategy” in detail.
Power corrupts healthy thought processes. If the Chinese leaders decide to invade Taiwan just for the sake of power projection on Taiwan, it could be catastrophic for both China and the entire world.
Yes , I want an article about Porcupine strategy .