Link to article: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinas-threats-of-war-push-taiwan-toward-us
Over the weekend, the Communist Party put in their Global Times newspaper that Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, would be “wiped out” with war if she violated China’s anti-succession law. Tsai had dinner with Keith Krach, a senior US State Department official. Then on Saturday night, the Communist Party put out a tweet describing the dinner as “playing with fire.” Last week, a video was released of H-6 bombers making a simulated strike on a US military base near Guam. In case of a Chinese attack, Tsai has been taking steps to increase economic ties with the US government to give them more incentives to intervene. Tsai has removed the ban on US beef and pork products along with Tsai and Krach discussing a formal economic dialogue. Although China doesn’t seem to want to give up the economic agreement with Taiwan, Tsai believes that a bilateral trade agreement “would further benefit Taiwan’s security by giving momentum- and political cover- for other countries to peruse similar agreements with Taiwan.”
This will affect the trade agreements within the region, which could hurt some countries and benefit others. This is very important when it comes to the world because China doesn’t want things to change and is threatening war. Then Taiwan doesn’t seem to be too threatened by China’s threats which could cause escalation and cause a world war if the US decides that it will get involved like Taiwan hopes it will. All three governments need to be careful about their next steps and how they plan to handle this situation in the future, because their actions could lead to a war that no one wants.
This relates to some of the discussions that we have had in class. Is China the greatest threat to the US? China is trying to reduce our trade with other countries so they are becoming a threat because they are threatening our trade. Also, this relates to should the US stay out of international affairs? Taiwan does wants the US to intervene in a case of war, but is the trade between Taiwan and the US worth the military involvement? Then why does Taiwan want our involvement? Is it because we are a superpower? Taiwan must think so if they want to use our military to fight against China.