Again, China has resumed military demonstrations near the coast of Taiwan, crossing the Taiwan Strait in display of power. Supposedly, up to 45 Chinese military aircraft and four Chinese warships sailed into the Taiwan Strait, and some aircraft even flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone. These displays of power are only furthering tensions between Taiwan and China, furthering the possibility of an invasion. This Chinese military exercise is not the first, the biggest ever recorded Chinese military exercise near Taiwan was to demonstrate China’s displeasure of the fact that US House speaker (at the time), Nancy Pelosi, visited Taipei.
Beijing is beginning to demonstrate more and more as Taiwan and China tensions rise, again, increasing the possibility of an invasion. China has historically viewed Taiwan as an extension of its own territory, whereas Taiwan has viewed themselves as a sovereign nation, independent of China. Historically, Taiwan is the original China that fled to the small island, whereas China is the Russian backed Chinese communist party that pushed the non-communist Chinese party to Taiwan. So it only makes sense now that as China’s global power is increasing, it’s beginning to try and act on the One China Policy instead of just mentioning it. Considering China hasn’t explicitly renounced using violence to “silence” what it views as separatist forces, the possibility of a full fledged invasion, similar to the Ukraine and Russia situation, is non-zero. Considering China’s military might, an invasion of Taiwan should be similar to Germany’s occupation of France during WWII, however, similar thought was given to Russia invading Ukraine, and that has proven to be much more difficult than Putin expected. To add to that, Ukraine doesn’t have any foreign support as far as troops on the ground, however, it has been supplied arms from many EU nations. Whereas US president Biden has explicitly stated that if China does undertake an attempted invasion of Taiwan, the US will put its own troops on the ground and defend Taiwan. This complicates things, as I believe that Biden has no intention of putting US troops on the ground, but is merely using drawing NATO into a full fledged WWIII as a scare tactic against Beijing. However, only time will tell the validity of that statement, as US troops on the ground in Taiwan have major implications on alliances such as NATO and the possibility of mutually assured destruction being realized.
To connect to class, this is a perfect example of offshore balancing. Because the US doesn’t have explicit control in Taiwan, nor does it have official US troops stationed in Taiwan, it doesn’t have any immediate powers against China. However, the US is very close allies with South Korea and Japan, powers within the East Asia region, where the US does have official military bases with US troops stationed. So if China were to invade Taiwan, the US is right there and ready to counterattack.