A Chinese Naval Blockade Of Taiwan Will Send Shockwaves Across The World

To cut off Taiwan, China would need to control the skies. It has naval and air bases on or near its coast opposite Taiwan. The Chinese could shoot down enemy planes with surface-to-air missiles, or even strike at U.S. bases in Guam and Japan. https://t.co/0V7gat5W1C pic.twitter.com/7Hm4JUUMSP

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 26, 2022

Joshua Keating, GRID: How a Chinese naval blockade could isolate Taiwan and send shockwaves across the world 

A blockade could accomplish what Beijing wants — minus the horrific casualties. 

When most people imagine war in the Taiwan Strait, they tend to conjure up images inspired by Normandy, France, in 1944; Incheon, South Korea, in 1950; Baghdad in 2003; or even Kyiv in 2022: Troops streaming out of transport ships onto beaches, missiles slamming into air defense systems, and heavy casualties all around. In short, a bloody conflict with the potential to draw in the United States and its allies. 

But what if a Taiwan D-Day never comes? What if instead of all-out invasion, Beijing instead opts for an escalating pressure campaign aimed at bringing Taiwan to its knees without actually starting a war? 

“What I fear is that China will not do a frontal assault on Taiwan, but they will begin to do one thing after another that never quite gives the United States or Japan or the Quad Alliance any casus belli,” or justification for war, Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, told Grid last August. 

In this scenario, Beijing’s campaign to snuff out Taiwan’s political autonomy would involve not hundreds of thousands of troops crossing the Taiwan Strait, but a more subtle approach: ships interdicted at sea and undersea cables snipped in mysterious circumstances. Many experts believe these tactics are more likely than all-out war.  

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WNU Editor: As bad as the Russia - Ukraine war is, a Chinese blockade of Taiwan is going to change the world as we know it.

Update: China has been conducting "blockade" exercises off Taiwan since last year .... China launches 'blockade' exercises around Taiwan on Tuesday (Taiwan News).

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