A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Part I.

Soviet made landing craft.  The People's Republic of China uses some of these.

That's what one of the panelist on This Week predicted last weekend, within five years.

I.e., he predicted that the People's Republic of China, that is "Red China", will launch an invasion of Taiwan, in about five years.

President Biden was flatly asked if we'd militarily defend Taiwan.  Biden said we would, which actually isn't the officially stated American policy.  Rather "strategic ambiguity" is.  Beijing isn't supposed to not know if we'd fight or not, and therefore its strategic options are always subject to doubt.

And frankly it also ties into our recognition of the PRC, which we had no choice but to do and in fact were rather late in doing, as the official government of China.  

And it has to do with how the Chinese Civil War ended . . . or didn't.

When Chiang Kai-Shek had to abandon mainland China in 1948, he of course had to maintain that the Red Chinese, whom he'd been fighting for decades, were usurpers, and he'd come back.  And he may actually have hoped to.  For that matter, he may have tried it, on some level, but for the fact that the US 7th Fleet blocked him from doing it, and the Red Chinese from getting at Taiwan.

But it also gave us a legacy in which the Chinese Nationalist continued to claim that they, and not the Chinese Communists, were the legitimate government, and they'd come back some day.  It wasn't until the early 1970s when we finally gave up on that.  Nationalist China accommodated itself to that over time, and over a very long time it opened up to democracy. That gave rise to competing political views and the current party in charge officially sanctions Taiwanese independence, but hasn't declared it.

It hasn't declared it as its so risky.  The Chinese Communists may have fought the Nationalist for years, but there were things that they agreed on, and a "one China" policy was one of them.  They're committed to reunifying the country.

Except that Taiwan should never have been part of China.

The Taiwanese, who are minority in their own land, are their own ethnicity.  Their island was annexed to the Qing Dynasty in China in 1683, which is a few years back, which held it until 1895, when the Japanese got it during the First Sino-Japanese War.  The Japanese held it until 1945, at which time China got it back.

A chance to grant it independence was therefore missed.

As it has happened, there are more Chinese in Taiwan that Taiwanese, and of course Red China wants it back.  And they've been demonstrating their military capacity to take it.

Which really doesn't encourage a reunification.

That's probably supposed to scare us, and the Chinese would have reason to believe that we scare easily.  The Taliban, after all, scared us out of Afghanistan and the NVA and VC scared us out of South Vietnam.  The Red Chinese no doubt are calculating whether we'd fight, but strategic ambiguity probably isn't something that has them quaking in their boots.

Frankly, right now, I don't know if I believe it.  I believe Biden probably would intervene in a Red Chinese invasion. Trump?  I doubt it.  

Of course a formal treaty with Taiwan would effectively accord it recognition as its own sovereign nation.  You don't enter into treaties with rebel provinces, after all

Which brings us back to an invasion.

Will the Red Chinese risk it?

And what all do those risks entail?

May 4, 1919 Drama in China, and at the movies.

On this day in 1919 protests lead by Chinese students erupted over the anemic response of the Chinese government to provisions in the Versailles Treaty which gave German colonies in China to Japan.

The build up to this had been going on for years, as the Japanese government, following the Meiji Restoration, had become increasingly aggressive on the Asian mainland.  Prior to that, after experimenting with an attempted invasion of Korea in 1592-93, and again in 1597, Japan had retreated into isolationism before the encounter with American Admiral Perry.

The Meiji regime had defeated the Chinese to the world's surprise in the First Sino Japanese War, which resulted in Korea being freed from  Chinese control but not to the immediate benefit of Japan, which none the less obtained world power status as a result of the war. The disappointing territorial result, which had benefited Imperial Russia directly, soon resulted in the Russo Japanese War, which resulted in Japan having a foothold on the mainland itself and Korea had been converted into a Japanese colony.  World War One had given the Japanese an excuse to expand its colonial presence in Asia and the Pacific and during the war it had made demands upon China which caused huge Chinese resentment.  The Chinese government had resisted those demands but took a position of accord with Japan that expressed itself in a willingness to acquiesce to post war Japanese demands at the Paris Peace Conference. The Chinese people, however, were not so willing to endure such demands.

The protests are widely regarded by the Chinese Communist party as the birth of their party, and not without reason.   Many of the adherents of the May 4 Movement did become communists and many of the opponents of Chinese communism also opposed the May 4th Movement on the basis that they felt it turned its back on Chinese values and culture.

Of course, it being a Sunday, dramatic movie releases were in the offering.