On this episode of China Uncensored, two Chinas for the price of one! Or, one China for the price of two. I’m not really sure how this works. Hi, welcome back to China Uncensored, I’m your host Chris Chappell. Remember how it felt during gym class when they were picking kids for the team and you were the one no one wanted? Obviously I can’t relate to that because
I’m extremely athletic. But that’s essentially what happened to
Taiwan. When the world had to pick their favorite
China— the Communist Party of China in the Mainland or the Republic of China in Taiwan, the world chose the Communist Party to have
diplomatic relations with. Which is strange considering the shape the
two leaders were in. But anyway, very few countries picked Taiwan to be on their diplomacy team. And now, even though for all intents and purposes Taiwan is a separate country, only a small handful of countries acknowledges
it. And so, since the Communist Party of China was the cool kid that got picked, it’s been
bullying Taiwan. By pointing missiles at it and threatening
to invade. So I sat down with Ian East, a research fellow
at Project 2049, to discuss the Communist Party’s plans to
invade Taiwan. Thank you for joining us today, Ian. Chris, it's a pleasure to be here. All right, so the Chinese Communist Party says Taiwan is a province of China. The Chinese Communist Party also says it plans to invade Taiwan by 2020. My question is how can China invade itself? That's a very good question. It's not at all clear that China is capable
of invading itself, nor is it clear that Taiwan is actually part
of the People's Republic of China. How dare you. It's sad but true that Xi Jinping and the
Chinese Communist Party have this narrative as part of the CCP's creation
myth, as you're well aware, that they control or
ought try to control or to administer of the Republic of China—Taiwan. But actually since December 1949, Taiwan has been operating as a free and independent
country. So not one China. Well, they've both for a long time, both the Republic of China government and the People's Republic of China government
maintained that they were the legitimate government and
that there was only one— that is, a zero sum game. The Highlander Policy. It's very much the Highlander Policy. And unfortunately the US government played
into that, and that was a choice that was made in 1970s. To continue to play into it... Yeah, well UN, too. Countries around the world until this day, mostly because they're afraid of thinking
about any alternative solution. Because of course, alternatives do exist. Policy is, it's manmade and it's flexible
and we as a sovereign country can define what our policy is. And I'm not advocating for anything in particular, but one of the things that I've tried to do
with my research and that we here as an institute at the Project
2049 try to do is just lay out the facts as best as we can
and one of the facts is— and this is a little controversial, a little uncomfortable for people in Beijing— is that the PRC has never, for a single day, actually ever controlled or administered Taiwan, and Taiwan continues to exist as a free and
independent country. Now. It's not treated by the rest of the world
that way, but that is the objective reality. And I know because I've lived in China and
I've lived in Taiwan and I've lived in other countries like Japan, and you can tell it's real. So do you think the Communist Party's threat
of actually invading Taiwan is at all serious? Well, as far as I'm aware—and of course my knowledge on this is limited— as far as I'm aware, they've not actually said they are going to invade Taiwan. What happened was about eight years ago, nine
years ago, the People's Liberation Army got the order
from the top leadership in the Politburo to prepare to be ready to
invade Taiwan, if so ordered, by the year 2020. It's called the 2020 plan. So that's a lot of steps. Be prepared, be ready to be ordered... If we order you... To attack. Right. And so it's an aspiration. And this has happened before in the past, where the CCP civilian leadership has given
the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, which is the
PLA. I mean they are PLA too—or they are CCP
too— every officer in the PLA is a member of the
Chinese Communist Party. But it has given the armed wing, this order that here's what you should aspire
to, here's what you should get ready for, and
it's, you know, I don't want to alarm you or any
of your viewers, but it's pretty incredible when you think
about it that this has been the PLA's marching orders since about 2008. And this is what drives them. So when you look at China's sweeping military reform and modernization program, when you look at this massive military buildup
that is going on in China, this is the principal, primary objective. They're preparing for a World War III, because ultimately that's what would happen. How would it cause World War III—an invasion
of Taiwan? Well, if the Chinese were to actually attempt a full-scale invasion and occupation of Taiwan, it's almost certain that the United States would come to Taiwan's defense. And of course that could easily escalate to
a very dangerous place. Why would the US come to Taiwan's defense? Well, we have defense commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. The Taiwan Relations Act is not a substitute
for or replacement for a mutual defense treaty because of course
we did have a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan from 1955 until
1978—first day of 1979— and then we broke that when we switched diplomatic
relations, and closed the embassy in Taipei, opened a
new embassy in Beijing. And since that time, the Taiwan Relations
Act and also president Reagan's six assurances to Taiwan and most recently
the Taiwan Travel Act, have become our guidelines, and they lay out
our legal obligations to Taiwan and they also talk a little bit
to some of our ethical, our moral obligations to Taiwan, because Taiwan
has long been our ally— or the Republic of China has long been our
ally—historically. And we fought World War II together. We were allied throughout the Cold War together. And now Taiwan has become a democracy since
the 1990s. And because it's a democracy, because the
Taiwanese do enjoy popular sovereignty and they do have American-style
elections every four years the same as we do, there
is a certain sentiment that as a matter of principle, the United States must help protect Taiwan. So it's not just the legal obligation that
that's spelled out in the Taiwan Relations Act. There's a lot more to it than just that. So what does Taiwan need to defend itself? Well, that's a very good question And it's
not easy to answer because for the past 20 years, what has become the world's second largest
economy, second most powerful country on the planet
now—the PRC— has invested a tremendous amount of time and
human talent and national treasure in building up its military, tailor-making its military, for just this
scenario. And so in light of that, a country like Taiwan— Taiwan is about the world's 15th largest economy— it's very difficult for Taiwan on its own
to balance, to keep any kind of balance, military balance, against a country of China's size. Taiwan has 23 million people. China has one point 3 billion-plus people. And so when you look at the defense of Taiwan,
when you look at Taiwan's national picture, it's not just Taiwan
alone; it's not Taiwan just isolated; it's not just Taiwan versus China. There's also that American component that's
there, and there are other democracies around the
world like Japan and Australia that don't support Taiwan in any meaningful
sense in terms of defense hardware or defense training, but also support Taiwan
economically and morally. Because when you're as isolated as Taiwan
is internationally, when you are a country that is not treated by the rest of the world as a country, things like that, that moral support, matters
a great deal. Why does that exist? What would happen to the regional security of the area if mainland China did seize control
of Taiwan? So that's one of the interesting things that PLA generals and staff officers actually think about and write about. And you can actually go into internal PLA
documents and you can read about their rationale for
engaging in this type of what they know would be a
very, very dangerous military operation— not just military, but political would be very dangerous for
their entire regime... Well, yeah. Because the United States, Japan, they would
all get involved. Right, and Taiwan itself is actually a lot
better defended than most people realize. It has a lot of advantages that the PLA is
very well aware of... Like what? That they go to great lengths to try to cover
up. So for example, this is just one example: The Taiwan Strait is probably the windiest
place in the northern hemisphere. And so those waters are extremely difficult
to get across, because of the nature of the currents, the
tides, the sea states, the winds and the waves. And so there are only two seasons of the year— and they're both short windows of time; one is in April; the other's in October— where you could actually mount a large-scale
amphibious operation. And the problem, of course with April is the
fog. It's very, very foggy according to PLA studies, because they've been studying the weather
patterns for almost 70 years in the Taiwan Strait,
and it's very foggy in April. It's kind of rainy. So it's not ideal, but based on the sea states it's still the best time to go if you're going
to invade Taiwan. The other best time to go would be October. October is even better because it's not as
foggy. But the problem with October is sometimes
you have late season typhoons. Taiwan is hit by an average of six to seven
typhoons a year. Also a big problem for and amphibious operations, but most of those typhoons are between July
and September. And so October often represents a good time
of year to go for an invasion. But again, you can have a late season typhoon and that could throw things off. And for the PLA, once they were to secure
a beachhead, then they have to feed that beachhead. They have to supply it. They have to build it up. And that becomes difficult once November rolls
around, because then you have winter squalls. So that's just one of the many things that PLA planners and strategists look at
it. That's just the geographic piece. They also look at the number of beaches that
they could land on, and there's very few. On the north side of Taiwan, right? Very few landing spots. Very few. And they're shrinking over time for a number
of reasons. So global warming is really playing a big
part in defending Taiwan. Well, global warming and the fight against
global warming, because actually Taiwan is moving towards
a more of a green economy I guess you could say, and whenever they put
up one of those windmills along the coast for wind power, that actually creates an obstacle for PLA
helicopters and for landing ships. Whenever they put a wave break off the coast
in order to try to limit coastal erosion or whenever
they plant sharp spine agave plants along the beaches, again to try to
prevent coastal erosion, the PLA looks at that and they see a real
problem because it's shrinking their operational space. And so there's a lot that the Chinese military looks at when they studied this problem that
they have. They also look at Taiwan's missile capabilities. They look at Taiwanese intelligence capabilities, Taiwanese cyber and electronic warfare capabilities. They look at the air force. And the list goes on and on. And so when they look at Taiwan, they see
a very big problem that they have to solve and so they use— and this gets back to your original question
about what would happen to the region if Taiwan was lost— well, one of the things that the Chinese military
writers say is that once Taiwan is lost, then it's
going to be great for them. That the geostrategic value of Taiwan is immense
because Taiwan is at the center of the first island chain
and once they capture Taiwan, they can turn it into a garrison state, which would be very unpleasant place to live
because you'd have a lot of PLA soldiers area to have a lot of internal security forces there. You'd have tremendous human rights violations
on a massive scale. It'd be awful for the people that live there
and they realize that. But from their perspective, it would be a great place to hold Japan hostage because you can base fighter jets and bombers and intelligence aircraft on Taiwan and actually use that along with naval capabilities to threaten to blockade the Japanese home
islands, to cut off Japan sea lines of communication, their air lines and communication. Same applies to South Korea. Same applies in a different direction to the
Philippines. And so because the Chinese Communist Party
would like China to become a regional hegemon, to become the
preponderant political, economic and military power in Asia, they look at Taiwan and they see great opportunity. They see as a very real threat, but they also see an opportunity and that's
one of the rationales that are driving their military buildup against
Taiwan. In an article you wrote for the Taipei Times
you wrote "the battle for the mind begins before the
battle of the fist." What does that mean? Well, it's a line I picked up in Kung Fu Panda. Really? It is. And when I saw that— and I've seen Kung Fu panda many times, I think it's a great film— You have children? I do. Yes. And that's where I got it and I thought, this captures perfectly what Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party and you know, the entire security apparatus is doing to
Taiwan, but also against other industrial democracies
everywhere, is they are weakening our ability to put up
any kind of resistance that they're convincing people everywhere—and
especially in Taiwan— that resistance is futile. That they are going to become the predominant
power, that their economy will surpass us and ours, and that there's very little that we can do
about it, and so we should just start to cut deals with
them now, and start to submit to their authority. And one of the reasons that's so important
for them, that strategic psychological warfare that
they're waging against Taiwan, is so incredibly important because Taiwan
for a number of reasons would be extremely, extremely difficult to
successfully invade and occupy, and they realize that. But it's only difficult if the Taiwanese
fight. If the Taiwanese stand united, if the military,
once they're mobilized— but even if the entire military is not mobilized
and you just have the active duty guys that are on
station now— if they fight, and if the citizens of Taiwan stand united with the government, with the military, the Chinese have very, very little chance of actually succeeding. Because the Taiwanese can hold out for a very
long period of time. They can fight a protracted struggle. At least for that month window where they can actually launch it an invasion. Yeah, and then some. In order for the entire world to mobilize and come to Taiwan's assistance. And by the entire world, I mostly just mean
the United States, because most other countries are less reliable as far as Taiwan's concerned. But—and less capable of course— because this is something that our military in the Pacific actually trains to. This is one of the major driving forces for
a lot of the things that that you see in the Indo Pacific region. And so that's why China is trying to—or
the PRC— is trying to undermine Taiwan through nonmilitary
means. Absolutely because the military piece works
best— and perhaps it could only work— if all the other things that precede it work. If they can weaken resolve, if they can intimidate, if they can shock and undermine confidence
in Taiwan, then they have a much better chance of actually
attaining their goals and potentially—if they're really, really good at it and really lucky and if they can get the United States's help— they could theoretically convince the Taiwanese to surrender without much of a fight. That's their goal, obviously. Now their chances for success are extremely
small because I don't think Washington is going to do what
Beijing wants and completely sell Taiwan out, and convince
the Taiwanese that they should surrender now and cut a good
deal now while they can. I don't see that. But there are some Americans that do advocate
something along those lines. So all this is running through your mind while you're watching Kung Fu panda? Absolutely. Interesting moviegoing experience. Yeah. So what, what are some actionable things that
the United States could do to support Taiwan? Well, the first thing that we need to do, and I think we should do, as a country is
recognize the tremendous threat that China poses to Taiwan's continued freedom
and democracy. And that's a threat again, that that's much
more or is at least as political as it is economic or
military. And once that is fully recognized then the
US could come up with actionable policy to help, prescriptions to
help deal with these symptoms and the illness that exists across the Taiwan
Strait because it is becoming increasingly unstable. China is building up for this operation. And we have no way to predict the future. So we don't know what Xi Jinping's intentions
are. We can look at some of his rhetoric, we can
look at some of his behavior. We can look at things that are coming out
of the PLA. And when you do look at that, it's a pretty
dark picture, and it's darkening over time. And so I think it behooves us to show a lot
more moral support to Taiwan that could include things like sending
high level officials, cabinet level officials to Taiwan, high ranking
general officers, admirals to Taiwan, high ranking civilian
officials from the Pentagon, officials from the Seventh Fleet, from the
Indo-Pacific Command. We could also do ship visits to Taiwan, both
Navy and Coastguard visits. We could do bilateral military exercises. We could start making arms sales to Taiwan
regularized because over the past ten years out of fear for Beijing's
reaction, we've been freezing arm sales to Taiwan and
limiting the things that we'll sell the Taiwanese. So there's a whole range of things that we
could do in that space. There's a tremendous amount of room for improvement
on this. And so I think we as a country really have
our work cut out for us if we're serious about keeping the peace in
the western Pacific. Thank you very much for joining me today,
Ian. And thank you Chris. Hey Ian, do you have more to say? There’s no question. Well, wouldn’t it be great if there was
some way people could hear more from you? That would be awesome. Fortunately, we have a podcast—China Unscripted— where we have like an hour’s worth of conversation with this guy. So if you want to listen, listen up, go to China Unscripted. Link below. You’re going to love it!
This is what goes against the narrative that Taiwan is easy to invade. Military academics have known for a long time that Taiwan is incredibly easy to defend and hard to invade. There's a much longer podcast at the end of the video that is nearly an hour long that goes into far more detail on why Taiwan is hard to conquer by a military force. There's been a concerted effort by pro-China posters to claim that these guys are "warmongers" simply for saying that Taiwan is difficult to invade, even though what these guys are saying that Taiwan is geographically hard to conquer and China shouldn't try. There are only two months (and four weeks total out of those two months) that China has a window to conquer Taiwan and either one are not great prospects.
The most important takeaway from the leaked PLA documents is that China plans to turn Taiwan into a garrison state, which would make Taiwan difficult to live in and that its gone towards emphasizing propaganda as its difficult to invade head on. There's been a lot of effort on this sub and others to obfuscate this message and it goes against what the PRC wishes people to believe.
PS: Hour long podcast (much longer than video is here): http://chinaunscripted.libsyn.com/ (see Podcast Number 7). Note how Ian Easton repeatedly says we need to prevent war from happening but that didn't stop our local pro-China guys from declaring that he's a warmonger.
Formosa and Penghu? A hard take. Kinmen and Matsu? Candy from a baby.
Well, all they would have to do is launch a ton of missiles. Then land invasion, no problem. Taiwan would probably launch missiles back, but China is just so massive that it could probably withstand it.
Let’s hope this never happens though. It would be absolutely horrible for such a beautiful and amazing place to be destroyed like that.
I was in the same program at NCCU as Ian, and a big takeaway I got was the notion that any potential military conflict is a big red herring. In the post-Mao reform era, Taiwan has consistently been a top source of fdi and technology transfer to the mainland. The status quo is too good for the PRC, and the occupation of the island would be a losing proposition for decades before significant normalization.
Paging u/PLArealtalk and u/I_H8_Y8s I'd love to hear your opinions on this video and more broadly, on this Ian Easton guy and his Project 2049.
I had a feeling this was a China Uncensored video, proudly financed by Falung Gong ; I usually refer to their channel as the Fox News or InfoWar of the anti-China crowd.
While I do agree with the gist of what they are saying most of the time, I find their views are far from balanced and prong to exaggeration.
Can't personally comment on matters of military, but I would much rather hear it from actual career soldiers and military analysts, not a toupee wearing Stephen Miller
"Don't worry about the largest army in the world, we have strong winds and sharp plants on the beaches!"
Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?
EVEN IF the PRC managed to gain control of a good amount of the islands, they'd be stuck in the quagmire of guerilla warfare in mountainous regions
It will be tough if Taiwan fight like Chechens, but it will be a piece of cake at the present. Taiwanese people lack the nationalism to fight the war, especially against a foe that has zero mercy and fight by the rules of the jungle. 3/4 of Taiwan's population will surrender immediately, mainly those *** who think the "unity" of China is more important than anything else. There will be people calling for Taiwan to surrender and quit fighting because "we are all 炎黃子孫, brothers mustn't fight", even though it was CCP that started the war. It is also guaranteed that there will be military officials will take bribes and commit treason. Anyways, it all comes down to the Taiwanese people's morale, which is lacking at present.