How Safe Is Taiwan From China?

A PLA tactical reconnaissance plane entered the island’s air defence identification zone on Monday. Photo: Handout  

Forbes: Just How Safe Is Taiwan From China?  

Twenty-five years after the U.S. Navy steamed two aircraft carriers near Taiwan to deter a possible Chinese attack on the island country, there’s good news and bad for Taiwan. 

The good news is that, despite hot rhetoric and frequent overt displays of military aggression, Chinese leaders seem to be happy with the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan functionally is independent, but Taiwanese officials carefully avoid saying as much. 

The Chinese Communist Party meanwhile insists it’s within its rights to enforce Chinese “unity,” but the Party at the same time maintains an elaborate fiction that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China in fact already comprise a single state. 

The bad news is that there are few constraints on China when it comes to Taiwan. 

If Taipei were formally to declare independence, or if the CCP decided its unity fiction were losing credibility, then the Chinese People’s Liberation Army could invade—and possibly win.  

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WNU Editor: The Chinese are testing Taiwan's borders everyday .... War fears surge as Beijing spy planes evade Taiwan’s radar amid South China Sea tensions (Daily Express).