US and Taiwan Must Be Prepared To Be Struck

A U.S. military transport plane landed briefly in Taiwan on Thursday to “hand over items” to American Institute in Taiwan Taipei Office Director Sun Xiaoya, playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship. The Chinese National Defense Ministry sternly warned the United States and Taiwan “not to play with fire.”

The U.S. and Taiwan feel the heavy pressure of the mainland’s military force development and preparation for military struggle. Because the Democratic Progressive Party authorities will not give up their ambition to seek independence and reject the prospect of reunification, and the U.S. has the long-term intention of playing the “Taiwan card” to contain China’s rise, the U.S. and Taiwan have a strategic anxiety about the eventual use of force to solve the Taiwan issue.

However, instead of defusing tensions and risks within the framework of “One China,” the U.S. and Taiwan are trying to attack as a defense, seeking to take initiative in the midst of passivity, attempting to dismantle the mainland’s will and change the strategic posture in the Taiwan Strait by engaging in conspiracies and divide and conquer tactics.

The mainland has developed strategic control in the Taiwan Strait, and we have not only the capability to conduct overwhelming military deployments in the area, but also the ultimate will to use these forces to resolve the Taiwan issue in a showdown if necessary. On the other hand, the U.S. and Taiwan are trying to create the illusion that a democratic Taiwan will never accept any form of reunification and that the U.S. is open to using its military forces, the most powerful in the world, to defend Taiwan. By sending a military transport aircraft to rub against the very edge of the mainland’s bottom line, it is trying to in turn scare the mainland and disrupt the perception of the true pattern of the Taiwan Strait.

The U.S. has the strongest overall national military power, but most of those forces do not have the technical possibility to commit to the Taiwan Strait, nor the public opinion base and national will to defend Taiwan with those forces. China does not try to provoke the U.S., but Taiwan is a part of China, and China has the full moral right to dominate the Taiwan Strait and to form the power base to eradicate Taiwan’s secessionist regime and defy the U.S. military threat. In this region, mainland China’s Anti-Secession Law has supreme authority.

For some time now, the Taiwan Strait has been engaged in a game of strategic aggression on our part and tactical mischief on the part of the U.S. and Taiwan. They seem to have a lot of tactics and gimmicks, but the mainland’s power building is thriving, and various exercises of military struggle are constantly advancing towards the standard of actual combat, and the mainland can give a severe punishment to the provocations of the U.S. and Taiwan at any time.

The power to decide when and in what way the mainland makes a punishment is entirely in its own hands. The mainland can make this choice of action highly compatible with our grand strategy toward Taiwan, comprehensively forming the best results.

The current situation is that the U.S. and Taiwan keep moving forward, while the mainland keeps tightening the situation, compressing these moves from the U.S. and Taiwan into a smaller and smaller strategic space. The U.S. and Taiwan have to devote themselves to seeking big effects with small moves, and these so-called big effects are increasingly focused on public opinion and formality, and cannot bring about changes in the power structure and the direction of the situation.

The U.S. and Taiwan know very well that the mainland has formed the determination to use force when necessary, so they have to resort to divide and conquer tactics again, but they have to be careful to avoid harming themselves. When will the mainland let its war planes approach the island further? When will it send missiles or war planes over the island to deter the Taiwanese authorities? Our answer is that it could be any time.

Because the U.S. took the step of sending military transport planes to land on the island of Taiwan, they are escalating the situation in the Taiwan Strait to the tipping point of dialogue with military action. Every step they take has the potential to step on a landmine — to trigger military friction and confrontation. They must know that the mainland is much more prepared than they are for such a struggle, both in terms of action and will.

Finally, we advise the U.S. and Taiwan not to misjudge the situation, and not to underestimate the mainland’s determination and will to punish them for their provocative actions at any time. They must be prepared for a sudden blow to the head when they attempt to go further.