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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34974 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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China to begin inspecting ships in the Taiwan Strait.

China's Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes moves to board ships...The fleet, a joint special operation with East China Sea Rescue Bureau and the East China Sea Navigation Support Center, will continue to carry out cruise inspections in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait over the next two days.

This is one of the most provocative moves China's made in living memory and a potential precursor to war. On the old site, I wrote:

But what will happen is a comparably light touch approach: the PRC will begin a blockade (an act of war, to be clear) in the guise of enforcing customs and immigration controls on Taiwan and interdict ships and planes going to Taiwan. And, as a key point, it will allow those vessels that capitulate to continue on to Taiwan. And so you have the Chinese Coast Guard doing all the heavy lifting, with PLAN and the PLARF standing guard at a distance.

Private entities will quickly resign themselves to the state of affairs: they have no choice. Which leaves Taiwan and its allies in a quandary, as they have to respond (giving China authority over all imports and exports is as good as having the PLA marching down the streets of Taipei). And so Taiwan will escalate, and in doing so make its forces vulnerable to low level harassment from the Coast Guard and paramilitary vessels. Sooner rather than later shots will be fired and ships sunk, but with far from the full force of the PLA bearing down on the situation.

It remains to be seen how committed to this move China is. As for now, it's comparatively limited, to last only a couple days and not covering the southern and eastern approaches to Taiwan. It's even possible that some ambitious regional authority is doing this on his own (see: possible explanations for the weather balloon). But it's absolutely an escalation, and it is as representative of China nibbling like a silkworm as anything.

The easy thing would be for Taiwan to offer vigorous protests and do nothing, which is China's expectation. Doing that simply encourages China to do this more and more, though; soon it becomes a regular occurrence, then just the reality on the ground.

Is this the time for China to make its move? Its vassalization of Russia continues. But other less-covered stories are in progress: it's peeling away Saudi Arabia from American influence and recently achieved a diplomatic coup in getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore relations.

On the other hand, it still seems too early to me. American forces can more likely than not win in a (costly) fight. China's hope is probably for Taiwan to acquiesce; if challenged, I think it would back down. But this is exactly the type of situation that could spiral out of control.

We should give Taiwan to China in exchange for their signing of the Yudkowsky Airstrike Treaty.

The opportunity of a lifetime staring us in the face and all anyone can think of is “but Munich” and “muh Sudetenland”.

Or, perhaps, “muh semiconductors”

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