In light of China’s endless bullying of Taiwan, a country that China has long wanted to gobble up, observers of the region wonder whether the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping have any deadline in mind by which the gobbling must be accomplished.
In the Taipei Times, Antonio Graceffo writes (October 23, 2023):
Last month, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and naval vessels threatened the sea and airspace around Taiwan, shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled his plan for economic integration with Taiwan. This development raises concerns, especially considering that just a year ago, during the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi made a startling declaration by not ruling out the possibility of employing force to bring Taiwan under Chinese control. His stated priority, that “Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is, for the Party, a historic mission and an unshakable commitment,” has been interpreted as suggesting a sense of urgency. . . .
For sure, the CCP wants to subjugate Taiwan. It’s been braying about it for decades. But one can only guess whether Xi and the party are determined to get this done by a given date or what might lead them to invade. Some of the guesses that Graceffo records:
- The CCP and Xi want to conquer Taiwan by 2027, because that’s the hundredth anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army.
- The CCP and Xi want to conquer Taiwan by 2049, because that’s the hundredth anniversary of the establishing of the People’s Republic of China. But 70-year-old Xi would probably no longer be around then, an important consideration if conquering Taiwan is on his bucket list.
- The CCP and Xi will be opportunistic about conquering Taiwan. They have no fixed date by which this must be done.
- If Xi becomes super-annoyed by developments on the world stage, such as “formal recognition of Taiwan by a major international power,” he may invade Taiwan to secure “both his position and legacy.”
Of course, we wouldn’t be wondering, today, whether China would use formal recognition of Taiwan by a major power like the United States to rationalize an invasion of Taiwan if the United Nations and the United States had never left Taiwan in the lurch.
When the United Nations admitted the People’s Republic of China as a member in 1971, the organization also kicked out charter member Taiwan. (The U.S. administration had wanted the UN to admit China without expelling Taiwan.) In 1978, several years after U.S. President Richard Nixon’s submissive visit to China, U.S. President Jimmy Carter abruptly announced that the United States was ending diplomatic relations with Taiwan for the sake of establishing diplomatic relations with China. Other countries soon followed suit.
