A good article about Taiwan from NYT for once. the mantra of peaceful reunification is dead. Even the most ardent supporter of peaceful resolution give up now . Military solution is the only option according to Oriana Skylar. It won't happened tomorrow but within 5 years
“Even moderate voices in Beijing have been calling for tossing out peaceful reunification,” said , a fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “I think the military option is the option now.”
‘Starting a Fire’: U.S. and China Enter Dangerous Territory over Taiwan
The self-ruled island has moved to the heart of deepening discord and rivalry between the two superpowers, with the potential to ignite military conflagration and reshape the regional order.
The 25 Chinese fighter jets, bombers and other warplanes flew in menacing formations off the southern end of Taiwan, a show of military might on China’s National Day, Oct. 1. The incursions,
, continued into the night and the days that followed and surged to the highest numbers ever on Monday, when 56 warplanes tested Taiwan’s beleaguered air defenses.
As such confrontations intensify, the balance of power around Taiwan is fundamentally shifting, pushing a decades-long impasse over its future into a dangerous new phase.
After holding out against unification demands from China’s communist rulers for more than 70 years, Taiwan is now at the heart of the deepening discord between China and the United States. The island’s fate has the potential to reshape the regional order and even to ignite a military conflagration — intentional or not.
China’s military might has, for the first time, made a conquest of Taiwan conceivable, perhaps even tempting. The United States wants to thwart any invasion but has watched its military dominance in Asia steadily erode. Taiwan’s own military has withered, even as its people become increasingly resistant to unification.
Image
