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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (120744)	11/30/2003 1:41:15 PM
From: h0db	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Great points, Carl, I really appreciate this discussion. Allow me a few rejoinders, but overall, I agree that China and Taiwan would be foolish to ever let their disputes lead to conflict. Unfortunately, there are zealots on either side. World trade was very small in 1940, in terms of total trade over total GDP. The US was nearly self sufficient then. Our trade with Japan was only a tiny fraction of their total GDP, though it was a significant fraction. US investment in Japanese assets and vice versa was essentially zero in 1940. This is in reverse of the current situation between Taiwan and China. True regarding the 1940s and global trade, just making the case that the general rule you cite is not absolute. In the current case, Taiwan now relies on China for 18% of its GDP, 40% of its exports, and China is the destination of 80% of Taiwan's foreign direct investments. Conversely, Taiwan accounts for less than 3% of China's GDP, is less than 9% of it's imports, and accounts for less than 20% of total FDI (China is the largest recipient of FDI in the world; it eclipsed the US this year). So the economic interdependence is not symmetrical. I think that China is more dependent on Taiwanese management expertise than anything else; there are somewhere between 500,000 and 1 Million Taiwanese expats living in Shanghai and Fujian alone, out of a pop. on 23 million on the island. And most importantly, the Chinese and Taiwanese share a language and culture. The sharing of these sorts of things tends to promote peace, all other things being equal. By contrast, the US and Japan are very culturally distinct, and were even more so in 1940. Well, in Taipei you hear a version of the old joke about the US and the UK: two countries separated by a common language. The official language of Taiwan until last year was Mandarin, same as the Mainland. Under the KMT, it was forbidden to teach Taiwanese (a variant of Fukienese dialect brought over by the original immigrants from Fujian in the 15th century. The aboriginal population of Taiwan is Polynesian, now less than 3% of the total. In the past year, the Chen Shui-bian administration has been advocating a switch to Taiwanese, and increasingly the language of business and education on Taiwan is Taiwanese. Other odd tidbits: Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 until 1945; most old Taiwanese speak better Japanese than Mandarin; this was true for former president Lee Teng-hui, who was educated in Japan (his brother died in WWII as a Kamakazi pilot; 20% of all Kamakazi pilots were Taiwanese, as was Japanese baseball legend Satahiro Oh). Lee's mandarin is horrible, and his Taiwanese not much better. Taiwan also uses traditional Chinese characters while the Mainland uses simplified characters introduced under Mao. Historically, bombing has done little to stop enemy air forces. The primary reason for this is that humans, devious creatures that they are, tend to be very good at hiding or protecting valuable assets. This is true in a prolonged campaign of months or years; Taiwan has no defensive depth. In a battle of days or a few weeks, Taiwan's ability to generate combat sorties will be key--without it, China owns the air and sea lines of communication, and can flow landing forces at will. The problem is that SRBM damage to airfields can be quickly repaired. Fighter jets like the F-CK can take off from fairly short runways. They can be re-struck as often as they are repaired, and they can be struck with a variety of munitions--runway penetrators to tear up the paving, vibration-sensitive cluster munitions to complicate cleanup and repair, and time-detonated munitions just to keep the repair and EOD crews on their toes. And F-16s, Taiwan's main frontline fighter, need a pristine runway, clear of foreign objects--that big chin air intake a few inches from the pavement will suck anything into the engine. They can be carried around by heavy equipment over damaged runways and launched from highways and parking lots. And humans have a marked tendency to escalate a war of words before actually beginning hostilities. This tendency is universal over the species, in everything from dictatorships to democracies, and it gives the foe a warning to disperse assets such as fighter aircraft. In short, the number of "air field" targets in Taiwan is in gross excess of the amount of SRBM weapons that China has available. This is possible over time, if you have time, and if you are prepared to do this. A fighter can land at civilian fields or on highway strips, but they cannot re-arm and refuel unless this kind of emergency redundancy is pre-prepared. In modern air combat between balanced adversaries, the side that wins may well be the one that does not run out of munitions first rather than aircraft. There is a stark tyranny of numbers when it comes to sortie generation and the tide of battle.