Is China planning to take Taiwan by 2027? 

China on Monday, 11 July 2022, warned the US and Taiwan that there would be “dark clouds or even ferocious storms” if the one-China principle, that it upholds, on how it perceives self-governed Taiwan, is abandoned, and blamed Washington of seeking to sabotage the policy. 

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat headquarters in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta, said that current tensions in the Taiwan Strait were provoked by Taipei’s leaders “who abandoned the 1992 consensus that reflects the one-China principle, undermined cross-Strait relations … and they are walking further down the path of relying on foreign countries to seek independence”. 

He also said the United States was currently “trying to play the Taiwan card to disrupt and contain China’s development”. 

“I also want to point [out] that recently the US has been emphasising repeatedly the need to uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every country. I’ve heard this many times. Given America’s past record, we take seriously this statement from the US,” Wang said. 

Wang emphasised China’s stand on the Taiwan issue, saying that “there is only one China, to which both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong…Taiwan is part of Chinese territory, although the two sides have been politically against each other for a long time. 

“We hope that all countries can fully recognise the serious danger of Taiwan independence and work with China to uphold the one-China principle,” he said. 

“The more unequivocal we are about upholding the one-China principle, the more likely it is to ensure peace and stability across Taiwan Strait and peace and prosperity in the region,” he added. 

China has displayed vehement displeasure at the US ambiguity over the Taiwan question. The US has said that it abides by the one-China policy and does not subscribe to independence for Taiwan, but the US is required to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself under the US Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).  

The 1979 TRA states that the US will maintain the capacity to defend Taiwan but is not forthcoming on whether or not the US would actually militarily intervene if China attacked – ultimately this remains a US presidential decision. Over the past decade, the US has announced more than $20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan. 

In the same year (in 1979), the US recognised China and de-recognised Taiwan. It stated that the government of the People’s Republic of China was “the sole legal Government of China.” 

Recent escalation of tensions across the Taiwan Strait, prompted US President Joe Biden to state, in Tokyo just before the Quad Summit on 23 May 2022, that the US would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan.  

China was swift in responding to Biden’s remarks. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, at a press conference in Beijing on the same day, insisted that Taiwan is “purely an internal affair of China and does not allow any foreign interference. On issues involving China’s core interests such as sovereignty and territorial integrity, China has no room for compromise or concession.” 

He also asserted China’s stance by warning the US not to underestimate the “strong determination, firm will and powerful ability of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” 

He cautioned the US to be careful about what it says so that the situation in the Taiwan Strait and China-US relations are not damaged, adding “China will take firm action to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests, and we will do what we say!” 

Taiwan is relentlessly menaced by China, which regards the self-governed, democratic island as part of its sovereign territory and has sworn to merge it with the mainland, by force if necessary. Last month (June 2022), Taiwan said that 29 Chinese warplanes invaded its air defence zone, the third-largest invasion this year.  

According to Taipei, 29 Chinese aircraft, including 17 fighter jets and six bombers, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). In 2021, Taiwan logged 969 incursions into its ADIZ by Chinese jets, more than double the 380 sorties conducted in 2020. So far this year, the figure has surpassed 500. 

According to a Taiwanese Ministry of Defense (MND) report, published on 5 June 2022, the Chinese military will be capable of fighting Taiwan and its allies together by 2027.   

The report cited by Taipei Times stated that China has set a goal of modernising its warfare capabilities by 2027, which would also mark the 100^th anniversary of its army (PLA)’s founding. 

The report is believed to be under review by the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan. The MND did not note any evidence that China was planning to invade Taiwan by 2027 or put forth any intelligence that Beijing had given up on its affirmation to achieve “peaceful unification.” 

Taiwan depends heavily on the US for its immediate and future survival. The US position over the Taiwan issue, meanwhile, remains characteristically flip-flopped. While Biden has, on four different occasions, pledged his commitment to defend Taiwan, the US perhaps ostensibly though officially keeps reiterating its acquiescence to a ‘One China,’ policy. After Biden’s inflammatory remark on 23 May 2022, the White House quickly came out with a clarification that it views the `One China’ policy as standing. The fact that the US excluded Taiwan from its Indo-Pacific Economic Forum (it, nevertheless, set off trade negotiations with Taiwan on 1 June 2022) that was launched in May 2022, is a pointer to the US’ deliberate confusion on Taiwan. 

Taiwan’s insecurities are compounded by growing Chinese military superiority. General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, in June 2022, warned that while a Chinese attack on Taiwan is not “imminent”, the US is nonetheless watching “very, very closely” for signs they are preparing to launch one.  

Speaking to the BBC, Milley said that China was “developing a capability” to attack Taiwan, but whether China would actually do it remained “a political choice”.  

President Xi Jinping has “mentioned that in public forums, he’s mentioned it in speeches, that he has challenged the PLA to develop the capability to attack Taiwan at some point in time,” Milley said. 

In May 2022, China’s defence minister General Wei Fenghe warned that his country’s army would “resolutely crush any attempt to pursue Taiwanese independence.” He also adumbrated that Beijing would “fight at all costs” and “fight to the very end” if anyone “dares to secede Taiwan from China”.    

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, at the G7 summit in Madrid in June 2022, in turn, gave notice that any Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan would be a “catastrophic miscalculation.”  

She cautioned that Beijing would be risking making the same mistake as Russian President Vladimir Putin: “That is exactly what we saw in the case of Ukraine – a strategic miscalculation by Putin.” 

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who has been vocal about Taiwan’s assertion of independence from Mainland China, was re-elected by a landslide in 2020 on the pledge of defending the island’s democracy from autocratic China. China is increasingly concerned that Taiwan will make a formal declaration of independence. Tsai’s government has maintained the position that “Taiwan is already an independent state, making any formal declaration unnecessary”.  

In November 2021, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) said in its 2021 Annual Report to Congress that China has or is close to achieving an initial capability to invade Taiwan, one that remains under development but that China’s leaders may employ at high risk — while deterring, delaying, or defeating US military intervention. 

Cross-Strait deterrence still holds today because Chinese leaders remain deeply concerned about the uncertain success of an attempted invasion as well as its risks and consequences. Failed attempts by the PLA to invade Taiwan or to counter US intervention risk undermining the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy, the report said. 

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), what better legitimacy could it seek from its people than have Taiwan merged with the mainland before the PLA’s 100^th anniversary in 2027.  

In contrast, in Taiwan, anti-China sentiment is growing manifold. According to the Election Study Center at Taipei’s National Chengchi University, since 1997, the year China took over Hong Kong from the UK, the percentage of the Taiwanese population that endorses formal independence has doubled to more than 30 percent, while support for unification has fallen by more than half to single digits.   

Taiwan’s perception of China’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong has made reunification an even more daunting prospect. Taiwan’s trepidations are mounting with China’s growing ascendance as a military superpower that rivals the US. For the US, it will be a matter of failure of credo if it bows down to China’s belligerent assertiveness in case of an invasion of Taiwan. Or will the world see a full-scale war…?