China has a temper tantrum

The Chinese military have been  intimidating Taiwan with live fire manoeuvres on a massive scale in the Taiwan Strait, which we are supposed to be crossing next year on our cruise from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Jules Verne described how Phileas Fogg sailed up the Formosa Strait on a tiny ship that nearly sank in a typhoon as they crossed this area. I believe that at the time Taiwan was part of the Chinese Empire, but some 20 years later was captured by the Japanese.

The present Chinese Government is determined to cow and recover Taiwan, whether by diplomacy or by force, as it considers the island to be an integral part of China.  The world was used to a low (read that as "half-hearted") profile of U.S. commitment to Taiwan, but not something as blatant as the Pelosi visit, regardless of whether it was sanctioned by the White House, or not. Tolerance of such a visit by China would have been considered a retreat, a defeat even, and so Xi had to respond as forcefully as he could. The current leader is no longer paralysed by the American dominance from the traditional Seventh Fleet, because China's local firepower now surpasses the Amercans in the air. It is true that the Seventh Fleet is still the largest of the U.S. Navy's forward deployed fleets and consists of 50 to 70 ships and submarines, as well as 150 aircraft. But China can top that now. It has 11 new amphibious ships, 3 aircraft cariers and 500 other vessels plus 600 aircraft. with 300,000 active personnel. Yet if the People's Republic really intends to invade Taiwan by force, experts say it will need to amass 2 million troops and land them under fire over the full length of the Taiwan coastline. The Chinese Liberation Army fleet would have to commandeer many hundreds of commercial vessels in order to supplement its invasion fleet. Someday, at a moment of U.S. weakness, under Biden or under Trump, or some other successor, China could well pounce. It still nurses the grievances of how the Chinese Empire was plundered and humiliated by foreigners in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century with the Opium Wars, the suppression of the Boxer rebellion, and of course the Japanese invasion. 

China objects to the Western style values of democracy and freedom of expression practiced in the last thirty years in Taiwan, after the democratisation of the regime following the death of the American sponsored former dictator Chiang Kai Shek. The Taiwanese are proud to be Chinese but do not want to become enslaved by social credit scores on their i-phones, or to describe how loyal they are to the Chinese state. They want free elections of their leaders. Currently, the two systems of rule are incompatible and I do not see any alterantive but to maintain the status quo with a military stand off, until China relents. 

I just hope that a further outbreak in tensions will not prevent our passage down this route in March or April next year.