My church choir director asked me recently, “Do you think China will go to war to take Taiwan?” I guess that many Americans, like my choir director, are curious to know what Chinese nationals think about the current hostile situation created by the increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist regime.
Living in a Communist country, people are controlled in what they learn, what they know, and what they can think. Loyalty to the Communist Party “equals” nationalism and patriotism. As a police state, in China a dictator can easily mobilize people domestically and launch a war. In this sense, the answer is positive.
I am not an expert in international affairs or political science, and my answer may be wrong. Yet, my intuition — based on my first-hand life experience in China — tells me that the current Communist dictator Xi is preparing to wage a war not only against Taiwan, but also against humanity. Different from Putin in Russia, the Chinese regime is spending longer time carefully and strategically preparing for both a regional and global war.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
In 1919, Chinese intellectuals, many of whom were influenced by the Western civilization or educated in Europe and the United States, launched a big campaign to try to build a constitutional republic in China. As a result, China said goodbye to the last emperor and officially finished the feudal system that lasted more than 2,000 years. For three decades (1919 — 1949), China experienced civil wars and World War II. In 1949, Mao and his Party took over China. Jiang Kai Shek left for Taiwan and founded the Republic of China.
As George Orwell’s well-known saying goes, “Who controls the past controls the future” and “Who controls the present controls the past.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has completely rewritten history, controlled education, and censored the media. After 70 years of brainwashing, most Chinese people have no clue about the true history of Taiwan. Instead, all they know and believe is the CCP’s propaganda — “Taiwan is an integral part of China; Taiwan belongs to China.”
If the CCP authorities declare a war to take over Taiwan, most Chinese will neither feel shocked nor consider it illegitimate. Since the term limits of the presidency were abolished, Xi has strengthen his grip on power. Now, emperor Xi controls the military and has the active support of millions of everyday citizens who have sworn to be loyal to the Communist Party. With time passing by, Xi is more and more like Hitler, who had supreme authority as führer (leader or guide). As a dictator, Xi is ready for war, but the timing depends on what excuse Xi may use to launch the war.
To Prepare for a Global War, China Is “Crossing the Sea by Deceiving the Sky.”
The Chinese 36 Strategies are famous military tactics applied during the Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) or during the Three Kingdom Period (220-265 B.C.). While we don’t know who wrote these strategies in China, they are taught in school, and are often mentioned in literature, popular folk opera, and sometimes even in television programs. It is said that these strategies have become part of the “collective unconscious” of most Chinese people.
“Cross the sea by deceiving the sky” is one of the 36 Chinese Strategies, meaning “Act in the open, but hide your true intentions.” The CCP regime has been consciously and intentionally using this strategy for foreign relations and international affairs. For example, In 2013, Xi launched China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was originally devised to link East Asia and Europe through physical infrastructure, but in the decade since, has expanded to Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, significantly broadening China’s economic and political influence.
The CCP has repeatedly denied its geopolitical and economic motivations behind the BRI initiative. Today (6/20/2023), the Wall Street Journal reported that “China and Cuba are in advanced negotiations to establish a joint military training facility on the island, raising concerns in Washington about the potential for Chinese troops and other security operations to be stationed just 100 miles off Florida’s coast.”
“There’s No Free Lunch, Especially When You Choose Chinese.”
Since Mao’s time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used a strategy of showing a benign international image, that is, helping African countries to build railroads and highways. Today, Chinese government-run businesses are all over Africa. According to a report from McKinsey & Company (2017), there were more than 10,000 Chinese-owned firms operating in Africa.
Many African leaders see that the Chinese corporations are trying to turn Africa into another Chinese continent, and squeezing Africa for everything it is worth. In fact, the CCP has been exploiting African people, taking their resources, and ruining their environments, in the name of helping the African people out of poverty.
Zambian politician Michael Sata, before being elected President of Zambia in 2011, wrote a paper presented to Harvard University in 2007 that said “European colonial exploitation in comparison to Chinese exploitation appears benign, because even though the commercial exploitation was just as bad, the colonial agents also invested in social and economic infrastructure services. Chinese investment, on the other hand, is focused on taking out of Africa as much as can be taken out, without any regard to the welfare of the local people.”
In 2011, China gave “the new, ultra-modern $30-million Thomas A Robinson National Stadium to the Bahamian people — a gift hailed by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham as a symbol of good bilateral relations.” Behind this “generous gift,” the Chinese government was heavily involved in building the gigantic casino resort Baha Mar in the Bahamas. In 2016, Forbes published an article on how the Chinese government ruined the Caribbean’s largest resort project. “Chinese state companies wrecked Baha Mar, and, with the help of the Bahama government, Chinese interests stand to benefit from the ensuing debacle. Baha Mar demonstrates there’s no free lunch, especially when you choose Chinese.”
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
From December 2013 to October 2015, China built artificial islands in the southern part of the South China Sea. The regime ignored its environmental commitments under international law and claimed that building the islands was to secure its borders. The island building activities damaged the reefs, have negatively impacted fisheries in the immediate area of the reclamation sites, and could negatively impact the health of fisheries in the coastal areas of the South China Sea.
This is a typical example of the CCP China. Just as George Orwell described, the country is ruled by the Communist Party, which wants its people to be ignorant, brags about democracy while enslaving 1.4 billion people, and preaches peace by waging a war against Taiwan and the world.
(Image from https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/war-china-taiwan/)