The war in Ukraine was nothing more than a dress rehearsal, an “experiment” of how the military, political, economic and diplomatic balances could be shaped worldwide in the event of a military conflict in Taiwan, pitting the two superpowers against each other. of the planet: China and the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although China considers Taiwan its “province”, which should return to the “motherland”, and although the US constantly supplies it with weapons and military equipment, promising to protect its independence and rush to help in the event of a Chinese invasion, so far neither Beijing nor Washington appear ready – at least at this moment – to “break” the current status quo and take the step that would not only upset the geopolitical balance, but trigger a new world war of unimaginable dimension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cost is huge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The costs that such a military conflict would entail would be very high for both sides. A military conflict in Taiwan lasting more than six months could cost the global economy an unimaginable amount of $7 trillion, about 6% of global GDP, far exceeding the economic consequences of the covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The created crisis conditions and Xi’s backsliding<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The conditions have already been created for a possible crisis around Taiwan given Beijing’s growing military and economic influence, the strengthening of the sense of national identity in Taiwan and the deterioration of China-US relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this context, the recent statements of the President of China, Xi Jinping that “Taiwan’s unification with mainland China will definitely take place” come to reignite the tension, especially in view of the presidential election in Taiwan next Saturday, January 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Although Mao expressed his desire to unite the mainland with Taiwan during his lifetime, he was unable to achieve this with the power China possessed at the time,” Xi Jinping said, hinting that conditions have change and possibly be the one to take the risk and bring about the unification, which if nothing else, will catapult his political popularity to levels that no Chinese leader has reached – and will never reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The possible scenarios<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A set of models is used to estimate the impact on global GDP, which looks at the impact on semiconductor supplies, the disruption of freight, the imposition of sanctions and tariffs, and market conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. <\/strong>In the first scenario, which envisages a Chinese military operation against Taiwan, with the US involved in the conflict, the world economy is estimated to lose 4.5% of its GDP in the first half of the war. Based on this, Taiwan would lose 28% of its GDP, China 10.7% of its GDP and the US 3.2% of its GDP, while the economic blow to South Korea, Japan and for most East Asian states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. <\/strong>The second scenario envisages the military blockade of Taiwan, which means that it will cut off the island from world trade. In this case, the global economy would measure losses of 2.3% of its GDP during the first half of business. Specifically, Taiwan would lose 7.1% of its GDP, China 4.2% of its GDP, and the US 2.3% of its GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Elections in Taiwan \u2013 a catalyst for developments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Next Saturday, January 13, the presidential elections are expected to take place in Taiwan. Lai Ching-te, the vice-president of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is leading the polls – partly because of a divided opposition – and if he wins, Beijing may retaliate. China has made no secret of its preference for opposition candidate Hou You-yi, who it sees as more tolerant of Chinese interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chinese President Xi Jinping sees the reunification of Taiwan and China as a key goal of his tenure. Although he said in his meeting with Biden last November that there was no timetable for that goal, he stressed that if Taiwan resists or delays unification, China reserves the right to use force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Beijing is unlikely to respond to Lai’s election with an invasion, it could make life very difficult for Taiwan. For example, it could interfere with commercial shipping, engage in military activity that violates Taiwan’s maritime and air sovereignty, and disrupt critical supply lines on which Taiwan’s economy depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Intensity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Either of those steps would force Washington to think about how to respond, posing yet another challenge for Biden ahead of November’s presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is recalled that the situation in Taiwan worsened significantly after the visit of then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in August 2022. China strongly reacted and condemned Pelosi’s visit, judging that in this way she expressed US support for autonomy for Taiwan and that it moved away from the “one China” policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in a show of force, he proceeded with large-scale military exercises, essentially besieging the entire island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The war in Ukraine was nothing more than a dress rehearsal, an “experiment” of how the military, political, economic and diplomatic balances could be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[836,3],"tags":[161,2028,215,70,1533],"class_list":["post-16979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-china","tag-taiwan","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16981,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16979\/revisions\/16981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}