- (Dale) This is videoof the Chinese military
practicing an amphibious assault
against the island of Taiwan.
Communist China views democratic Taiwan
as a renegade province that must be
re-unified with the mainland.
Incursions by Chinese fighterplanes into Taiwan airspace
have been happening almostdaily since the summer,
and some experts believethe two countries are
closer than ever to war,and if Taiwan cannot
repel a Chinese invasion,the U.S. might decide
it must come to Taiwan's rescue.
- But if you assume theUnited States would win
a war with China over Taiwan,
you might be interested in agame they play at the pentagon.
- (Dale) In a war game puton by the Rand Corporation
for pentagon planners,the U.S. routinely loses,
mostly because of how far many U.S.
military bases are from Taiwan.
- For them, it's a home game. For us,
we have to sail across the Pacific.
- (Dale) But China expert Dean Cheng
at the heritage foundationthinks despite all the
saber rattling by thecommunist leaders in Beijing,
a planned invasion ofTaiwan would be too risky.
China still doesn't have the landing craft
to ferry enough troopsacross the Taiwan Strait,
It would have to use commercial shipping.
- (Dean) Any kind of invasion of Taiwan
means crossing a hundred miles
of some of the worst water in the world,
by a military that hasn'tfought a war since 1979,
and runs the very real riskof American intervention.
- (Dale) The author of "Bully of Asia",
China expert Steven Mosher agrees,
saying the last Beijing wants is
a shooting war with the United States.
- What it wants to do is itwants to use this gray area
between war and peace tocontinue its cyber attacks,
to continue its espionagein other countries,
but it certainly woulduse force in the future
if it thought it had achieveda position of dominance.
- (Dale) A war with the United States
would also decimate China'sexport-driven economy.
A 2016 Rand study said war would slash
more than 1/3 from China'sgross domestic product,
and shrink America's by as much as 10%.
Dr. Robert Farley teaches at the
Patterson School of Diplomacy and
the U.S. army war college.
- The damage that a war betweenthe United States and China
would cause, both in material terms
but especially in economic terms,
is virtually incalculable.
An actual war between the U.S. and China
would be a financial apocalypse,
it would be an economicapocalypse for both countries,
and for lots of other countries.
- (Dale) But even if China does not launch
a planned invasion of Taiwan,
war could still break out anyway.
China's repeated incursionsinto Taiwanese airspace
could trigger a shootingwar that could quickly turn
into a regional war fordominance of the South China Sea.
Some in the Philippines believeChina would seize at least
part of their territory in awar with the United States.
Farley says China hasentered a dangerous phase,
becoming more belligerent as its military
has become more sophisticated.
- The core of China'ssecurity policy is this
realization that theybasically are surrounded
by enemies of potential (indistinct).
And so we have to be assertive,
and we have to beaggressive, and we have to
demonstrate to all of themthat we will not back down.
So, what we really have towatch, I think, is Taiwan.
- (Dale) The United Stateshas never explicitly
committed itself to the defense of Taiwan.
Some in Congress believeit's time to start.
But if America doescome to Taiwan's rescue,
hopefully the Pentagonhas learned something
from all of those lossesto China during war games.
Dale Hurd, CBN news.
