The News Review discussion on Press TV, Iran shortly after noon today focused on the announced plans of the Biden Administration to supply Taiwan with Harpoon missiles. Though delivery will not begin for some years, the release of these plans by Bloomberg late yesterday could not have come at a worse time for American interests: precisely in the midst of Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu’s four day visit to Moscow. This timing gives the Russians and Chinese the perfect opportunity to discuss scenarios of joint response to the threat such missiles would pose to Chinese ambitions for reunification with Taiwan, by force if necessary. It also pushes the two countries still closer together, to the detriment of American national security.
The reason given by Bloomberg for supplying Harpoons to Taiwan is to enable them to thwart any invasion from mainland China. However, as we saw last week in the PRC’s massive naval exercises in the sea around Taiwan that in effect simulated a blockade of the island, China can bring Taiwan to its knees without putting a single soldier on Taiwanese soil. In this case, the Harpoons represent an attempt by the United States to foil a blockade. However, it should be clear to anyone with sense that for the Harpoons to pose such a threat they must first arrive in the island and China has every possibility and reason to ensure that will not happen. What we have here is precisely the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 in reverse, with the USA planning to deliver weapons to an island off the shores of its rival for global leadership, or enemy, if you will. It is simply stunning that the ‘best and the brightest’ of today advising the Oval Office have no memory of past Great Power confrontations and apparently no ability to foresee the next moves of their chess partners.
I trust that readers will enjoy this brief interview. My fellow panelist is a well spoken analyst based in Beijing.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Taiwan to buy 400 anti-ship missiles from US amid tensions with China: Report