Tribune. The next Chinese Communist Party plenum, which meets in Beijing from November 8 to 11, provides Chinese leaders with yet another opportunity to send the world a few selected pieces of its intentions in exercising its power, at home and around the world. . But, no offense to Cassandra, an invasion of Taiwan is not on the agenda.
If the Sino-American rivalry has crystallized around Taiwan, it is because the island, considered renegade by Beijing, symbolizes an in-between worlds in which a double speed race is played out: a race for strategic parity. and military in Asia and, at the same time, a more indecisive race for global technological supremacy. China is certain of reaching the first, but not the second. However, it is necessary for him to engage militarily against the United States which comes, through the mouth of its commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, on October 22, to lock their destiny with that of Taiwan.
Unintentional stabilizer
China’s search for military parity in Asia and the Taiwan Strait is the by-product of Cold War-marked strategic calculations, while the race for technological supremacy marks the start of a new era. In the logic of this, only the winner will win the stake and will be able to claim to have and then keep an absolute comparative advantage over his competitors in all fields, including on the military level.
Since 2018 and the rise to Sino-American extremes, we have been looking for the new successor term of “cold war” and beyond the new good formula, the paradigm that would characterize our current period. The difficulty in finding a new name for it stems from the fact that we have not healed all its old fractures (North Korea, Western Sahara, the Palestinian “question” …) and not yet reinvented an international order that is not only there. ‘stacking of national or regional projects at zero sums. In this transitional period Taiwan acts as an involuntary stabilizer.
Despite its recent demonstrations of power (new missile silos, intimidation flights, new hypersonic weapon, space projects, cyber-interference …), Beijing knows that the future will not be played on this table where the forces in presence are balance to neutralize each other on the model of deterrence and “balance of terror” (« mutual assured destruction », MAD) of the 1950s and early 1960s.
You have 57.08% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Tribune. The next Chinese Communist Party plenum, which meets in Beijing from November 8 to 11, provides Chinese leaders with yet another opportunity to send the world a few selected pieces of its intentions in exercising its power, at home and around the world. . But, no offense to Cassandra, an invasion of Taiwan is not on the agenda.
If the Sino-American rivalry has crystallized around Taiwan, it is because the island, considered renegade by Beijing, symbolizes an in-between worlds in which a double speed race is played out: a race for strategic parity. and military in Asia and, at the same time, a more indecisive race for global technological supremacy. China is certain of reaching the first, but not the second. However, it is necessary for him to engage militarily against the United States which comes, through the mouth of its commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, on October 22, to lock their destiny with that of Taiwan.
Unintentional stabilizer
China’s search for military parity in Asia and the Taiwan Strait is the by-product of Cold War-marked strategic calculations, while the race for technological supremacy marks the start of a new era. In the logic of this, only the winner will win the stake and will be able to claim to have and then keep an absolute comparative advantage over his competitors in all fields, including on the military level.
Since 2018 and the rise to Sino-American extremes, we have been looking for the new successor term of “cold war” and beyond the new good formula, the paradigm that would characterize our current period. The difficulty in finding a new name for it stems from the fact that we have not healed all its old fractures (North Korea, Western Sahara, the Palestinian “question” …) and not yet reinvented an international order that is not only there. ‘stacking of national or regional projects at zero sums. In this transitional period Taiwan acts as an involuntary stabilizer.
Despite its recent demonstrations of power (new missile silos, intimidation flights, new hypersonic weapon, space projects, cyber-interference …), Beijing knows that the future will not be played on this table where the forces in presence are balance to neutralize each other on the model of deterrence and “balance of terror” (« mutual assured destruction », MAD) of the 1950s and early 1960s.
You have 57.08% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.