The United States warned today that China could conquer Taiwan “without a single shot” if the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party, PNCh), close to Beijing, wins Taiwan’s presidential elections on January 13, 2024.
“Here is a political debate with two different parties: one party wants to talk to China [the Kuomintang] and the party of the [current] President, Tsai Ing-Wen [the Democratic Progressive Party, PPD], does not want to be part of China ”, said the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the United States, Republican Michael McCaul, in an interview with the NBC television station, in response to a question about whether the Taiwanese population wants a military confrontation.
“I think that the next elections, in January, will be of enormous importance, because I believe that, since former President Ma [Ying Heou, of the Kuomintang] is currently in China, China will try to influence these elections and conquer the island. without firing a single shot”, maintained McCaul, classifying the Kuomintang party as pro-Beijing.
The Republican congressman is taking part in a tour of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, which began after the meeting between the Speaker of the House of Representatives, fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy, and the Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-Wen, in the US state of California , which has been the target of protests by Beijing.
McCaul himself met with Tsai today and underlined that what happened in Hong Kong (where Beijing imposed its control over the territory) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24 of last year, starting a war that has lasted for more than a year ago and has not spared infrastructure or the civilian population, “they opened the eyes” of the Taiwanese population, which is therefore “very nervous”.
The US congressman thus underlined that Taiwan’s military capacity “is not at the level it needs to be” to respond to a possible Chinese invasion.
“It is not at the level they need it to be. If we are going to have a peace by dissuasion, we need the weapons to reach Taiwan”, explained McCaul, referring to the supply of North American weapons agreed between both parties in December.
The Kuomintang has advocated rapprochement with China, although it rejects being favorable to Beijing: the party stressed that there is a need to “try to reduce tension in the [Taiwan] Strait to promote the interests of the population and that the parties can start a new era in a friendly way”.
It is the same party (the Kuomintang) that controlled the Chinese government led by Chiang Kai-Shek and that was defeated in the Maoist revolution that culminated in the seizure of power in 1949.
At the time, the pro-Western government took refuge on the island of Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China, in contrast to the People’s Republic of China, with its capital in Beijing.
Beijing considers Taiwan a rebellious Chinese province and, in fact, only 12 countries in the world formally and diplomatically recognize Taiwan as an independent state.
However, the United States and its allies maintain informal relations and support the ‘de facto’ independence of that territory with weapons.
