Taiwan helps bottle up the Chinese fleet and air force in China’s peripheral waters—Adm. Ernest King is reputed to have called the island “the cork in the bottle”—and anchors Japan’s defense in the south. There are Japanese islands south of Taipei, and on a clear day one can see Taiwan’s mountains from Japanese soil. Because Japan is America’s “cornerstone ally” in Asia, defending Taiwan is, in a real sense, defending America.
I've long noted how important Taiwan is to China for power projection into the Pacific.
Every year, China's improvements in their blue water navy and long-range air and missile power make controlling Taiwan more important for China.
I'd be happier if Taiwan spent more on money as if their freedom depended on it. Because it does, given that China's Dystopian State 2.0 will smother Taiwan if China takes control.
And I'll add that as long as Taiwan doesn't have a sense of urgency in defending their free island--including spending much more money on defense, America has to hedge its bets in arming Taiwan because we don't want advanced technology to fall into Chinese hands if China invades and wins the war.
UPDATE: A warning for Taiwan:
As many as 6,000 residents of the mostly Uyghur-populated township of Haniqatam in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been held in political “re-education camps” for as long as two years, according to a local official.
Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas have been jailed or detained in political re-education camps throughout the XUAR, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.
And that's just one township.
Dystopian State 2.0 isn't just high-tech social media control and surveillance. It involve old-fashioned imprisonment and indoctrination for those who don't get the hint from the social suitability score issues.
Taiwanese under Chinese control will get the same treatment.
Indeed, as I've written before, if I was an evil Chinese autocrat, upon the conquest of Taiwan I'd ship in Han colonists to Taiwan and send Taiwanese troublemakers to Xinjiang and Tibet, in a two-for-one measure that allows locals to hate the alien colonists and drive those Taiwanese to back China just to survive the local hostility.
UPDATE: Abandoning Taiwan is no way to defend ourselves against a rising and increasingly hostile China.
Although I don't think our ambassador to Iraq greenlighted Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. I think she was talking about a specific oil field dispute between Iraq and Kuwait.
