A barrage of missiles and live fire drills.
China is turning up the heat on Taiwan,
and they have a new strategy for conquest.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Since the beginning, the Chinese Communist Party has vowed to conquer Taiwan.
And Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said he’s willing to use force to do it.
And for the past two years, Chinese military jets have been repeatedly harassing Taiwan.
And so the question on everyone’s mind is not if,
but when the Chinese Communist Party will launch its invasion of Taiwan.
This is like watching your girlfriend eyeball the side of fries you ordered.
She says she didn’t want any, but you just know she’s gonna strike at any minute.
So a lot of people were holding their breath when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
said she was going to visit Taiwan.
Hu Xijin the former editor in chief of my favorite Chinese propaganda outlet the Global Times,
even suggested China should assassinate Pelosi by shooting down her plane.
Did ya tweet that on an empty stomach, Hu? Next time,
have a Snickers.
A politically correct candy bar now that they’ve apologized for calling Taiwan a country.
Of course China did not shoot down Nancy Pelosi’s plane. After so many years of bluster,
when backed into a corner, the Chinese Communist Party did nothing—because of
course they’re not actually going to start a war with the US by killing Nancy Pelosi.
Instead China launched something else: The threat of economic war.
They put sanctions on the US and Nancy Pelosi—although
they’re not very effective. Pelosi responded to this, saying,
“Oh no! Anyway.”
China also further restricted trade with Taiwan.
As it stands, the Pentagon still believes a Chinese invasion of Taiwan won’t happen
in the next two years, because PLA troops aren’t ready yet.
But the Chinese Communist Party may not even need to directly invade anymore.
Because it looks like they’ve developed a new plan to take Taiwan without a fight.
See, for all China’s talk of invading Taiwan,
clearly they aren’t keen on starting a war right now. But they may not have to.
After Pelosi left Taiwan,
China’s People’s Liberation Army conducted extensive live fire drills.
Which was meant to be intimidating, but came off as mostly petty.
This was like not getting invited to your neighbor’s dinner party,
so you blasted your stereo at full volume, hoping to ruin their evening.
The drills were actually part of the PLA’s normal training. They were too big to have just been
thrown together last minute. But they may have been planned ahead, and then timed with Pelosi’s
visit. As many as 80 Chinese warplanes and vessels flooded the Taiwan Strait on just Sunday.
According to Carl Schuster , a former director of operations at
the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii,
“Unable to bully [Pelosi], Xi had to demonstrate China’s power—diplomatic, economic and military.”
But the drills do bring to light a new strategy the Chinese Communist Party may use to subjugate
Taiwan—without having to actually send troops to physically invade the island.
The live fire drills were conducted in these six zones.
You can see they essentially surrounded Taiwan.
The use of live rounds and missiles essentially forced
civilian ships and aircraft to avoid the area.
What we have here is a blockade. By making it too dangerous for ships to sail through the region,
China could cut off Taiwan from the rest of the world.
The goal would be to starve them out until they capitulate with Beijing’s demands.
And the Chinese Communist Party is good at cutting people off from the rest of the
world and starving them. They have so much experience doing it to their own people.
A professor at China’s PLA National Defense University told state-run CGTN, “Connect the
six areas in a line, like a noose, with the knot of the noose right in the southwest direction.”
Not only would this strategy cut Taiwan off from civilian transport,
as you can see, the PLA effectively put up a wall between Taiwan and Okinawa.
Okinawa is where Japan and the US have military assets that would be needed in Taiwan’s defense.
It also blocked off the Bashi Channel. That’s one
of the most important access points to the South China Sea.
This also gives us a glimpse into a future where China controls Taiwan
and holds international shipping in the South China Sea completely hostage.
Trillions of dollars of shipping goes through the region.
According to Schuster, “The exercise demonstrated that blockade in a conflict
need not require a constant naval presence offshore, but rather, shipping and air
traffic can be deterred by air and missile threats in support of a maritime blockade.”
Of course there is a silver lining to all this. As Mick Ryan , a former Australian Army general,
said, “Nothing provides better insights into the actual capability of a military
than seeing them deployed ‘in the field’ (or at sea).”
So Taiwan, and the West, are also learning plenty about the capabilities of the Chinese military.
And speaking of learning, it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan of the show who
supports us on the crowdfunding website Patreon or our exclusive social media platform on Locals.
Today’s question comes from Mtnman22 on Locals:
“Do you think the 50 cent army has ever targeted your videos? If so, how so?”
Good question! The 50 Cent army are paid Chinese internet trolls. And back in the day, a lot of 50
centers would leave comments on videos, pushing Party talking points and making arguments that
essentially boiled down to this. These days though, the trolls seem to be much more active
on the China Uncensored instagram account, where I post wonderful memes I’ve created.
I’ve spoken with other YouTubers who talk about China and there is a fear
that the Chinese 50 Centers do mass video flagging.
They’re hoping to trigger the automatic YouTube algorithm to shut down episodes.
I’ve had my suspicions that the recent age restricting of a bunch of our videos
has to do with mass flagging.
And as social media relies more and more on algorithms,
I’m sure the CCP will find more ways to game the system.
That’s why I created the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army. That’s what I call fans of the
show who join us in our fight against the CCP, by supporting us on Patreon.
Or on Locals.
Most of our budget comes from viewer support, since we do get demonetized a lot.
If you support the show on either Patreon or Locals, you’ll get some cool perks,
as well as become a part of a bigger community trying to make a real change
in the world by standing up to the Chinese regime. I’ll put links below.
So thank you Mtnman22 for your question and your support.
And thank you for watching. Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.