This is a story about
how a historic dispute has become part of a global power struggle.
All the trend lines are pointing towards escalation
and would make de-escalation extremely difficult if it came
to blows in the Taiwan Strait.
If you go a couple of hundred kilometres off the south east coast of China,
you reach Taiwan, an island that behaves as an independent state
but which is considered by Beijing as part of China.
And this shows Taiwan's air defence zone,
which Chinese military planes have increasingly entered,
crossing an unofficial line between mainland China and Taiwan.
These incursions have risen through the year, as you can see,
and Taiwan says relations are worse than for 40 years.
When asked if China might invade, this was the Taiwanese reply.
After 2025, they will be fully prepared.
That's our assessment.
The US sees a threat too.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
To which this is the Chinese response.
The Taiwan question is purely China's internal affair.
We will not tolerate any outside interference.
Taiwan finds itself between the tectonic plates of world power
and people there well understand the position they’re in.
We are a small island nation,
so we are like a bargaining chip in negotiations between big countries.
For these reasons and more tensions around Taiwan risk
disturbing the uneasy equilibrium in the region and to understand
these current tensions we need to go back to their roots in 1949.
That’s when China’s nationalist government was
defeated by the communists and fled to Taiwan.
By 1950, the island was effectively independent.
70 years on,
Taiwan, while once a dictatorship, is now a democracy with press freedom.
China meanwhile is an oppressive single-party state.
Both have seen rapid economic growth, and for its part Beijing says it will do
whatever's necessary to get Taiwan back.
That’s relevant when we listen to this from President Xi.
The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces
to bully, oppress or enslave us.
Anyone who dares to try will have their heads bashed.
This shift in tone can also be seen with reference to Taiwan.
Here's a cartoon in the state-owned Global Times newspaper
depicting a Chinese invasion.
Now, this may all just be bombastic rhetoric.
But the context here is that Chinese military power is growing rapidly.
This is one of Beijing's regular military parades.
The Chinese say their growth in military spending since 1990 looks like this
and they say they'll spend more than any other country bar America
in the coming 12 months.
And China knows if it attacked Taiwan, America is nearby.
We've seen the US and its allies carry out exercises in the Philippine Sea
and there are US military bases across the region.
Also, remember this from September?
The UK, US and Australia signed a defence pact,
in large part to counter China. And in the middle of this
lies the US policy of 'strategic ambiguity' on Taiwan.
This means America has signalled a willingness to defend Taiwan
but not said how.
What is never said is whether the United States would
in fact come to Taiwan’s defence militarily
and it’s that ambiguity which has been maintained for many years,
that the whole delicate balance rests on.
And you can argue this has worked.
Taiwan's a prosperous democracy, there’s been no conflict with China.
So what’s changed now?
Why is China's leadership cranking up the pressure?
Well the first reason may be Taiwan’s president,
Tsai Ing-wen. She wants Taiwan to be independent of China
and this pro-Beijing analyst argues a message is being sent to her.
Taiwan’s progressive democratic party is really calling for independence.
That is really very, very dangerous.
So, I think the mainland has to warn them and stop that.
Huiyao Wang also presents a second factor -
that China is being unreasonably provoked.
It’s in response to so many aircraft
and different warships passing through the Taiwan Strait
and also, American military airplane has landed at Taiwan.
The third possible reason for Chinese action comes from
retired US army General Stanley McCrystal.
Perhaps China is doing this now because it can.
It’s different than five, or 10, or 20 years ago.
Because the Chinese military now has enough credible power
to at least contest with the United States
over the potential defence of Taiwan and that’s a very different dynamic.
Beijing will be well aware of this different dynamic.
Not least because of Hong Kong.
Last year China brought in new laws there to change policing
and freedom of speech, and despite Western condemnation the law stayed.
And that brings us back to Taiwan,
and whether China may feel emboldened to act.
A prospect that was put to the Biden adminstration by the BBC.
Do you think China will invade Taiwan?
I am not going to make any predictions, what I am going to say is this.
From the United States’ perspective
there are certain fundamental obligations,
and one of them is no unilateral changes to the status quo.
And this cuts to it.
Taiwan and the US want the status quo.
China does not.
And so Taiwan’s status has become a test of the limits of America’s power
and the possibilities of China's.