What would CCP gain (compared to the status quo) in doing this move?
To test US loyalty to other Asian allies? Seems... Convoluted, reckless, and not at all something China has done in the past.
China and Taiwan are already co dependent.
To test US loyalty to other Asian allies? Seems... Convoluted, reckless, and not at all something China has done in the past.
China and Taiwan are already co dependent.
This is not the position from which one would want to upset the current world order, especially if domestic tranquility (read, employment) is dependent on the good graces of your trading partners.
On the other hand completely isolated nations like North Korea -- which are not tightly integrated into the international economy and feel they have nothing left to lose -- these are the ones that are more likely to do crazy things.
Thus China will continue to sabre-rattle and focus on largely symbolic issues in order to stoke nationalism but they will not actually act as that would immediately make a large chunk of their population unemployed and destitute. And questions of money and employment are much more important to Chinese citizens than nationalism.
> According to Angell, the economic interdependence between industrial countries would be "the real guarantor of the good behavior of one state to another",[6] as it meant that war would be economically harmful to all the countries involved. Moreover, if a conquering power confiscated property in the territory it seized, "the incentive [of the local population] to produce would be sapped and the conquered area be rendered worthless. Thus, the conquering power had to leave property in the hands of the local population while incurring the costs of conquest and occupation."
Prior to WW1, trade was roughly balanced within the world. You cannot even compare the situation then and now. Hell, prior to 2000, trade was roughly balanced. What we are seeing now is unprecedented in recorded history.
With that said, Taiwan is both more valuable and easier to take if more Taiwanese people don't think it's much better to be associated with the US than China. I think that, if the CCP does gain control of Taiwan in the future, it's >50% likely to be no more violent than Crimea; that's not possible today because too many Taiwanese are opposed.
Same reason they are creating islands in the South China Sea: becoming less vulnerable to blockade. (They can use ships and planes based on Taiwan to attack any ships trying to enforce a blockade.)
Also, as long as the Taiwanese government exists, groups inside China seeking the overthrow of the CCP can hope to ask it to become the new government of mainland China. Of course, that would start to make sense only if the CCP weakens drastically because of severe civil disorder, but severe civil disorder has been common in Chinese history.