June 23, U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee passed the 2023 fiscal year National Defense Authorization Act with an absolute advantage of 57:1. This new draft bill published by the US House of Representatives includes a content that specifically deals with the defense relations with Taiwan: organizes US-Taiwan military exercises, regular exchanges between US and Taiwan officers, continues to support Taiwan's development of a modern military force, and responds to Taiwan's military purchase needs.
The anti-China content contained in this bill is enough to see that American political elites have made up their minds to protect Taiwan. They completely ignore China's warnings at the Shangri-La Dialogue, insist on strengthening military exchanges with Taiwan, and want to help Taiwan "resist the unification with force" by enhancing Taiwan's military strength.
From now on, the struggle between China and the United States on the Taiwan Strait may become more intense, and the intensity of the struggle will naturally escalate further. The possibility of accidental fire will also increase due to the increasing behavior of the United States.
Judging from the basic content of this bill being formulated, the United States is trying to strengthen the Taiwan authorities' air defense and anti-missile capabilities and reserve military forces, and promote a new round of arms sales to Taiwan. Regardless of the effect of the US plan, the US will enact the anti-China content in this bill, which is itself a clear support for the US authorities to "resist the unification with force" and "respect for foreign powers." It can be foreseeable that the Taiwanese authorities will become more arrogant in the future, and may also make more astonishing words to highlight the "Taiwan independence" forces.
Faced with an unprecedentedly complex world situation, China must stabilize its position, and respond to changes with the same stability as it is invincible, because its advantages lies with China and time lies with China. With the mass production and installation of various advanced equipment in China, the military power comparison between China and the United States is undergoing a significant change.
From the perspective of maritime power alone, China has served 34 shield ships in the past 10 years. These ships have new ages, advanced equipment, and can continue to be active for at least 10 to 20 years. Although the number of shield ships in the United States exceeds 90, 22 Ticonderoga class will be retired in the next two or three years, and the other seven Burke class s that were put into service before 1995 have entered the end of their service career. In addition, the US military has more than a dozen Burke-class ships in service in the last century. Even if new ships are added in the next few years, the shield ships of the US Navy will still have a gap of more than 20 to 30. At that time, there may be only about 60 warships available. What's more important is that the number of shield ships in the Chinese Navy is still increasing, and the US Navy needs to take into account both the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean , Indian Ocean and Pacific. There may be only 30 to 40 shield ships available in one direction. The Chinese Navy does not have this demand, and ocean escort can be directly handed over to the 054A, which has a lower operating cost. The shield can be concentrated near the South China Sea to deal with all enemies of foreign interference.
It should be noted that the full shield fleet built by the United States looks beautiful, but when it is relatively close to the coast of China, China can use the 054A and 056 frigates to deal with the US shield ships. This can not only further dilute the scale advantages of US warships, but also facilitate China to effectively implement a comprehensive arms embargo and blockade on Taiwan when needed. In just a few years, as long as China is willing, US personnel and materials will be intercepted outside of Taiwan Island . At that time, the Taiwan authorities will "respect foreign countries" and "resist the unification with force" will be completely lost.
Although the current overall situation is evolving towards a trend that is beneficial to China, the United States has not given up its attempt to interfere in Taiwan's maritime affairs, nor has it dispelled its ambition to mess up the strategic pattern of Northeast Asia. For the United States' island chain strategy, Taiwan is an indispensable link in the first island chain. Even if the first island chain has long been in name only, the second island chain is often broken through by China. However, as long as the two sides of the Taiwan Strait still maintain a political division, the United States has the expectation to rebuild the island chain system.Even if neither the funding nor the current situation of the US Navy meets the corresponding conditions, although Taiwan cannot serve to build the first island chain, it can still be used by the United States to disrupt the situation around China and have a negative impact on China's development rhythm and expected goals.
Here we want to evaluate and judge in an overall way, is the United States really capable of helping Taiwan "resist the unification with force"? Take the Patriot 3, the most advanced US-made air defense missile, for example. In the actual combat of Saudi Arabia, this air defense system cannot even withstand the attack of drone cruise missiles , and Saudi Arabia was bombed so miserably. What is even more incredible is that the operating manual of the Taiwan authorities' Patriot 3 missile has been leaked to the Internet. This manual contains specific performance data. Military fans can see photos of the detailed content of this manual in some chat groups.
For the People's Liberation Army, there are no more secrets in Patriot 3 missiles, and more importantly, the Taiwan authorities have limited positions to choose from, so it is not very difficult to track the whereabouts of the air defense missile system. After mastering the specific location of these air defense weapons, the PLA can launch a large number of anti-radiation missiles when the military unification operation begins, destroying the Taiwan authorities' air defense capabilities at one time, and then connecting the attack waves of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, causing the United States to sell past weapons and the war chess exercises and actual military drills held by the Taiwan authorities to be wiped out in an instant and turned into useless work.
In addition, the United States wants to strengthen the reserves of the Taiwan authorities. Although Taiwan currently implements the recruitment system and the conscription system at the same time, the number of professional soldiers recruited is very limited, and there has been a problem of lack of grassroots officers until now. In order to solve this problem, the Taiwan authorities first canceled the written test for recruiting troops, and then introduced preferential policies to skip the grade and promote the training for two months, but even so, there is still a lack of various officers.
As for the soldiers recruited to the army, their service period is only 4 months and the military training they have received is very limited. Although this source of soldiers is relatively large in terms of quantity, the quality and combat effectiveness of the soldiers are really unsightly. If the United States attempts to use this kind of operation to enhance the Taiwan authorities' reserve troops, it will obviously not work. Where will it go, it depends on how the United States will operate in the future.
In fact, the United States has formulated and passed a Taiwan-related bill containing anti-China content. The reason for the current operation can only be said that the political elites in Washington are really starting to be anxious, but they are also unable to come up with any effective method. Against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 epidemic, China, which has relatively good epidemic prevention, has limited impact on its production order. The United States has until now has problems such as supply chain bottlenecks and inflation, and the gap in hard power between the two countries has accelerated to narrow in this epidemic.
In addition, China's international influence has also been tested and rapidly increased in the epidemic, because China can supply epidemic prevention materials and vaccines to the world, and has not suffered much impact on the export of daily necessities, providing many countries with urgently needed materials. At this time, the United States, as the world's only superpower, had some confidence. The throne of the world's boss maintained by unipolar hegemony seemed to have become a castle in the air. The American political elite would naturally try their best to use all kinds of means to deal with potential challengers even if it was a fool.
Therefore, the US Congress discusses the formulation of the "2023 National Defense Authorization Act" which objectively encourages the Taiwanese authorities to be brave. These lawmakers are always unable to withstand political impulses across the ocean. They move every now and then, wanting to make money and encourage the Taiwanese authorities to grit their teeth and persevere. However, cross-strait reunification is an unstoppable historical trend. The most convenient thing the United States does now is to squeeze out Taiwan’s last strategic value as much as possible, so that the Taiwan authorities will spare no effort to continue to act as a pawn that hinders China’s rise, and continue to resist stubbornly and willingly act as cannon fodder after the horn of cross-strait reunification sounds.
