TAIPEI – Israel is still adjusting to the disastrous invasion carried out by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip. It is not yet possible to foresee its full extent.
However, it is possible to take into account the short – and medium-term effects on the dangerous political strong in and around the Taiwan Strait, which continues to be one of the most dangerous outposts in the world due to China’s ongoing efforts to subdue democratic Taiwan.
Taiwan’s protracted wait for British weapons systems that have already been contracted to fend off a potential Chinese attack will likely be made worse by the Hamas harm.
According to current quotes, American weapons systems that have been contracted but have not yet been delivered to Taiwan are worth about$ 18 billion. The systems, which are essential for assisting a heavily depleted Chinese government in resisting China, include Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Harpoon anti – ship missile launchers.
However, as a result of US actions to give Israel more military support, Taiwan will now rank third( at least ) on the British list of preferred weapons buyers, trailing only Ukraine, with which it had already been vying for limited weapons dwellings, and Israel, whose support is deeply ingrained in the US Congress and the entire American government.
The issue for Taiwan is that since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the British armaments economy has drastically shrunk.
The economy was unprepared for the emergence of a new Cold War, one that pitted the United States and its allies in the West against an autocratic alliance made up of North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia. That shortsightedness is now returning to rest, and Taiwan, among others, has been left holding the bag for no sin of its own.
Another potential result of the Gaza conflict is that China may now be tempted to intensify its military efforts against Taiwan in the hopes that the US will be too preoccupied to successfully answer.
The eyes of America’s foreign policy government may be fixed securely on the Middle East for at least the upcoming few weeks; this obsession will only grow if Israel, whose authority is obsessed with deterrence, decides to go beyond Gaza and penalise Iran for its potential involvement in both encouraging and funding the fatal Hamas assault.
This preoccupation, among other things, gives China a great chance to exert more pressure on Taiwan by rapidly expanding” grey-zone” activities, such as violating the island’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone or sending naval forces in the direction of its west coast, which is particularly vulnerable.
There may also be some accents in China calling for even more aggressive actions, such as an attack on one or more of Taiwan’s offshore islands or even a brief isolation of the country.
However, such a response is highly improbable, not least given China’s roiling financial crisis and the ongoing issues it faces with its own defense leadership, barring the full-scale outbreak of an Iran-Israeli war, which do completely alter the political landscape of the world.
Therefore, while a full-scale Chinese attack on Taiwan is almost certainly off the board for the time being, an increase in China’s grey-zone actions in and around the Taiwan Strait is not, increasing the likelihood of an unintended issue. Given the current higher level of tension between China and the United States, it is not a happy thought to consider where that turmoil might end up.
China itself is affected by the possibility that, whether it wants to or not, Beijing will now be required to acknowledge its place in the global attempt as a result of the Gaza conflict.
At least since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, China has played a gentle sport, choosing the ill-defined middle ground between an all-encompassing embrace of pure global authoritarianism on the one hand, and semi-fealty to the American-led global order, which has allowed its economy to grow and its global influence to increase over the past three decades.
As an illustration, Beijing has carefully avoided sending large-scale arms supplies to Russia over the past month and a half( or at least getting caught at it ), despite appearing to support the Russian war effort.
So, China’s response to the Gaza invasion was entirely predictable: it urged both factors to” training caution” while at the same time drawing a lot of media attention to Irans one-sided perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
China’s issue is that this kind of craven political fence-sitting might soon be difficult. This would be especially true if Israel started a conflict with Iran in response to the invasion of Gaza.
If that were the case, people with ambitions to lead the world would have to decide between the current system of government and the rebel autocratic alliance. Any future Chinese dynamic move against Taiwan would probably be severely curtailed if China defied expectations and chose the former.
On the other hand, if it continued to embrace its presently close ties to the authoritarian camp, the exact opposite would happen, which would have a very negative impact on the Taiwan Strait’s peace and stability.
Former Associated Press reporter Peter Enav oversaw the AP Taipei chest in addition to working in Israel.
Past CNN Senior Asia journalist Mike Chinoy. They serve as the readers of the Taiwan Strait Risk Report, a quarterly publication that monitors the risks associated with Taiwanese issue.