(原文發表於2021年12月1日)

US military experts say a war over Taiwan is desirable, because Asia’s growth to become world’s economic heartland has become unstoppable.

Yes, we want war. But just a small one, please, followed by a quick surrender. The United States is diligently working with Australia and the UK to goad China into what they hope will be a limited war over Taiwan, according to military strategists. By continually poking at the giant developing nation, the aim is to force it to fire the first bullet — and then use that to paint China as the protagonist, the bully that the rest of the world must unite against.

To prepare for this, the partners in the scheme are teaming up. Rather like the “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq War 2.0, the US is pushing for another misadventure, this time through a coalition of the coerced.

Media’s role

The Western media is playing a key role in this process.

1) The media is trivializing or turning a blind eye to an increasingly long series of clearly aggressive moves by the United States, including:

• Parking warships on China’s doorstep;
• Holding Naval sailing regattas in the Taiwan Straits;
• Landing senior US officials on Taiwanese soil in military planes;
• Creating an artificial “Taiwanese air space” zone and falsely alleging “incursions” or “violations” of it;
• Secretly providing military trainers on the island while lying about it;
• Inviting Taiwan to a summit on democracy as if it were a nation;
• And numerous other military and diplomatic departures from status quo agreements.

2) The media is painting China’s knee-jerk and entirely predictable responses that it “will not stand for attempts to promote Taiwan independence” as evidence of shocking new acts of “increasing aggression”, while the truth is that all China-watchers know they are the same statements they have issued for decades, often in virtually the same words.

3) The media is pushing exaggerations and misinformation about the “death of Hong Kong”, the “genocide of Xinjiang”, the “imminent invasion of Australia” and so on.

Asia as centre of the world

Why are the Western powers doing this? They certainly want to destabilise China and set the country’s development and positioning in the world back a few decades. But that’s just part of a larger goal. They feel the need to do this primarily because the Western powers have recognized that Asia will soon be the centre of global economic power.

Nothing will stop that happening.

This means that time is running out to ensure that Asia is dominated and controlled by America and its allies on the other side of the world, instead of by Asians themselves, working together as neighbours.

Furthermore, the outgoing world leaders need the incoming powers to know their place in the “International Rules-Based Order” under the stewardship of the drafters of these rules. Western liberal democracy must retain its primacy, and Asia’s consultative democracies dismissed as “autocracies”, or “authoritarian”/“totalitarian” regimes.

Preparing the world

The media has been preparing the world for the conflict for years. America’s hawks put huge sums of time and money into financing dissent in Asia and partnering with the Western media to create the impression that the people of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, want independence from mainland China — although surveys overwhelmingly show that this is the opposite of the truth.

But these imaginary “cries for independence” are necessary for the next stage in the process: the pushing of China into what can only be described as a deluded and limited war over Taiwan; one aim being to attain the larger objectives of undermining both China and ASEAN.

The war or “coming conflict” with China has been discussed in multiple forums and publications, not least of which is a new book by Elbridge Colby, one of the writers of the US National Defense Strategy. It argues that escalating Taiwan tensions into a conflict gives America a chance at winning, unlike a Cold War arms race.

Arms race won’t work

An arms race would eventually be won by China, which is on its way to being richer and stronger than America, Colby points out. And “the economic costs could be crippling, seriously stressing the US economy, the ultimate source of America’s military strength”.

Instead, the US can push China into a limited conflict over Taiwan, with the media painting China as the bully and the US as the white knight. Done right, the skirmish would unite the rest of the world’s countries against China and on to the American side.

Partners in the media have already accomplished a lot of this work by painting Xinjiang and Hong Kong as places wrecked by China, and suggesting they are filled with Betsy-waving populations desperate for a United States model of governance.

This strategy is receiving significant interest and or support from other US hawks.

“China must be provoked into initiating any escalation of the conflict, so that it will always appear the aggressor,” writes defence journalist Aris Roussinos, summarising the Colby strategy.

People will die

But won’t there be Taiwanese casualties? Yes. China “must be permitted to strike as indiscriminately as possible,” in this scenario. “Colby further urges the US not to provide potential civilian targets with air defences, reasoning that collateral damage will whip up the public anger against China necessary to winning a war,” Roussinos adds.

In other words, deaths of Taiwan citizens (the “collateral damage” he mentions) would be a public relations coup for the US side.

“Forcing China to escalate could be in our [US] interests,” Roussinos points out. (One wonders if this scenario has received attention from the walking elements of “collateral damage” in Taiwan.)

Trump’s defence strategist

Although Colby’s book, The Strategy of Denial, has just been published, it’s clear that the thinking behind it has been circulating in US administration clusters for some years. Colby was a key writer of Donald Trump’s national defence strategy in 2018.

This approach, when originally written, recommended pulling American allies like Japan and India into the US team to contain China, and to sign up Australia too, as well as Vietnam and other neighbours.

Clearly we can see concerted action on all these fronts this year.

Salami slicing

While the Western media portrays China as the aggressor, people with a deeper understanding of international affairs can see what’s really happening over Taiwan.

“The US has placed tripwires in the form of deployment of special forces, obfuscating the ‘red line’,” said commentator M. K. Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat.

The long string of US provocations are a “salami slicing” strategy, some observers say. “Salami tactics are an appealing option for expansionist actors like NATO, which pursues limited and repetitive expansions to gradually create new realities on the ground,” argues Glenn Diesen, professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway.

“Such tactics avoid rapid escalation and mute opposition from adversaries and allies alike, as complaints can be ridiculed and the response from opponents denounced as disproportionate.”

Warmongering?

One could easily argue that this type of strategy could be construed as a right-wing, warmongering plan.

That’s certainly true, and there are many echoes of the self-righteous militaristic strutting that led to lengthy disasters of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—the surviving victims of which are still suffering today.

The frightening thing is that the present attempt to goad China into war has bi-partisan support in the world’s wealthiest, most powerful country.

【中文版】

今天再次看到這篇，感觸更深，尤其這個描述是否很值警惕...“臺灣公民的命，是美國的公關妙招。迫使中國戰爭升級，造成人民死亡，符合美國的利益”。

國防事務媒體記者魯西諾斯指出，代價只不過是犧牲臺灣人的生命，換取美國再次偉大的機會是絕對值得的。

所以，美國這個戰略計畫----就是用臺灣人的血肉，換回美國在亞洲及世界的地位。

美國想激怒中國發動臺海戰争，開戰死的却是我們两岸的中國人和臺灣人，這是典型的美国利益至上的大戰略。

平時，讓你兩岸軍備競賽，戰時，讓中國人打臺灣人，徹底毀掉中國和平倔起的機㑹，最終它都坐山觀虎鬦，坐收漁翁之利！

近年美國一直招惹中國大陸，希望能激怒北京，逼大陸先動武，然後藉機回擊，引發戰爭。目的是打亂中國進入世界強權擂臺的進程，保障美國霸權。

身為「美國國防戰略」智庫一員的埃爾布里奇‧科比，最近出了一本新書「否定戰略」。

他認為，在台灣挑起有限戰爭是值得的，因為「亞洲成為世界經濟中心的趨勢，不可阻擋」，「以這種速度推進，西方會被拋在後面」，「中國必須被遏制，國際媒體必須參與這場最大的媒體戰」。

西方媒體早已在全世界展開輿論戰。地球上絕大部分人都沒有機會認識中國。

各地民意對中國的仇視，即是輿論戰成功的例證。

除了抹黑中國外，現階段輿論戰包括以下三點關鍵作用。

一，對美國咄咄逼人的舉動，視而不見。主要事實包括：

軍艦在中國門口徘徊；在台灣海峽耀武揚威；

美國官員乘坐軍機在台灣降落；製造虛擬的「台灣領空」，造成中國「侵犯」台灣的假象；

秘密提供軍事顧問，並加以掩蓋；

違反一個中國原則，以國家的地位邀請台灣參加民主峰會；其他偏離軍事和外交協議的現狀。

二，將完全可預見的，中國「反對台灣獨立」的聲明，描述成「令人震驚的侵略性」行為的證據。

而所有中國觀察者都知道，這是中國幾十年來一直沿用，一字不改的聲明。

三，媒體對「香港之死」、「新疆種族滅絕」、「入侵澳大利亞」等新聞，加以誇大和誤傳。

炮製臺灣海峽戰爭，當然會死人。科比進一步建議，美國的戰略應該是誘使中國，「不分青紅皂白地全面襲擊」。

美國不要為可能的民用目標提供防空系統，原因是，攻擊民用目標，將激起公眾對中國的憤怒。

換言之，臺灣公民的命，是美國的公關妙招。迫使中國戰爭升級，造成人民死亡，符合美國的利益。

國防事務媒體記者魯西諾斯指出，代價只不過是犧牲臺灣人的生命，換取美國再次偉大的機會是絕對值得的。

所以美國這個戰略計畫------就是用臺灣人的血肉，換回美國在亞洲及世界的地位。

在西方媒體將中國描繪成侵略者的同時，了解國際事務的人都可看出美國正在採用「切香腸」政策(等同於人們常說的溫水煮青蛙)。

挪威東南大學教授格倫·迪森(Glenn Diesen) 認為，「切香腸戰略，對北約擴張主義參與者來說，是一個極有吸引力的選擇。

北約追求有限和重複的擴張，以逐漸創造新的現實」，這種策略可避免對手和盟友抗議或反對。因為抱怨可能被視為杞人憂天，而指責會被認為言過其實。

美國這種右翼的好戰計畫的軍國主義帶來了：

伊拉克和阿富汗戰爭的災難，血跡未乾。逝者已矣，戰爭倖存者至今天仍在受苦。我們願意看到臺灣海峽的戰爭嗎？

「可怕的是，目前世界上最富有、最強大的國家(美國)，兩個政黨都支持、煽動對中國開戰。」不管戰爭的結果如何，生命財產的損失都是無法接受的。

臺灣該如何自保？

如何打破這僵局？

如何以和平的手段解決海峽問題？

如何避免心甘情願的成為別人手中的棄子？

如何保護我們的生命財產？

如何可以保障文化得以延續？我們難道連這一點智慧都沒有嗎？

註：本文大量引用由地緣政治風險分析師 Phill Hynes 和 Nury Vittachi 撰寫的文章

「Strategists admit West is goading China into war」

(戰略專家承認西方意欲激怒中國引發戰爭)