TAIWAN. Between Taiwan and China, tension has been high for several days. Why are threats made? Can war break out? What there is to know.
Is the stability of the world about to be called into question? Nearly six months after the start of the war in Ukraine, tensions are now emerging between Taiwan and China. In recent days, one of the world’s major powers is showing its muscles against the small island and performing a show of military force. In the sights of Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, the visit to Asia of Nancy Pelosi, the American President of the House of Representatives (equivalent to the National Assembly in France). An Asian tour during which she could stop in Taiwan, which is seen with a very bad eye by China (read below). For now, there is no indication that Nancy Pelosi will visit this small state, so independence has never been recognized by its Chinese neighbor.
What are the origins of the tensions between Taiwan and China?
Tensions between Taiwan and China are not new. It must be said that the status of the island is ambiguous. Taiwan was historically attached to China, before passing under the Japanese flag from 1895 to 1945. The territory returned to Chinese hands at the end of the Second World War. But the nationalists took refuge in Taiwan when Mao Zedong took power in China and thus formed a government on the island. Relations between the two parties have been tense over the years and even broken between 1995 and 2008. But since 2016, the coming to power in Taiwan of Tsai Ing-Wen, a pro-independence president, has reignited tensions with China. , Xi Jinping wishing to get his hands on Taiwan. However, the United States has always announced that it supports Taiwan against China, thus creating a particularly tense geopolitical climate.
Could war break out between Taiwan and China?
For weeks, Vladimir Putin had, together with Russia, been carrying out major maneuvers on the border with Ukraine, swearing that he had no invasion plan in mind. The rest is known to all… Could a similar scenario occur in Asia? “The likelihood of a war or a serious incident is low,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the American think tank German Marshall Fund, tried to reassure on Twitter. However, various threats or even sanctions could be taken according to her: “the probability that (China) will take a series of military, economic and diplomatic measures to show its strength and its determination is not negligible. It is likely that it will seek to punish Taiwan in multiple ways.”