CHINA’S BID FOR TAIWAN A BIG CONCERN

CHINA playing chicken with an American destroyer on Sunday shows that a confrontation is fast coming. The communist giant has already stolen the South China Sea, between Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines, through which most of our own sea trade comes.

Now it’s driving off foreign warships that might challenge its claim, like the USS Decatur, which on Sunday sailed within 12 nautical miles of reefs in the Spratly Islands. In retaliation, China sent a warship to cut across to within 41m of the Decatur’s bow.

China then turned up the heat. It denounced the US for “seriously threatening China’s sovereignty and security” and scrapped a meeting with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

But this is just one clash in a far bigger conflict, as China steps up its campaign to take back Taiwan, a democracy with the population of Australia on an island China insists is its own. Bit by bit, China is isolating Taiwan. It is splashing out aid and loans to Pacific islands to buy their loyalty and persuade some, like Vanuatu, to allow it a naval base. This year, China even bullied Qantas into referring to Taiwan as a Chinese territory.

China will take back Taiwan by any means, which probably means force. The Trump administration seems to know this. Last year, it approved the sale of $2 billion of weapons to Taiwan. How will this end? Much depends on how China thinks the West will react if Taiwan is invaded. Does the West still care about democracy and freedom? Would it fight again for people it barely knows?

I fear we know the answers.