The Duran Podcast - China rehearsing tight blockade of Taiwan

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

China rehearsing tight blockade of Taiwan

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Taiwan and big Chinese military drills, which are aimed at surrounding Taiwan. That's the purpose of these military drills. At least that's my understanding of these drills that are taking place. Obviously, China is once again sending a message not only to Taiwan but to the collective West. as we continue to discuss, which is incredible that there's still this discussion about this, given everything that we've seen with Ukraine and now we're seeing in the Middle East, but we continue to report on, discuss, talk about the next big, big war,

which would be China and Taiwan and China and the United States anyway. What are your thoughts on what's happening in and around Taiwan and China? Well, let's first of all talk about this exercise. I'm going to say a number of things about it. First of all, we're talking about we're always discussing the Middle East. We're always discussing Ukraine. But it is Chinese moves in the Pacific and in Taiwan that are the things that hold the Pentagon's most attention. And at this moment in time, when we're making this program,

the Pentagon is going to be most interested and most concerned about this Chinese exercise. The first thing to say is it's huge. I mean, I understand it's the biggest exercise that China has conducted close to Taiwan. Secondly, it clearly is rehearsing a tight blockade of Taiwan. And if you wanted any doubts, you had any doubts about that, All you need to do is to go to Global Times. They publish an article reporting on this exercise, and they show where all of the, you know,

these sort of positions of where all the Chinese ships would be. And they're all around Taiwan. I mean, they're literally located all around the seas around Taiwan. And the article says quite straightforwardly that it is intended to rehearse a blockade of Taiwan. And they also say that this exercise will bring Chinese warships closer to Taiwan, to the shoreline of Taiwan, the coasts of Taiwan, than any other exercise so far that China has conducted has done.

So, you know, they're going to be even closer to Taiwan. And that the Chinese Coast Guard will be involved as well. And if a blockade is imposed, an actual blockade is imposed, it'll be Chinese Coast Guard boats, ships, which will take the first step to stop shipping, merchant shipping, going into and out of Taiwan. This is a huge exercise. It is an incredibly strong move. And it has obviously been prepared by the Chinese for some time. And it's all happening, even as China's shipbuilding program continues to move forward. We've seen more and more pictures of more Chinese aircraft carriers operating.

They've now launched their first big. aircraft carrier, the only aircraft carrier anybody has built since the Second World War, outside the United States, that is comparable to a US Navy carrier. It doesn't use nuclear power. But in all other respects, in terms of dimensions and capabilities and the fact that it uses catapults and will have stealth fighter jets and all of that, and the size of the squadron it will operate. It's comparable to a US Navy supercarrier. And the Chinese are going to build more and some of them are going to be nuclear power. And yes, they do have problems. China's latest nuclear submarine had problems and it apparently sank and it's got to be salvaged and there's all kinds of problems like this.

But the fact remains that the buildup is huge. So the Chinese clearly preparing for a conflict with Taiwan. I read about a week ago a U.S. Navy document which discussed a potential naval war with China in 27. That's three years away. So, I mean, and it spoke about that as being, you know, a real possibility that this is when all of this can happen. And the fundamental question is why? Why is all of this happening? Because just a few years ago, it seems like an age now, but just a few years ago, the situation in the Taiwan Straits was peaceful, was quiet. Taiwan obviously had its own government. It still claimed to be the Republic of China. China, of course, insisted that it insists that Taiwan is a part of China.

All of the rest of the world, except for a few tiny places, agrees. The United States itself agrees. But this was a setup that had existed for a very long time. There were very strong economic links between Taiwan and China. The Chinese bought their really advanced. chips from Taiwan and didn't try to replicate all of that because, you know, economic links were so strong. So why has all of this been disrupted to this extent? Well, I think there's a very, very, very simple answer. The administration that we have at the moment has gone out of its way to create problems between

Taiwan and China. It has lent strong support to the Taiwan, the Taiwanese ruling party, which has spoken about seeking independence from China. The president himself has spoken several times about the United States having some kind of treaty with Taiwan to protect it from China, which by the way, officially and publicly is not true. not true. There might be some kind of secret agreement that we don't know about, but publicly the United States has no treaty obligations to defend Taiwan. And the United States has previously made agreements with China, which are based on the United States not having commitments, treaty commitments to defend Taiwan. But the president has repeatedly talked as if such

treaty obligations exist. The United States has been sending arms to Taiwan and equipping Taiwan, even though, again, at the time when Chinese, China, US relations were put on a strong footing in the 80s, the United States actually committed to scaling down arms sales to Taiwan. And one way or the other, the Chinese, have to the conclusion that the United States wants to create a crisis in the Taiwan Straits. It is encouraging the independence movement from China in Taiwan. China is determined that that will not be permitted and that's why we have these military exercises and why we have this escalation in the Pacific and why the Chinese are building up their navy and why the US Navy in return is talking about fighting China in 2027.

I find it amazing that the U.S. is talking about going to war with China. After everything we've seen happen, play out over the past a couple of years. They're now taking on China. I find that amazing. I think it's more amazing that Taiwan is going along with this, or at least there's a political party and there are politicians in Taiwan that are actually buying into this conflict. with China. They're actually buying into this. Have they not seen Zelensky and Ukraine over the past

three years? Have they not witnessed what has happened in Ukraine? And they're still buying into this narrative that a war with China has to occur and China can be defeated. Well, indeed. I mean, it is astonishing. I mean, there are obviously internal reasons. I mean, You know, Taiwan has been a very successful place. It's developed its economy very well. It has a political system very different from China's. Many people in Taiwan do not want to come under the control of the government in Beijing. And a party that talks about Taiwan maintaining or achieving independence from China

is able to pick up a lot of support that way. And, you know, one can at a certain level understand why. But of course, they've gone far further than that. I mean, the current president, newly elected president of Taiwan, is now saying that China is not the motherland, that the Republic of China, which is what Taiwan calls itself, and inheritance of the time when it was led by Chianghai Shacks, government, Chiang Kai Chiang, would be the previous leader of China before the Communist Party

won the Civil War. Anyway, they say that, you know, they are actually an older political system than the one in China itself. So, you know, they shouldn't feel any real connection or bond to the government of China. I mean, you know, one can argue the history. But it seems to me incredibly reckless things to say or considered when all these enormous Chinese exercises are taking place. And of course, you're absolutely correct. I mean, one of the things that really astonishes me is that people, political leaders, politicians, hear all of these siren voices coming from the neocons in America. And they fall for them every time we've seen that in Iraq. We've seen that in Georgia with Sakashvili.

We see that, as you say, in Ukraine. We've seen that in Afghanistan. And yet people never seem to learn. They always seem to assume that if war begins, the Americans will be there, that whatever promises they've been given by various American politicians who go to Taiwan, these promises will be acted on that the United States remains the great superpower that will prevail in any. conflict. And when, of course, it all turns out otherwise, they feel let down and betrayed. But as you absolutely rightly say, they're just not looking at what actually happens in the world and what has,

in fact, been happening consistently now for many decades. But there it is. Yeah. The money and power. Money and power is what blinds them. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And that's what they're promised. Yeah, and that's a big... Absolutely. I mean, they go to Washington. They see that the United States is a superpower. They hear all of these, as I see, people telling them, you know, how determined the United States is to stand by Taiwan. And people take it seriously. And, you know, one can say to these people, you're fools.

But the worst thing is those people in Washington who make those promises in the first place. because they ought not to make promises like that, which ultimately the U.S. cannot deliver on unless it's prepared to risk World War III, which it almost certainly isn't. The military industrial complex always wins out in these cases either way. So everyone that makes those promises in the U.S., all the senators and representatives,

they make those promises with the reason. that that's why they're they're pushing Taiwan towards this catastrophe yeah yes all right anything else to add about this well I'm going to say this I think you're absolutely correct I think that we are heading for this smash as well I think it is only a question of time we discussed in a recent program how there'd been an incredibly angry meeting based on the readout well I say angry I mean the Chinese never raised their voices but I mean they were very very strong between Wang Yi and Blinken at the General Assembly,

in which Wang Yi called Blinken two-faced, which is as strong as it gets, basically. So, you know, the Chinese have, I think, quietly come to the decision that this smash is coming. I don't think, I think they assume that whoever's going to be the next president isn't going to change the policy. And they're preparing for war.

And you can see this. Everything that China has been doing is preparing for war, as far as I can see. The United States acts as if it is. It publishes these long studies like the one that the Navy has just published. But in reality, and this is where we come back to the problem, because the US, the policy,

is never made publicly. I mean, no US official comes out and says straightforwardly, you know, we're going to go to war with China in a few years' time. They know that the American people would not support that. So everything has to be done in a secret way, but doing things like that secretly, especially in a society like the United States, means that they don't get properly done at all. So the United States is going to drift into a conflict with China in three years, four years, five years time. It's going to be unprepared, even as the Chinese move forward and get, come closer to getting ready. And that's the reality of this. That's where, that's what the neocons do. Yeah. China is preparing in much the same way that Russia started preparing at 2000.

14, 15. Correct. Correct. All right. We will end the video there. The durand. Dotlocals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, bitchhoot, Telegram, Rockfin, and Twitter X. And go to the Duran shop. Pick up some merch. Like these shirts that we are wearing today in this video. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.