Taiwan as an emerging Flash Point

Zaman Ali

Taiwan conflict have field the tensions in US-China relations. As soon as Nancy Pelosi, US house speaker, announced her visit to Taiwan. China started conducting military exercises on its borders with Taiwan and give a clear statement that they will not allow any type of American interference in Chinese territory. Initially China and the US shared cordial relations it was the time of the peak of the cold war.

Neither the US nor the USSR considered China is a major threat. At that time the US decided that they would be allies with China because it has had very large population and is labor would be very cheap, So In the 90s and 80s, the industries started shifting from the west and it became China’s strongest point. And China started growing as an economic giant then in 2013, when president using Xi Jinping released the Belt and Road initiative (BRI). At that time the US and western world wary of the fact that China had brought its own entire economic model in the world through BRI. So in against of Economic model, US talked about; human rights in China, Chinese cotton, forced labor and the lake of religious freedom for Muslims and other minority religions. And along with all this, the US started presenting Taiwan issue in an exaggerated manner. Now if we talk- Why Taiwan issue is being exaggerated much? The main reason behind this issue is the microchip industry. Today the world largest microchip industry is in Taiwan. Interestingly much of the investment is done from Europe the US and the Western world.

Here the Question arises- why Western world invested in Taiwan? Now if we go 40-50 years back, we will find out that there was an abundance of cheap labor in Taiwan. So at this time if the US and other countries don’t support Taiwan and China under its ‘One China Policy’ keeps Taiwan as a part of China. Now the greatest concern for US and other Western countries is Firstly, that they might lose access to that industry. Secondly, the weapon supplies of US have significantly reduced in the Middle East although they have increased in Ukraine. So the US and other NATO countries will try to somehow lend military aid to China’s soft belly i.e Taiwan. But any kind of military aid will destabilized the Taiwan area more than it is today.