TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Joshua Keating said a Chinese blockade could squeeze Taiwan and cut it off from the world in an op-ed published Monday.
The Vox senior correspondent said that US leaders have become worried about a Chinese invasion. However, he said that China might leverage gray zone warfare rather than launching a full-scale invasion.
Keating added that Taiwan’s geography puts China’s army at a disadvantage. He used Russia’s experience in Ukraine as an example that bigger neighbors cannot roll over smaller ones.
Citing a January report, Keating said Taiwanese and US security experts do not believe China can invade Taiwan, but may enact a blockade.
“In a blockade scenario, China would use its military to cut off trade to the island and force it to capitulate or make major concessions on its sovereignty,” he explained. “A quarantine would be a subtler approach, with China using civilian law enforcement rather than naval vessels to interdict shipping, but it could have much the same effect.”
Keating said that although Taiwan’s mastery of semiconductors has made it an indispensable part of the economy, its ambiguous status makes it vulnerable to Chinese efforts to chip away at its sovereignty.