Xi can take Taiwan without a military conflict. So why isn't he?

There could be two reasons why China is not looking at a political integration of Taiwan.

The Chinese have been trying to din it into the Americans: Beijing will never compromise on Taiwan's integration with the Mainland. And the Americans don't want to hear that.

But here is another question. The Chinese can easily take over Taiwan politically by stirring up a political unrest and rebellion. And the Americans would be able to do little about it. But Xi Jinpeng seems to be ignoring that option as much as Joe Biden seems to be ignoring Xi's repeated warnings about the Taiwan question.

That would be the best route for Beijing to take over Taiwan. Probably bloodless, or with comparatively less bloodshed. No harm to China's economy from sanctions and other punitive measures from the West and its allies. 

But Beijing seems disinterested in following that route. Despite it holding enough economic clout to squeeze Taiwan's economy and then provoke political unrest through its proxies. It can't be that Beijing does not have, or cannot find, such proxies in Taiwan. The two countries share a lot of history in common and it would need only a little bit of political shenanigans and some discrete financing to get an uprising going.

There could be two reasons why China is not looking at that option. The first, and probably the weaker one, is that Beijing wants to keep the tensions alive for longer. Every government needs a hot-button issue to keep its flock together. More so authoritarian regimes. So keeping the Taiwan issue on the boil may well serve Xi to keep his people distracted from the economic pain China is going through.

But that theory ignores that the economic pain is not something an authoritarian regime would worry about much. And with its economic clout China can better weather any blow to its economy better than, say, a Russia under Putin. But even Putin's Russia has shown how resilient it is to western sanctions that just a year ago were thought to deal a body blow to its economy.

So the second reason for Xi's disinterest in attempting a political integration of Taiwan seems more plausible: Beijing is so confident of its military and economic power that it is not scared of U.S. military might. And by holding on the confrontation course Beijing calculates that it will emerge a winner from two possible outcomes.

One, there will be a shooting war over Taiwan and, Beijing expects, with all the missiles and forces it has amassed on the Mainland, America will be defeated. Xi probably has factored in some kind of military damage but probably calculates that the prestige of defeating the U.S. military and the result of a redrawn geopolitical map will more than compensate for that. It could lead to China becoming the preeminent power in the world, ending the West's free run that started after world war 2.

Now the second possibility could be even better: the U.S. and its allies will turn tail and flee, faced with the prospect of a damaging clash with the Chinese military.

Again, the benefits are all China's.

But wait, what if China loses to the U.S. in such a clash? Xi probably is not even considering such a possibility existing; or would still think that any clash where China can inflict significant damage to the U.S. military would still be beneficial to Beijing, whatever its outcome.

So we are probably seeing a building blocks of an intense military conflict in the South China Sea. Beijing seems to want one; and the U.S. is still under the hangover of the decades when it had unquestioned military superiority over the globe.

And change is inveitable.

The billion dollar question that will hang over Maldives -- perhaps forever!

 

So the three Maldives ministers who mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been suspended. And Indians continue to cancel vacations to Maldives by the thousands.

All very good. 

Maldives cannot sustain itself without India, its closest neighbor. That was evident when the Indian Navy had to rush its ships to provide drinking water to the islands when a water plant there broke down a few years ago. Thousands of Maldivians travel to India for medical treatment. The island is facing rising sea levels and there was once even talk of buying land in India for its population.

But a few anti-Modi, anti-Hindu politicians decided to overlook all that and try to mock Modi. They forgot that Modi is no Rahul Gandhi, or Manmohan Singh. They should just ask Malaysia if they have any doubts of what punishment will rain down on their nation. When India boycotted Malaysian palm oil imports over Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's attempt to become a global spokesman for Muslim migrants, Kuala Lumpur was brought down on its knees. Modi was just taking a leaf out of a playbook the Chinese have wielded for decades. Just that India could not use the playbook earlier -- partly because it didn't have any economic heft to speak of, and partly because most Indian prime ministers before Modi (with the notable exception of AB Vajpayee) were just interested in being on the good books of the west.

And the thing is India could do punish Malaysia without any official comments or action. The Indian traders did the boycott -- probably nudged behind the scenes by the BJP's machine. Now the same thing is happening with Maldives. India has officially protested but not called for boycotting Maldivian holiday destinations. But the Indian people, in their new-found patriotic fervor, just took things into their hands.

As an aside, that shows how out of touch the Indian political opposition is. Their self-serving ways no longer sell among India's young voters. It is interesting that none of them have uttered a word on the Maldivians attempt to mock Modi and India. That dishonesty doesn't go unnoticed in the vibrant cyberspace of today's India.

But amid all this, what is more interesting is why the three Maldives ministers, who are now supposedly suspended (go figure!) from the ministry managed to link Modi's vacation in Lakshadweep to Maldives. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot? Modi never mentioned Maldives, and as India's prime minister he was just doing his job. 

Was it extreme insecurity that made the three make those comments? Or extreme hate for India? That is probably a billion dollar question that will hang over Maldives for years. Perhaps forever.

Indian make up the most number of tourists arriving in Maldives every year. And the country cannot sustain its standard of living without Indian support. Perhaps that may be wrong -- but without India, it is safe to say that they will have to pay a heavy cost to keep up their standard of living. Even for their security, the country will have to pay a heavy cost in terms of cultural impact and sovereignty, not to talk of resources, if it opts for the umbrella of another powerful country. India is the least invasive and harmful option they will ever find on the globe.

Imagine if they had not made those comments. A few thousand Indians would have started going to Lakshadweep on vacation. Much like what happened to Kumarakom in Kerala when Prime Minister A B Vajpayee vacationed there in the naughts. But that growth would have come without damaging Maldives' tourism. Because there are enough Indians traveling to fill both places!

Now Maldives' tourism industry has suffered a body blow. Thousands of Indian will not go there anymore. May be millions.

And the Modi government will actively promote Lakshadweep, pulling away vacationers to India's unexplored islands. 

Maldives can of course, in theory, fill that gaping hole on their balance sheet with Chinese tourists and Chinese money. But they will realize the problems that will bring when -- and that is a big if -- the Chinese start coming. They don't have the same sensitivities to local culture like Indians.

Great going Prime Minister Mohammed Muizzu! Do you have more such nutcases to add to your ministry?