FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BEIJING Several secret American documents published in the Discord chat by soldier Jack Teixeira also concern China. And overall, the revelations shouldn’t displease the generals in Beijing, because they reveal that the Washington secret service fears the strength of the People’s Liberation Army.
1) Strait Superiority One of the (no longer classified) Pentagon reports states that in the event of war, red-star jets would quickly gain control of the airspace around Taiwan. The Taipei command also doubts the island’s defense system would be able to accurately detect and repel missiles fired by Chinese opponents. Another document in the Discord leaks, found online by Washington Post reporters, will have been read with interest and satisfaction in Beijing: it includes an admission that only half of Taiwan’s aircraft fleet would be capable of targeting the enemy to attack; and even if they realized they were facing an imminent attack, it would take the Taipei Air Force a week to withdraw their fighter-bombers to sheltered shelters, giving the Chinese ample time to attack them while they were still stationed on the ground.
2) hypersonic missile. Another document contains the American assessment of the DF-27, the Chinese hypersonic missile, which Pentagon analysts say has a range of between 5,000 and 8,000 km and would have “a high probability” of penetrating United States defenses.
3) Spy Balloons. Documentation on Chinese spy balloons is extensive, which gained prominence last February when there was a wave of alarm (and also psychosis) in the United States. The Chinese “balloon,” shot down on February 5 after flying west-to-east across American territory, was equipped with equipment so sophisticated that a week after recovering the wreckage, US technicians are still unable to do so were to decipher him. In Washington they gave him a code name: “Killeen-23”. Top-secret documents show four other balloons flew over “sensitive” targets without being pursued and shot down by the US Air Force. One had flown over the aircraft carrier battle group Nimitz in the Pacific in January; another had circumnavigated the globe collecting information between December 2021 and May 2022. The US secret service has dubbed them “Bulger-21” and “Accardo-21”. For the record, Killeen, Bulger and Accardo are the surnames of mafia criminals associated with the Cosa Nostra.
Meanwhile, recent large-scale Chinese maneuvers around Taiwan between April 8 and 10 showed that the People’s Liberation Army could launch an air and naval blockade around the island and stifle its economy without attempting an invasion. Wang Mei-hua, Taipei’s economy minister, warned that gas reserves stored on the island would only last 11 days if the Chinese cut sea routes, followed by tankers constantly supplying them with liquefied gas. Taiwan has bet on gas, which will account for half of its energy consumption by 2025.
In these conditions, several major American industrial groups are planning to diversify their demand for Taiwan-made high-tech (particularly Tsmc’s famous semiconductors) amid fears that the Chinese will disrupt supply chains. And TSMC was forced to build new production lines in the United States and Japan and design one in Europe. Relocating some of its microchip production helps Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company stay in the globalized market, but has obvious economic and social costs for the island.
To try to keep the islanders’ morale up, the US Seventh Fleet sent a warship to hoist the flag in the strait on Sunday, April 16. Beijing immediately protested the passage of the missile fighter USS Milius in a stretch of sea it considers under its national sovereignty; Washington replies that “the routine transit took place in a corridor that did not cross the territorial sea of a coastal state”.