Preying on an enemy just like the anaconda

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Preying on an enemy just like the anaconda

Published: 23 Sep. 2024, 20:04

YOU SANG-CHUL
The author is the head of the China Institute of the JoongAng Ilbo and CEO of China Lab.

British media recently reported that the elite U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6, which had removed Osama bin Laden, has been training for more than a year to prepare for China’s invasion of Taiwan. The report reminds us that a war between China and Taiwan — which had been out of our sight for a while due to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Hamas armed conflict — may break out at any time. But many still see that China’s attack on Taiwan is unlikely.

China’s military preparedness is still lacking, as it doesn’t have enough landing ships needed for the invasion. But will China’s invasion of Taiwan be in a form of a full-scale armed conflict as the West expects? According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), maybe not. The FDD claimed that China has begun to use the “anaconda strategy” on Taiwan. This refers to how the world’s largest snake winds itself around its prey to slowly squeeze it to death.

In other words, China will not use an operation like a full-scale invasion. Instead, it will try to bring down Taiwan through online attacks, including the spread of false information, and economic pressure such as sanctions. In May, the American Enterprise Institute published a report titled “From Coercion to Capitulation: How China Can Take Taiwan Without a War,” which shares the same idea. According to the report, China targets four areas of Taiwan.

The first is to destroy the strategic relationship between the United States and Taiwan. China wants to destroy the economic, military and diplomatic cooperation between the two countries. The second is to neutralize the Taiwanese government. By ruining the lives of the Taiwanese people through checking the ships bound for Taiwan, China wants to diminish trust in the Taiwanese government. The third is wide psychological warfare. China aims to frustrate Taiwanese people’s will to resist by convincing them that it’s better to make political concessions to China and earn peace than otherwise.

The last is a large-scale propaganda campaign. It’s a plan to persuade the U.S. government and citizens that supporting Taiwan doesn’t help the long-term interests of the United States, making the U.S. give up on Taiwan. If necessary, China can make small-scale attacks aiming at specific targets and can make Taiwan give in even without an all-out war.

Admiral Samuel Paparo, the Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said that if China attacks Taiwan, “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities.”

When the West only considers direct conflicts, China dreams of victory through threats and pressure. The anaconda strategy is more of the game of Go designed to gradually broaden influence rather than the game of chess aimed at bringing down the king. The strategy matches China’s reasoning better.