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The war began in the early morning hours with a massive bombardment — China’s version of “shock and awe.” Chinese planes and rockets swiftly destroyed most of Taiwan’s navy and air force as the People’s Liberation army and navy mounted a massive amphibious assault across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. Having taken seriously President Joe Biden’s pledge to defend the island, Beijing also struck pre-emptively at U.S. and allied air bases and ships in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. managed to even the odds for a time by deploying more sophisticated submarines as well as B-21 and B-2 stealth bombers to get inside China’s air defense zones, but Washington ran out of key munitions in a matter of days and saw its network access severed. The United States and its main ally, Japan, lost thousands of servicemembers, dozens of ships, and hundreds of aircraft. Taiwan’s economy was devastated. And as a protracted siege ensued, the U.S. was much slower to rebuild, taking years to replace ships as it reckoned with how shriveled its industrial base had become compared to China’s. The Chinese “just ran rings around us,” said former Joint Chiefs Vice Chair Gen. John Hyten in And that’s assuming the U.S.-China war doesn’t go nuclear. “The thing we see across all the wargames is that there are major losses on all sides. And the impact of that on our society is quite devastating,” said Becca Wasser, who played the role of the Chinese leadership in the Select Committee’s wargame and is head of the gam...

Taipei, Taiwan – Squeezed against apartment blocks deep in New Taipei City, the Guanghe Fude Temple, dedicated to the earth god Tudigong, seems like a typical Taoist shrine. The small house-like structure has marble walls, a tiled roof adorned with dragons and a ticker-tape LED sign – a common addition – protecting an interior of wood-carved reliefs, a sand-filled urn for josh sticks and a more fire-safe wall of electric candles. Then, there is Tudigong himself, wearing a bright gold and red sash. But Taiwan’s media has alleged the temple is associated with China’s United Front Work Department, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agency that leads a wide-reaching influence campaign to “win friends and influence people”. Speaking to Al Jazeera on a brief tour of the temple, Liang Tsu-wei, the temple committee’s honorary chairman, says the media have it slightly wrong. He insists that while he is a member of the United Front and Taiwan’s fringe pro-China Unionist Party, the temple is neutral ground. While Liang says he would one day like to see the peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan, he engages in mostly small-scale political activities. “We have a lot of demonstrations and protests against the Democratic Progressive Party government,” he said. “If we think their policies are wrong, we will mobilise thousands of people to demonstrate and protest. But it’s up to [them] to decide whether or not to go.” By Liang’s telling, the United Front and Unionist Party sound like any ...

TAIPEI, June 8 (Reuters) - Taiwan activated its defence systems on Thursday after reporting 37 Chinese military aircraft flying into the island's air defence zone, some of which then flew into the western Pacific, in Beijing's latest mass air incursion. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has over the past three years regularly flown its air force into the skies near the island, though not into Taiwan's territorial air space. Taiwan's defence ministry said that from 5 a.m. (2100 GMT on Wednesday) it had detected 37 Chinese air force planes, including J-11 and J-16 fighters as well as nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, flying into the southwestern corner of its air defence identification zone, or ADIZ. The ADIZ is a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols to give its forces more time to respond to threats. Some of the Chinese aircraft flew to Taiwan's southeast and crossed into the western Pacific to perform "air surveillance and long distance navigation training", the ministry said in a statement. Taiwan sent its aircraft and ships to keep watch and activated land-based missile systems, it added, using its standard wording for how it responds to such Chinese activity. China's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China Japan's defence ministry said it scrambled a jet fighter on Thursday morning in response to a Chinese information-gathering aircraft Y-9 flying over the Pacific Ocean and east of Taiwan. Japan a...

TAIPEI, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Taiwan is determined to defend itself and invaders will incur a "heavy price", President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday on the anniversary of a confrontation six decade ago in which Taiwanese forces beat back Chinese attackers. Tensions between Taiwan and China have spiked over the past month following the visit to Taipei by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. China staged war games near Taiwan to express its anger at what it saw as stepped up U.S. support for the island Beijing views as sovereign Chinese territory. Meeting military officers, Tsai extolled the "spirit" of defending against China's more than a month of bombardment of the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen and Matsu, just off the Chinese coast, which started in late August 1958. "This battle defended Taiwan for us, and it also declared to the world that no threat can shake the determination of the Taiwanese people to defend their country," Tsai said, in comments released by her office. "What we have to do is to let the enemy understand that Taiwan has the determination and preparation to defend the country, as well as the ability to defend itself," she added. "A heavy price will be paid for invading Taiwan or attempting to invade Taiwan, and it will be strongly condemned by the international community." Meeting earlier in the day with a delegation of former U.S. officials now at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, including Matt Pottinger, former U.S. President Donald Trump's dep...