Stage-strutting sound and fury of 'war plan' shows accusation should be laid at US door: China Daily editorial

Despite the Chinese leadership tirelessly trying to assuage the concerns, many in the West seem to take for granted the rumor that the Chinese mainland is preparing to "invade" Taiwan. Worse still, some Western politicians are making policy recommendations based on such spurious speculation.

Mike Gallagher, chairman of a United States House select committee on the US' supposed strategic competition with China, is one of the most active movers and shakers in the promotion of this "plot" on the part of the Chinese authorities. In a recent letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, he requested a classified briefing from the Pentagon on how it is prepared to aid Taiwan when it is "invaded".

Drawing upon Franklin Roosevelt's famous 1940 call for the US to be the "great arsenal of democracy" in the fight against Nazism, Gallagher argued the US now needs to build an "arsenal of deterrence" against the mainland's "invasion" of Taiwan. Claiming Beijing has "ordered the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027", Gallagher said the US must significantly upgrade its munitions industry so that it can "prevail in any conflict in the Indo-Pacific".

This is cold-blooded hokum. On his recent trip to San Francisco for his summit with the US president and the APEC leaders' meeting, the Chinese leader personally denied there was any such "plan". But Gallagher, preoccupied with big power strategic competition, sees a war between the US and China as being not only inevitable but desirable. Hence his sensationalizing and sensitizing of this potential flashpoint.

While many in China may dismiss Gallagher's warmongering as mere grandstanding. The Chinese authorities would do well to read the ruins in Europe and the Middle East caused by such a mentality. In his letter to Hicks, Gallagher went out of his way to recommend ways to address the "fragility" of the US munitions industrial base the US-sponsored conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have revealed. Citing a recent war game simulating a conflict with Beijing over Taiwan, which found the US "would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than one week", Gallagher stressed the urgency of arming Taiwan, proposing "'MacGyver' Harpoons and Powered JDAMs" as potential solutions to possible guided missile shortfalls.

Responding to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency's recent announcement of a $300 million arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese Defense Ministry condemned the move as another "wrong signal" to the separatist forces in Taiwan, and a threat to regional peace and stability.

In outright disregard of the mainland's consistent opposition to outsider interference in China's domestic affairs and its desire for peaceful reunification, the reckless posturing of blood-and-glory armchair warriors such as Gallagher unilaterally and unnecessarily escalates tensions across the Taiwan Strait.