China’s growing military confidence puts Taiwan at risk
All-out conflict may not feel imminent, but America is deeply concerned
ON JUNE 29TH 1950 the USS Valley Forge, flagship of America’s Seventh Fleet, passed through the Taiwan Strait. A battle group defended her flanks, America’s first naval jets sat in her hangar, and a new vision of American-dominated Asian security unfurled in her wake.
Only a few months before, America’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, had declared that “The Asian peoples are on their own, and know it.” But on June 25th Stalinist North Korea launched an invasion of its southern neighbour, and a country confronting communism could no longer leave Asia alone. America would fight with South Korea. It was to join in that defence that the Valley Forge was steaming north from Subic Bay.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Something wicked this way comes"
From the May 1st 2021 edition
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