Perception that Chinese-made weapons could not stop a ‘decapitation strike’ may give Beijing pause for thought
The sight of a hostile regional superpower launching an overnight raid to depose the leader of a smaller neighbouring country could easily have sent pulses in Taiwan racing.
The US on Saturday revealed the details of a surprise raid to capture Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, who was whisked away to the US, where he was frogmarched into a court in New York on Monday.
Commentators in China immediately drew comparisons to how an assault on Taiwan could play out.
China, a country with more than 1.4 billion people and the world’s biggest armed forces, has long had designs on Taiwan, a self-governing island of 23 million in its back yard. The imbalance in power is comparable to that between the US, which possesses the world’s most powerful army, and Venezuela, a small, middle-income country of just 30m which, like Taiwan, relies on friendly countries for its defence.
