US Warns China Cost for Blockading Taiwan to Be ‘Very High’

Voice of America News reports: “The United States is casting doubt on China’s willingness to launch a blockade of Taiwan as part of any effort by Beijing to take the island by force.

China’s military has staged multiple drills, most recently this past April, which state media described as efforts to simulate a possible blockade. But a top Pentagon official said Thursday that any attempt by China to carry out a blockade in real life could backfire badly.

‘The cost for Beijing looks very high, and the risk looks very, very high,’ Ely Ratner, the Defense Department’s assistant secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told an audience in Washington.

‘What happens the very minute that the PRC starts mounting a blockade against Taiwan? The global economy falls through the floor,’ he said. ‘There will be no one immune from the economic pain that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] would place on the world.’

Ratner said the devastating economic impact of a blockade would also likely rally the international community around Taipei and against Beijing…”

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