This is John Bachelor, a lengthy conversation about Taiwan with my colleague Gregory Coppley, editor

and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

The question is, she has built his third term, unprecedented third term, on conquering Taiwan, overwhelming it,

conquering it, taking it back, destroying it.

What is to be done? Gregory measures the PLA is not ready to fight, it is not looking for a fight, and therefore

some other means of conquering Taiwan.

The recommendation is a quarantine by the PLA Navy

The Air Force taking down the satellites cutting the fiber optics

Destroying Taiwan's commerce and most of the planets for as long as the confrontation

lasted. How would the Japanese respond? How would the US respond? Therein lies the question. Escorting ships in and out of

Taipei would be one option. Will China push back?

Here's Gregory.

Well I don't think that's, that we, that the West would not fight to support Taiwan,

quite the contrary. But I think that if Beijing offers the soft option, in other words it does a what it would

call a unilateral quarantining of Taiwan on the basis that it's in their terms a part of China, then the US and Japan,

particularly Japan's response would be, okay, we're not going to tolerate that,

we are going to break the blockade

escorting the the trade air and and then a maritime trade into Taiwan and if you attack our protective convoys then that would be an

active war and you would be at war with the United States. So it's basically

calling Beijing's bluff.

And that's probably where it would go.

Now, the question is, how far would Beijing

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