China often resorts of propaganda when it finds evidence stacking against it. Be it debate about COVID-19 origin or its territorial claims on Taiwan. Taking its propaganda up a notch, there's a viral song that tells Chinese to take a "high-speed train to Taiwan." However, there's just one problem with that — the train doesn't exist.
"Let's take a high-speed train to Taiwan. The dream will be realized in 2035. We will enjoy the scene at Penghu Bay together. And visit the Ali Mountain and Riyuetan Lake," are the lyrics of the propaganda song titled "Traveling to Taiwan in 2025."
Reading between lines
China is not at all being subtle here. The song clearly says that it will build a train connecting Beijing and Taipei by 2025, but that's just a one-sided claim that the world's most populated country firmly believes and propagates. To give a fair idea of it, the Beiing-Taipei high-speed train has been on China's agency since 13th Five-Year Plan in 2016-20.
China's primary agenda is clear with the song. It wants to assert its territorial claims on Taiwan, a move globally frowned upon.
China's invasion
A recent US Congressional report has revealed that Chinese military is now at or near the capability to invade Taiwan.
"The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has already achieved the capabilities needed to conduct an air and naval blockade, cyberattacks, and missile strikes against Taiwan," according to a report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a Congressionally-appointed agency designated to provide national security and economic advice to the Congress and the US President.
"PLA leaders now likely assess that they have, or will soon have, the initial capability needed to conduct a high-risk invasion of Taiwan if ordered to do so by CCP leaders. They will continue enhancing this capability in the coming years," it said.
The Commission argued that China is most likely to invade Taiwan if it believes the US "is not militarily capable of or politically willing to intervene, or if they interpret ambiguities in US policy to mean that opportunistic Chinese aggression against Taiwan will not provoke a decisive US response".
At the recent Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in Rome last month, global legislators took a firm stand as they exposed China's human rights abuses before the international community. Speaking at the conference, the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith warned about the "enormous threat posed by the People's Republic of China."
"Whether it is debauching the financial system, disregarding global trading rules, committing genocide against the Uyghurs, trashing the international treaty on Hong Kong or threatening to invade Taiwan – the time has come to call the People's Republic of China out."
China isn't one to take anything lightly when it comes to Taiwan. For instance, China downgraded Lithuania ties to protest the fact that it allowed the opening of Taiwan office. China was even threatened by a small nation such as Luthuania, there's no saying what extent it would go to solidify its unfounded territorial claims on Taiwan.
