weeks, but actually all throughout this year, it is a huge by far record number of flights going on, and the primary purpose of those is to show that they are increasing capability to launch coordinated attack that would be necessary for an invasion. and then on the other side of the equation, you have taiwan actually being more and more independent minded and moving further away from china as they see how they ve treated hong kong and tibet and some of these other places, who is to blame for them. but the united states has to be very very careful that we do what taiwan suggested which is to help them defend themselves but we should not get involved a war if it comes to that. eric: they are increasing their military budget by 9 billion dollars, and we back their security, but does that mean that we would get into a war over taiwan? it doesn t automatically mean that, but there s a substantial move in washington here in the last year or so where more and
they are still spending just barely 2% of gdp while we spent 3.5% so it needs to be commensurate with that. they need to spend more and do it in smarter ways. their readiness has been assessed by numerous groups as being pretty low quality. they need to take their defense more seriously. eric: what do these drills mean if you can call them that? do you see them as basically trying to be a run through for actually china expressly calls them military drills. they do them both in the air and on the sea. what these things not just a number of aircraft, but it is the cooperation, coordination between you have fighters, bombers, planes, all these some would be taking out air defenses. some would be attacking the ground. you see a growing level of sophistication that would be necessary.
that s where they would launch an invasion from the air anyway if that s what they were doing. it is definitely a preparation. it is unknown whether they are committed to doing it or preparing. eric: there are some who are saying we need to have taiwan s back stronger. let me read something from the dispatch, saying quote the united states vows to depend treaty allies like japan and south korea but provides only ambiguous security pledge to taiwan. the united states should end the policy of ambiguity for taiwan and make it clear it would be willing to use military force if necessary to rappel a chinese invasion of taiwan. u.s. allies and partners of militaries capable of operating in the region, such as, japan, australia, india, britain, and france should join in this pledge, deterrence will be strengthened if china believes an assault on taiwan would trigger a rupture with the entire free world. colonel, what if all those nations and the united states did band together and say china
beijing, no, this is what s going to happen if you invade taiwan. step back. that makes no sense, just bluntly stated because if you enter into a mutual or into a treaty obligation, like with nato, that s an usual defense treaty. an unusual defense treaty. we can t get into a situation where we risk nuclear war, where american cities or american aircraft carrier could get sunk only for the benefit of taiwan. now, see i argue that we don t need, you know, a military treaty to be able to turn china into a pariah. there s many things we can do diplomatically and economically to make significant pain for china should they do something like that, but to get into a war that we would probably lose, that s just hubris and we should avoid it at all costs. eric: we hope beijing gets the message to keep its hands off taiwan. retired colonel, thank you. thank you. eric: of course. claudia? claudia: eric, the u.s. general best known for leading
but you do still get these kinds of crashes, usually smaller aircraft, particularly in the region. claudia, a real tragedy. if there is a silver lining, though, in this story, it is that six people pulled out of that plane alive. all of them now in the hospital, fighting for their lives. claudia? claudia: ryan, we are pulling for them as well. ryan chilcote in london, thank you very much. eric? eric: claudia, taiwan showing off its military might during celebrations for its national day today. thousands looked on as soldiers marched and tanks rumbled through the streets. growing tensions with china cast a shadow over these festivities. in the past week beijing have set waves of fighter jets into taiwan s defense zone. more than 150 have flown through. yesterday chinese president vowed to achieve a quote unification with taiwan, which beijing considers a break away province despite it being a democratically elected sovereign