Will China annex Kinmen, Wuqiu or Lienchiang island groups from Taiwan? [3-minute read]
Chinese coastal islands. [Friday 28 May]
Three island groups, close to the Chinese mainland, were retained by the Kuomintang Party as they retreated from the Chinese Communist Party to the island of Taiwan in China’s 20th-century civil war.
While there is international debate in this 21st century over Taiwan’s destiny - we wanted to know if the same uncertainty applied to the 3 island groups that are only a handful of kilometres from mainland China:
Kinmen [Quemoy]
Wuqiu [Wuciou] and
Lienchiang [Matsu].
From the perspective of a China seeking to re-establish its historical borders, we speculate that these island groups may be more like Hong Kong and Macau than Taiwan or the China Seas island groups.
We don’t have a position on the competing narratives. But we wanted to know what the chances of annexation are. So we ran questions on the following: “in 2021 will China annex: 1. Kinmen (Quemoy), 2. Wuqiu (Wuciou) and/or 3. Lienchiang (Matsu)”
The forecast probabilities surprised us:
Will China annex the Quemoy (Kinmen) Islands in 2021?
[1 in 8 (12%) chance]
Will China annex the Wuqiu (Wuciou) Islands in 2021?
[1 in 9 (11%) chance]
Will China annex the Lienchiang (Matsu) Islands in 2021?
[1 in 7 (14%) chance]
In June, we will expand on this topic with ”What will happen in the Taiwan and China Seas Conflicts in 2021?”. The areas covered will be:
The coastal islands: 1. Kinmen (Quemoy), 2. Wuqiu (Wuciou) and 3. Lienchiang (Matsu)
The East China Sea islands: 4. Senkakus
The South China Sea islands: 5. Pratas 6. Paracels 7. Spratlys
7. Taiwan
The questions are ordered on increasing degrees of seriousness and market impacts:
Diplomatic incident
Military incident
Blockade
Annexation/occupation