https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/why-we-cant-afford-to-abandon-taiwan/
In the Munich Conference of September 1938, Great Britain and France threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves. In order to appease Adolf Hitler, the Western democracies forced the Czechs to give up the Sudetenland, a heavily fortified region on the border with Germany. This region contained millions of ethnic Germans which Hitler wanted to incorporate into his empire, and the German dictator claimed this would be his “last territorial demand.”
Of course, not long after his “last territorial demand” was satisfied, Hitler invaded and annexed the rest of the country (with the exception of a small Slovak rump state that became a German vassal), and then invaded Poland, starting the deadliest conflict in human history and resulting in at least 60 million deaths. The Western democracies easily could have stopped Hitler at Munich and prevented World War II—we now know that some of Hitler’s top generals were ready to arrest him if the negotiations failed—but instead, cowardice and appeasement won the day.
In the next few years, it is likely that America will find itself in the position that France and Britain were in during the Munich Conference, and we would do well to learn from their mistakes. Only this time, the country facing the threat of annexation will be Taiwan.
Like Czechoslovakia, Taiwan is a small nation, a prosperous democracy, and a balancing force against an aggressive, totalitarian neighbor: Communist China. And as with Czechoslovakia’s fate at Munich, allowing Taiwan to be gobbled up would only embolden China, leading to more aggression, more territorial claims, and, eventually, the outbreak of war.
