By Andrew K.P. Leung (International and Independent China Strategist. Chairman and CEO, Andrew Leung International Consultants and Investments Limited)
The above July/August 2022 article in Foreign Affairs posits that there are no good options for Taiwan, considering its invaluable strategic asset for both China and the United States.
Beyond the political agenda of unification, Taiwan holds the key for China to break thorough America’s Island Chain Strategy encircling Mainland China with military assets from Okinawa (First Island Chain) and Guam (Second Island Chain). Possession of Taiwan would enable China to extend its military assets including submarines and underwater microphones (hydrophones) to the Philippine Sea, the body of water in between the two island chains reaching to Japan.
The article concludes that Washington has no good options on Taiwan and a great many bad ones that could court calamity.
Beyond supplying defensive arms to the island under the existing Taiwan Relations Act, ending “strategic ambiguity” for a formal commitment of direct US military action to defend the island could provoke the very crisis the policy is designed to prevent, intensifying the already dangerous competition between the United States and China.
The alternative of turbo-charging regional defense with US allies is likely to result in tighter defense pacts, additional military aid, and more visible U.S. force deployments in the region, including nuclear forces on or near allies’ territory, perhaps including nuclear planning collaboration. This would likewise lead to regional tension, if not nuclear proliferation.
Retreating from military commitments for Taiwan and the region is even more problematic. If Taiwan is militarily threatened, fearful of a domino effect, Japan might fight to defend Taiwan, even if the United States did not. The result might be a major-power war in Asia that could draw in the United States, willingly or not.
The open-ended article raises the following considerations.
Taiwan unification is not just a Beijing diktat. It’s the universal wish of all Chinese people on the Mainland and many of China’s diaspora. It’s part and parcel of the China Dream of national renaissance, purging the demon of a “century of humiliation” including territorial separatism under foreign domination. Without ruling out military means, President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that peaceful unification remains China’s primary aim, at the latest by 2049, the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Unification has very little mileage in Taiwan. In an August 2021 survey, August 2021 poll, nearly 90% of the public identify themselves as Taiwanese. 50.1 % support maintaining the “status quo,” 38.9 % back independence and 4.7 % favor joining China. Those in favor of maintaining the status quo include the one million or so Taiwanese working and living on the Mainland for their businesses. While the clock is ticking, a peaceful solution seems to be receding more and more from the horizon.
Washington has long been playing the Taiwan card to confront China. Despite lip service to the One China Policy, America has been training Taiwan’s military both inside the island and without, supplying it with more advanced weaponry turning it into an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” or a defensive porcupine, sending more and very senior officials to meet Taiwanese authorities, and promoting the role of Taiwan in international organizations as if Taiwan were an independent nation. Additionally, US naval “Freedom of Navigation Operation” patrols continue to challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, while US Air Force surveillance flights move closer and closer to China’s shores. All these tactics are considered highly provocative by Beijing.
China’s military doesn’t entirely depend on the Taiwan Strait. Its DF-21 Anti-ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM) are well capable of denying access of America’s aircraft carriers to immediate war theatres. Its DF-31A, a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile with possibly 3–6 independently targetable multiple reentry vehicles (MIRV) (warheads) has an effective range of up to 15,000 km, well capable of reaching many parts on the US homeland.
If the US dares not to come to direct blows with Russia over Ukraine, what makes it different over Taiwan with an adversary much more economically powerful than Russia (whose GDP roughly equals that of Guangdong Province) and much more dependent upon by the rest of the world (130 nations have China as their largest trading partner versus 57 for the US), let alone much more militarily prepared? The Ukraine War will no doubt act as a cautionary tale, while Beijing is known to be quietly studying and learning lessons, one way or the other.
Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley testified to the Senate on 17 June, 2021 that China had not possessed full capability to prevail over Taiwan until 2027, with little likelihood of any immediate adventurism. However, according to a Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Report of 16 December, 2021, “the era of US military primacy is over“. “every domain is contested—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace. “…. if in the near future there is a “limited war” over Taiwan or along China’s periphery, the U.S. would likely lose —or have to choose between losing and stepping up the escalation ladder to a wider war.” Above all, Beijing may well be able to create a fait accompli at lightning speed before Washington is able to muster enough effective response.
While there is little clear and present danger, my prognosis is that beyond 2027, there will be over 50% chance of a forceful unification. Barring untoward circumstances, each subsequent year is likely to add, say, perhaps 5% more to such likelihood, before Beijing’s declared absolute deadline of 2049.
Absent any good options, however, US doing more of the same risks sleepwalking to a looming cliff. It’s about time for President Biden to step up to the plate by defusing this ticking time bomb. Brokering eventual peaceful unification with iron-clad international safeguards preserving Taiwanese people’s way of life appears to be a solution. However, this would mean the US losing a militarized island asset to balance against China. Any solution, therefore, must be put in the context of US long-term relations with its near-peer rival.
Apart from wanting its deserved place in the sun, China has neither capacity nor intention to rule the world, including shouldering associated responsibilities or obligations. Not least because, with China’s plummeting global image, few countries want to embrace its political system or ideology. It is therefore opportune to explore possibilities for a more sustainable US-China relationship, including a mutually-acceptable roadmap for the Taiwan issue. No doubt these considerations would be taken up in a future Biden-Xi tele-conversation, said to be under planning in the White House.
Author: Andrew K.P. Leung (International and Independent China Strategist. Chairman and CEO, Andrew Leung International Consultants and Investments Limited)
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).
Image Credit: Reuters