Washington Should Deter an Attack on Taiwan

It might not be easy, but it’s better than a full-scale war.

By and
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On Thursday it was reported that two dozen U.S. special operations forces have been on the ground in Taiwan for the past year providing training to Taiwan’s forces. This comes after a week of intense Chinese military threats against the island, including more than 100 sorties from Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The security situation has deteriorated to the point that Taiwan’s foreign minister asked Australia for help as it prepares for a possible war with China. As the dangers of war over Taiwan grows, it is essential that Washington and its allies work together to deter a Chinese attack on this vulnerable island democracy.  

The risk of a war over Taiwan is real. China has the intent—and it is working on building the capabilities—to retake the island. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) takes an unreasonably expansive view of its territory, believing that any land previously controlled by Beijing needs to be taken back. From Beijing’s point of view, therefore, Taiwan is a renegade province, and it has been clear that it will use military force if necessary to reclaim it. Chairman Xi Jinping has not been shy about articulating this goal. Earlier this year, he said that “Solving the Taiwan question and realizing the complete reunification of the motherland are the unswerving historical tasks of the Chinese Communist Party and the common aspiration of all Chinese people.”  

This is not a bluff. China is investing in military capabilities, like amphibious warships, tailor-made for a Taiwan invasion. Adm. Philip Davidson, who served as head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command until earlier this year, predicted that China will try to invade Taiwan within “the next six years.” 

A successful CCP invasion of Taiwan would be a disaster. Taiwan, a longstanding U.S. partner and thriving democracy, would lose its freedom. The episode would set the precedent that China can gobble up its neighbors by military force with impunity. Other countries would see China as ascendant and question the ability and willingness of the United States to play its traditional international leadership role. And China would possess a new military base of operations on Taiwan that would allow it to more easily project power against other U.S. treaty allies with which it also has territorial and maritime disputes, including Japan and the Philippines. 

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Comments (109)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Taiwan is one of the biggest factors in whether or not WWIII occurs. We have two options: 1. Give Taiwan to China, tell China that they can just take it and that we will do nothing to protect it. 2. Make it abundantly clear that taking Taiwan is off limits. We should establish a permanent troop presence on Taiwan (like a Rammstein AFB). We should station part of the 7th fleet very close by. And we should increase partnership with Taiwan and fully recognize it as a country.

    Obviously, I lean towards the second option. Rather than provoke war, I think it would deter war. At a relatively low cost - a small troop presence would have huge leverage in demonstrated commitment. A good friend of mine is from Taiwan and his parents could be killed if China invaded it. And he would likely be drafted to go back and fight and die as well. If we put a base on Taiwan, there will be no war. If we choose option 1, I still think it will make war more likely.

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    The Stray Goose

    The authors fail to mention the effect of the United State's failure in Afghanistan (both the war and the Biden Admin's disastrous retreat) in Xi's calculus to attempt to retake Taiwan. That should have been part of the discussion.

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      Richard Gale

      I was about to write the same thing, then I read your comment. A blunder like Afghanistan only invites more war.

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    DougAz

    30.387701 by 126.009479

    Because almost everyone here has absolutely no frigging idea what a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb will do, the above coordinates are generally in between China, Taiwan, South and North Korea.

    Let's have a couple of demonstration H-bombs there and then see who all wants war.

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      MarqueG68

      The nukes scare the bejeepers out of me, too. But right now, through inattention, we're not doing much of anything to address the PRC's one-sided offensive nuclear buildup.

      MAD played a role in maintaining stability during the Cold War, but it relied on rough parity. Indications are that the PRC is striving for absolute superiority.

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  4. Patrick Phillips

    I would be interested to learn about the pros and cons of helping Taiwan build a stockpile of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons that could effectively deter a CCP invasion of the island. Angelo M. Codevilla wrote an interesting piece for the Hoover Institution back on June 30 regarding this topic — and it was very much in favor of a nuclear deterrent for Taiwan.

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      Narwhal

      Yes, let’s destabilize the region even more. Great idea!

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      DougAz

      Above, I recommend that China and the US drop 2 thermonuclear Hydrogen demonnstration bombs in the China sea, so a couple billion people can take a look see. Get a ticket, because you have absolutely no idea what you are recommending.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Harry Paget

        I’m not sure what your point is. Nuclear deterrence has been part of the geopolitical landscape for generations. People are recommending using our nuclear deterrent to deter Chinese aggression. So-called extended deterrence, where we provide nuclear weapons to allies, like we’ve done with our NATO allies to deter Russian aggression, can be a part of that. The power and destructiveness of nuclear weapons, which I take it you think people don’t understand, is what makes them such a powerful deterrent and, indeed, a tool for peace.

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        1. Avatar photo
          DougAz

          I completely disagree.
          We never used Nuclear weapons as a deterrent factor in the Korean War, Vietnam War or Gulf War.

          One can hope that China has the same reverence for it's soil that the Russians has all along...as the ultimate deterrent to using nuclear weapons.

          Anyone thinking that tactical nuclear weapons are a deterrent in any China-Taiwan war, are naive and out of their minds.

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  5. Avatar photo
    DS

    This article (and the resulting discussion) is focused on a full-scale war. While possible, that is not the PRC's best move and therefore is not in my view the most likely eventuality. The PRC is in a position to easily degrade or destroy Taiwan's economy with a minimum of violence and possibly no violence at all. For example, they could declare a maritime exclusion zone around the island and threaten to sink any commercial ship that enters the zone. This would make it impossible to get insurance and therefore would most likely stop all commercial shipping in and out of Taiwan even if the PRC never fires a shot. Even if we were to begin escorting ships ourselves the shipping costs and delays would skyrocket doing very severe damage to Taiwan's economy. If this is not sufficient, they could go further and declare missile test zones in the approaches to Taiwan's ports and start randomly firing missiles into those areas. In this case shots are fired but nothing is hit unless it ignores the warnings (which commercial ship owners are very unlikely to risk doing). If they desire, the PRC could keep such a posture up pretty much forever while the Taiwanese grow increasingly poor, cold and hungry.

    The bottom line is that while there might be military measures that would have the possibility to deter a full-scale invasion and annexation of Taiwan by the PRC, there is nothing that realistic military measures can do to deter the PRC from exerting crippling pressure on Taiwan up to and including destroying their economy. Any measures to deter this would have to be political or economic, not military. And the more we disengage from each other economically and politically, the less leverage we have to deploy such measures to deter actions by the PRC.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Adam Bridge

    For those who don't follow such things: the USS CONNECTICUT (SSN22) struck a "submerged object" somewhere in the South China Sea. The collision was sufficient to injure 11 sailors and require an emergency visit to our forward base in Guam where there's a sub tender. No further details.

    Why is this important? Because this boat, one of 3 SEAWOLF class boats, is highly capable. The three boats operate out of Bangor in Washington State. SEAWOLF and CONNECTICUT are there primarily to support the JIMMY CARTER SSN23 which is an incredibly capable boat with very special capabilities. The Navy is very close-mouthed about her capabilities. All of her missions fall into the Top Secret Compartmented Information category often needing sign off from the White House. If the SSN22 was out there you can easily imagine that SSN23 was somewhere not too far away.

    Conditions in the South China Sea are difficult for even the most capable sonar platforms. These boats represent the best we have. They've been modernized over their lives. The CARTER is the newest having been launched only 10 years ago or so.

    Watch this story. It's what happens around it that's important. The Chinese may be deciding to play some very serious fun-and-games as the Russians did during the Cold War. If so this would dove-tail with the air incursions into the ADIZ around Taiwan.

    I'm starting to get nervous.

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  7. Michael Taglieri

    No one has mentioned this, but Taiwan has the most advanced semiconductor industry in the world, and most major tech companies depend on them for components. (See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Semiconductor_Research_Institute).

    We've gone to war to preserve access to oil many times; we can certainly work to help keep China from gaining control over this industry. If China gets control over the world's most advanced semiconductors, do you really think they'll share them with us?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Paul Reichardt

      All most all major chipmakers have major production fabs in China already--Intel, Samsung, skHynix, TSMC, etc. If they wanted to put a siege on a fabrication facility to steal industrial secrets they wouldn't have to invade anybody to do it.

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        DougAz

        Semiconductor fabrication relies on just 3 companies. Not Intel, TMSC, not in China.

        2 in Japan and 1 in Germany. This is where the core guts of Semiconductor manufacturing lies. Optical lithography. The only 3 companies in the world with the design, engineering and manufacturing capability are Nikon, Canon and Zeiss. The 1st two make the complete lithography tool, while Zeiss partners with Dutch ASML who is the 3rd Semiconductor lithography tool maker.

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          Paul Reichardt

          That's on the vendor side of the semi-manufacturing. I guess the concern here is on the device side and those vendors don't necessarily have the proprietary details of how their machines are used. I work in etch and customers guard those details aggressively. Anyway, I presume a Chinese-run TSMC would continue buying from the same machine vendors.

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        David Chen

        The most advanced facilities are still made in Taiwan. And as a percentage of global totals, Taiwan (and SK) make up a lot.

        http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/25552.jpeg

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          Paul Reichardt

          Do you think if the TSMC executives and engineers saw the bombers coming they couldn't disseminate those secrets in a million places around the globe an instant? This isn't Raiders of the Lost Ark with a race to keep the magical powers ark of the covenant out of the hands of the Nazis. What would all those other companies do if the Chinese government commandeered an industrial company in Taiwan? They'd pullout in an instant, shutdown all those fabs, and take all those Chinese jobs with them. That would be a bush-league Maduro-in-Venezuela move.

          I don't know if China plans to invade Taiwan or it's just CCP propaganda--the narrative of the threat in the US is sounding like Saddam and his nukes to me. In my view, China wants to replace the US as the world's "indispensable" nation. The last thing they'd would want is to disrupt the tech industry in such a heavy-handed way and have all the global players run for the hills. It doesn't make any strategic sense even if you ascribe malevolent intent on the part of the Chinese.

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            David Chen

            It takes years to build a fab, and it might depend on machinery from taiwan or china. China is also betting they can take the fabs without much damage because the US wont do anything.

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    2. Avatar photo
      DougAz

      Taiiwan is a rain forest jungle with mountains for the most part. It's not a desert.

      Nukes ?

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      David Chen

      This is the single most important strategic resource of this century and to give it up is akin to surrendering in war.

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  8. Carolyn P Meinel

    Quoted from Dave Marash at https://mailchi.mp/d6a9bbfa0243/backward-forward-8908837?e=ab43af1430

    Who wants to go to war over Taiwan?

    How to convince President Xi not to use his advantages? How to make it clear to him that the benefits of conquering the island democracy will not be worth the costs to him and his people?

    The answer, short of military confrontation which would be ruinous to all sides, is to unite enough states to care enough about Taiwan to sever relations — diplomatic and especially economic — with Taiwan's attacker, even its conqueror.

    No country, no citizen of anywhere in the world outside China will benefit from a forcible Chinese takeover of Taiwan. Such an event will sharply reduce global stability and security. Again, Xi Jinping must be convinced these same reductions would hit his nation, even if his aggression succeeds. Take Taiwan, lose markets, lose leverage, lose face.

    This is a time to stop talking about "American leadership" and start showing some. Licensing military menace, even if it is just theater, even if it's all a bluff, is unacceptable, and showing Xi the price of being globally unaccepted is a matter of growing urgency.

    It's time for Joe Biden to raise his hand when the next hard question is asked. Who will resist anyone going to war to take Taiwan?

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  9. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    It is necessary to have a knowledge of the One China policy initially set up in 1978 and reaffirmed by every president since.
    https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-why-does-it-matter
    This response has to be multi pronged. I would like to see a first step through the UN. Actions can be taken by the General Assembly, bypassing the Chinese security council veto (the creation of Israel was through this path). Second prong is to create 3 levels of support that can push back on China in different ways.
    Somehow it must be made clear to the PRC that they will have to deal with the world if they attack China. There is a lot of temptation to compare this to 1937 (the takeover of Austria occurred in March 1938) but there are some different motivations though similar goals.
    I pray that the Biden team can rise to the challenge, as Xi certainly perceives Biden as weak.

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    Justin Stapley

    A clear and unequivocal foreign policy would be refreshing and the surest path to preserving a peaceful world order. We haven't had such a thing in quite some time. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening under the current administration (nor the next one if the GOP can't break free of Donald Trump's gravitational pull).

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    1. Paul

      I completely agree. The idea that we should not be clear about our intentions is the most baffling aspect of foreign policy to me. That being said, the following report makes an interesting argument for maintaining our current ambiguous commitments to Taiwan: https://www.cfr.org/report/united-states-china-and-taiwan-strategy-prevent-war

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