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Would the U.S. defend Taiwan?

Excerpted from a Vox article published on May 5, 2021 (read entire article here):

“No American president has had to choose whether to go to war to defend Taiwan against a Chinese military invasion. President Joe Biden might have the decision thrust upon him. …

“Should Xi follow through with an all-out assault, Biden would face one of the toughest decisions ever presented to an American president. …

“The roots of the current predicament were seeded in the Chinese civil war,” which the communists won, forcing Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist forces to flee to the island of Taiwan, which today is a democracy.

Over the years, the U.S. never explicitly committed itself to defending Taiwan if invaded by China, even after Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. Despite its promises to “aid” Taiwan if attacked, “importantly, the US never stipulated that it would come to Taiwan’s defense during a military conflict, only that it would help the island defend itself and would be concerned if such an event happened.”

Thus, there is no treaty obligation to get involved militarily if China attacks Taiwan. “Keeping that part ambiguous … allowed Washington to maintain … relations with mainland China while not abandoning Taiwan.”

“There’s an obvious tension here: The US … is close to both Beijing and Taipei. It was always going to put administrations in Washington in an awkward position …. It explains why the US-China-Taiwan relationship is such a delicate balancing act, one that not everyone’s convinced Washington should have engaged in.”

For over 40 years, this delicate balancing act has more or less worked, but now is in danger of coming undone in the face of a more aggressive China. As the Vox article says,

“A policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ — as the US policy toward Taiwan is known — is all well and good, until the US president has to actually decide whether to defend Taiwan.”

Then, “A barrage of missile strikes and hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops landing on Taiwan’s beaches would force Biden to make a choice: wade into the fight against a nuclear-armed China, or hold back and watch a decades-long partner fall. The first risks countless American, Chinese, and Taiwanese lives … in a fight that many believe the US would struggle to win; the second risks [the] Taiwanese people … losing their democratic rights and freedoms … and Washington’s allies no longer considering it reliable in times of need.”

“Former officials who wrestled with this question know it’s not an easy call. ‘You’re damn right it’s hard,’ Chuck Hagel, who served as secretary of defense when Biden was vice president, told me. ‘It’s a complex decision for any administration, not an automatic one. You can talk policy all you want, but a war off the coast of China? Boy, you better think through all of that.'”

“The Biden administration has done its best to reassure Taiwan and deter Beijing …. Whether it’ll be enough … will be a looming question during his presidency. And the world may get an answer sooner rather than later. ‘This is the quiet before the storm,’ said Joseph Hwang, a professor at Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan. ‘The Chinese government is looking for a good time to push for reunification by force. They just haven’t found the right time yet.'”

But that time may be approaching: “China’s aggressions have steadily increased since last September and are now a near-daily occurrence.” In addition, Chinese leaders believe the U.S. is now in a state of decline, and therefore less able to defend Taiwan. “China is looking for weakness everywhere and probing the US and Taiwan,” said Shelley Rigger, a professor at Davidson College …. “The trendlines are not looking good.” Others who study the problem, though, believe the risk of China starting a war over Taiwan is declining, in part because Beijing is busy with other problems right now — Hong Kong, the Uyghurs, and Covid-19.

But suppose it did? In that case, “War games simulating a US-China military conflict over Taiwan make two things perfectly clear: 1) The fight would be hell on earth, potentially leading to hundreds of thousands of casualties, and 2) the US might not win it.”

Despite the paucity of good landing beaches, difficult terrain, and dug-in defenders, it’s hard to imagine China’s much larger military not overpowering Taiwan’s defenses. “This is why the question of America’s support in such a war is so big, and why a decision for Biden would be so weighty. Knowing all this, Biden — or any American president — would likely have to decide whether to intervene to keep Taiwan from losing.” And “no one is really sure what he’d do.”

But at least that ambiguity, as unsettling as it may be to Taipei, keeps Xi and the other communists in Beijing guessing, too.

Related story: Read about growing tension between China and Australia here.

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0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. Mark Adams #
    1

    Why exactly are the Chinese going to stop at Taiwan should they decide to forcible annex the island. Why not copy Japanese strategy in World War Two and grab the Philippines, Sumatra, parts of Australia, Indonesia. Allies we have treaties with are going going to pulled into any Chinese attack on Taiwan. Beijing either goes big or it should stay home. With or without US involvement China will be hard pressed to keep up an occupation of Taiwan.
    The United States will defend Taiwan, of course it maybe to the last Taiwanese.

  2. Roger Rabbit #
    2

    Experts who study China and know what they are talking about don’t share your belief that Beijing intends to conquer the countries you mention, although they could be attacked if they actively oppose China’s territorial claims to Taiwan and the South China Sea. It’s not a given the U.S. will get militarily involved if China invades Taiwan, as that will risk World War 3; and would any U.S. president sacrifice tens or hundreds of thousands of American lives to save Taiwan? We entered World War 2 only after we were directly attacked. If China opened an assault against Taiwan by attacking U.S. military assets, e.g., sinking an aircraft carrier and carrying out missile strikes against Guam and other U.S. bases, then you’ve got a de facto U.S.-China war, and it’s hard to imagine the U.S. wouldn’t respond with counterstrikes against Chinese military targets. My own view of the matter is the U.S. should boost military assistance to friendly countries in the region and beef up its own military capabilities against China’s. That will be costly, but World War 3 would be far costlier, and deterrence clearly is the best policy.