Biden’s nominee for Navy secretary, Carlos Del Toro (photo, left; bio here), spoke of defending Taiwan in strong terms during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
Del Toro said, “It’s incredibly important to defend Taiwan in every way possible. We should be focused on providing Taiwan with as much self-defensive measures as humanly possible.”
The Hill reported (here), “Pressed later in Tuesday’s hearing … on whether it is ‘vital’ for the United States to maintain the ability to defeat a Chinese takeover of Taiwan and whether the Navy should prioritize the possibility of a Chinese invasion of the island as it develops operational concepts, Del Toro replied ‘absolutely’ to both questions.”
Del Toro’s confirmation hearing puts a spotlight on two recent developments: The rising threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and a shift in U.S. military priorities “from a land-based strategy … [and] fighting wars” in the Middle East and Afghanistan “to a more dominant maritime strategy in the Pacific” that aims to deter China and, if deterrence fails, to defeating a Chinese attack.
Del Toro is at odds with the president who nominated him on defense funding. He supports a larger Navy than Biden proposes to pay for. That’s more tolerable to a president in a Navy secretary, who function as an advocate for the service, than in a Defense secretary, which is a cabinet and policymaking position.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is required to support Taiwan’s defense by an act of Congress (read about it here), but that law doesn’t explicitly mandate U.S. intervention in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, and what the U.S. would do in that event is an open question. What the U.S. could do is questioned by some analysts.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a secessionist province and, lying just 100 miles off its coast, a strategic threat. It’s understandable that China’s leaders don’t want a nuclear-armed Taiwan — their equivalent of a Cuban missile crisis — or American military bases there. Here, the U.S. is wise to tread carefully. But compelling Taiwan’s 25 million people to live under China’s communist dictatorship by military force is equivalent to any other communist invasion of a democracy.
Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies armed to fight off such an invasion, and the U.S. twice went to war — in Korea and Vietnam — to oppose communist takeovers of those countries. Our leaders might not be able to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan by force, or may decide the risks and costs of intervening are too high; a direct military confrontation could escalate into World War 3. But we don’t have to let them get away with it; such a move by Beijing should have severe consequences for its relations with the West.