Asia Report #59 | November 21, 2022
A high-tension visit by U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in early August 2022 led to the People’s Liberation Army Navy holding exercises near Taiwan and firing live missiles near the island. Chinese military escalation and stern diplomatic warnings to the U.S. came in the midst of final deliberations of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS act) in Washington. A week after Speaker Pelosi’s visit, President Biden signed the measure into law, providing over $50 billion to help develop and produce semiconductors while encouraging U.S. companies to cut China out of their semiconductor supply chains.
To explore these issues and how heightened tensions are likely to affect Taiwan and its economy and security, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies hosted a conference on Taiwan’s New Security Challenges: Economic Security and Military Security. The Asia Report from the first panel on economic and high-tech security may be found here. This Asia Report focuses on Taiwan’s changing military security challenges and assesses how cross strait, defense and US-Taiwan relations factor into possible responses. The video of the entire conference may be found here.
The speakers included Elbridge Colby, Co-Founder and Principal of the Marathon Initiative, Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University, and Jacob Stokes, Fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The panel was moderated by Deepa Ollapally, Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University.
Responses to a Pressing Threat Scenario
Elbridge Colby led off the discussion by noting the graveness and immediacy of the threat to Taiwan’s continued survival posed by an increasingly assertive China. Broad and sustained economic prosperity permitted China to engage in an unprecedented buildup of its conventional military forces over the previous twenty-five years, with major importance being placed on what has been termed the “primary planning scenario,” which calls for a cross strait invasion of Taiwan. As Colby noted, in addition to considerable investment in Anti-Access/Area Denial capabilities designed to blunt the United States’ ability to project power into the Western Pacific, Chinese policymakers have placed increased importance on military assets such as aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and a large space architecture, thus exhibiting global ambitions beyond a favorable resolution of the Taiwan question.
Nevertheless, Colby presented three principal reasons why a cross strait invasion remains the most plausible employment of Chinese military force in the near term. First, the CCP continues to put forth its irredentist claim that Taiwan has historically lain within the Chinese state, and thus should be a constituent part of the People’s Republic. Second, China must subordinate Taiwan in order to achieve its goal of establishing a dominant position in Asia, both because it lies within the First Island Chain and is increasingly seen as being tied to American credibility within the region. Lastly, Chinese attempts to use non-military forms of coercion over the past three decades were not only unsuccessful, but drove the island in the opposite direction with regard to independence.
Shifting to a discussion of the operational aspects of a Taiwan contingency, Colby rejected the prevailing view that a military solution would begin with Chinese actions such as the seizure of offshore islands or cyber-attacks. This “gradual approach,” in his view, fails to account for the fact that China would effectively be telegraphing its goals to the international community, specifically the United States, which would provide both time and reason for American forces to prepare, thus diminishing China’s ability to exercise “higher echelon options.” Rather, an aggressor must possess the ability to deploy and sustain dominant force such that they are able to seize and hold key enemy territories.
Colby then put forth three factors that make such a scenario increasingly likely, though not probable. First, China must employ military force to achieve its objective. Second, it is increasingly clear that the United States and Japan will take part in the conflict, with the latter providing bases for American forces and JSDF support for a defensive effort. Third, China’s willingness to pay the political cost associated with its nuclear buildup suggests that it is expecting a large war with the United States under the nuclear shadow. Moreover, Colby contended that the coming decade presents a uniquely dangerous window for Chinese action against Taiwan. This is due to the dichotomy of disinvestment in defense capabilities on the part of the United States, while China has begun to reap the full benefits of investments begun in the 1990s. Additionally, Xi Jinping has linked the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the resolution of the Taiwan question in Beijing’s favor. With this in mind, coupled with the likelihood of little warning prior to an attack, Colby implored the Taiwanese government to raise defense spending to ten percent of GDP in order to prevent a swift and decisive defeat.
What Does Heightened Bipartisan US Support for Taiwan Mean?
Robert Sutter sought to explain the unprecedented increase in American support for Taiwan under the Trump and Biden administrations, and the significance of the debate surrounding the military crisis following Speaker Pelosi’s visit.
The main driver, in Sutter’s view, is Congress’ steady, bipartisan and whole of government approach to the challenges presented by China’s increasingly aggressive behavior and rhetoric. He dubbed the unity of purpose across party lines and branches of government, begun in earnest in 2018, as the “Washington Consensus.” Sutter then presented three fundamental challenges being confronted by American policymakers in the deepening strategic competition with China: governance, the security threat, and a high technology competition, with the latter two posing existential threats. More specifically, Beijing’s attempts to alter the status quo through sustained pressure on the government in Taipei since 2016, Taiwan’s outsized importance in the nascent high technology competition, its strategic location, as well as the island’s potential as a useful lever in engaging in both dialogue as well as competition with China, has yielded a sharp increase in American support due to its determination to prevent China from supplanting it as the dominant regional and global power.
Sutter then presented four “brakes” on the hardening of American foreign policy towards China. First, and most broadly, it presents the potential for a rift in Sino-US relations. Second, the United States does not want to harm relations with Japan as well as the vast majority of Southeast Asian nations, who have a vested interest in a healthy US-China relationship. Third, American policymakers do not want to provide governments in Taiwan with the means to provoke Beijing. While all three have been overtaken by events, Sutter argued that China’s military power, and its willingness to employ it, continues to serve as a final brake.
Sutter then went on to note that while the August military exercises heightened tensions considerably, they also served to clarify the contours of the domestic debate. On one side, the vast majority of elected officials and senior members of the Biden administration, embracing the “Washington Consensus,” have made clear that they will not be intimidated into decreasing verbal and material support for Taiwan. On the other side, business and investment professionals, university professors and administrators, and a fair amount of China specialists within the broader foreign policy community, contend that the portrayal of the threat is excessive, economically harmful, and will lead to armed conflict. While the latter camp argued for seeking a stable relationship with China through reassurances regarding American policy towards Taiwan, those in the former prioritized the defense of American interests, pointing to previous attempts at reassurance that gave way to China’s militarization of the South China Sea.
More broadly, Sutter believes that tension in the US-China relationship is inevitable going forward, and America’s task is to place it into perspective while preparing adequately and avoiding unnecessarily “overhyping” it.
Figuring Taiwan Into the US’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Going Forward
Jacob Stokes rounded out the panel through situating Taiwan and cross strait issues in the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy more broadly. As Stokes notes, Taiwan has a direct link to all five pillars of the Biden administration’s approach to the region, which include advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, building connections within and beyond the region, driving regional prosperity, bolstering regional security, and building resistance to twenty-first century transnational threats. Moreover, as tensions in the Taiwan Strait have gradually heightened, U.S. allies’ posture towards China has trended towards a policy of competition and rivalry.
Specifically addressing the potential for a conflict over Taiwan, Stokes made clear that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 lent an immediacy to what was previously considered an abstract and long-term challenge by regional and global powers. This is seen most acutely in Japan, as the government in Tokyo undertakes the first comprehensive review of its national security strategy since 2013, and recently announced plans to double defense spending over the next five years. Australia, having inked a trilateral security pact with the United States and the United Kingdom in 2021 known colloquially as AUKUS, sought to acquire capabilities that are tailored to contingencies far from its shores and at the higher end of the combat spectrum. South Korea, ever-mindful of the fragility of peace on the Peninsula, has begun to formally discuss the potential for “simultaneous aggression” from the North in the event of a Taiwan contingency, as well as the likely expectations of their American ally in such a scenario. The Philippines, while also considering the appropriate level of military support to the United States in a conflict over Taiwan, must consider the proximity of the island of Luzon to Taiwan’s south as well as its claims in the South China Sea. India, wary of an increasingly belligerent China following a violent border clash in the summer of 2020 despite a recent thaw in relations, increasingly identifies with Taiwan’s predicament as it relates to Chinese military pressure. Lastly, Europe, while not a significant actor within the Indo-Pacific region, has begun to seriously consider plausible diplomatic and economic countermeasures in the event of a cross strait invasion.
Stokes then put forth three key questions that must govern discussions about the shifting regional order given the rift in cross strait relations. First, what steps are necessary for integrating deterrence across the joint forces of the United States, Taiwan, and their mutual allies and partners? Second, how can a similar spirit of collaboration drive efforts to strengthen economic and technological security amid regional trade integration? Third, to what extent should democratic values serve as a factor in such discussions given the variety of regime types throughout the region?
Stokes then addressed these concerns by presenting four principal recommendations. First, the United States must fully commit itself to implementing a truly asymmetric defense posture, while making clear that Taiwan must shoulder an even greater share of the burden. Second, the economic costs of a cross strait invasion must be made clear not only with regard to sanctions and other direct punishments, but also by mapping the broader regional and global economic fallout. For Stokes, such actions can prove effective in a strategy of deterrence by denial if the United States broadens its understanding of China’s aims to include gaining control over Taiwan without provoking a regime threatening economic crisis. Third, American policymakers must engage in more realistic and detailed contingency planning with a wide range of partners, specifically with regard to gray-zone challenges from Beijing. Lastly, the United States must continue to internationalize the issue of cross strait peace and stability, while simultaneously practicing political steadiness and restraint. More specifically with regard to the latter, Stokes advocated for maintaining both strategic ambiguity as well as the One China Policy. Rather than serving as a concession to Beijing, such an approach, in his view, will ensure that the United States’ commitment to upholding the status quo remains credible with regional partners, thus allowing for a continued focus on China’s destabilizing actions.
By Ben Briedman, Rising Powers Initiative Research Affiliate.
