‘Disastrous, Cascading Consequences’ Would Ensue If Communist China Captures Taiwan

Deterrence employs military, diplomatic, economic, technological, and political measures to prevent wars. The number of times deterrence has failed approximately equals the number of wars history has seen.Deterrence failed to protect Ukraine against aggression, the consequences of which are slight compared with those that would follow a failure to deter President Xi Jinping from invading the Republic of China on Taiwan, or attempting to coerce its surrender by measures (intended to be) just short of war. Mr. Xi has ordered his military to be able to seize Taiwan in 2027. Deterring this involves influencing one person: Mr. Xi. Yet the myriad variables involved are staggering. Imagine the complexity of a Rubik’s Cube cubed.Or read “Defending Taiwan” by a Hoover fellow at Stanford, Eyck Freymann. He believes that American abandonment of Taiwan “isn’t an option.” The “disastrous, cascading consequences” of Taiwan’s forced submission to Beijing would include the collapse of American credibility, Beijing’s domination of its Indo-Pacific neighbors, including their involvement in the global economy, and an incentive for Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons.Taiwan, a vibrant democracy of 23 million, is the world’s most important supplier of the high-end chips that power economic modernity, including 90 percent of the most advanced chips powering artificial intelligence. American policy emphasizes that any resolution to cross-strait tensions must be achieved without coercion, and in a manner democratically acceptable to Taiwan’s people. Washington leaves ambiguous what it would do if either side changed the status quo unilaterally.Mr. Xi’s constant “gray zone” operations — economic, legal, cyber, and sociocultural — include military violations of Taiwan’s territorial waters and airspace. Mr. Xi might hope that these, perhaps supplemented by a quarantine (Beijing’s control, justified as “customs enforcement,” of Taiwan’s international trade), will, Mr. Freymann writes, “incrementally establish the norm that Taiwan no longer has full practical control over” its global economic interactions.This slow death of sovereignty might lead to a blockade. This act of war could starve Taiwan (which usually has almost a million foreign nationals on its soil) of food, energy and munitions. Breaking a blockade would require war, including striking targets on the Communist Chinese mainland, and mining China’s harbors.An early-20th-century theory was slain by the facts of the rest of the century: The mutual dependence of economically powerful nations on complex supply chains makes wars between them impossible. A blockade would confront the American president with a choice between the frightening, a military response, and the unthinkable, capitulation. The logistical demands of a resupply operation over vast distances, with the paltry (fewer than 200) and aged (average age, mid-50s) U.S. merchant ships, would dwarf those of the 15-month Berlin airlift (June 1948 to September 1949) that sustained a city with a population one-tenth the size of today’s Taiwan.China cannot mobilize for war secretly. And an invasion, Mr. Freymann says, “would rank among the most complex military operations in modern history,” much more daunting than D-Day. Between October and March, Mr. Freymann writes, harsh weather in the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait often deters civil aviation and passenger ships. In winter, there can be 50-foot waves. Between June and October, there is an average of six typhoons a year. Only April and October are suitable for amphibious operations.These would require air superiority, which China cannot assume. And naval mines laid by Taiwan could make China’s troop transports vulnerable in narrow corridors.Preemptive Chinese strikes on American bases on Okinawa and Guam, and/or American strikes on the mainland, would ignite a war. Mr. Freymann: “No nuclear-armed power has ever launched a large-scale kinetic strike against another.”And: “China’s extensive missile arsenal has created a high-risk zone extending roughly 600 kilometers off its coast.” The American advantage in stealthy submarines is eroding.Deterrence, Mr .Freymann writes, requires convincing Mr. Xi that America can “decisively” defeat China in an “all-out air-naval war” near China. “Logistics,” Mr. Freymann says, “is the bridge between a nation’s economy and its military operations.” The inadequacy of America’s bridge has been exposed by Ukraine’s needs and the war against Iran.Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports “a profound shift in Taiwan’s identity”: In 1992, only 17.6 percent of Taiwan residents identified solely as Taiwanese. Today 63.1 percent do. The share identifying solely as Chinese has plummeted from 25.5 percent to 2.5 percent. Time is widening a cultural divide that increasingly precludes peaceful “reunification” (Mr. Xi’s propagandistic term) of Taiwan with Mr. Xi’s Communist Party state.Mr. Freymann says — startlingly, without elaboration — that by seizing Taiwan, Mr. Xi could make himself “untouchable by rivals in his old age.” It is relevant, and unsettling, that Mr. Xi, who visits here next week, has thrived in such a high-risk, high-stakes, uncivilized political milieu.The Washington Post

‘Disastrous, Cascading Consequences’ Would Ensue If Communist China Captures Taiwan

‘Disastrous, Cascading Consequences’ Would Ensue If Communist China Captures Taiwan

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