William A. Galston
The West won the Cold War without firing a shot, but the intensifying struggle with China may not end so well. The record number of Chinese military aircraft flying near Taiwan last week raised alarm bells—and questions.
For decades China’s leaders bided their time, knowing that a military confrontation with the U.S. would end badly. But during the past quarter-century, China steadily ramped up its investment in the People’s Liberation Army. Between 2010 and 2020, spending rose by 76%, and the PLA’s war-fighting ability has vastly improved. In recent years, the Pentagon has staged multiple war games testing U.S. ability to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The American team has lost nearly all of them.
This increase in China’s capabilities has coincided with shifts in outlook. Statements from President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders characterize the U.S. as a declining power mired in division and dysfunction. They doubt America’s will to use force overseas, a mindset not discouraged by our disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Beijing believes that China is within reach of replacing the U.S. as the world’s dominant power.
In this context, a once-unthinkable event—a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan—has become possible, perhaps even likely. Senior U.S. naval officials have been especially blunt about this. “To us, it’s only a matter of time, not a matter of if,” Rear Adm. Michael Studeman, director of intelligence for the Indo-Pacific command, said earlier this year.
Not surprisingly, a multi-front debate has broken out about the future of U.S.-China relations. Optimists believe China has more to lose than to gain from a military conquest of Taiwan—and that Beijing’s leaders understand this. International trade, still their economic lifeblood, would be hurt, and countries who have stayed on the sidelines would take America’s side.
Pessimists retort that Mr. Xi has infused a new sense of urgency into reunifying his country and that it won’t be easy to walk back the nationalism he has spread.
For decades the U.S. has preserved “strategic ambiguity” about its response to a prospective Chinese attack on Taiwan. A public announcement that the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense would blow up the terms of the Shanghai Communiqué that began the process of normalizing the U.S.-China relationship in 1972 and of the Joint Communiqué re-establishing full diplomatic relations in 1979.
On the other hand, stating that America views this issue as an internal matter would encourage China’s leaders to treat Taiwan as a “breakaway province” and to reunify their country through any means necessary.
Many experts argue that the policy of strategic ambiguity has outlived its useful life and should be replaced with a hard guarantee to defend Taiwan from attack. Others reply that ending the policy would inflame nationalist sentiments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and encourage Beijing to escalate.
This is a tough call that rests on an assessment of Mr. Xi’s intentions. If he is considering military action in the belief that the U.S. would not come to Taiwan’s aid, an explicit statement of our commitment to Taiwan’s security could act as a deterrent. On the other hand, if Mr. Xi is bluffing by whipping up nationalist sentiment for domestic purposes, an explicit security guarantee could make him lose control of the sentiments he has roused.
The disquieting outcome of the Pentagon’s war games has sparked another debate: If the U.S. lacks the military wherewithal to deter China from invading Taiwan, what should we do about it? If current trends continue, China’s navy will be more modern and significantly larger than America’s by 2030.
The Hudson Institute’s Seth Cropsey has characterized the U.S. Navy’s current “divest to invest” strategy as misguided: Reducing the fleet of older, larger vessels to build smaller, more numerous ones will leave us dangerously exposed in the middle of this decade, the moment when many analysts believe the danger to Taiwan will be at its peak.
Instead, Mr. Cropsey argues, we should retain most of the current surface fleet and supplement it with items we can build—or buy from allies—fast enough to make a difference, a strategy that would require an annual increase of about 30% in the Navy’s shipbuilding budget. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies can improve Taiwan’s defense capabilities, and Taiwan can do more to defend itself.
No sane person wants war between China and the U.S., but a combination of clashing ambitions, strategic miscalculations and mutual misperceptions could land us in one, particularly if America doesn’t take the necessary steps to persuade Mr. Xi that we are not what he believes us to be—a declining power lacking the means and the will to defend our friends.
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