By Samuel Shih
Introduction
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s exemplary response, the global profile and knowledge about Taiwan, formally the Republic of China, has been higher than ever. With a growing Taiwanese nationalist movement present in the political and social fabric of Taiwanese society and domestic desires in the PRC to “reunite” with Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party has responded by placing all means of “reunification” with Taiwan, including force, back on the table. The US, as one of the counterbalances to China in East Asia, will be expected to defend Taiwan through military means. After all, a core piece of rhetoric that has continuously appeared within American foreign policy, as it did in the Taiwan Relations Act, is ensuring protection of friendly democracies like Taiwan. At the same time, a physical “hot” war between the United States and China would be incredibly destabilizing to not only East Asia but the broader world as other nations take side or act themselves as well. Therefore, this policy note seeks to explore how the US can peacefully ensure Taiwan’s continual survival in the face of continuous PRC hostility.
Background context
- The military situation between Taiwan and China
The situation between Taiwan and China is tense due to the CCP’s desire to reunify the mainland with Taiwan, or as Chairman Xi puts it: the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” even though Taiwan has never been under the control of the CCP. Xi has stated that all options, including force, are on the table to bring Taiwan under CCP control. In the case of a military conflict, it would be an understatement to claim that Taiwan would face long odds. In terms of pure numbers, according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Defense, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) expenditure last year topped $250 billion, dwarfing Taiwan’s defense budget of $11 billion, while the number of active forces between the two is 12:1 in the PLA’s favor. Such a gap will only widen as Xi continues to pour more resources into enhancing the PRC’s military.
Given this situation, Taiwanese military leaders prepared an “Overall Defense Strategy” in case of a PRC invasion. The plan redefines winning as preventing the PLA from successfully invading and establishing political control over Taiwan. The ODC’s three tenets for the Taiwanese military are: 1) force preservation (in other words refusing to strike first); 2) improving conventional capabilities such as fighter jets, and 3) asymmetric capabilities, which refers to weapon systems that exploit Taiwan’s physical advantages and the PLA’s vulnerabilities while delivering maximum tactical impact with minimal effort. In terms of actual strategy, the ODS’s three pillars are: 1) force protection, 2) decisive battle in the littoral zone, and 3) destruction of the enemy at the landing beach (Lee and Lee, 2020). Despite such extensive plans, simulations by the Department of Defense and by Taiwan’s own military have generally resulted in the PLA’s favor.
PRC military exercises in and/or near the Taiwan Strait have also become larger and more frequent over the past four years, with 2020 seeing a significant increase in the number and size of such exercises. More significantly, PRC combat aircraft routinely approach and even cross Taiwan’s de facto line of control to intimidate and test Taiwan’s air defenses. In response, Taiwan’s actions have generally been those of self-defense through sending their own fighters to intercept and request the Chinese planes to leave. For its part, the US Navy has increased its passages through the Taiwan Strait and its officers continue to conduct training programs with the Taiwanese Navy. In 2020, U.S. naval vessels transited through the Taiwan Strait nine times in a sign of deterrence.
- Internal problems within the Taiwanese military
At the time of her first inauguration in 2016, President Tsai had a set of extensive reforms to strengthen Taiwan’s military in the face of an increasingly hostile Beijing. However, today, Beijing is stronger than ever while Taiwan’s military today is in worse shape than it has ever been and continues to move towards a volunteer-based force (Wuthnow, 2020). The reform launched in 2015 reduced the military to below 200,000 active soldiers and the military has been unable to meet the quota of volunteers. Most importantly, fewer active soldiers means more stress and work for existing troops who must perform multiple tasks.
Issues with the reforms are simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems with Taiwan’s military are simply the tip of the problem with Taiwan’s military. Tanner Green, a notable East Asian relations and military analyst, argues that the most important aspect for Taiwan during a potential invasion is a general will to win the war. For now, the political discourse has been geared towards an expectation of foreign intervention in Taiwan’s favor. The Taiwanese arms purchases have been biased towards expensive, high-tech platforms that are flashy but of limited utility in an actual conflict with the PLA. It might have made tactical sense in the past where the PLA’s main advantage was numbers but now, the PLA has at least parity on almost every weapons system the Taiwanese can buy from the US in the future. Even with these weapons, officers are often not well trained on how to use them. In 2020 alone, a Blackhawk crashed in New Taipei, killing the Chief of the General Staff of the Military, and a F-16 jet and its pilot went missing and still have not been found. These incidents can hardly be classified isolated incidents and is the most recent symptom of poor training within the Taiwan military.
- Taiwan-US relations and cooperation
While the US severed relations with Taiwan in 1979 and forged new diplomatic ties with the Chinese mainland, the PRC, there has generally been continuous bipartisan support for Taiwan ever since, shown most notably in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the consistent sale of arms by each administration since 1979. During the process of normalization with the PRC, the US gave six assurances to Taiwan, including commitments to not set a termination date for arms sales to Taiwan (H.Con.Res.88 – Reaffirming the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances as cornerstones of United States-Taiwan relations, 2015). These six assurances have been confirmed several times since, most recently in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. In addition, the US’s “One China” policy acknowledges the position that “there is but one China”, it does not have a specific position over the sovereignty of the island of Taiwan and advocates instead for a peaceful resolution of differences.
The TRA has provided the legal and popular basis for arms sales to Taiwan when requested, though each administration has changed how they balance relations with the PRC and Taiwan’s arms requests. While in past administrations, including the Bush and Obama administrations, Taiwanese arms requests have sometimes been only partially fulfilled, such as choosing to provide upgrades to Taiwan’s existing fighter jets instead of selling new fighters, the Trump administration has been generous when granting Taiwanese arms requests. The Biden administration has shown extraordinary support to diplomatic engagement with Taiwan as well and will most likely be equally if not more generous with arms sales. There have also been consistent legislative or executive actions aimed at increasing ties with Taiwan including the 2018 Taiwan Travel Act and the 2020 TAIPEI Act.
Maintaining the status quo is particularly important for the US and American companies not just for the symbolical value of fulfilling America’s goal of spreading and promoting democracy. Indeed, Taiwan also has various important firms critical to both national securities and many American companies’ economic success, including TCSM (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing) and Foxconn. At the same time, while these interests are important, strengthening relations with Taiwan and the perception by the PRC that these relations violate the Three Communiqués that established PRC-US relations have led to severe negative consequences for the US’s political and economic goals, most notably the worsening of relations between the US and China. Generally speaking, the Three Communiqués are seen as on a level equivalent to a treaty meaning that violating the Three Communiqués would be violating international law and allow the PRC to take legally coercive acts against the US (Li, 2006).
Promoting Effective Engagement with Taiwan and the International Community
Based on the above, three crucial elements stand out as pivotal to Taiwan’s future: 1) the PRC’s perception of the state of Taiwanese nationalism, 2) Taiwan’s international standing, and 3) Taiwan’s military preparedness.
- Relations between the PRC and Taiwan
The importance of the cross-strait is easy to understand. The main threat to Taiwan’s independence comes from the PRC who is taking provocative actions and rhetoric due to their perception of Taiwan becoming more likely to declare independence and refusing to abide by the One China Principle, something the Tsai administration has completely renounced. While it is understandable that the Tsai administration would want to distance itself from an informal diplomatic agreement that links it with China, this act has led to greater tensions in the cross-strait relations and indirectly, US-China relations. Not helping the situation is the home-grown Taiwanese nationalism movement that reached new heights fueled by the Hong Kong protests which drew a perception of the CCP as being untrustworthy. However, given their place and interests in this situation, the US cannot support either of the sides’ extreme desires. They cannot support Taiwanese independence lest war break out nor capitulate to CCP demands and allow Taiwan to come under the control of an authoritarian regime. Therefore, the US needs to work with both the Taiwanese administration to temper the official rhetoric regarding Taiwanese nationalism and the PRC administration to lower their bombastic rhetoric and return to a discussion of unification by peaceful means. Both sides are unlikely to be willing to reach such an agreement, meaning the US could have to send two messages to the two actors. To Taiwan, the US could pause the future of Taiwanese-American governmental cooperation until the Taiwanese government turns its rhetoric while the US could convince China to cooperate by placing the possibility of lifting or adding new sanctions on the table while promising not to recognize Taiwan as an independent country.
- Public Relations with the rest of the International Community
While cross-strait relations are in the stages of improving, Taiwan must improve its standing in the world so that if an invasion of Taiwan is even hinted at in the future by the PRC, the international consequences of doing so would severely outweigh any potential benefits of the invasion. This would mean further integrating Taiwan into the international community through Taiwan’s active participation in international organizations. Realistically, due to Beijing’s likely objections, they would have to do so as Chinese Taipei as they’ve done before in the past, but this would still go a ways in helping Taiwan become recognized as a state by its colleagues.
The United States can help with this effort by deepening non-political ties with Taiwan. Given the general distaste that the PRC has shown with American engagement with Taiwan, deepening non-political ties could be done through companies and individual cities. The former is particularly important as the mayors of major cities in Taiwan, such as Taipei City, Kaohsiung, Taichung, are influential political actors and often use their position as mayors as steppingstones to the presidency. Forming relationships with various municipal Taiwanese governments would help fulfill US aid to Taiwan without disturbing the US-China relationship. While there is a large possibility that the PRC would register its objections to these acts, the US should take strong steps to demonstrate how these acts would be beneficial for all three parties involved and that the US will not move from this stance.
There of course is the often-cited move of recognizing Taiwan as an independent country but it would be very risky with little true reward for the US. Nonetheless, if the US were to go about this, the best way would be to recognize the Republic of China as a nation, not Taiwan itself. That way, it creates a Two-China situation that leaves the door open for unification, something more tolerable to the PRC than an independent Taiwan with no intention of unification.
- Re-strengthening the Taiwanese military
Another large problem is that the military simply is not ready for an invasion. While no formal survey has been conducted, individual interviews with conscripts conducted by foreign military analysts have revealed serious deficiencies in the conscription program and the military itself. For one, some artillery officers have allegedly never seen their own mortars fired, and in some divisions, conscripts have never actually shot a gun before, allegedly due to a limited supply of bullets (Vocus, 2018). Returning to Tanner Green, his interviews revealed that conscription left them with “stories of officers communicating orders through Whatsapp, time spent learning Army songs and doing yard-work instead of on maneuver drills, and how the totality of their marksmanship training consisted of firing one magazine from a single (prone) position on some eight to ten occasions.” Clearly, much work is needed. The US can pressure Taiwan to spend more money on basic aspects of its defense (having enough supplies for an invasion for example) to prove its sincerity in resisting a potential Chinese invasion. While it would be quite difficult due to domestic Taiwanese politics in favor of getting rid of conscription, America could threaten to refuse to help Taiwan in the event of an invasion unless Taiwan chooses to take decisive steps such as increasing the military budget to 3% of GDP and prioritizing and improving basic and reserve training (perhaps with American forces). This would not only restrengthen Taiwan’s military but sharpen the will of the general population by making them understand that they, not the United States, will be the main line of defense which will be the most important factor in determining how fast the invasion will conclude and whether the US would have enough time to mount an effective response.
Potential PRC Response
Naturally, the response of the PRC should be considered in crafting policy responses. On the economic front, it is likely that US moves to increase ties with Taiwan even at local levels will be unacceptable to the PRC, which could increase tensions in the existing trade war. Politically, these acts could be viewed as a violation of the Three Communiqués and so the rhetoric and “Wolf-Warrior” style diplomacy could increase with the risk of a physical war becoming a real possibility, the opposite of what the US would want. More likely, tangentially related issues such as dialogue and cooperation with Iran or the Xinjiang camps could be severely limited, hurting other American foreign policy objectives. In China domestically, a perception that these moves by the US are interfering with domestic Chinese matters could cause a flare-up in Chinese nationalism that, at a certain point, could push Xi into a war, whether he wants it or not. To avoid such a situation, the US would need to consult with the PRC on each of these acts to 1) get a sense of the potential Chinese reaction and 2) negotiate with the PRC to see what options would be acceptable for both sides but still protect Taiwan.
Recommendations
There are no policy choices without consequences when it comes to the United States and Taiwan. The PRC undoubtedly poses a serious threat, but their threats can be mitigated through greater dialogue. The following are suggested measures to develop balanced, multifaceted ties.
- Encourage the improvement of cross-Strait dialogue: The US should actively support the restoration and development of dialogue and official and informal communication channels across the Taiwan Strait. This advocacy can be done through nongovernmental channels in Taiwan and China to achieve viable alternative avenues for communication. In addition, policymakers in the State Department should make it clear to all involved parties that increased ties with Taiwan should not come at the expense of US-China ties.
- Advocate for Taiwan’s participation in international fora: Statehood is not universally mandated for participation within the international community so the US should work with the PRC to achieve consent for Taiwan to participate in international organizations, making it clear that such participation would not indicate that Taiwan is a state. Then the US should build coalitions that push for Taiwan to participate as an observer in international institutions and thus make the cost of invading Taiwan greater than any domestic or economic prize Beijing could hope to get with an invasion.
- Expand exchanges at lower levels: U.S. and Taiwan officials should continue to increase visits albeit at a lower level, such as a municipal level. Moreover, the US could use the Global Cooperation and Training Framework programs to allow Taiwan to share expertise and elevate the profile of Taiwan’s contributions and collaboration with the international community.
- Sustain defense cooperation with a specific focus on military basics: The U.S. and Taiwan should engage in a full range of security cooperation focusing on training. However, given how disastrous even a victorious war with China would be for the US, the US should refrain from stating that they would respond to the mainland’s use of any force against Taiwan. Military tensions in the Taiwan Strait run high and the potential for misunderstandings should prompt defense cooperation to be taken in a low-profile manner.
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