Sixty-nine years ago, former US secretary of state Dean Acheson delivered a speech defining the US’ strategic interests in Asia. He described a security perimeter that did not include South Korea or Taiwan.
Mao Zedong (毛澤東), Kim Il-sung and Joseph Stalin saw a green light and immediately began coordinating invasion plans for both nations.
Kim moved first and unleashed his armies across the 38th parallel, igniting the Korean War. Then-US president Harry Truman mobilized a UN intervention and sent the US Seventh Fleet back into the Taiwan Strait, blocking Mao from attacking Taiwan — and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from attacking China.
Ever since, China’s communist leaders have vowed to bring Taiwan under their control, by force if necessary. To avoid repeating Acheson’s wrong signal, then-US assistant secretary of defense Joseph Nye in 1995 told his Chinese counterparts that a decision to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack “would depend on the circumstances.”
That strategic ambiguity has kept China at bay for two decades, but has also motivated Beijing to build a massive arsenal of ballistic missiles and attack submarines to deter US intervention when China finally decides it is time to take Taiwan.
Soon after coming to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that “the Taiwan question cannot be passed from one generation to the next,” and has stepped up economic, diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan.
Other Chinese officials have dutifully echoed Xi’s threats with increasing frequency.
“The possibility for peaceful reunification is gradually dissipating,” former Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office deputy director Wang Zaixi (王在希) said in 2017.
Retired Chinese general Wang Hongguang (王洪光) in December last year told the People’s Daily: “There will very likely be military conflict.”
In its report to the US Congress last year, the US Department of Defense said: “The [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] is likely preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with China by force.”
What the US will do about it is much debated among academics and think tanks; many question the wisdom of defending Taiwan and risking a wider war with China — while Beijing naturally forms its own assessment of US will.
Responding to Chinese threats over Taiwan, the South China Sea and the East China Sea, the department’s National Defense Strategy names China — along with Russia — as “revisionist powers” seeking to undermine US interests in their regions and globally.
The strategy itself remains classified, and the unclassified summary by former US secretary of defense James Mattis sheds little light on how the new strategy will succeed in deterring or, if necessary, defeating Chinese or Russian aggression. The department has not amplified its strategic intent.
Instead, it was left to former US defense official Elbridge Colby, who helped draft the strategy, to explain its underlying strategic philosophy. He made this highly revealing statement in testimony before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services:
“Fortunately, our political-strategic goals ... are defensive. We hope only to prevent our allies and partners like Taiwan from being suborned or conquered by our opponents. We therefore must defeat Chinese or Russian invasions or attempts at suborning our allies, and force Beijing or Moscow to have to choose between unfavorably escalating — and demonstrating to all their aggressiveness and malign intent by doing so — or settling on terms we can accept. This, to emphasize, is a different goal than regime change or changing borders. Rather, it is about preserving the ‘status quo’ by favorably managing escalation to win limited wars,” he said.
However, even a limited war could cause major US losses — a Chinese admiral recently boasted that sinking a carrier or two could cost 5,000 to 10,000 US lives.
It is difficult to imagine the US public’s willingness to accept those kinds of losses simply to “preserve the ‘status quo’” without imposing far more punishing costs on China.
“Favorably managing escalation” would not sound very appealing in a scenario in which US deaths could exceeded those in Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, 2001, combined.
Beijing would welcome knowing that Washington had a self-imposed ceiling on its defense commitment to Taiwan — rather than being willing to do “whatever it takes,” as former US president George W. Bush once said.
Chinese leaders would be unlikely to stop at that point, if they were risking only bad publicity — “demonstrating to all their aggressiveness and malign intent.”
The Tiananmen Square Massacre and the cultural genocide against the Uighurs have shown how little Beijing fears the world’s temporary moral outrage.
For the conspiracy-minded, there could be another explanation for Washington’s professed strategy of self-restraint.
Following Sun Tzu’s (孫子) advice — “appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak” — perhaps a major strategic deception is in play. All the gloomy talk about diminished US capabilities and lowered war-fighting goals might be laying a credibility trap for Beijing on Taiwan.
If China gets lured into a false sense of superiority, it could overreach and make its aggressive move against Taiwan. That could provide the pretext hardliners have long coveted to deal a crushing blow to the People’s Republic of China before it further narrows the disparity in military capabilities — or at least give it enough of a “bloody nose” to deter further provocations.
Despite US President Donald Trump’s declared affection for Xi, all bets would be off if the Chinese leader resorts to violence over Taiwan.
It is not an implausible scenario for Beijing to consider. A mistaken action this time will have far greater long-term consequences for China than North Korea’s aggression did in 1950.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense. He is a fellow at the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies and a member of the advisory committee of the Global Taiwan Institute.
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