As the local media continue to ponder over the events in Kabul, many have rightly pointed out the folly of comparing Afghanistan with Taiwan. Culturally, politically, economically and geographically, the two countries are poles apart. Nevertheless, the hasty withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, and the country’s return to rule under the oppressive Taliban regime, has ignited a debate within Taiwan over whether the US can be relied upon to come to its defense.
On Tuesday last week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) wrote on Facebook: “I want to tell everyone that Taiwan’s only option is to make ourselves stronger, more united and more resolute in our determination to protect ourselves.”
“It is not an option for us to do nothing ... and just rely on other people’s protection,” the president wrote.
It was an uncharacteristically forthright intervention by Tsai, designed to ram home an important home truth to the Taiwanese public: The events in Afghanistan demonstrate that Washington will eventually lose patience with any US protectorate or ally that cannot stand on its own two feet or is not prepared to fight for its own survival.
Moreover, Taiwan cannot assume that this or any future US administration would muster sufficient political support at home to place US troops in harm’s way to defend a far-flung nation about which the average American knows very little.
As Tsai said, Taiwan must improve its defense autonomy. Taiwanese politicians and military planners can no longer assume that the nation only needs to hold out against China for a couple of days and US carrier strike groups would sail over the horizon to the rescue. Not only might this be militarily impossible, given China’s investment in anti-access area denial capabilities — it might also be politically impossible.
If Taiwan were perceived to be skimping on its defense, causing the military balance across the Taiwan Strait to tip categorically in favor of China, a future US administration might determine that Taiwan is a lost cause, and scale down its costly naval and air force presence in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, which provides an important deterrence against Chinese aggression.
Were Beijing to call Washington’s bluff and launch an invasion of Taiwan, to a US president staring down the barrel of a gun, a tactical retreat to shore up the defenses of the more populous and larger economies of Japan and South Korea might seem like an appealing option. Taiwan could become this generation’s Czechoslovakia: a sacrificial morsel of red meat tossed to China in a futile attempt to satiate its voracious appetite.
Taiwan’s geostrategic value appears unassailable. Like a cork stopping a bottle, Taiwan’s position in the first island chain effectively contains China’s navy. However, everything in the world has a price. If Beijing makes the price of defending Taiwan too high for Washington to stomach — and if the US has successfully developed its own advanced semiconductor production — then all bets are off.
It cannot be a coincidence that a source within the Ministry of National Defense last week disclosed a plan to inject an additional NT$200 billion (US$7.16 billion) into indigenous missile defense capabilities to accelerate the mass production of precision and long-range missiles, including hypersonics. This is an astute move that would furnish the military with a potent asymmetric deterrent ahead of schedule, and signal to Washington that Taiwan is serious about defending itself.
Taiwan is a mature democracy that has come of age and must now stand on its own two feet. Afghanistan is an object lesson of a US protectorate that failed to get its house in order. Taiwan must not make the same mistake.
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) has said that the armed forces must reach a high level of combat readiness by 2027. That date was not simply picked out of a hat. It has been bandied around since 2021, and was mentioned most recently by US Senator John Cornyn during a question to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday. It first surfaced during a hearing in the US in 2021, when then-US Navy admiral Philip Davidson, who was head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said: “The threat [of military