Why is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not a “happy camper” these days regarding Taiwan? Taiwanese have not become more “CCP friendly” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) use of spies and graft by the United Front Work Department, intimidation conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police/Coast Guard, and endless subversive political warfare measures, including cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and diplomatic isolation.
The percentage of Taiwanese that prefer the status quo or prefer moving towards independence continues to rise — 76 percent as of December last year. According to National Chengchi University (NCCU) polling, the Taiwanese cohort who want “unification” with the CCP is shrinking — currently 13.3 percent (down from a high of 26.1 percent in 2018).
Consequently, Xi (or his replacement) will have only one alternative: applying Article 8 of the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which states that if “possibilities for peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state [the People’s Republic of China (PRC)] will employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The CCP appears to be losing confidence in the “peaceful” unification plan with Taiwan. In June of last year, the PRC published a legal instruction enhancing the PRC Criminal Code, Articles 103 and 113 against “Taiwan independence diehards.” This new instruction clarifies punishments for those who support Taiwan independence, or organize, plot, or conduct schemes of “splitting the State or undermining the country’s unity.” Punishments for these crimes include the death penalty.
If the CCP were confident of “peaceful” unification, why would it update the law to increase threats to freedom-loving Taiwanese? Answer: the CCP leadership believes more coercion will make Taiwanese more submissive, cowardly, and unwilling to fight for their political independence and freedom.
Given that war is coming (although many Taiwanese — like Israelis on Oct. 6 2023 who thought Hamas was deterred — are in denial about the threat), this article provides the US and Taiwan “forbidden” suggestions by previous US and Taiwanese administrations and certainly by the CCP.
US President Donald Trump is an out-of-the-box thinker and an “uber” negotiator. His ideas for the US to gain control of Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, and even Gaza, have garnered respect and scowls. This article will get the same reception.
Listed below are two key challenges and six courses of action (COA) that could be pathways for Taiwan to avoid the CCP’s “red terror.”
Americans wonder whether Taiwan’s failure to prepare seriously to defend itself for war means Taiwanese do not intend to fight. Since last year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have eroded Taiwan’s defense through a series of legislative maneuvers: freezing budgets, reallocating defense funds to other purposes, cancelling investments or cutting new weapon systems budgets (e.g., the submarine budget has been cut in half, funds to develop unmanned aerial vehicles have been reduced, and efforts to counter CCP propaganda have been feeble). Taiwan must increase its defense capabilities to deter the CCP.
The public should demand an end to the turmoil in the Legislative Yuan that prevents growth of the budget to equip and train the Republic of China (ROC) military. The governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is currently gathering votes to recall at least 32 (up to 40) KMT/TPP legislators. If the DPP can change the composition of the Legislative Yuan to a DPP majority, then the DPP can address this challenge by increasing the defense budget to meet the needs of national security. President William Lai (賴清德) says that Taiwan would reach 3 percent of GDP spending for defense this year. However, barring a change in the legislature, the actual budget will be 2.45 percent, a decrease from last year’s 2.5 percent budget.
Taiwan has large foreign currency reserves (US$577.58 billion as of January this year) and holdings in foreign securities (US$1.3 trillion) or almost US$2 trillion in total. Taiwan is the fourth-largest holder of foreign currency reserves in the world, trailing only China (US$3.27 trillion), Japan (US$1.08 trillion) and Switzerland (US$822.0 billion).
Spending an additional US$20 billion per year from the foreign reserves (1 percent of total foreign assets) on defense to reach US$40 billion per year (5 percent of GDP) is doable. If the government does not spend it now, then someone else (the CCP) will.
On Jan. 27 this year, Trump proposed up to 100 percent tariffs on semiconductors made in Taiwan. The announcement shocked many Taiwanese since they believed that Taiwan would be exempt from tariffs.
How could this and other tariffs benefit Taiwan? I propose that the US use the income from these Taiwanese tariffs to pay for weapons that Taiwan cannot produce themselves. In other words, the defense budget for purchasing foreign weapons would shift from the Legislative Yuan to the US government. This means that money planned for Taiwan’s external weapons budget could shift to spending on extended training and more military personnel, especially reservists.
Most Taiwanese and Americans do not know that only 7 perccent of Taiwan’s 1.66 million reservists receive any training after they complete their mandatory service. Currently, during a two-year cycle, 50,000 personnel receive one week of training while 8,000 receive two weeks of training per year. In other words, every two years 116,000 reservists receive training out of 1.5 million available reservists. Moreover, the training period is not credible for preparing for war with China. [Editor’s note: Males are eligible for military service from the age of 18; according to the Ministry of Education, last year more than 86 percent of Taiwanese continued their studies at university after school.]
Taiwan must increase the numbers of trained reservists dramatically and the length of training should be at least 30 days every year (not every other year). This training should be the focus of the ROC military.
For comparison, starting this year, Israel’s IDF will call up 465,000 reservists for at least 42 days of operational duty each year. Israel’s population (9 million) is less than half of Taiwan’s population (23 million). If a smaller country like Israel can call up almost four times the reservists for 42 days of training every year, Taiwan should be able to train at least 1 million reservists annually for more than two weeks.
738,000 US reservists and National Guard members are required to serve a minimum of 38 days a year (one weekend per month and two weeks of training).
Originally, Taiwanese served two to three years depending on the service they chose. Currently, Taiwan’s conscription is one year. Other democratic countries such as South Korea (18 to 21 months), Singapore (22-24 months), Israel (36 months for men and 24 months for women) already do more time. The legislature should restore Taiwan’s required military service to at least two years. Increasing the time period served will also increase the number of personnel available, trained, and ready for combat. Approximately 100,000 males become eligible every year for conscription, which means that 200,000 trained personnel would be immediately available to support the active force.
But Taiwan needs to fix another problem. The new one-year conscription law allows too many exemptions. Last year, the ROC military drafted only 9,127 out of 107,713 eligible males (8.5 percent). An outside observer would note there are too many exemptions to avoid or postpone service. The sparse number of conscripts and lack of combat ready reservists means that the active-duty volunteer force of 188,000 will have to fight the full force of the PLA in a war.
Secondly, the CCP has its own timeline for a Taiwan invasion. Taiwan and the US need to change the calculus so that the CCP must re-assess and delay their timeline.
Thirdly, in 1955, US Congress passed the Formosa Joint Resolution authorizing then-US president Eisenhower to employ the Armed Forces of the United States for protecting the security of Formosa [Taiwan], the Pescadores and related positions and territories of that area. This Joint Resolution was the equivalent of Congress’ passing the Authorization for Use of US Armed Forces (AUMF) for then-US president George W. Bush in 2001.
If the US Congress updated the wording of the AUMF for Taiwan, then Trump could have greater freedom of action in dealing with CCP aggression and enhance deterrence. Additionally, the War Powers Act would also require Trump to inform Congress within 48 hours of his intent to deploy forces in and around the First Island Chain to proactively protect Taiwan, our allies (Japan, Philippines, South Korea, and others), and our vital interests.
Fourth, Taiwan and the US should re-establish a Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). The MDT could be a bilateral MDT and/or a multilateral MDT to incorporate South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and others. This would be a rebirth of the Northeast Asia Treaty Organization (NEATO) + 1 (Philippines) which former secretary of state Dulles proposed in 1954. A nascent version of NEATO already exists with the US-Japan-ROK [South Korea] Trilateral Security Pact.
Firfth, three options exist for Taiwan to be a US territory such as an unincorporated territory (Guam), unincorporated unorganized territory (American Samoa) and incorporated unorganized territory (Palmyra Atoll). However, the best option would be to sign a Compacts of Free Association (CFA) with the US such as the Freely Associated States (FAS): Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. The FAS are sovereign, UN member states that have a negotiated bilateral CFA with the US. The US is responsible and has the authority for FAS defense and security matters.
Sixth, the US could make Taiwan a state. This proposal is not so far-fetched. In the 1850s, two diplomats stationed at the US Consulate in Formosa even proposed this policy.
In conclusion, the US and Taiwan should explore all of the above COAs and others in more detail to short-circuit future attempts by the CCP to annex Taiwan. The most successful scenarios for US COAs are tariffs, Taiwan AUMF and MDT due to their short timelines and the current US political support for Taiwan. The other options are less likely due to internal politics (COA #1), or the remaining COAs would take too long (#5 and #6). Let us hope that the US and Taiwan seize the opportunity to prevent the CCP’s red terror.
Guermantes Lailari is a retired US Air Force Foreign Area officer specializing in counterterrorism, irregular warfare, missile defense, and strategy. He holds advanced degrees in international relations and strategic intelligence. He was a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellow in 2022, a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University and National Defense University in 2023, and is a visiting researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in 2024.
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