Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday.
China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College.
China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan to first stop at a Chinese port in Fujian Province, the report said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
This quasi-blockade, disguised as Beijing exercising customs law, would allow people and goods to flow freely, with exceptions such as weapons components, US military advisers and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) employees, it said.
As the move would not rupture critical supply chains, Taiwan’s semiconductors could still move freely to the US via China, although it would signify that Washington had been “checkmated,” it said.
Washington would ultimately bear the burden of escalation, a contingency for which it lacks strategies related to financial markets, economic response with allies, resupplying Taiwan or evacuating US and allied citizens, it said.
The US would be caught between destroying TSMC fabs to prevent China from accessing them — a devastating economic blow — or allowing China to seize the advantage in cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, it added.
The quasi-blockade would also have wider regional impacts, leaving Japan, the Philippines and South Korea vulnerable to similar coercion, it added.
The US and other Western countries must also pre-determine evacuation plans for the nearly 1 million foreign nationals in Taiwan, particularly as the effort would likely take more than a month, the article said.
Washington would face executing four contradictory plans at once: evacuating US citizens, reassuring Taiwan that it should not capitulate, reassuring financial markets and warning Beijing not to push further, it said.
Freymann suggested a four-pillar approach for Washington to respond to a “gray zone” crisis.
Politically, the US must deepen engagement with Taiwan through trade and investment agreements, energy security partnerships, public reassurances of continued support and ensuring Taiwan invests in its own defense, he said.
Militarily, it should prioritize asymmetric capabilities, including long-range munitions, drones, undersea warfare, electronic warfare and naval mines, while rebuilding logistics systems and industrial bases, he said.
Strategically, the US must keep modernizing its nuclear forces and delivery systems, deploy more intermediate-range capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region, and explore nuclear-sharing arrangements with Japan and South Korea, Freymann said.
It should further develop AI-enabled weaponry, such as cyberweapons, he added.
Economically, Washington must show China that the US and its allies could leverage a Taiwan crisis to their advantage, he said.
The four pillars would convince Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that a Taiwan crisis would not just be militarily costly, but “politically isolating, economically ruinous and strategically futile,” he added.
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