Ask yourself why is America defending Taiwan??? Most answers start with the ubiquitous ‘defending freedom’. As soon as that rolls off the tongue however people start trying to think deeper after realizing ‘freedom’ isn’t really a serious answer. Everyone wants freedom so why does America care about Taiwan specifically, a large island on the other side of the planet from America? Why is the US risking a nuclear war for the defense of Taiwan?
While I let you think about that question for one more paragraph let’s review China’s very deep and personal ties to Taiwan. China in the 19th century was carved up by many different world powers in it’s ‘Century of Humiliation’. In 1895 Japan took control of Taiwan that had been part of the Chinese Qing dynasty for about 250 years. Prior to that during the Ming dynasty the island had little association with mainland China. However hundreds of years is a long time to built ties and at the end of WWII when Japan was defeated Taiwan suddenly became a ‘spoils of war’ property. China reasserted it’s control over Taiwan and during the ongoing Chinese civil war one side escaped to Taiwan. That’s where the current situation began and why mainland China has such a strong attachment to Taiwan. It is seen as a part of China that was taken away by Japan and kept away by a civil war that outside forces intervened in to keep China under control. Those outside forces still support those rebel forces on the island, an ongoing insult to communist mainland China.
And that brings us back to the real reason the US supports an independent Taiwan. Communism. That great evil Americans have been taught to fight against since the elites of Russia were thrown out and had all their wealth taken away. Any system of government that promises to kick out all the ultra wealthy people is obviously very un-American at its most basic level. The promise that anyone can become super wealthy is literally the ‘American Dream’. Of course since the communists in China won their civil war America was, by default, against communist China. That meant supporting Taiwan almost from day 1. And support America has surely given this large island on the other side of the world. They have one of the best militaries in the world now as the Taiwanese have worked extremely hard to build up their country and spend resources to protect themselves. It’s a natural human response to an external power trying to take control of you.
However today is a much different world than just after World War II. China isn’t simply a ‘rising power’, it’s growing faster than any country in human recorded history. That growth has happened year over year for decades now. In fact the Chinese economy is set to overtake the US economy in 2026 by analysts at Nomura. And it isn’t just economic growth happening in China, it’s a high tech revolution occurring at the same time. Entire hi tech industries have sprung up in China out of thin air as the central government has poured Billions and Billions into critical industries to advance the country into the modern age. While the world laughs at ghost cities being built in China the truth is their central government has invested very wisely in economic infrastructure and the country is set to continue pivoting from cheap consumer good production into hi tech goods and keep growing well into the future.
This leaves Taiwan in an absolutely terrible situation. You’re sworn enemy, You’re unfinished civil war partner has grown so fast and has a population several orders of magnitude more than your rather small in comparison island. You barely survived the original civil war and now 70 years later have practically no chance at seriously defending your island. Even the US admitted that fact when a few years ago the best American military minds developed the ‘asymmetric warfare’ plan that Taiwan quickly adopted and has started implementing. Shifting it’s military spending from hi tech, low numbers signature military acquisitions to simple, effective and huge quantities of small weapons that can be hidden and used anywhere and everywhere. Guerrilla warfare is what military planners recommend when you have no chance to stop an enemy and simply have to live under their rule and attack them whenever and wherever they are vulnerable. Vietnam and Afghanistan being the best examples of countries that simply refused to be conquered and wrote the playbooks on how to survive invasions by ‘Superpowers’.
Why does the US recommend this military strategy after decades of selling Taiwan planes and tanks and mortars and all that good US military power? Well the brightest US military minds have War Gamed a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and the results aren’t pretty for the island…or anyone coming to defend it! Taiwan’s air force gets wiped out on the first day. Planes launch they get shot down with missiles and radar that cover the Island. Planes stay at their bases and precision missiles rain down and destroy them. Taiwanese ships need to hide on the far side of the island and even then likely get destroyed as soon as China has established air superiority and Taiwan runs out of anti-air missiles. Taiwan command and control infrastructure gets destroyed on the first day as Chinese missiles rain down on the island. They have so many now that all critical targets get multiple missiles launched at them. Taiwan can slow down any Chinese landing force however they can’t stop it and China quickly establishes a military beachhead on the island. At that point it’s a race for China to build up land forces on the island vs Taiwan trying to push them back into the sea. Given the size of China’s military and number of landing ships China wins nearly every time in the simulation.
The really scary part of the game is what happens when the US decides to intervene and protect Taiwan. The US fleet either gets wiped out by anti-ship missiles or the US air force is required to operate from bases far enough away to limit how much they can effectively deter China’s massive military invasion. Further those US bases in Japan and Korea get constantly missiled and face difficulties even operating. B 52’s from Guam come to the rescue with Harpoon missiles to sink lots of Chinese ships. It isn’t enough however and China still establishes a beachhead on Taiwan and resupplies enough to overwhelm Taiwanese forces.
All of this has been well understood for several years now. However what seems to be new lately is the US recognition that China’s new found aggressiveness in the South China Sea and India and in almost every international dispute likely means some significant action against Taiwan is coming sooner rather than later. ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’ is bad enough but China is backing it up with military aggression as well. Almost every land border dispute involving China has seen military flare ups recently…the most worrisome being the dispute with nuclear armed India. Even China’s new friend the Philippines can’t seem to avoid Chinese aggression and lose maritime territory to this expanding power. If stealing territory is how you treat your friends imagine how China plans to treat it’s sworn civil war enemy! US military leaders have significantly shortened the timeline for expected Chinese military aggression against Taiwan. They now expect Chinese military action within 6 years. One main reason for that is China’s hard push to become economically independent. American sanctions have effectively damaged many countries economies however China has pushed hard to build up critical industries to avoid crippling damage from possible US sanctions. Iranian Oil supply lines are being upgraded now with massive investment. Sooner rather than later China will be unafraid of US sanctions. It will have built up a large group of countries economically aligned with it in the new trade group China leads. Having witnessed the toothless sanctions applied against Russia for grabbing Crimea China must feel emboldened to forcefully reunite Taiwan. The world is simply too economically integrated for large scale sanctions to be placed on China, a country that supplies so many important products all over the world. China is simply too big for the world to seriously sanction and lose all the business opportunity that China offers. When your American dream is to make lots of money the idea of not letting citizens do business in the soon to be biggest world economy doesn’t really fit in all that well.
So what are potential US options for deterring China from taking over Taiwan? Well there are lots of ideas floating around the military complex think tanks. A popular one is to sell or lease Taiwan F35 b’s, the latest and best air superiority fighter jet. The B version is the short takeoff version, perfect for hiding as it doesn’t really need much of a runway at all. This idea is popular because it’s big business, not because it’s practical whatsoever. China blankets Taiwan with constant radar and anti-aircraft missiles. Anything larger than a baseball starts flying above Taiwan and China can shoot it down. Not only that small detail, but Taiwan is full of Chinese spies and the idea of having America’s crown jewel of the sky sitting there for them to get their hands on is rather crazy. Of course big business doesn’t let that deter them! Taiwan can ‘store’ the planes somewhere safe, like Korea! Hahaha! Ok Mr. LockHeed, let’s move on to some real ideas.
The US had a military base on Taiwan until 1979 so there is always the option to put another US base on the island. The Chinese response might be an immediate invasion however, so that might be a bad idea. Most countries around the world are quite happy to have US bases on their soil, Taiwan included. Not only are there huge economic benefits from thousands of soldiers living there but the promise of the US coming to defend their own soldiers is always much more believable than vague statements like the current ‘Taiwan Relations Act’. This was the updated US policy on Taiwan in 1980 when the US officially abandoned the ‘Sino American Mutual Defense Treaty’ that had protected Taiwan for decades. The new US policy was based on 'ambiguity’…will they come defend Taiwan or not…nobody knows! There are no promises in the new agreement.
Another protective idea is an ‘off island’ base plan where the US keeps 4 divisions located closer to Taiwan, ready to move to Taiwan at a moments notice. Long standing Okinawa base problems and Japanese refusal to allow any new bases seems to have stopped this ‘closer base’ plan. The cost of fighting through Chinese forces as they establish control over Taiwan is the original problem the US has in defending Taiwan’s independence anyway, so a ‘close base’ really doesn’t help as much as it might sound. Beyond these rather traditional ideas are other, more extreme ideas like Taiwan building up a massive submarine force or even developing nuclear missiles and turning into a North Korea type situation back against China.
Wait, Taiwan is building its own nukes???
Well in fact they were already assembling a full nuclear development program over 45 years ago! The "Hsin Chu" program assembled everything needed by Taiwan to build their own nuclear weapons. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in 1972 stated Taiwan’s clear intention to build and test nukes before 1980…showing how advanced the program already was at that time. In September 1976, the U.S. tried to extract a pledge from Taipei to forswear an independent nuclear weapons capability. They were given but they were never formally given. Of course in 1979 the US closed it’s military base on Taiwan and in 1980 dropped it’s formal defense treaty of the island. So this is a classic case of the US saying they will defend a country, forcing them to stop building nukes and then later deciding that an iron clad defense agreement was actually too diplomatically difficult.
Unsurprisingly in 1987 Taiwan was caught secretly building a hot cell facility for reprocessing nuclear waste, a critical step in getting your own supply of nuclear bomb making materials. Fuel rods were also found to be missing from one of their nuclear facilities. The program was officially shut down in 1988 and since then Taiwan has promised not to make their own nukes. They have no known uranium enrichment processing facilities, however experts admitted Taiwan has everything they need and could build a functioning nuclear weapon in 1-8 years. That was almost 35 years ago! Now Taiwan could literally be a nuclear power in all but name, we simply don’t know. Taiwan also has a rapidly improving missile technology sector and is now most likely capable of delivering a nuclear bomb.
I think you can see where this is all going…and going very quickly. US military planners are saying they can’t reasonably defend Taiwan and the country should prepare for guerilla warfare. China is becoming extremely aggressive and leading US military experts are suggesting China may invade Taiwan within the next 6 years. Taiwan promised not to build nukes, but broke that promise several times and developed infrastructure to advance their nuclear program. I’m not saying Taiwan is Iran…but Taiwan is Iran! The similarities are striking but simply a reflection in the geopolitical mirror. Iran is a sworn enemy of the USA. Taiwan is a sworn friend of the USA.
The choice for Americans is rather simple now to be honest. They can’t defend Taiwan and they still don’t want Communism to win and take Taiwan. They see how North Korea has caused them such huge political problems and China has failed to intervene in a meaningful manner. All the US has to do is look the other way in Taiwan and let them build what they need to defend themselves. The world will hardly blame Taiwan for building nukes and the US can always deny it knew what was happening.
The choice for China is very different however. Any indication Taiwan is building nukes would trigger an immediate decision by the Chinese leadership. Invade the island immediately and accept what military and diplomatic costs that come with that…or live forever with a nuclear armed Taiwan sitting a few hundred miles off your coast. When the USA was faced with that decision during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis we all know what the Superpower decided to do. Not many know that Cuba already had in fact nuclear armed missiles on site, ready to launch before the blockade and all the drama with the Soviet Union.
Thus my prediction that President Biden will be the last US President to sell weapons to Taiwan. The human instinct to defend yourself and your way of life at all costs is overwhelming. Accepting being conquered and fighting a guerilla war isn’t a good defense plan. I would be surprised if Taiwan isn’t secretly advancing it’s nuclear weapons technology right now as well as processing fissile material for those weapons…one way or another. In fact I’d guess the US is letting them do that while maintaining plausible deniability. What China will do when it finds out is a question we already know the answer to. It simply is a race to have the nukes built before China finds out. It’s a race with life or death consequences for millions.
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