Taiwan is not ready for China or Trump

Donald Trump was right when he warned at the Republican National Convention in July that China was “surrounding Taiwan” and that “a growing specter of conflict” loomed over the island. But his alleged concern did not stop him from signaling to Beijing that he might not intervene militarily if China launched an invasion. “Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he said in June, he sounds less like the would-be leader of the free world than a mobster running a missile defense.

Trump’s rhetoric shows how his re-election could undo the central promise underpinning the post-World War II order: that the United States would act as international cavalry, riding to the rescue of allies or at least trying to deter autocratic aggressors. This guarantee, explicit or implicit, has led countries within the US alliance network to stake their national security on US commitments. In Asia, for example, Japan has not developed a nuclear arsenal, even as Chinese leaders are expanding theirs, because the country is already under the American nuclear umbrella. But if the US loses the will to keep its promise under a second Trump presidency, or if other governments simply perceive that it has, the entire international security system could fall apart, potentially fueling regional arms races , nuclear proliferation and armed conflict – particularly over Taiwan.

Michael Schuman: Trump signals weakness to Xi Jinping

“In national defense, we must rely on ourselves,” Taiwan’s foreign minister said said in response to Trump’s comments this summer because “we stood alone against the threat of China” — which, he noted, has been true for decades. But Taiwan most likely could not defend itself against a large-scale invasion. The nation, which Beijing still considers part of China, is not only outgunned and outnumbered. More worryingly, its armed forces are plagued by poor planning and training, insufficient supplies, a sclerotic command system and weapons that may be ill-suited to defend against an invasion.

Taiwan’s forces “are not capable of any of the things that we would typically associate with a military that takes seriously a threat as determined, capable and imminent as China,” Michael Hunzeker, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in the military reform, he told me. Kitsch Liao, assistant director at the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington, DC, put the point more succinctly: “Taiwan’s military, in a word, is incompetent.”

The need for reform is more urgent than ever. China has significantly strengthened its military over the past decade, while Taiwan’s defense budget essentially aligned from 2000 to 2018. Reviewing its forces would at least help Taiwan survive long enough for the US to mobilize — a process that could take weeks, if not months — and bring international pressure to bear on China. Better yet, it could deter Beijing from invading.

Without reform, Taiwan’s military shortcomings would virtually force the US to intervene during a conflict if it is to maintain American power in Asia, given the vital strategic link Taiwan provides to the region. That could mean fighting a war on a scale not seen since World War II, at a time when much of the American public no longer supports US engagements abroad, even in much smaller forays.

Washington has long pursued a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, withholding any firm commitment to defend it in the belief that the mere possibility of American intervention will be enough to deter Chinese military action to reclaim the island. But escalating tensions between China and Taiwan have shaken that belief. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has taken a more hostile stance toward the government in Taipei since the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency in 2016. Concerned that Taiwanese authorities are preparing to declare formal independence, Beijing has tried to intimidate them by sending in jets buzzing near them. airspace and, as recently as this month, conducting military exercises off the coast of Taiwan. China’s aggression has heightened concerns in Washington that Xi is preparing to take Taiwan by force.

In response, President Joe Biden tried supports American deterrence by stating that the US would defend the island. Trump now suggests otherwise. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Last week, Trump said he should not use force to protect Taiwan from a Chinese blockade because, he claimed, Xi “respects me”. Instead, they would impose high tariffs on China if Beijing tried to attack Taiwan – which, they seem to think, would be a sufficient deterrent.

Michael Schuman: No more ‘strategic ambiguity’ in Taiwan

Taiwan’s apparent inability to defend itself is a puzzle. Small states have a long history of superior military performance. Ukraine has been able to hold its own against a much larger invading Russian army for nearly three years, albeit with large amounts of Western aid. Israel combined advanced technology with a motivated citizen army to secure an advantage over multiple enemies at once.

But Taiwan’s military has a troubled history. After the Kuomintang—the political party that ruled Taiwan for decades—came to the island from mainland China in 1949, its military served as an appendage to its leadership. After decades of martial law, democracy came in the 1990s. Many Taiwanese saw the military as a tool of repression and feared that its officers would meddle in politics, so the newly elected leadership scaled back the armed forces. “But the cuts have gone too far,” Ian Easton, a professor at the US Naval War College’s China Institute of Maritime Studies, told me. Certain crucial units, such as marines, logistics support and combat engineers, “appear to be well below the levels that would be ideal to defeat an invasion,” he added.

Taiwan’s political and military leaders may also suffer from a sense of fatalism—perhaps inadvertently encouraged by American policy. The Taiwanese military “has existed for 70 years in a security bubble largely guaranteed by the United States, and it has created all kinds of moral hazard,” George Mason’s Hunzeker argued. The leadership sees a potential war as “either a clash of the titans or we lose fast,” he said, creating the belief that if an invasion comes, “it’s either America or nothing.”

Such defeatism might be misplaced. China would likely have enough difficulty taking Taiwan by force that the West and its allies would have time to complicate the attack. As Liao, the director of the Atlantic Council, told me, a Chinese invasion across the Taiwan Strait would be “the largest amphibious campaign in human history.” Taiwan’s coastline has few easy places for Chinese troops to land, and if they were to gain a beachhead, they would face stiff resistance. Such a bloody, protracted and costly battle could become unpopular in China and politically risky for its leaders. As a result, military analysts believe Beijing will not attempt to invade without first trying to weaken Taiwan’s morale and resources by launching cyber attacks, imposing blockades and sowing domestic political dissent.

However, critics argue that Taiwan will not have the appropriate weapons systems to defend itself in the event of an invasion. The military relies heavily on advanced and expensive surface ships, fighter jets and other conventional equipment. But China will probably be able to target and destroy these weapons quickly. That’s why some military experts argue that Taiwan should overhaul its military and invest in what Hunzeker calls “a large number of cheap, mobile and lethal assets,” including drones, short-range missiles and small craft, which what would be more difficult for China. to locate and eliminate and would cause immense damage to the Chinese invaders. Taiwan could also develop a territorial defense force—a citizen militia to challenge Chinese troops in every town and street. The goal behind these reforms is to turn Taiwan into a military “pig-bag” capable of deterring aggressors by promising to inflict substantial pain if they attack.

But this strategy is controversial in Taiwan. Alexander Huang, a professor of strategic studies at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, says the island’s armed forces need conventional weapons to counter incursions by Chinese aircraft and protect crucial shipping in the event of a blockade. “A porcupine may be hard to chew, but it could starve,” he told me. In addition, Huang believes that a territorial defense force would be “almost impossible” to create in Taiwan. “Urban warfare, town by town, and jump into the meat grinder — it’s very Hollywood, it’s very Ukraine,” he said. But, he continued, Taiwanese society is not “psychologically prepared” for such a conflict.

Taiwan’s government instituted some changes – increased recruitment, increased military spending, investment in drones and mobile missiles. But critics fear such measures fall far short of the comprehensive reform that gives Taiwan’s military a chance against China. More optimistically, Huang says Taiwan is “on the right track” but needs “at least five to 10 years of peace and stability before we can transform our military.”

Whether Beijing will allow Taiwan that moment is an open question. Taiwan’s military shortcomings lend some credence to Trump’s complaint that America’s allies are not paying enough for their own defense and handing too much responsibility over to the United States — a burden that a second Trump administration may not be committed to shouldering.

If the US will not support the global security system, it cannot expect its partners to do so alone. The international order will weaken, a development Xi will be ready to exploit. Perhaps America’s best hope is that it will find the decision to attack Taiwan as painful as Trump finds the thought of defending it.