Taiwan’s Darkened Future

“China may soon be able to . . . demand the United States get out of its back yard.”

--David Cohen, The Diplomat

Cohen means China is approaching the point where it can be confident that the U.S. won’t interfere with China’s Number One foreign policy goal: regaining control over its lost province of Taiwan.

The U.S. intends to decide by October 1 what to do about Taiwan’s request—strongly opposed by China—that the U.S. upgrade Taiwan’s aging aircraft inventory by selling the breakaway province 66 F-16 fighter jets. Reportedly, the U.S. has already come down against the sale.

As for any future administration’s approach to Taiwan, Texas Governor Rick Perry yesterday told the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention:

I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism. We should only risk shedding American blood and spending American treasure when our vital interests are threatened and we should always look to build coalitions . . . It’s not our interest to go it alone.

In the same speech, Perry did say America should be willing to “tak[e] the fight to the enemy, wherever they are, before they strike at home.” But does he mean attacking China to defend Taiwan? Not likely.

At a time of weak U.S. economic growth, traceable in part to our exploding deficit, a time when Republicans are looking at allowing large defense cuts rather than accept budget growth in both domestic and defense accounts, Perry’s more noteworthy comment was his caution against “military adventurism.” And that phrase could describe any U.S. military effort to stop China from reclaiming Taiwan.

It’s a fact that while our ability to defend Taiwan declines, China’s offensive military capabilities are on the rise. Richard Weitz, writing
in the Asian-focused journal Diplomat after reviewing the Pentagon’s recent re-evaluation of Chinese military power, chose these words to summarize the current U.S.-China balance of forces:

China’s development of ballistic missiles and other anti-access, area denial, and asymmetric capabilities is challenging US primacy in the sea and air near China. . . The Chinese apparently aim to disrupt US space satellites, computer systems, and . . . degrade US military capabilities . . . to establish a fait accompli, such as the occupation of Taiwan.

Similarly, the National Review’s Michael Auslin concluded:

When we [cut] hundreds of billions of dollars from the budgets of our Navy and Air Force, which keep the big peace in Asia, then the Chinese seem to be making a pretty good calculation that they just have to wait us out for a while before we’re too weak to oppose whatever whim they have on a given day.

Taiwan seems left with little beyond hopes and prayers. Andrew N.D. Yang, the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) Vice Minister (Policy), Ministry of National Defense, wrote in a recent Brookings Institution paper:

the ROC [Taiwan] is now proceeding toward volunteer forces . . . in an attempt to [modernize and] safeguard national security . . . It is hoped that the United States . . . will continue to support the ROC and expand exchanges and cooperation . . . Eventually, it is expected that United States will sell advanced defensive weapons to the ROC for self-defense.

While giving up the draft in favor of a volunteer army might seem an odd way to “modernize” one’s power, it does keep one’s military viable even after a country’s rising prosperity has built resentment against the draft. At least Taiwan can “modernize” ground forces on its own. But Yang’s wish that the U.S. will in the future sell Taiwan the planes it needs to hold off China remains just that—a wish.

Taiwan’s current government has placed the bulk of its security hopes in its Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China. The ECFA has significantly lowered economic barriers between the two, and tariffs on hundreds of products will be eliminated over time. John Lee of Sydney’s Centre for Independent Studies, however, believes the ECFA “is all about politics.” Lee adds that in China’s view “this is about enmeshing the two economies in such a way that Taiwan’s future is tied to China’s.”

Nevertheless, says Doug Bandow (in the Forbes article that quotes Lee):

Economic integration, exemplified by ECFA, is the centerpiece of the [ruling Kuomintang’s] policy. President Ma [Ying-jeou] declared: “We have transformed the Taiwan Strait from a danger zone into a peace corridor.” And the process is not over. [According to Ma associate] Chao Chien-min[,] “if President Ma is reelected [in January,] the current pace will be continued.”

For better, for worse. We had earlier hoped, in a calmer time when the U.S. seemed stronger and more solidly behind Taiwan, that Ma’s approach might indeed work.

Forty years ago, the U.S.-China relationship came out of its cold war deep freeze when Mao Zedong invited a U.S. ping pong team to play in China under the banner, “Friendship first, competition second.” It's so different now says Brook Larmer, writing in the Washington Post about this month’s Georgetown-Chinese army basketball “game”:

So how did it go so wrong. . . degenerating into all-out hostility early in the fourth quarter — sparking a bench-clearing, chair-heaving, game-ending brawl? [Was] this fight a grand metaphor for an emerging superpower seeking to supplant an established one[? After all, t]he 2008 Beijing Olympics were portrayed not just as another Games, but as incontrovertible proof, for all to see, that China had arrived as a world power.