Taking
these military steps is critical, but more needs to be done. This is
because, properly understood, deterrence is an exercise in
political-psychological persuasion, and it has never been solely a
calculation of who possesses more military assets. Deterrence requires
an extensive toolkit, including diplomatic patience, nuance, surprise,
brinkmanship, and also reassurance and credibility. It is this holistic
view of deterrence that is needed in Washington today. Key
features of a more effective strategy include a measured U.S. approach
to diplomacy that avoids provocative political stunts and a renewed
effort to build a deeper, wider, and stronger coalition of countries to
support Taiwan’s continued security and prosperity. To preserve the
peace in Asia, Washington must adopt a more comprehensive vision of
deterrence that not only prevents an outright invasion or blockade, but
also ensures that Taiwan’s economy, democracy, and people can flourish.
DO NOT RISK IT
Although
Washington’s current conception of deterrence relies on defense, its
policy on using force in the Taiwan Strait has long been ambiguous. The
1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which continues to guide U.S. policy, states
that that the use of force or direct violence to “determine Taiwan’s
future” would be seen as a threat to the “peace and security of the
Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.” This is
not an explicit or unconditional guarantee of U.S. intervention,
although it does strongly suggest that a Chinese invasion would provoke a
direct U.S. response. But by themselves, words on a page will not give
Beijing pause. Rather, successful deterrence depends on Beijing’s belief
that current and future U.S. administrations, irrespective of party
affiliation, would risk the lives of U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if
China attacked. Should Beijing doubt this—or perceive that the United
States’ commitment is unsteady or tied to superficial concerns, such as a
wish to retain its access to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry—then its
calculations may well shift.
But
even assuming that the United States does maintain sufficient military
capability and the credibility of its use, these efforts will go only so
far to ensure Taiwan’s continued peace and prosperity. Beijing defines
its claim to Taiwan as core to the political legitimacy of the Chinese
Communist Party and critical to China’s own national security. Over more
than 70 years, Chinese leaders have declared their intention to assert
control over Taiwan, framing its ultimate “return” to China as a
foundational goal of the CCP. It is hard to conceive of any scenario
whereby the CCP leadership would entirely abandon its ambitions on
Taiwan based on a calculation of military power. After all, Beijing’s
appetite for absorbing Taiwan did not diminish during the second half of
the twentieth century, even as the United States enjoyed absolute
military superiority relative to China.
Indeed, Taiwan has long been the issue that threatened to bring the United States and China
into open conflict. In 1958, U.S. military planners contemplated a
nuclear strike on China after CCP Chairman Mao Zedong shelled
Taiwan-controlled islands. In 1995, angered by Taiwan leader Lee
Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, Chinese President Jiang Zemin
ordered the launch of missiles into the waters off Taiwan’s coast. In
response, U.S. President Bill Clinton sent a carrier strike group toward
the Taiwan Strait. Back then, the United States could more freely
undertake such responses, since it enjoyed comprehensive dominance over
the Chinese military. Today, Washington faces a far more powerful
Chinese military that, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, is
on track to have 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.
For
now, Beijing likely appreciates that a direct assault on Taiwan would
be prohibitively costly for China. But if Xi comes to believe that the
political cost of inaction in the Taiwan Strait poses an existential
threat to the CCP’s rule, he or his successors may well take enormous
risks, including a dramatic military escalation. Xi would entertain such
an approach only if all other avenues to unification were closed or if
he calculated that restraint carried the highest political risk. There
are several such scenarios that could prompt Xi to act. For example,
were Taiwan to formally declare independence, Beijing might well resolve
that a significant military escalation was its only politically
acceptable choice. An appreciation of this risk explains why the vast
majority of the Taiwanese people prefer the status quo.
NO MORE GIMMICKS
Deterrence,
therefore, cannot be understood in exclusively military terms. Rather, a
new and broader understanding of deterrence is needed to both prevent
an invasion and ensure the security and prosperity of the Taiwanese
people.
The first and most important element of a holistic approach to deterrence must be a clear and unwavering signal of U.S. support for
Taiwan. Political stunts, undisciplined rhetoric, or indications that
Washington is wavering in its resolve to uphold its security commitments
are likely to lead to more anxiety, aggression, and unpredictability
from Beijing. This was demonstrated in August 2022, when the U.S.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made a trip to Taiwan.
Beijing responded by conducting a massive military exercise in the
Taiwan Strait and, since then, has sought to normalize a persistent
military presence close to Taiwan’s territorial waters. Of course, some
might argue that U.S. President Joe Biden should have taken his own
steps to counter this brazenness, but that misses the point. U.S.
actions in the Taiwan Strait should be proactive and strategic, not
reactive and undermined by political theater.
Coalitions
are also critical to a holistic vision of deterrence. To preserve
stability in the Taiwan Strait, it is essential for Washington to
strengthen its partnerships with key allies, particularly in the
Indo-Pacific and Europe. Symbolic virtue-signaling, untethered to any
specific objectives, typified by Pelosi’s visit, only helps Beijing to
paint Washington as the instigator of tensions and to drive wedges
between the United States and other countries. Medium and small powers
are unlikely to be decisive U.S. partners in the event of a conflict
with China. But they can play critical, nonmilitary roles by
internationalizing the Taiwan issue, and scrambling Beijing’s
calculations of the costs it might incur by escalating. This is because,
for all its formidable strengths, the Chinese economy remains highly
dependent on access to international financial markets, as well as on
imports of key technologies, technical know-how, oil, gas, and food.
Chinese leaders recognize these vulnerabilities and are working to
minimize them, but these cannot be solved immediately. The more united
that Washington and its global partners are in their resolve to preserve
peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, the greater the risk Beijing
faces when considering military operations against Taiwan.
Deterrence is an exercise in political-psychological persuasion, never solely a calculation of military assets.
Some
countries, including Japan, could play outsize roles in this strategy
because of their military capabilities. Others, such as Singapore and South Korea,
may fill more niche roles by, for example, providing access to U.S.
forces for refueling and repairs. The more partners Washington has, the
more strategic options it will enjoy. The United States made progress in
coalition building in February, when it signed an updated Enhanced
Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines. This now gives the
Pentagon access to nine military bases near Taiwan where it can train
troops and station military equipment.
Yet
as the conversation about Taiwan grows more dominated by the
possibility of an invasion, many partners are becoming warier of going
further in aligning with the United States and Taiwan on a range of
economic and diplomatic initiatives. These countries are fearful that
they will embroil themselves in a potentially open-ended and escalating
confrontation with China. Such concerns also affect the decisions of
global companies and investors, some of whom, including Berkshire
Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, perceive Taiwan as a risky destination
for capital given the possibility of an imminent Chinese attack. The
United States must show that its underlying goal is to cool tensions and
preserve peace in Asia and that it has a coherent, holistic, and
sustainable plan to do so. To the extent that there is instability, it
is important that key global and regional actors recognize that Beijing,
not Washington, is the one stirring the pot.
The
stronger the coalition the United States builds, the more it will
complicate Beijing’s risk-benefit calculus. A central U.S. objective
must be to make Beijing perpetually unsure if it is adequately prepared
to escalate its coercive or military efforts to seize Taiwan. Washington
needs to make clear to China’s leaders that any battle over Taiwan
would not simply be fought in the strait but would become a sprawling
global effort to exploit each side’s vulnerabilities. U.S. leaders must
work to privately impress upon their Chinese counterparts that the risks
of expansion and escalation of a conflict could extend into space and
cyberspace and could even become nuclear.
ACCIDENTS AND EMERGENCIES
At
the same time, U.S. leaders must keep a path open for China and Taiwan
to peacefully resolve their differences, even if such an outcome is
unimaginable at present. The measure of success is not winning a war
with China in the Taiwan Strait. Rather, success would be avoiding a war
while allowing Taiwan to develop as a democracy. This will require
persistent engagement with Chinese leaders, especially Xi, to clarify
Washington’s intentions and explain its interests and concerns—and to
request equal clarity from Beijing. U.S. officials must also maintain
regular communication with Taiwan’s leaders, both to reassure them of
the nature of their exchanges with their Chinese counterparts and, if
necessary, to work to rein in any unnecessarily inflammatory actions by
Taipei.
Washington
and its partners must also disabuse Beijing of any suspicion that the
U.S. commitment to Taiwan is weakening. The recent statement by former
U.S. President Donald Trump
that he would not comment on U.S. support for Taiwan in the event of an
attack because “if I tell you an answer, it’s going to hurt me in
negotiations” only increases the space for a miscalculation by Beijing.
Chinese leaders must understand that maintaining the credibility of its
security commitments is a vital interest to Washington; these
commitments underpin the duties the United States has as a superpower.
If key U.S. allies and partners are threatened, Beijing must know that
Washington will not hesitate to act.
The
United States must also provide China with incentives to moderate its
aggression, not by developing new reassurances but by better
acknowledging existing ones. For decades, Washington has declared that
it would not support Taiwan independence and, equally, would accept any
outcome negotiated between Taipei and Beijing so long as it was peaceful
and enjoyed the Taiwanese people’s consent. The clarity and consistency
of this long-standing commitment has wavered over the past several
years, which has enflamed Beijing’s grievance that the United States is
hollowing out its “one China” policy.
Any battle over Taiwan would not simply be fought in the strait but would become a sprawling global effort.
A
peaceful and mutually agreed-on resolution may appear far-fetched given
Xi’s increasingly coercive approach. A growing number of voices,
including President Emeritus of the Council on
Foreign Relations Richard Haass, state that Washington’s “strategic
ambiguity” is outdated, while others argue that the “one China” policy
is collapsing. But these critics consistently fail to articulate a
better alternative that would simultaneously keep the peace and provide
Taiwan with the security it needs to continue developing. It is
incumbent on those calling for the United States to formally abandon key
pillars of its “one China” policy, support Taiwan’s independence, and
give Taipei an unconditional security guarantee to articulate what the
likely implications would be for the region. They must answer whether
such moves would help or hinder Taiwan’s security and prosperity, or
create a more peaceful and predictable environment for key allies in the
region, including Japan and the Philippines. Calling for a radical
break—as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has done—with
traditional U.S. policy while waving away the consequences will not
suffice.
At
the same time, Washington’s support for the status quo must not become
static. There are dramatically new dynamics at work in the Indo-Pacific
that necessitate new ways of thinking and acting. U.S. policy on Taiwan
has evolved and will evolve in tandem with developments around the
Taiwan Strait, including Beijing’s growing truculence. The United States
must remain committed to ensuring that China, as the stronger power,
cannot unilaterally impose an intolerable political solution on Taiwan,
the weaker one. A degree of flexibility is required to accomplish this.
Washington’s policy has already proved itself capable of supporting a
dynamic equilibrium by pushing back on unilateral attempts to alter the
status quo, regardless of whether they emanated from Beijing or Taipei.
The
real debate is not whether to jettison a policy approach that has
preserved peace and protected Taiwan for decades but, rather, how the
United States should evolve its approach within the current “one China”
policy framework. Although there is a seductive appeal to abandoning
this policy, doing so would stress U.S. commitments to Taiwan and the
region and open up another fault line of risk in an already dangerous
world. Unsatisfactory as it may be to many, the U.S. goal is to stretch
time horizons, not collapse them.
The
purpose of Washington’s strategy in the Taiwan Strait is to incentivize
behavior that serves U.S. interests while disincentivizing actions that
threaten them. Hard power is a critical element of the United States’
efforts to uphold peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. It is a
variable in the equation, however, and not the solution. To protect its
interests, U.S. leaders must become more adept at combining efforts to
bolster military capabilities with clarity in their strategic
objectives, strength in their coalitions, solid coordination with
Taiwan, and a sharper comprehension of the psychology of decision-makers
in Beijing. The United States has protected its interest in peace and
stability in the Taiwan Strait for nearly 45 years. It has to up its
game to continue doing so for the next 45.