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METERSuppose Donald Trump just loses the presidential election. It does not recognize the result. There is a constitutional crisis and great confusion. This could spark frenzy at the other end of the world, in China, and significantly increase the risk of war for a short period. “Beijing would see this as an opportunity that only returns every thousand years,” says Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London. It means the opportunity to take Taiwan.
According to Tsang, this could happen under two conditions. First, if China were to conclude that the United States was so paralyzed politically that it could not run to Taiwan militarily. Second, if the People’s Liberation Army gathered enough troops and supplies near the island in time for the next American president to take office. So far there is no evidence of this. It’s just one scenario with many yes and buts. But the fact that China’s leading researchers play these mind games shows how fragile peace has become in the Taiwan Strait.
It can also be seen in the rush with which the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, is working to strengthen the deterrent capabilities of her armed forces. A few days ago it opened a maintenance center for F-16 fighter jets, which Taiwan operates together with the US arms company Lockheed Martin. A contract for 66 aircraft has already been signed. For next year, the government has announced a ten percent increase in the defense budget, while the current budget has been revised upward. The military’s shopping list includes more modern drones, underwater vehicles, anti-aircraft missiles, sea mines, and radar systems. The goal is “to make any consideration of an invasion very painful,” Taiwan’s representative in Washington said recently.
How long can Taiwan survive without American help?
The reservists, who would defend “our homeland as the last reserve”, should play an important role. A few weeks ago, the reservists participated for the first time in a grand maneuver, during which defense against a Chinese invasion is practiced every year. A crucial question for strategists is how many days Taiwan could hold off the technically and numerically superior invading forces before US troops would come to their aid, if at all. By various estimates, this could take weeks, if not months.
Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou recently questioned that Americans are risking war for Taiwan. In doing so, he openly undermined his successor’s deterrence strategy. “Whoever is president should not tell our compatriots how many days (our country) could survive a war, but should tell them what they can do to avoid war,” he said.
The United States is clearly trying to resolve these doubts. Warships cross the Taiwan Strait with great regularity. Washington also released two previously confidential documents from 1982 a few days ago. It stated that “the quantity and quality of weapons that would be made available to Taiwan depended entirely on the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.” Photos of joint military exercises were also published. However, since 1979 there has been no obligation of alliance in the event of war. His resignation was one of Beijing’s conditions for diplomatic relations with Washington. Instead, the United States has since pursued a policy of “strategic ambivalence” that keeps the question of military intervention open. For forty years that was enough to dissuade China from arguing.
