Military and political leaders alike are still cautious about revealing what the U.S. would — or should — do in event of China’s invasion of Taiwan.
Military and political leaders alike are still cautious about revealing what the U.S. would — or should — do in event of China’s invasion of Taiwan.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada — More than a few analysts would say that the Taiwan Strait is where the fate of Beijing’s program for hegemony over the Indo-Pacific, and likely beyond, will be proved or torn to tatters. There’s a challenge of epochal proportions taking shape, and Western democracies are trying to make up for lost time with a bevy of new policies to stave off the worst-case scenario.
One bellwether of Western resolve to confront this threat came last week at the Halifax International Security Forum, where defense-policy elites convened — and where, naturally, the Chinese Communist Party’s designs on Taiwan were at front of mind. But public discussion about the cross-strait invasion threat was more muted than one might expect, showing how talk about Taiwan still elicits extreme caution from U.S. military officials — and that, even on the turf of an allied democracy, hosting a delegation from the country could conceivably have consequences.
In fact, the most pointed announcement about U.S. policy toward Taiwan connected to the gathering came from Senator Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) well before he even set foot in Nova Scotia last week. The title of a Wall Street Journal op-ed he wrote just ahead of the forum was crystal-clear: “Joe Biden Should Come Out and Say It: America Will Help Defend Taiwan.”
But one of his colleagues, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), wasn’t quite so certain about that. Asked during a panel discussion whether the U.S. would come to the country’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack, Shaheen demurred, instead pointing to the U.S. doctrine of strategic ambiguity and saying that the U.S. alliance with Taiwan should be a warning to Beijing to drop its hegemonic ambitions.
Even those cautious remarks were more cavalier than what top U.S. commanders felt comfortable saying last weekend, though they did sketch out the contours of the bounds within which they’re operating.
The head of U.S. Special Operations Command, General Richard Clarke, hinted that his forces, which Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen recently confirmed were training in her country, are part of an effort to shore up U.S. allies’ “porcupine”-style defenses — turning Washington’s partners into prickly, unpalatable prey for the PLA. He declined to say anything specifically about Taiwan, though.
Admiral John Aquilino, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, came all the way from Hawaii to deliver a message on the foggy Atlantic coast of Canada. In a Saturday morning speech, he avoided saying much about Taiwan, as he described how U.S. allies can help deter China. “Please come and play,” was his memorable message to other democracies (a turn of phrase that he apparently ad libbed), calling on them to help defend the rules-based international order in his neighborhood.
Later in the day, during a chat with some reporters, he fielded questions about Taiwan and the nature of the Chinese military threat — but he was careful to avoid saying too much more, while offering a general overview of his assessment: “Nobody gave me a crystal ball when I took this job. What I would say is look at what the Chinese have said. President Xi has tasked his forces to be prepared or at a level of military parity with the United States by 2027. Those are his words.”
The admiral, who has been in the post for about six months, stuck to his talking points as he delicately took on queries about the U.S. special forces’ presence in Taiwan, the timeline for a potential Chinese invasion, Taiwanese participation in regional military exercises, and more.
His answer to National Review’s question about whether Taiwan will be invited to participate in the biannual Rim of the Pacific Exercise was similarly careful: “There’s a policy question that goes along with that that won’t be mine to make . . . It won’t be my call, and we’ll see,” he said, citing the Taiwan Relations Act.
Cryptic as Aquilino might have sounded, his comments make sense when considered with some of the legislation that Congress has taken up of late. A House-approved version of the National Defense Authorization Act specifically calls on the Pentagon to invite Taiwan to the exercise, for instance. Another bill introduced in the House this year authorizes the use of force to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack and asks the defense secretary to coordinate joint exercises with the Taiwanese. With a recent recommendation by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) for Congress to fulfill his command’s funding requests for missile-defense systems, precision munitions, and more, he’s got the wind at his back — so it’d be a mistake for him to start speaking out of turn about his own thoughts on the cross-strait military balance.
It’s not a stretch to conclude that he’s also constrained by where the White House is on these matters. For all of the ways in which the administration has deepened U.S.–Taiwan diplomatic ties, Biden has caused undue confusion in a series of gaffes about whether he’d choose to come to Taiwan’s defense. Most recently, he made a comment appearing to endorse Taiwanese independence, before the White House walked it back. No doubt all of this muddies the waters when U.S. officials meet with their counterparts.
So where was Taiwan in all of last week’s discussions?
Not at center stage. The D.C.-based nonprofit that runs the conference receives funding from the Canadian defense ministry — which in fact almost pulled its support from the forum after the group said it would bestow its John McCain Prize for Leadership on Tsai. Canada still takes a very cautious approach to Taiwan, and the country’s delegation, though led by a senior national security official participating in a capacity upgraded from years past, nevertheless took part only in off-the-record conversations throughout the event.
Michael Cole, a Canadian expert on Taiwan at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based think tank, explained the contradiction in the Canadian government’s stance. Although Canadians like to congratulate themselves on promoting democracy, he told me in an interview, “when it comes to engaging Taiwan and security issues, you’re afraid of your own shadow, and you would rather avoid being demarched by Beijing than to do things that would also be in your own national interests.”
Halifax’s organizers have weathered the storm surrounding their support of Taiwan and are going ahead with a conference expected to take place in Taipei next spring.
That there is unprecedented Western support for standing up to Beijing’s aggression is certainly true. But for all the recent advances in Taiwan’s ties with other democracies, most of them, including the U.S., still have work to do. As the USCC report warned this month, “it has become less certain that U.S. conventional military forces alone will continue to deter China’s leaders from initiating an attack on Taiwan.” There are policy hurdles that the U.S. and its allies can and should surmount together with fairly little effort — and quickly.