‘If Japan gets in, we’ll be involved as well,’ Robert O’Brien said.
‘If Japan gets in, we’ll be involved as well,’ Robert O’Brien said.
F ormer national-security adviser Robert O’Brien predicted that Japan would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion of the country — and that Japan’s involvement would draw the U.S. into that conflict.
The Trump-administration official was addressing a closed-door meeting of the Republican Study Committee last week, where the discussion focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But his comments, during the House conservative group’s weekly lunch meeting that National Review exclusively sat in on, also addressed what the U.S. and its allies must do to defend Taiwan.
“Japanese former prime minister Abe understands the danger to Japan from Taiwan. And I think they would fight. I think if Japan gets in it, it’s hard to imagine the U.S. wouldn’t be in it because the Chinese will strike bases” in the region, he said. Tens of thousands of U.S. servicemembers are stationed at U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea alone.
“They’ll hit our bases. They’ll hit Americans. So if Japan gets in, we’ll be involved as well,” he said.
O’Brien seemed to be referencing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s recent comments on Japanese television that Washington should abandon its longtime policy of strategic ambiguity — under which it leaves unclear whether it would intervene militarily to come to Taiwan’s defense — and his remark that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency.” In 2020, a Japanese defense official called Taiwan’s freedom a “redline,” during a Hudson Institute event.
Although pacificism is enshrined in Japan’s post–World War II constitution, there’s an ongoing debate in the country about revising the document to allow Tokyo to come to its allies’ defense. That debate, and an increasingly forward-leaning posture on defense issues, has been fueled by Chinese saber-rattling.
Tokyo’s increasingly assertive attitudes on defense, according to O’Brien, are a reflection of the reality that Chinese Communist Party control over Taiwan would allow Beijing to control the Western Pacific.
“If you think of the Western Pacific as a champagne bottle, Taiwan is the cork in that champagne bottle. If that cork comes out, the PLA navy is going to flow out into the entire Pacific,” he said, adding that Chinese domination of Taiwan would split Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and other allies south of Taiwan from South Korea and Japan.
“China will be 127 miles south of Japan, and it’ll almost be like a Cuba-type situation. Japan will be in range of all the missiles and all the planes.” O’Brien called this a geopolitical and humanitarian disaster, citing the strength of Taiwan’s democracy.
O’Brien also broached the Trump administration’s efforts to get the Taiwanese to make their country harder for the Chinese military to win control over, pointing to a four-point plan his team pushed.
“We told them, ‘You’ve got to start shooting clubs like they’ve got in Eastern Europe, and you’ve got to get AK-47s out to all your citizens.’ There’s kind of this gun-control culture there.”
“We said, ‘Look, if you want to dissuade the Chinese from coming in, every one of your citizens has to have an AK-47. Reason why the AK-47 is you want to be able to use the bad guys’ bullets and magazines.’ And they got a little nervous about that.”
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where civilian volunteers have played a significant role in fending off invading forces, has sparked newfound interest in Taiwan in civilian self-defense efforts, as the Wall Street Journal reported. The Taiwanese government, meanwhile, is looking into changes to the current conscription requirements.
Another aspect involved in preparing “porcupine”-style defenses is granting the military the right equipment. O’Brien told the Republican lawmakers that the invasion of Ukraine offered some additional insights here.
Getting the Ukrainian military Stinger anti-aircraft systems is important, he said, because most of the successful Russian assaults seem to be helicopter-borne. O’Brien said the previous administration told the Taiwanese they need Stingers “that will neutralize Chinese helicopters.”
O’Brien also told the RSC, which is leading GOP policy and messaging alternatives to the Biden administration’s approaches to China and Russia, that one of the largest disincentives to a Chinese invasion would be if general secretary Xi Jinping sees the Russian decision to invade Ukraine as a catastrophe: “If he sees [Russian soldiers] coming home [wounded and dead] and sees political disruption for Putin, that’s going to be a disincentive” for Xi to move on Taiwan.
The RSC meeting took place against the backdrop of two noteworthy U.S. visits to Taiwan. Last week, the Biden administration sent a bipartisan delegation of former senior U.S. officials, including Admiral Mike Mullen and Michèle Flournoy, to the island. Then, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, traveling in a personal capacity, also visited Taiwan, where he announced his support for U.S. recognition of Taiwanese independence (Taipei, which hasn’t asked for official U.S. recognition, thanked Pompeo for his friendship but clarified its position had not changed).
Last November, O’Brien told Nikkei Asia that Beijing would likely view the time between the Beijing Winter Olympics and the U.S. presidential election as an “opportunity to create mischief when it comes to Taiwan.”
This former senior official is telling lawmakers that the U.S. is likely to come to Taiwan’s defense should that happen.