The China Challenge

Patrick Porter’s criticisms (“The United States Should Not Defend Taiwan,” December 20) of Elbridge Colby’s position censure the U.S. policy establishment for failing to grasp the China challenge. Mr. Porter miscasts the issue in several ways. His mistakes throw the central issue into starker relief.

Mr. Porter’s discussion of Chinese escalation incentives reinforces the need to consider Taiwan’s defense rather than diminishes it. His broader claim is correct: The ideological and domestic political capital that the Chinese Communist Party has expended on Taiwan likely demands that the party consider extreme escalation scenarios, at minimum for war termination. And the military capabilities of the Chinese armed forces likely necessitate strikes against the Chinese mainland if the U.S. is to succeed in defending Taiwan, which in turn could lead to escalation. The importance China attaches to Taiwan, however, implies that the CCP may capitalize on the chaos of a South China Sea confrontation and strike Taiwan. In every contingency, the Taiwan question remains the fulcrum.

Mr. Porter’s identification of the non-analogy between Czechoslovakia in 1939 and contemporary Taiwan is logically sound in various respects. But he misses the key distinction. In 1939, growing Soviet and German power forced the Western Europeans and their erstwhile Little Entente allies to recognize the reality of German aggression and fight. No Continental power could strike a separate peace without succumbing to Nazi Germany. The same is not true today. Given that China currently desires no Philippine or Australian territory, and only limited Japanese territory (for example, the Senkaku Islands), one can expect bandwagoning to replace balancing. The stakes of a cross-strait conflict need not be deemed existential by Asia’s other actors, or at least their political elites.

Mr. Porter misreads the full implications of Taiwanese geography. Not only does Taiwan provide more-effective surveillance locations and better air- and surface-fleet access to the Western Pacific; its seizure would allow Chinese submarines to circumvent the first island chain, vanish into the ocean’s vastness, and attack American and allied logistical chains in a broader conflict. Absent an expanded U.S. military, this poses an insurmountable challenge to any U.S. strategy of fighting forward.

And finally, even if Mr. Porter’s balancing assumptions are correct, China may very well switch targets, making an example of an additional Pacific nation that refuses its largesse.

Seth Cropsey

Senior Fellow

Hudson Institute

Correction

“The United States Should Not Defend Taiwan” (Patrick Porter, December 20) stated that the Senkaku Islands are in the South China Sea. They are in the East China Sea.