Yet those most determined to escalate America’s involvement in the Russo–Ukrainian war insist that there is nothing to worry about. If only the U.S. holds firm in Ukraine, the Chinese will run for cover over Taiwan. Yet the claim that Beijing would fear Washington when the latter refuses to intervene on Kiev’s behalf, allowing Moscow’s aggression to advance, seems illogical at best. Indeed, Johns Hopkins’s Hal Brands warned that this stance may “have convinced Beijing that the United States just won’t fight a conventional war against a nuclear-armed rival.” Hence China’s ongoing nuclear build-up.
Worse, American policy seems more likely to encourage than discourage such a conflict. Rather than reassure the People’s Republic of China that its red lines won’t be crossed, the administration is stationing American forces in Taiwan, emphasizing that nation’s value in constraining China, and saying little as congressional leaders flaunt ties with Taipei. Leading Republicans, including a former secretary of state and national security adviser, advocate recognizing Taiwan as the Republic of China. It is almost as if Washington’s policy elite wants war with the PRC.
They shouldn’t.
Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan. Never mind the Taiwanese people, who do not want to be ruled by a Chinese Communist Party increasingly inclined to Maoist tyranny (though, so far, not Maoist chaos). The PRC long showcased Hong Kong as a model of “one country, two systems” for Taiwan, but China’s brutal crackdown on the “special administrative region” has largely extinguished any lingering Taiwanese support for reunification.
Nevertheless, most Chinese, and not just those in the party or government, believe the PRC should regain control of the island state. One reason is historical. Imperial China possessed the island then known as Formosa, only to lose it in 1895 to Japan. This occurred during the so-called age of humiliation, during which Great Britain seized Hong Kong, Portugal grabbed Macau, and various European governments along with Japan and the U.S. took territorial “concessions.” Today only Taiwan remains unredeemed.
Another issue is security. Barely 100 miles off the PRC’s coast—roughly the distance of Cuba from America—Taiwan’s main island would pose a serious threat to Beijing’s ambitions if held by or allied with an adversary. American analysts are open about their designs. For instance, the Atlantic Council recently issued a report entitled “Taiwan: The Key to Containing China in the Indo-Pacific.”
The Chinese have noticed and are not pleased. The nationalistic, semi-official Global Times observed, “The US is incorporating Taiwan into its strategic layout in the Asia-Pacific region as a pawn through various means, while the Democratic Progressive Party authorities have taken the initiative to throw itself into the arms of the US and ‘sell Taiwan for peace.’ The U.S.-Taiwan military collusion is being pushed forward in accordance with Washington’s tempo and will.” It is worth remembering the U.S. reaction to the Soviet Union establishing military ties with Cuba in 1962.
Of course, this doesn’t mean China is entitled to coerce the Taiwanese people. Nevertheless, Beijing continues to believe otherwise. So what should Americans do if the PRC eventually decides on war? Despite what appears to be an almost uniform assumption in Washington that the U.S. would defend Taiwan, the American people are more inclined toward providing aid rather than troops. And, in fact, Americans have no obligation to go to war on Taipei’s behalf. Indeed, they shouldn’t do so. The cost and risk of doing so would be too high. It is Washington’s obligation to protect the American people from precisely such a danger, war with a great power over stakes that are not essential.
Although no one knows what would happen in a conflict over Taiwan, war games uniformly show massive losses for the U.S., which has lost the majority of encounters. Of course, the world is not static, but even in war games where Washington wins—at least in the sense of denying Beijing control of Taiwan—and the rules exclude a nuclear response, the U.S. loses multiple carriers, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of personnel. Other factors could multiply the toll: American forces would inevitably strike mainland bases, encouraging Chinese escalation; neither Xi Jinping certainly nor the CCP possibly could survive a failed campaign, encouraging them to go all in; forced to contemplate the prospect of an Asian Armageddon, future governments of South Korea and Japan might decide to stay out of any war; and, faced with rising conventional losses, two nuclear-armed powers could find the temptation to escalate overwhelming.
Not everyone is pessimistic. The commentator Richard Hanania recently suggested that “the US and China would likely be able to manage escalation and keep it well short of any WWIII threshold, like superpowers have before in other conflicts.” Yet the general Cold War experience was one of proxy wars, allowing the combatants some distance and deniability. Nor were the stakes, at least in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and most other Third World lands, as great.
In contrast, in Cuba, so close to America, Moscow and Washington only narrowly avoided a clash and likely nuclear war. Ukraine is so dangerous precisely because it matters so much to Russia. How a shoot-out over Taiwan, with the PRC sinking carriers and the U.S. bombing the mainland, would develop is uncertain and dangerous. Indeed, the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig warned that “given the high stakes, either side could possibly decide to use a nuclear weapon in such a conflict,” and “in the event of the use of a single or a handful of nuclear weapons in such a conflict, an extended nuclear exchange could occur.”