Taiwan: thinking the thinkable

I’m not enough of a scholar of international affairs to possess a highly differentiated opinion on Taiwan. Superficially, a PRC invasion of Taiwan seems analogous to the Russian invasion of Ukraine: the PRC brands Taiwan as a renegade state, just as Putin brands Ukraine as “little Russia.” The historical antecedents are very different, and the historical case for amalgamating Taiwan with the PRC is certainly stronger. That said, Taiwan currently wants independence and Xi plans for an eventual takeover.

Most of what I read these days discusses a military takeover of Taiwan. That made little sense to me. How could the PRC justify the billions required to defeat Taiwan and the billions more to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure when they could simply build it on the mainland and outcompete Taiwan?

Eyck Freyman writing in Foreign Affairs envisions a crisis, not a war, as the path to takeover.

“It begins not with missiles but with cutter ships. One morning, dozens of Chinese coast guard vessels start conducting “routine customs inspections” of merchant ships approaching Taiwan’s major ports. Chinese civil aviation authorities begin to demand manifests from flights entering and leaving Taiwan. Beijing insists it is merely asserting existing Chinese customs law, which claims the right to regulate the flow of people and goods in and out of “Taiwan Province.”

“Immediately, nearly all airlines and shipping companies decide to comply. These private operators have no interest in seeing their ships or aircraft seized, detained, or worse. Nor do they have much of a choice. Insurance companies would not cover them if they resisted. Suddenly, nearly all planes and ships entering or leaving Taiwan must first stop at a mainland port in Fujian Province before traveling to their final destination. Beijing has seized control of most of Taiwan’s links to the outside world.”

Freyman calls this a “gray zone,” in which the PRC exploits the vulnerability of global economics to leverage geopolitical power rather than resorting to thermonuclear threat.

“Asserting control over Taiwan’s economic future would demonstrate the principle by which Beijing hopes to coerce every other country in the region. Regional dominance achieved through a quarantine would not require invasion and occupation. It would simply require Beijing to establish the norm that it could indirectly control how these countries engage with the global economy. If Xi can prove that the United States cannot effectively resist this playbook, Washington’s network of alliances in the region would suffer irreparable damage.”

On the evidence, the Trump Administration is unprepared for such scenarios, and between its efforts to retreat from military alliances and its open antagonism of allies, it is inviting the PRC to tempt fate.

What is to be done? Here, Freyman identifies the broad outlines but is unsatisfying on details. He points to four “pillars” of deterrence: (1) political, (2) military, (3) strategic and (4) economic. He doesn’t weight these pillars as to their respective strengths, weaknesses or feasibility. So like most Foreign Affairs articles I’ve read, it’s long on theory and analysis and short on implementation. Still, I found it a provocative read.

Gaming a non-nuclear crisis in Taiwan