Two Chinas - Maybe Not for Long

The odd position Taiwan finds itself in is this: a free-market capitalist society with a social-democratic representative government, Taiwan is not officially recognized by its major patron and defender, the US, and is under constant threat from the Communist mainland China, which we do recognize. China, of course, has always wanted to capture Taiwan, which they could not militarily do when they seized the rest of China shortly after WWII. It is officially the policy of both China and Taiwan that there is only one China, and that the current situation is a historical aberration which will shortly be rectified. Taiwan's idea of rectifying the situation is for China to become a social-democratic, representatively-governed free-market capitalist state, at which time reunification is simple and desirable. China's idea can be seen by this StrategyPage article which notes:

China is apparently building a large quantity of amphibious shipping. Two LSDs (Landing Ship Dock) are being built in large covered sheds. They appear to be about 25,000 tons each and carry four LCAC (high speed landing craft) and four helicopters each. China is building 4-5 LSTs (Landing Ship Tank) a year. These are 4,800 tons displacement each and can carry about 2,000 tons if they are not going to run up on a beach. The Chinese prefer to avoid that, as it eventually destroys the LST, and you can carry more load if you don't. A larger number of LSMs (smaller than LSTs, but in this case almost as large as World War II LSTs) are also under construction. China won’t say what the eventual size of this amphibious fleet will be, but Taiwan suspects enough to land two or more divisions on Taiwanese beaches. That could take another 3-4 years. It is believed that the Chinese would use a lot of civilian transport for an attack on Taiwan, meaning they could put up to nine divisions on shops. The navy's amphibious shipping would be used for the first wave, where speed is needed. But the next waves could be put ashore with civilian ferries and transports. In addition, there is an airborne division. It would be a rather ramshackle effort by American standards, but the Chinese believe it would be adequate against the Taiwanese. The key to such an invasion is keeping the U.S. Navy out of the war. 

Meanwhile, Chinese shipyards are also turning out submarines and surface warships. China will be able to make a serious move on Taiwan before 2010.

I was going to comment on this, but Brian Dunn has already done so, so you should read that for his thoughts. I would like to take another track. Before I do, full disclaimer: I lived four years in Taiwan as a child, and would be happy to see the US help the legitimate government of all of China retake its rebellious mainland provinces.

That said, a war between China and Taiwan would be devastating. The US would defend Taiwan with naval and air assets, would cut off trade with China (and might blockade China to boot) and would threaten the use of nuclear weapons to defend China. China, though, should she decide to take Taiwan, would attempt to complete the invasion quickly and overwhelmingly, before the US could effectively respond (and thus likely as a surprise, without an advanced mobilization), would attempt to sink or delay the US carriers and other naval assets seeking to intervene, and themselves threaten to cut off trade if we do intervene, and would threaten to use its own nuclear weapons should we intervene. Then it comes down to a question of who's more willing to risk nuclear destruction.

One of the key problems is perception of will. If China believes that the US will not risk its own destruction over Taiwan, which our interactions around N. Korea's nuclear weapons program certainly give them reason to think, she may decide to risk it. After all, China has a lot less to lose than the US does, and much to gain (economically and in prestige - always important to a totalitarian state) by taking Taiwan.

There is a way to upend this equation, though. In addition to opening up overt provision of the most modern and capable military systems and technologies, the US should strongly consider giving Taiwan a covert strategic deterrent. We could build, and provide to Taiwan, four attack boats (so 1-2 would always be at sea) armed with cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads. This would mean that, should China attack Taiwan, they would face nuclear destruction from someone who had nothing left to lose. This could be done without China's prior knowledge, if Taiwan were willing. I'm not sure if this breaks NPT, but Taiwan is technically not a signatory (since it's technically not a state (at least, it's not so recognized by the UN)) and the US could simply leave the matter ambiguous - did we provide nuclear warheads or not? (The idea is to create a deterrent, for which purposes actually having nuclear warheads would be somewhat superfluous.)

At that, Israel could provide the warheads under contract, as Israel is not a signatory of NPT, either. Taiwan, for that matter, could develop its own nuclear weapons, except that they would have to do so in utter secret, because the force would have to be deployed before China knew that Taiwan was seeking a force, or China would immediately invade. Taiwan could claim, plausibly, that this force was needed because of N. Korea's nuclear program, and that puts China in a bind, since China is the only outside power that could compel N. Korea to give up its nuclear program.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. The problem, of course, is a practical political one: for some reason, many people who live in social-democratic, representatively-governed free-market capitalist states seem to believe that no one else needs or wants to do so, or should be given aid to their defense if they are under threat. As a result, it's far from clear that the Congress would go along with such a program, even though it's a fact that even minor nuclear powers have so far not been willing to go to war with each other, and absent insanity (open question in N. Korea) and death-cultism (open question in Iran and much of the rest of the Arab/Muslim world) nuclear weapons provide the best reason yet devised for countries to not go to war.

If China does invade Taiwan, though, we may look back on this time and rue not providing nuclear weapons to Taiwan.

Posted by Jeff at December 14, 2004 03:58 PM | Link Cosmos