Strategic thinker Carl von Clausewitz has said that “war is politics by other means,” while investment guru Warren Buffett has said that “tariffs are an act of war.”
Both aphorisms apply to China, which has long been engaged in a multifront political, economic and informational war against the US and the rest of the West. Kinetically also, China has launched the early stages of actual global conflict with its threats and aggressive moves against Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, and its support for North Korea’s reckless actions against South Korea that could reignite the Korean War.
Former US presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as incumbent Donald Trump, have all been traumatized by the prospect of World War III caused by an escalation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, although Trump genuinely supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “genius” aggression against Ukraine.
Yet, US support for Taiwan’s de facto independence holds the same potential for cataclysmic major power conflict. Biden sought to deter Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) from acting on his long-stated intention to conquer Taiwan by stating — five times — that he would use force to defend it. However, he allowed each of his threats to be hollowed out by his administration’s milder follow-on disclaimers.
So far, Trump has spoken more softly about Taiwan, even accusing it of “stealing” US chip technology and stinting on its military defenses, but he has wielded a very big stick against China on tariffs. The standoff on reciprocal US-China tariffs is a stand-in test of wills that bears directly on the kinetic confrontation that would follow a Chinese move against Taiwan.
The dynamics of the two scenarios are similar. Trump’s tariffs are a response to decades of the Chinese Communist Party’s relentless campaign of cheating, stealing and discriminating against Western rules-based economic dealings. China responded to Trump’s preliminary punitive action by imposing further tariffs against US exports.
Now, the danger of escalation threatens the prospect of a full-blown trade war with disastrous economic consequences, in effect, an economic nuclear winter. Neither side is willing to blink first, fearing the domestic and international damage to its reputation. The solution to that credibility dilemma is simply for a third party trusted by both sides to intervene and host a meeting.
The security analogue to the trade war is even more dangerous. China perpetually threatens Taiwan, while the US has bound itself, loosely, to Taiwan’s democratic security. However, the strategic ambiguity built into the US’ position leaves ample room for Beijng’s doubt — and much of the world’s — as to whether the US would actually risk world war III to defend a place that Trump has repeatedly accused of security weakness and freeloading, and stealing US technology and prosperity.
Unlike the trade war, a kinetic conflict, once started, will be more difficult to end because of the investment in human lives, tangible infrastructure and equipment, and national pride. Like the trade war, it would have been started by China — a long history of threats and aggressive actions against Taiwan and its other neighbors. An overt Chinese move against Taiwan’s main island or a smaller one, such as Kinmen, or placement of a blockade around key Taiwanese ports, would bring a US response that would involve discreet US military action limited to attacking Chinese air, naval or amphibious forces — an act of collective self-defense authorized under international law.
If China, rather than stopping its aggression, broadens its attack to include targeting the defending US forces, its escalation would open a new front in the conflict, technically declaring war on the US. The US would then be justified in attacking not only the sources in China from which the anti-US aggression emanated, but other military targets as well. The downward spiral to all-out nuclear war would have begun.
Either side can step off the escalation ladder at any point, but there will be the inexorable forces to keep going and hope the other side will blink first — an eventuality that is unpredictable and unknowable. The only certain way to prevent that kind of doomsday scenario is for the process not to begin in the first place — that is, for China to stop its aggressive rhetoric and actions before the escalatory cycle begins, and rely only on peaceful persuasion and the attractiveness of its governing system to encourage Taiwan to choose accession to the People’s Republic of China.
Moreover, the only way for the US side to encourage that peaceful prospect is to convince China that war with the US, with all its dangerous imponderables, is inevitable if it attacks or attempts to blockade Taiwan. Trump has the ability to send that message to his “friend” Xi — but does he have the courage and the political will?
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the US defense secretary in 2005-2006, and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in 2009-2010.
You wish every Taiwanese spoke English like I do. I was not born an anglophone, yet I am paid to write and speak in English. It is my working language and my primary idiom in private. I am more than bilingual: I think in English; it is my language now. Can you guess how many native English speakers I had as teachers in my entire life? Zero. I only lived in an English-speaking country, Australia, in my 30s, and it was because I was already fluent that I was able to live and pursue a career. English became my main language during adulthood
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
RSS