The Right Way to Deter China From Attacking Taiwan

As debate over China policy rages in the United States, the discussion in Washington is increasingly focused on the question of how to deter Beijing from invading or blockading Taiwan. This is for good reason: like their predecessors, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his colleagues have signaled a determination to exercise control over Taiwan and will, if necessary, resort to force to do so. Responding to these threats, a growing number of U.S. military leaders—including the former head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Phil Davidson, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday—have warned that China could attack Taiwan by 2027.

Under its “one China” policy, the United States maintains strong unofficial relations with Taiwan, as well as formal diplomatic relations with China. Washington’s policy has long been to encourage direct dialogue between leaders in Beijing and Taipei, insisting that disputes across the Taiwan Strait must be resolved peacefully. To underscore this position, the United States maintains a significant forward military presence in the Western Pacific. Yet with Chinese aggression growing in and around the Taiwan Strait, there are mounting concerns over whether the United States can preserve the peace moving forward.

Many analysts and policymakers argue that the best way for the United States to continue to deter China from attacking Taiwan is to place hard power in Beijing’s path. As U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin stated recently, “We need to be moving heaven and earth to arm Taiwan to the teeth to avoid a war.” This theory of deterrence places a premium on ensuring that the United States and Taiwan have sufficient military capabilities to frustrate an invasion and to threaten China with staggering retaliatory costs. To deter China, the theory’s advocates argue, Washington must dramatically increase its defense expenditures, rebuild the U.S. defense industrial base, and accelerate the speed with which Taiwan is being provided with weapons and other military assistance.

Taking these military steps is critical, but more needs to be done. This is because, properly understood, deterrence is an exercise in political-psychological persuasion, and it has never been solely a calculation of who possesses more military assets. Deterrence requires an extensive toolkit, including diplomatic patience, nuance, surprise, brinkmanship, and also reassurance and credibility. It is this holistic view of deterrence that is needed in Washington today. Key features of a more effective strategy include a measured U.S. approach to diplomacy that avoids provocative political stunts and a renewed effort to build a deeper, wider, and stronger coalition of countries to support Taiwan’s continued security and prosperity. To preserve the peace in Asia, Washington must adopt a more comprehensive vision of deterrence that not only prevents an outright invasion or blockade, but also ensures that Taiwan’s economy, democracy, and people can flourish.

DO NOT RISK IT

Although Washington’s current conception of deterrence relies on defense, its policy on using force in the Taiwan Strait has long been ambiguous. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which continues to guide U.S. policy, states that that the use of force or direct violence to “determine Taiwan’s future” would be seen as a threat to the “peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.” This is not an explicit or unconditional guarantee of U.S. intervention, although it does strongly suggest that a Chinese invasion would provoke a direct U.S. response. But by themselves, words on a page will not give Beijing pause. Rather, successful deterrence depends on Beijing’s belief that current and future U.S. administrations, irrespective of party affiliation, would risk the lives of U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China attacked. Should Beijing doubt this—or perceive that the United States’ commitment is unsteady or tied to superficial concerns, such as a wish to retain its access to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry—then its calculations may well shift.

But even assuming that the United States does maintain sufficient military capability and the credibility of its use, these efforts will go only so far to ensure Taiwan’s continued peace and prosperity. Beijing defines its claim to Taiwan as core to the political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and critical to China’s own national security. Over more than 70 years, Chinese leaders have declared their intention to assert control over Taiwan, framing its ultimate “return” to China as a foundational goal of the CCP. It is hard to conceive of any scenario whereby the CCP leadership would entirely abandon its ambitions on Taiwan based on a calculation of military power. After all, Beijing’s appetite for absorbing Taiwan did not diminish during the second half of the twentieth century, even as the United States enjoyed absolute military superiority relative to China.

Indeed, Taiwan has long been the issue that threatened to bring the United States and China into open conflict. In 1958, U.S. military planners contemplated a nuclear strike on China after CCP Chairman Mao Zedong shelled Taiwan-controlled islands. In 1995, angered by Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, Chinese President Jiang Zemin ordered the launch of missiles into the waters off Taiwan’s coast. In response, U.S. President Bill Clinton sent a carrier strike group toward the Taiwan Strait. Back then, the United States could more freely undertake such responses, since it enjoyed comprehensive dominance over the Chinese military. Today, Washington faces a far more powerful Chinese military that, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, is on track to have 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.

For now, Beijing likely appreciates that a direct assault on Taiwan would be prohibitively costly for China. But if Xi comes to believe that the political cost of inaction in the Taiwan Strait poses an existential threat to the CCP’s rule, he or his successors may well take enormous risks, including a dramatic military escalation. Xi would entertain such an approach only if all other avenues to unification were closed or if he calculated that restraint carried the highest political risk. There are several such scenarios that could prompt Xi to act. For example, were Taiwan to formally declare independence, Beijing might well resolve that a significant military escalation was its only politically acceptable choice. An appreciation of this risk explains why the vast majority of the Taiwanese people prefer the status quo.

NO MORE GIMMICKS

Deterrence, therefore, cannot be understood in exclusively military terms. Rather, a new and broader understanding of deterrence is needed to both prevent an invasion and ensure the security and prosperity of the Taiwanese people.

The first and most important element of a holistic approach to deterrence must be a clear and unwavering signal of U.S. support for Taiwan. Political stunts, undisciplined rhetoric, or indications that Washington is wavering in its resolve to uphold its security commitments are likely to lead to more anxiety, aggression, and unpredictability from Beijing. This was demonstrated in August 2022, when the U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made a trip to Taiwan. Beijing responded by conducting a massive military exercise in the Taiwan Strait and, since then, has sought to normalize a persistent military presence close to Taiwan’s territorial waters. Of course, some might argue that U.S. President Joe Biden should have taken his own steps to counter this brazenness, but that misses the point. U.S. actions in the Taiwan Strait should be proactive and strategic, not reactive and undermined by political theater.

Coalitions are also critical to a holistic vision of deterrence. To preserve stability in the Taiwan Strait, it is essential for Washington to strengthen its partnerships with key allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Symbolic virtue-signaling, untethered to any specific objectives, typified by Pelosi’s visit, only helps Beijing to paint Washington as the instigator of tensions and to drive wedges between the United States and other countries. Medium and small powers are unlikely to be decisive U.S. partners in the event of a conflict with China. But they can play critical, nonmilitary roles by internationalizing the Taiwan issue, and scrambling Beijing’s calculations of the costs it might incur by escalating. This is because, for all its formidable strengths, the Chinese economy remains highly dependent on access to international financial markets, as well as on imports of key technologies, technical know-how, oil, gas, and food. Chinese leaders recognize these vulnerabilities and are working to minimize them, but these cannot be solved immediately. The more united that Washington and its global partners are in their resolve to preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, the greater the risk Beijing faces when considering military operations against Taiwan.

Deterrence is an exercise in political-psychological persuasion, never solely a calculation of military assets.

Some countries, including Japan, could play outsize roles in this strategy because of their military capabilities. Others, such as Singapore and South Korea, may fill more niche roles by, for example, providing access to U.S. forces for refueling and repairs. The more partners Washington has, the more strategic options it will enjoy. The United States made progress in coalition building in February, when it signed an updated Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines. This now gives the Pentagon access to nine military bases near Taiwan where it can train troops and station military equipment.

Yet as the conversation about Taiwan grows more dominated by the possibility of an invasion, many partners are becoming warier of going further in aligning with the United States and Taiwan on a range of economic and diplomatic initiatives. These countries are fearful that they will embroil themselves in a potentially open-ended and escalating confrontation with China. Such concerns also affect the decisions of global companies and investors, some of whom, including Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, perceive Taiwan as a risky destination for capital given the possibility of an imminent Chinese attack. The United States must show that its underlying goal is to cool tensions and preserve peace in Asia and that it has a coherent, holistic, and sustainable plan to do so. To the extent that there is instability, it is important that key global and regional actors recognize that Beijing, not Washington, is the one stirring the pot.

The stronger the coalition the United States builds, the more it will complicate Beijing’s risk-benefit calculus. A central U.S. objective must be to make Beijing perpetually unsure if it is adequately prepared to escalate its coercive or military efforts to seize Taiwan. Washington needs to make clear to China’s leaders that any battle over Taiwan would not simply be fought in the strait but would become a sprawling global effort to exploit each side’s vulnerabilities. U.S. leaders must work to privately impress upon their Chinese counterparts that the risks of expansion and escalation of a conflict could extend into space and cyberspace and could even become nuclear.

ACCIDENTS AND EMERGENCIES

At the same time, U.S. leaders must keep a path open for China and Taiwan to peacefully resolve their differences, even if such an outcome is unimaginable at present. The measure of success is not winning a war with China in the Taiwan Strait. Rather, success would be avoiding a war while allowing Taiwan to develop as a democracy. This will require persistent engagement with Chinese leaders, especially Xi, to clarify Washington’s intentions and explain its interests and concerns—and to request equal clarity from Beijing. U.S. officials must also maintain regular communication with Taiwan’s leaders, both to reassure them of the nature of their exchanges with their Chinese counterparts and, if necessary, to work to rein in any unnecessarily inflammatory actions by Taipei.

Washington and its partners must also disabuse Beijing of any suspicion that the U.S. commitment to Taiwan is weakening. The recent statement by former U.S. President Donald Trump that he would not comment on U.S. support for Taiwan in the event of an attack because “if I tell you an answer, it’s going to hurt me in negotiations” only increases the space for a miscalculation by Beijing. Chinese leaders must understand that maintaining the credibility of its security commitments is a vital interest to Washington; these commitments underpin the duties the United States has as a superpower. If key U.S. allies and partners are threatened, Beijing must know that Washington will not hesitate to act.

The United States must also provide China with incentives to moderate its aggression, not by developing new reassurances but by better acknowledging existing ones. For decades, Washington has declared that it would not support Taiwan independence and, equally, would accept any outcome negotiated between Taipei and Beijing so long as it was peaceful and enjoyed the Taiwanese people’s consent. The clarity and consistency of this long-standing commitment has wavered over the past several years, which has enflamed Beijing’s grievance that the United States is hollowing out its “one China” policy.

Any battle over Taiwan would not simply be fought in the strait but would become a sprawling global effort.

A peaceful and mutually agreed-on resolution may appear far-fetched given Xi’s increasingly coercive approach. A growing number of voices, including President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass, state that Washington’s “strategic ambiguity” is outdated, while others argue that the “one China” policy is collapsing. But these critics consistently fail to articulate a better alternative that would simultaneously keep the peace and provide Taiwan with the security it needs to continue developing. It is incumbent on those calling for the United States to formally abandon key pillars of its “one China” policy, support Taiwan’s independence, and give Taipei an unconditional security guarantee to articulate what the likely implications would be for the region. They must answer whether such moves would help or hinder Taiwan’s security and prosperity, or create a more peaceful and predictable environment for key allies in the region, including Japan and the Philippines. Calling for a radical break—as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has done—with traditional U.S. policy while waving away the consequences will not suffice.

At the same time, Washington’s support for the status quo must not become static. There are dramatically new dynamics at work in the Indo-Pacific that necessitate new ways of thinking and acting. U.S. policy on Taiwan has evolved and will evolve in tandem with developments around the Taiwan Strait, including Beijing’s growing truculence. The United States must remain committed to ensuring that China, as the stronger power, cannot unilaterally impose an intolerable political solution on Taiwan, the weaker one. A degree of flexibility is required to accomplish this. Washington’s policy has already proved itself capable of supporting a dynamic equilibrium by pushing back on unilateral attempts to alter the status quo, regardless of whether they emanated from Beijing or Taipei.

The real debate is not whether to jettison a policy approach that has preserved peace and protected Taiwan for decades but, rather, how the United States should evolve its approach within the current “one China” policy framework. Although there is a seductive appeal to abandoning this policy, doing so would stress U.S. commitments to Taiwan and the region and open up another fault line of risk in an already dangerous world. Unsatisfactory as it may be to many, the U.S. goal is to stretch time horizons, not collapse them.

The purpose of Washington’s strategy in the Taiwan Strait is to incentivize behavior that serves U.S. interests while disincentivizing actions that threaten them. Hard power is a critical element of the United States’ efforts to uphold peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. It is a variable in the equation, however, and not the solution. To protect its interests, U.S. leaders must become more adept at combining efforts to bolster military capabilities with clarity in their strategic objectives, strength in their coalitions, solid coordination with Taiwan, and a sharper comprehension of the psychology of decision-makers in Beijing. The United States has protected its interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for nearly 45 years. It has to up its game to continue doing so for the next 45.