Taiwan’s best defence is possibility US, Japan will fight China over it

Even a limited war with the US and China would be a calamity but so would the loss freedom for 25 million Taiwanese and end of the Pax Americana under which the world has flourished, writes Tony Abbott.

There’s a school of thought that possible disasters are best not discussed, lest it makes them more likely. When a very senior Australian official recently referred to the “drums of war” beating in our region, the general reaction was that he should never have said it, especially because he was right.

For myself, I’ve tended to the view worst cases should be pondered so that – if they eventuate – at least we’ve thought things through and are more likely to respond well.

Taiwan would most likely fight China if it invaded. Picture: Sam Yeh / AFP

For several decades, we avoided many of the questions about China by assuming that economic liberalis­ation would inevitably mean a measure of political liberalisation too.

Sooner or later, they’d be liberal democrats just like us. Now that this has been exposed as wishful thinking, we’re starting to consider some of the tough issues.

But the biggest issue of all is rarely canvassed for the obvious reason that its ramifications are so serious. What happens if, and when, China invades Taiwan? An assault on Taiwan was long thought to be unthinkable.

First, China was preoccupied with its own internal development so its rhetoric about reunification shouldn’t be taken too seriously; second, the US Pacific Fleet had complete mastery of the seas and would intimidate China out of cross-straits adventurism; and third, a flourishing Hong Kong ­offered Taiwan a model for rejoining the mainland while keeping its ­freedom.

None of this can be taken for granted anymore.

The Beijing leadership’s rhetoric against Taiwan has become much more belligerent; a richer and more technologically-advanced China now has the world’s second most powerful navy, with carrier-busting weapons and a growing capacity to mount an amphibious assault; and the strangulation of Hong Kong means that no Taiwanese would ever take seriously a Beijing promise of “one country, two systems”.

It’s easy enough to imagine a Chinese attack because the Beijing-controlled media has recently published a scenario for how one might go.

There could be an economic blockade, large-scale cyber-attacks, targ­eted assassinations, and quisling uprisings, followed by massive missile bombardment of Taiwan’s bases and fortifications.

The final move would have to be a sea or airborne invasion because having the People’s Liberation Army in complete control would be the only acceptable outcome for Beijing.

Given the David and Goliath ­aspect to this struggle, the odds would have to be against Taiwan.

US Chinese brinkmanship over Taiwan. Art: Terry Pontikos

Without very sophisticated weaponry, especially smart mines, it’s hard to imagine that Taiwan could stop a full-scale invasion, or hold out for long, once an army had come ashore.

Unless, of course, Taiwan was able to count on the support of allies ready to take massive risks to help shoulder the burden of defending a liberal democracy of 25 million people.

Should they, would they? That’s the question.

There’s little doubt that the US could still defeat an invasion of Taiwan, if it wanted to.

But that might involve attacking installations on the mainland or putting US naval ships into great peril.

There could be many thousands of casualties on both sides, with the risk of escalation well beyond the immediate theatre, as Beijing would almost certainly raise the stakes in what would become an existential struggle for the CCP, no less than for Taiwan.

The peace held in Europe for more than 40 years because the Soviet leadership thought that America would indeed put itself on the line for its allies.

But the America of Trump and Biden is not the America of JFK that would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, (and) oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty”.

And, in truth, the survival of Taiwan isn’t on the same scale as that of the Western European heartland, ­especially as the Beijing regime would doubtless declare, echoing another ruthless totalitarian, that it had “no further territorial ambitions” in East Asia.

There would be plenty of China experts to declare that what happened to Taiwan, however ghastly, was no business of anyone else’s — even though Taiwan hasn’t really been ruled by Beijing since 1895; or that, even if it were our business, the risk of going beyond economic sanctions would be far too high.

On the other hand, should the ­Taiwanese fight, as they almost certainly would, any American acquiescence in a Chinese takeover would brand the US as an unreliable ally, a fairweather friend.

The global US alliance system would unravel; forcing all the other countries of our region into making the best possible accommodation with Beijing — or of arming themselves to the teeth to dramatically raise the stakes should Beijing ­threaten them.

Maybe that wouldn’t matter so much to America, which could quite readily revert to isolationism, secure in its own hemisphere.

But without a benign, if sometimes blundering, America as its policeman, for everyone beyond the reach of the Monroe doctrine, the world would be very different and much grimmer.

My instinct is that China would move swiftly to take Taiwan, if it thought that the only resistance would be Taiwanese.

The best course of action, then, is to keep Beijing guessing.

Much like the Japanese deputy prime minister just has, with his ­observation that an attack on Taiwan would be an existential threat, thus raising the prospect of Japanese ­intervention even under its pacifist constitution.

And swiftly to equip Taiwan to make the most effective self-defence it can; perhaps like the help that’s been given to Israel, another small vulnerable democracy.

It would be a grievous business to send Australian ships and planes into a deadly contest in the Straits of ­Taiwan.

I can’t imagine a heavier decision for any prime minister; but if the US navy were there, what choice would there be?

The more risks Beijing has to consider, and the more opponents it might have to confront, the better the chance of avoiding calamity.

And calamity it certainly would be; even a limited war between the US and China; but so would the extinguishment of freedom for 25 million people and the end of the Pax Americana under which the world has flourished as never before.

Tony Abbott is a former Prime Minister of Australia