Congressman says war over Taiwan possible within six years

Washington: A rising star in the United States Congress says the US and Australia should be prepared to go to war to defend Taiwan against a potential Chinese military invasion within six years.

Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, co-chair of the congressional Friends of Australia caucus, said he fears the Chinese Communist Party sees a moment of “strategic opportunity” to assert its dominance in Taiwan while the world is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Two soldiers guard on a tank during a military exercise in Hsinchu County, northern Taiwan.Credit: AP

“It’s remarkable that a year and change after the pandemic started in China, I think the CCP feels more emboldened than they did before and the West is more divided,” Gallagher told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“We all need to send a signal that they can’t get away with it.”

The Wisconsin congressman pointed to Senate testimony by Admiral Philip Davidson, the outgoing commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, in March that China could make a move on Taiwan within six years.

US Representative Mike Gallagher believes the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan rather than emerged naturally in wildlife.

Davidson’s statement chimes with recent comments by Defence Minister Peter Dutton that a war with China cannot be discounted and Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo’s claim that the drums of war are beating in the region.

Gallagher, a member of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said the US and its allies should deploy more submarines, naval ships and intermediate-range missiles in the Indo-Pacific to convince Beijing it would lose any military dispute over Taiwan.

The China hawk also called on the Biden administration to end the decades-old American policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan by formally pledging to defend the island in the case of a Chinese troop invasion.

“We need a declaratory statement of policy that commits the United States to the defence of Taiwan,” he said.

“It certainly has risks but we’ve learned from decades of failed policy with the CCP that the greatest risk of all comes from complacency.”

The US never stipulated that it would come to Taiwan’s defence during a military conflict, only that it would help the island defend itself.

Gallagher stressed that it would be up to the Australian government to decide whether to participate in any military campaign.

But he added: “What’s beautiful about the US-Australia alliance is we’ve fought every war together since WWI and my hope is we continue to stand together in times of crisis.″

Last week Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for the US and China to try to see past their differences because of the damage conflict between them would do to the world.

One of Taiwan’s guided-missile frigates at naval base in the northern port of Keelung, Taiwan in March.Credit: AP

“You are going to have a state of tension – anxiety at the very least and conflict possibly – all over the world,” Lee said. “This is going to be bad, not just for other countries big and small, but for both America and China.”

A US warship, the USS Curtis Wilbur, last week sailed through the seas separating Taiwan and China, a move that angered the CCP.

“The US actions sends the wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces, deliberately disrupting the regional situation and endangering peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a spokesman for China’s Eastern Theatre Command said.

As well as greater military investment to compete with China, Gallagher has led to charge in Congress for a more comprehensive investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

Gallagher believes it is most probable that the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan rather than emerging naturally in wildlife and spreading to humans.

He said Beijing’s economic punishment of Australia following the Morrison government’s call for an independent investigation into the virus’s orgins helped spark his interest in the issue and convince him that the Chinese government had something to hide.

He said Australia and the US should continue pushing for more transparency from China, saying: “I think this is a test of the free world.”

A draft report released in March by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found it was “likely-to-very likely” that the virus emerged naturally and that a lab leak was the least likely cause of transmission.

But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the issue required further investigation and that he would be willing to deploy investigators to probe the topic.