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A J-11 air fighter takes off from a PLA military airport in China's Zhejiang province. August 2021.
(Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
As Taiwan prepares to celebrate its National Day on October 10, the threat from China is rising. Recent incursions by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes into its air defense zone are a calculated attempt to test Taiwanese defenses, identify weak points, and gather intelligence for a future attack on the island republic.
Is it time to prepare to defend Taiwan against what appears to be an inevitable conflict with China? Hudson Institute Japan Chair Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster joined Project 2049 Institute Executive Director Mark Stokes, RAND Corporation Senior Political Scientist Scott Harold, and Hudson Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick Cronin for a discussion on strategies to preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. See key quotes from their conversation below.
Key Quotes
Who knows what the [Chinese Communist Party] will do beyond these menacing acts the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has taken in recent days? But I think that we’re in a race—"we" being Taiwan and the United States but also Japan, and the development of its capabilities, and others in the region including our allies, Australia and so forth—to ensure deterrence by denial, to convince the Chinese Communist Party leadership and the People’s Liberation Army that they can’t accomplish their objectives through the use of force or coercion vis-a-vis Taiwan. [From a media roundtable prior to the event].
We know from war games that if China were to introduce unmanned, uncrewed vehicles by sea and air, they could knock out U.S. carrier battle groups and degrade Taiwan’s defense forces over a few days. And that's why Admiral Davidson, the former commander at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is now famous for the 'Davidson Window.' By 2027, ostensibly at the end of a third five-year term as general secretary of the Chinese communist party, Xi Jinping may think, “ah, the military balance is now more in my favor. This is my chance for history and legacy."
So we have to be ready. The United States, Japan, obviously the Taiwanese, and the international community, for that kind of miscalculation on the part of Xi Jinping and the Chinese. I think we can do that with strong deterrence, with strong, clear messaging, with open channels of communication to the Chinese, with helping Taiwan in all the ways that they need, including the overall defense concept, frankly, which may be one very minor end of it; it's not the high technology, it's more civil defense.
China's recognition of the challenges in conducting [an outright invasion of Taiwan] means that they'll probably try other things first. Psychological operations, domestic subversion, gray zone coercion. The PRC is trying to infiltrate and leverage opposition parties, and uncivil society groups like the mafia. It's trying to weaponize Taiwan's private businesses and media market. It's trying to attack Taiwanese society using social media disinformation campaigns. And it's certainly using cyber.
The [People's Republic of China] has suggested that a breakdown in social order could be the prompt that calls for Chinese intervention to help protect its Taiwan compatriots. Kind of a, we'll create a disturbance and then use that to justify our invasion. So "intervention by invitation” is something that Taiwan needs to be prepared to counter.
In the United States, we have had a 'One China' policy that is oversimplified, that states that you can only have normal diplomatic relations with one side of the Taiwan Strait or the other. We picked Beijing. We picked the Chinese Communist Party in the 1978 timeframe and withdrew recognition of [Taiwan]. From this perspective, we chose to lend our legitimacy, in terms of the embassy and all the trappings. You can't even put the [Taiwanese] flag on the State Department website. In my view, there's a connection between backsliding democracy in the Indo-Pacific region and the legitimacy and credibility we give to Beijing.
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
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