'War is Real': Defend Taiwan or Give It the Bomb
by Gordon G. Chang • October 18, 2021 at 5:00 am
U.S. President Joe Biden can reestablish deterrence by offering Taiwan a mutual defense treaty. If he does not want to do that, he should either base American nuclear weapons in Taiwan or transfer such weapons to the island so it can defend itself. In the 1980s, the U.S. beefed up deterrence of the Soviet Union by basing nuclear-tipped Pershing missiles in Europe.
China, in short, apparently believes it can run over America to make Taiwan its 34th province. To disabuse Chinese aggressors at this late date, the U.S. should ditch the decades-old "strategic ambiguity," the policy of not telling either Beijing or Taipei what it would do when conflict was imminent, and publicly offer Taipei a mutual defense treaty.
Taiwan has always been critically important to America. The island makes advanced chips for U.S. products, anchors America's western defense perimeter, and is a beacon of democracy. After the fall of Kabul, Taiwan is seen as the test of U.S. resolve. The U.S. should, therefore, be willing to go to extraordinary lengths to protect the island.
[T]here are no un-dangerous options for Washington.
Sha Zukang, the former Chinese ambassador for disarmament to the U.N. in Geneva, last month suggested that China create large exceptions to its announced no-first-use policy, the promise not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
"The island's society must be warned that they better not believe the 'rock solid' promise of the U.S. because Washington will never fight to the death with the Chinese mainland for the island's secession," the Chinese Communist Party's Global Times proclaimed on October 14, referring to Taiwan.
The words, contained in an editorial, reflects the Party's propaganda line, and that line almost certainly reflects the thinking of Chinese leaders.
There has in recent months been a dangerous erosion in deterrence. U.S. President Joe Biden can reestablish deterrence by offering Taiwan a mutual defense treaty. If he does not want to do that, he should either base American nuclear weapons in Taiwan or transfer such weapons to the island so it can defend itself.
