A 2021 GRAY SWAN: COULD THE US AND CHINA GO TO WAR OVER TAIWAN?
Bilal Hafeez
With all the talk about the return of Great Power politics, few are actually looking for a direct confrontation between the US and China. Yet, we could easily see a path to one that runs through Taiwan. Indeed, the internet has been rife with chatter about such a conflict in recent months (Chart 1). So how would it come about?
To start with, we need to understand that the Trump administration has ratchetted up the US’s support for Taiwan. In a break from US policy set in 1979, President Trump spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai in 2016. The US State Department also declassified two cables from 1982 that detail Six Assurances between the US and Taiwan. These include assurances around arms sales and not formally recognising Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Then a few months ago, the US sent two high-ranking officials – first Health Secretary Alex Azar and later Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Keith Krach – to visit Taiwan. These were the highest-ranking US officials to do so in decades.
China criticized those visits. And in October, Chinese President Xi told his marines to devote their ‘minds and energy’ to ‘preparing for war’. Around the same time, the state-run media outlet, The Global Times, ran an editorial that included this line: ‘The only way forward is for the mainland to fully prepare itself for war and to give Taiwan secessionist forces a decisive punishment at any time.’ And recent months have seen an increase in Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwanese airspace and new proposals that would allow China’s coast guard to use greater force to assert China’s territorial claims.
China's Communist Party (CCP) seems to be implementing a multidimensional strategy in the Caribbean, reaping economic, political and potentially military gains a few miles offshore the United States. China's ultimate objective of its Caribbean strategy may well be to confront the US, not only with its presence near the mainland US, but also with a situation analogous to America's military presence in the region of the South China Sea. There, China created new islands in the sea, pledged not to militarize them, then went and militarized them.
It is important to remember that China also promised Hong Kong autonomy until 2047, then, in 2020, jumped the gun by 27 years. "Hong Kong will be another communist-run city under China's strict control," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in July. China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements.
The CCP leadership has also been launching a diplomatic effort in the Caribbean with the goal of delegitimizing the state of Taiwan, while encouraging regional countries to open relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC).
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