Can America Prevent a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan?

 

 

Can America Prevent a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan?

Destroying Taiwan’s semiconductor industries could do more damage to Taiwan than China by undermining Taiwan’s political and economic survival.

 

Patrick Mendis Hon-Min Yau

The National Interest

June 5, 2022

 

During his maiden Asian visit to Japan and South Korea, President Joe Biden reiterated in Tokyo on May 23 that the United States would intervene militarily if China attempted to invade Taiwan by force. His repeated warning appeared to depart from the long-lasting “policy of ambiguity” employed by Washington. In Japan, the U.S. president added that the United States had made a commitment to “support the One China policy” in the past, but Beijing does not have the “jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan.” He then compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to a potential invasion of Taiwan by China and warned “it will dislocate the entire region” and emphasized that China—like Russia—would pay a long-term price for its actions. In essence, Biden’s message is crystal clear: the United States would engage in stronger military action to defend Taiwan against China than it has in Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

 

The emergence of Biden’s policy of “strategic clarity” from the policy of strategic ambiguity is embedded in a deterrence strategy, which has apparently taken a view of Elbridge Colby’s book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense of an Age of Great Power Conflict. The former defense official in the Trump administration argued that the United States must defend Taiwan—together with its allies like Japan and South Korea—and Washington could win and prevent a war. In her critique of the book in Foreign Affairs, Jessica Matthews concluded that Colby’s assumptions and “other wobbly conjectures fatally undermine the argument.”

 

An even more popular article, “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan” published by the U.S. Army War College’s Parameters, Jared McKinney and Peter Harris proposed a Taiwan deterrence strategy to render the island so “unwantable” so that it would make no logical sense for Beijing to seize the “breakaway province” by force.

 

Among their four key recommendations, McKinney and Harris have especially argued for the United States and Taiwan to deter China’s invasion “by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company [TSMC]—the critically important global chipmaker and China’s most important supplier.

 

When TSMC is destroyed, “China’s high-tech industries would be immobilized at precisely the same time the nation was embroiled in a massive war effort, the authors argued. The article furthermore noted that “even when the formal war ended, the economic costs would persist for years,” suggesting the situation could hurt the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

 

In their narratives and analyses of a potential Chinese invasion, these scholars and military strategists made their own assumptions, which are hardly applicable to the changing dynamics of the geopolitical and geo-economic calculus of the stakeholders. The important lesson from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that the repeated threats of economic sanctions, embargoes, economic blockades, and the U.S. indirect military engagements did not deter Vladimir Putin from prosecuting a war. The significant costs to the nations imposing the financial and other restrictions and unpredictable global market aside, the challenges of enforcing these measures offer a warning for Taiwan, the United States, and their Asian allies as threats from China become increasingly imminent.

 

 

The Cost of Deterrence by Denial

 

The argument propounded by McKinney and Harris started with a discussion of the growing military power of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Asia and the challenges of American ability to implement deterrence by denial via military force in a Taiwan contingency. These authors primarily argued that China’s advancement would reduce the cost of military action against Taiwan, while the cost of restraint would increase due to the recent domestic politics in Taiwan. In such a situation, the U.S. military no longer has clear supremacy in the region; a future Taiwan scenario would either be a fait accompli for China or an escalation of a Sino-American great power war.

 

As the high risks and costs involved in the deterrence by denial, McKinney and Harris offered recommendations from two perspectives. On the one side, both Taiwan and the United States should increase the cost of China’s military action by shifting to an alternative strategy of the “deterrence by punishment” strategy. This objective could be achieved by convincing China that the invasion of Taiwan would be inimical to its national interests and domestic development strategy. On the other side, the authors seem to suggest the U.S. reassurance of continuing its “strategic ambiguity” to reduce the cost of restraint by assuring China that “forgo[ing] an invasion of Taiwan would not be tantamount to losing Taiwan,” while convincing Taiwan and China that the United States is committed to maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait. The authors maintained a position that a strategy of deterrence-by-punishment is more feasible by concluding “if war, a Broken Nest; if peace, a tolerable status quo.” Although their arguments presented a provocative intellectual stimulation, our analysis of the issue diverges from their conclusions.

 

Since 1949, the combination of the U.S. strategic ambiguity along with the American military supremacy did not deter a then militarily and economically inferior China’s continuous effort in eroding the status quo over the Taiwan Strait or cause it to give up its ambition of invading Taiwan. For some reason, however, McKinney and Harris continued to argue the United States’ sustainment of strategic ambiguity along with the new formula of a strategy of deterrence by punishment would help better to deter China, which is both politically, economically, and militarily stronger than ever before. They summarized their “Broken Nest” strategy to include four elements: first, a robust Taiwanese defense; second, Taiwan’s preplanned resistance campaign; third, the self-destruction of TSMC; and fourth, a regional response from the U.S. allies in its subsequent engagement.

 

McKinney and Harris spent a significant portion of their analysis on the third controversial independent variable related to destroying TSMC. But would this prescription of dismantling TSMC actually deter China from its aggression against Taiwan? Would this recommendation help Taiwan in its own defense? Is this remedy in the interest of the United States?

 

 

Dismantling TSMC to Deter China

 

Unlike the claim made by McKinney and Harris, we argue that making Taiwan unattractive to China is extremely challenging. In fact, these two authors agreed with the past assessment of Andrew Scobell who maintained that for the Taiwan issue to be resolved once and for all, “the outcome must be satisfactory to Beijing.” In Scobell’s words, it will be a scenario in “which there is [military] conflict with resolution of the Taiwan issue.” This statement seems to suggest that China is undeterrable in its own ambition over Taiwan. Yet, interestingly, both authors believed that China could be deterred as long as there was enough penalty imposed. Regarding this disputed point, the authors’ defense is that for America to base its policy upon “the belief that China’s leaders are irrational … would be catastrophic.”

 

However, constructivism theory in international relations has already identified that abstract factors like strategic culture, religion, ideology, and education could influence one’s rationality. Before World War II, for example, the European powers rationally believed that appeasement could maintain peace for Europe. Still, Adolf Hitler was determined to initiate a conflict right from the beginning of the negotiations for the Munich Agreement. Likewise, before 2022, very few military strategists predicted that Putin would start an invasion of Ukraine regardless of the economic and social costs predicted. As such, it could be entirely rational for China to invade Taiwan due to the need to maintain its political legitimacy. During the first (1954-55) and second (1958) Taiwan Strait crises, Taiwan had no TSMC and tech industry, but somehow China made the costly attempts to invade. Hitler’s threat to Sweden during WWII was for the military need for iron ore mines, but China’s ambition for Taiwan is not only economical but also ideological and historical.

 

For example, the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) intervened in Hong Kong’s internal affairs not because of economic interests or response to external military threats, but simply because of a rational decision following its “revenge of the past” and nationalist ideology. Not to mention that the National Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) clearly states that “Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People’s Republic of China. It is the inviolable duty ... to accomplish the great task of reunifying the motherland.” Other than the potential technological boon Taiwan’s tech sector presents to China, as McKinney and Harris suggested, we maintain that Taiwan is attractive practically, politically, and legally in the eyes of the CPC leadership in Beijing.

 

While McKinney and Harris’ rationale could still be contested about Chinese rationality, there would also be practical difficulties in implementing such a “Broken Nest” strategy. In his book, Deterrence Now, Patrick Morgan explained that a successful deterrence relies on communicating a “credible threat” capability to your adversary. Even a “Broken Nest” prescription could be possible as McKinney and Harris stated that “while [hopefully, it might be] successful in the short term,” there is still a credibility challenge for this strategy. The question is, would Beijing remain passive in facing such a strategy, and for how long? In fact, China has vowed to boost its semiconductor industry in its Fourteenth Five-Year Plan and launched the Made in China 2025 initiative to enhance its self-sufficiency capability. On top of these developments, there are already TSMC facilities in China. Does this mean that Taiwan would need to destroy these civilian facilities via military means?

 

While Samsung is another alternative for China, as McKinney and Harris rightly pointed out, to what extent could the destruction of TSMC even impose so-called “unacceptable economic, political, and strategic costs upon China” when there are alternative sources globally? With the evolving global corporate strategies, the United States currently maintains dominance over semiconductor technology and manufacturing equipment at the upstream segment of the semiconductor supply chain. In this case, would Washington’s decision to impose sanctions and embargo on the critical semiconductor technology and equipment be more effective and seamless as non-military deterrents for China?

 

There is also the problem of communication. On deterrence, Thomas Schelling noted that: “…to persuade enemies or allies … it requires projecting intentions. It requires having those intentions, even deliberately acquiring them, and communicating [italics added] them persuasively to make other countries behave.” Hence, to what extent should Taiwan move on to demonstrate credibility to China on how this “Broken Nest” strategy could be achieved? It would also make Taiwan ponder how far it should go by using cruise missiles to attack semiconductor foundries, such as the China-owned Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) in Shanghai. Eventually, Taiwan would certainly need to justify why it violated the “Law of Armed Conflicts” by targeting civilian facilities.

 

 

Helping Taiwan in its Own Defense

 

Deterrence is about preventing an “incoming conflict.” The use of (military) defense only becomes necessary when deterrence fails. From this perspective, Russia has tried to deter NATO’s involvement in the current Russia-Ukraine War, but Ukraine was unable to deter Russia and is using its defense to protect itself. By this logic, Taiwan’s use of “Broken Nest” should be prior to the conflict—not during wartime. It should be noted that China is always looking for a Blitzkrieg-style offensive invasion designed to strike a swift and focused blow at Taiwan by using mobile, maneuverable forces, including armored tanks and air support. Once a war occurs, since the train has already left the station, a “Broken Nest” strategy has a questionable effect in stopping China’s already formed mass invasion. Would a “Broken Nest” prescription during wartime be able to stop an invasion already underway?

 

In addition, there are two types of targeting policy for any deterrence strategy. One is counterforce strategy, which targets an opponent’s military, and the other one is countervalue strategy, which targets an enemy’s cities and civilian facilities. But, according to Dieter Lutz, both of them are about holding the enemy’s assets—not your own assets—hostage. Destroying semiconductor facilities could likely be a countervalue strategy that is internationally controversial and may weaken international support and goodwill for Taiwan. Even if Taiwan decided to pursue such a questionable strategy, destroying TSMC would also undermine Taiwan’s defense capability during wartime as the island’s military certainly needs advanced computer chips to produce its various types of missiles in order to impose more “unacceptable economic, political, and strategic costs” upon China. In this scenario, a “Broken Nest” remedy favors China—not Taiwan.

 

In addition, Taiwan’s importance also relies on its position in the semiconductor industry; this is very much described as the “Silicon Shield.” Thus, we maintain that a simple placement of a chip embargo on China is a more effective way to achieve the argument advanced by McKinney and Harris that China could “be made to fear being denied access to these technologies.” However, destroying Taiwan’s semiconductor industries could do more damage to Taiwan than China by undermining Taiwan’s political and economic survival. Hence, strategically, China would very much appreciate the destruction of TSMC if Taiwan has to bite the hand that feeds itself.

 

 

What America Wants

 

McKinney and Harris seemed to support the U.S. continuation of strategic ambiguity as they argued the American increase of military presence in the region will reduce the possibility of finding “a diplomatic solution to the dispute.” Empirically, however, while there was no U.S. “all-out arms race” with Beijing during the late twentieth century, according to them, there was still no “diplomatic solution to the dispute.” Therefore, we all should be careful in drawing a quick conclusion about the causation claim.

 

In fact, one of the problems is that the past U.S. strategic ambiguity failed to constrain China due to the equivocality of “communication.” Washington’s vague words of deterring Taiwan’s independence could be interpreted as encouraging China’s unification agenda, and ambiguous deterrence toward China’s unification could also be likely seen as encouraging Taiwan’s independence. Before the Korean War, for example, Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s ambiguity contributed to the misperception by North Korea of the U.S. abandonment of South Korea. Likewise, when the United States continues to take an ambiguous posture regarding the Indo-Pacific region while China is expanding its influence, it could be perceived by its allies and China that “the United States would not fight,” according to McKinney and Harris.

 

The other problem of strategic ambiguity is based on the single assumption that Taiwan is the sole major cause of the Sino-American conflict. If scholars and strategists could agree that the CPC’s legitimacy in China comes from its self-imposed nationalist narrative, the Chinese dogma will naturally lead the country to engage with territorial issues not only with Taiwan but also in the East China Sea, South China Sea, and Sino-Indian border. This will mean that the United States needs to design a comprehensive strategy toward China—instead of just being based on the single assumption of the Taiwan question. American security policy needs to be aligned with the latest dynamics of regional development. Hence, the future adjustment of strategic ambiguity—be it “strategic clarity” or not—is not in Taipei’s favor; it should be Washington’s response to the changing dynamics in the regional security infrastructure.

 

The rationale for the CPC to use force to resolve the Taiwan issue by military means is more than a reaction to American support in the region. Since the 1990s the cross-Strait exchange has achieved limited results for China and allowed Taiwan to maintain the political status quo in the Taiwan Strait—not the eventual unification by China.

 

Therefore, for Beijing to complete China’s rejuvenation of the “great nation, [from the CPC’s] rational perspective, military means seems to become the only solution left.” From that perspective, a scenario of invading Taiwan as one of China’s biggest “importing” nations would cause a huge disruption to China’s economic development. Thus, China’s future invasion of Taiwan would indicate that its political interest supersedes the economic logic as proposed by McKinney and Harris. They assumed that deterrence is about increasing the “cost” for your adversary to take specific actions. In that case, the only action that both the United States and Taiwan should do to increase the cost to deter an incoming war with China is to respond with their better-equipped military capability. Hence, the U.S. reduction of military support is reducing military costs for China, and Taiwan’s destruction of TSMC would have no significant contribution to economic costs for China; however, it will substantially reduce Taiwan’s military due to the lack of required computer chips. What is more alarming is that if the economic argument of the importance of TSMC works upon China, destroying Taiwan’s TSMC would certainly affect the economic survival of the United States.

 

 

Preventing War and Triphibious Invasion

 

McKinney and Harris believe that deterrence by denial will fail, but deterrence by punishment will succeed. It seems that at a certain point in time, any of the U.S. deterrence strategies in stopping the occurrence of a war over the Taiwan Strait may very likely be destined to fail. This assessment is predicated on not only China promoting a nationalist dogma, but also the structural development in China’s growing ambitions and modernization of its military strength. It is not about whether China would want to use its force against Taiwan, but when China—under CPC rule—will feel that the conditions are conducive to doing so. However, it would be a misconception to quickly equate U.S. “strategic clarity” to a great power war as McKinney and Harris maintained.

 

As exemplified by the Russia-Ukraine war, while the United States and NATO are undecided to confront Russia directly, there are indirect ways that the international community could provide continuous support to Ukraine without creating an escalated conflict. The objective of traditional deterrence is to prevent a war—not to win a war.

 

Nevertheless, deterrence across the Taiwan Strait may be less about stopping the CPC’s ambitions, but more about prolonging the war and deterring the People’s Liberation Army’s triphibious invasion.

 

In that situation, China now has two aircraft carriers and five new theater commands. Since its 2016 military reforms, it could be expected that an invasion of Taiwan would certainly be a conflict involving military assets beyond the Taiwan Strait, but including assets from the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and the South China Sea.

 

Henceforth, a robust Taiwanese defense (i.e., a “porcupine strategy”) would be better to complement, but not to replace Taiwan’s offensive fighting capability. A strategy of sustaining Taiwan’s fighting capability and enlarging the conflict area—with U.S. support—would allow Taiwan to create more political leverage and cost against China while the economic activities in southeast China would likely be depressed due to concerns about the ongoing war. It would place immediate economic and political pressure on China’s invasion. This improved design follows McKinney and Harris’ strategy in principle, but uses different tactics in a new security context over the Taiwan Strait.

 

 

Rethinking Deterrence

 

McKinney and Harris’ final point is if Taiwan is “refusing to contemplate threatening targeted economic self-harm ... [it will] telegraph to Beijing and the rest of the world a dangerous unwillingness to take risks in pursuit of self-defense.” However, it should be remembered that whether the signal is costly does not naturally make it effective. It must always take an effective measure first and then make it costly. As General George S. Patton reminded us, “no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” By that wisdom, the element of destroying TSMC in the Broken Nest strategy is questionable in its effectiveness; hence, an act of self-harm signals desperation, according to McKinney and Harris, but it has no causal effect on enhancing Taiwan’s self-defense.

 

Nonetheless, Taiwan should certainly be determined to defend itself regardless of how much support the island nation will get from the United States and its allies and partners; however, the United States should not subscribe itself to any kind of timeless assumptions. Biden’s recent remarks in Japan signify American willingness to engage with the changing economic and security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region without self-constraint by ideological divisions and political ideologies prevailing in U.S. national politics.

 

Although it is possible to “imagine” a Broken Nest strategy, we must be careful about making assumptions to frame a solution, especially in a volatile geopolitical and geo-economic environment. The application of evolving lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the unintended consequences that followed—like the human cost, the refugee issue, and the global impact—might be a better way to rethink the gamut of developing a deterrence strategy against a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

 

Dr. Patrick Mendis is a distinguished visiting professor of transatlantic relations at the University of Warsaw in Poland as well as a distinguished visiting professor of global affairs at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

 

Dr. Hon-Min Yau is an associate professor of strategy and international affairs as well as the director of the Graduate Institute of International Security at the National Defense University in Taiwan. Their views expressed in this analysis neither represent the official positions of the current or past affiliation of their institutions nor their respective governments.

Image: Reuters.