Have you read? Diamond: Taiwan will face an existential threat in the coming decade

If China manages to absorb Taiwan the way it absorbed Hong Kong, that will be a big setback. Everybody is aware of Taiwan's importance in global supply chains, particularly in terms of semiconductors, and that's a capability Western countries and the United States in particular do not want to see China control.

Both China and Russia have been promoting the view that America is in decline, and that over time is going to be displaced by China. One of the tests for whether this is true or not is what happens with Taiwan. 

For all of those reasons, I think Taiwan is a very important country.

I don't think that the US will intervene with ground forces at all [should China uses force against Taiwan]. I don't see that happening.

I think what's likely to happen is that China will attack some of the regional forces of the US, like in Okinawa or Naval forces that are close to the Taiwan Strait, because it couldn't really invade Taiwan without neutralizing those forces. If China actually strikes first, then the likelihood that the United States will respond forcefully are much greater.

But the deeper political problem is that I don't think there is a bipartisan consensus on the degree to which we ought to extend a military support to Taiwan. 

However, there has been more bipartisan consensus over China policy, that China is the biggest geopolitical threat that the US faces.

Biden did not change Trump's policy in many respects, even including some of the tariffs that Trump had imposed on Chinese imports.

But the problem is still party politics. It's easy to see when a party is out of power, it uses foreign policy as a means of criticizing.

We can agree that China is a threat, that it’s important for Taiwan to remain independent and democratic, but we could not yet agree that we ought to sacrifice for that cause.

It is one thing to hold a democracy summit, but It's another thing to actually use military force to defend democracy. It's just not clear that anyone in the US is willing to do that, particularly after the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After the Vietnam War, a lot of Americans became very unhappy with America's foreign involvement. They didn't like Americans getting killed overseas, and that's something that's really different now.

There's a really important point I would like to get across to your Taiwanese readers.

I've been following Taiwanese defense policy for twenty years. I've had graduate students write dissertations about it. And I do not believe Taiwan has taken its own self-defense seriously enough.

They have under-invested, and in the wrong kinds of weapons systems. Too often there is a desire to buy the most sophisticated kinds of fighters, rather than military equipment that will actually be useful.

The biggest mistake Taiwan has made was to abolish the draft.

From talking to Taiwanese friends and colleagues, it appears that a lot of Taiwanese have basically decided “there is no way we can defend ourselves from China if it actually comes down to the use of military force, and we'll have to rely on the Americans.”

That is a big, big mistake.

Because America will not fight for a country that is not going to fight for itself.

If you don't see Taiwanese soldiers, men and women, dying out there for their own country, then no American is going to die for Taiwan.

That should be clear to everybody on the island, because that's the political reality.

That was the problem in Afghanistan. The Afghans weren't willing to fight for their own country. That's one of the reasons the United States eventually got out.

[The belief that the US will come to rescue Taiwan if China attacks] is a very dangerous assumption to make.

[When it comes to the issue of foreign trade,] most countries can see that China is really not dedicated to free trade. The Chinese subsidize their own industries. They don't provide foreigners with the same rights and protection of property rights. 

I think what China is trying to do is insert themselves into as many international organizations as possible, so that they can then change the rules of international commerce to suit their own national interest. And that's a troubling development.

Importance of access to strategic goods 

It’s easy to not buy equipment from HUAWEI or convince allies not to rely too heavily on Chinese companies for their digital infrastructure, but the longer-term problems are really in manufacturing capability, both in semiconductors, 5G equipment, and switching equipment under free market economics.

When you need strategic goods like semiconductors and high value-added electronics, it's very important to have national control over the territory where that stuff is made.

Both the United States and Europe are now struggling to try to diversify their sources of semiconductor supply and to bolster their own industries. It's not clear how that's going to work, and if it does work, it's going to take many years to develop the kinds of capabilities.

It affects Taiwan because of Taiwan's role in the semiconductor supply chain.

Taiwan is a democracy, so nobody has any problem depending on Taiwan for semiconductors, but it's vulnerable to Chinese pressure, to Chinese takeover.

For that reason, both US and Europeans would like to have other sources of supplies so that they don't have to worry about that as much.

Eventually, Taiwan needs to grow economically. 

Compared to China, Taiwan's economy over the last fifteen years has stagnated. There are some obstacles to returning to economic growth that need to be overcome, namely the polarization.

It's not quite as bad as in the United States, but between the DPP and the KMT, there is a lot of disagreements, especially over foreign policy.

At this point the threat of military action from China is a real one, and I think that Taiwan has to take that very, very seriously, and invest a lot more in its own self-defense. That would be the main thrust of what I would do if I were Taiwan. 

One of the most important sources of support is not in terms of formal recognition by governments, but more societal support, because there are a lot of people who want Taiwan to succeed. 

So building ties with them, even if you don't have diplomatic recognition, still remains important. 

Keeping Taiwan's economic relations with the rest of the world going is also quite critical, because Taiwan will do much better if it can return to much more rapid economic growth.

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Have you read?

♦ Why the Chinese military has increased activity near Taiwan
♦ What does the Biden-Xi meeting portend for Taiwan?
♦ Diamond: Taiwan will face an existential threat in the coming decade

Uploaded by Penny Chiang