In 2013, John Mearsheimer visited Taiwan and gave a speech at the Academia Sinica.  Immediately after returning to the United States, he published a commentary “Say Goodbye to Taiwan” in the National Interest magazine. After President Tsai Ing-wen took office, he re-titled his original article. After Tsai took office, he re-titled his article “RIP Taiwan?”.

“According to his linear projection, there is no hope for Taiwan,” said Alexander C. Huang, a professor at the Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University who wrote an article challenging Mearsheimer's thesis. “He ignored the non-institutional nature of China’s regime shift and its economic move toward a middle-income trap, which cannot be predicted by a neo-realist, hegemonic view of Beijing.”

Eight years later, when asked again by CommonWealth about his views on Taiwan, Mearsheimer’s answer was surprising.

“I never intended to write Taiwan off,” he said.

Has the master of realpolitik changed? In an interview with CommonWealth, Mearsheimer describes why the current global situation is more dangerous than the Cold War, and why Taiwan is more important than ever. The following is our interview excerpts, edited for brevity and clarity:

Q. We had the Ukraine war and the tension of cross-strait has escalated this year. How do you think the world got here?

When the cold war ended in 1989, and the soviet union fell apart in December of 1991, we entered into the unipolar moment where there was only one great power in the world, and that was the United States. 

But by about 2017, not only had China appeared on the scene as a great power, but Russia had reappeared as a great power. So we went from unipolarity to multi-polarity. 

Moreover, what happened today is that the United States ended up picking a fight with Russia. Furthermore, the Chinese translated their economic might into military might, and the Chinese are trying to dominate Asia, the way the United States dominates the western hemisphere. And this has played a key role in bringing the United States and China into an intense security competition I think can be accurately called a new cold war.

So what you have today are two conflicts, one between the United States and Russia, and the other between the United States and China, both of which are very dangerous. We live in a more dangerous world today than we lived in during the cold war, and certainly, a more dangerous world than we lived in during the unipolar moment.

Q. Taiwan has hosted several delegations from the EU in the past few months. Almost every guest was asking, will Taiwan be the Ukraine of Asia? How do you see the impact the Ukraine war has brought to the Taiwan Strait?

There's no question in the US-Russia competition, the fight between those two countries is over Ukraine. And there's also no question that in the US-China competition, the most dangerous flashpoint is Taiwan. 

(Source: Pei-Yin Hsieh)

In the Ukraine war, it looks like we're gonna have a protracted war, a stalemate where the two sides slug it out. 

Taiwan is in a very dangerous situation. But I think that Ukraine and what has happened in Ukraine makes it less likely that China would attack Taiwan in the foreseeable future.

There are two reasons for that. One, I think the Ukraine war has demonstrated that a military that attacks another country sometimes does not perform very well. The Russian military has not performed well in Ukraine. If you think about the Chinese military, it's not been for war since 1979, so it is highly unlikely the Chinese military would be able to easily launch an amphibious operation across the Taiwan Strait and Conquer Taiwan. Highly unlikely. 

So I think the Russian military performance sends a signal to the Chinese that they should be wary of how their military will perform when it's called on to execute an amphibious operation against Taiwan, which is a remarkably difficult military operation.

The second reason, I think the way that the Ukraine crisis enhances deterrence in East Asia is that the Chinese have watched how the Americans reacted in Europe. And there's no question the Americans have vigorously come to the aid of Ukraine. I think this sends a clear message to China that if China were to attack Taiwan, the Americans would not only come to the aid of Taiwan, but they would do it in a very vigorous manner.

Q. Following your second point, you wrote an essay ‘Say goodbye to Taiwan’ in 2014. But now, you argue the US is going to defend Taiwan if China attacks. What in your view has changed or stayed the same about the way you see the role of Taiwan?

Nothing has changed in my view about the US relationship with Taiwan. 

I believed when I wrote that essay back in 2014, that the United States should and would defend Taiwan, and I believe that today. 

What happened was the editors at the National Interest gave the article a very provocative title, which implied that I was not interested in defending Taiwan, which was not true. 

What I said in the article is that if China continues to grow economically at an impressive economic rate, much the way it has grown over the past 30 years, then eventually, China may come so powerful that the United States can no longer defend Taiwan.

I was simply making the argument that in the situation where China turns into a goliath, the United States will then not be able to defend Taiwan. I wasn't saying that's gonna happen. I was saying if that happens. But that is not the case in the foreseeable future. 

So I was not calling for abandoning Taiwan. I have long argued that China cannot rise peacefully. I have long argued that the United States would have to contain China. And I've long argued that Taiwan would be a key player in the balancing coalition that the Americans put together to contain Beijing.

Q. What is Taiwan's strategic role, from the US’s perspective? 

There are two important strategic reasons for why the United States wants an independent Taiwan. 

First of all, if Taiwan were to fall to China or if China were to conquer Taiwan, and the United States did nothing, that would have huge consequences for the alliance structure that the United States created in East Asia. 

Other countries in East Asia that are allies of the United States, like Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and so forth would definitely lose much faith in the American security guarantee. 

The other reason that Taiwan matters is that for purposes of bottling up a Chinese navy and the Chinese air force inside the first island chain, it's very important for the United States and its allies to control Taiwan or to have Taiwan as an ally, and not have it fall into the hands of the Chinese. 

The United States and its allies are committed to keeping China inside the first island chain, keeping its air force and its navy inside the first island chain, and controlling Taiwan helps a great deal in that regard.

Those are the two strategic logics that underpin our deep-seated commitment to defending Taiwan.

Q. How do you see the US’s Taiwan policy today?

I think the United States and Taiwan are going to move closer and closer together over time.  

The United States and Taiwan do not want China to be able to invade Taiwan and conquer it. And the United States will go to great lengths to provide Taiwan with significant conventional forces and will commit its forces to defend Taiwan. And I believe the Japanese and the Australians will also be players in that situation, they will play a role in helping to defend Taiwan.

At the same time, the United States is working to create a powerful, conventional deterrent in Taiwan. It will put its nuclear umbrella over Taiwan so that the Chinese understand well that if they are to attack Taiwan, it will escalate to the nuclear level. 

Q. You criticized the US’s liberal hegemony in the book 'The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities'. From that point of view, is it realistic for the United States to help Taiwan in the way you described? How do you see the United States’ foreign policy today? 

That book was a critique of American foreign policy during the unipolar moment. At that moment, China was not a serious threat to the United States, and the United States pursued a remarkably foolish policy of what I call liberal hegemony and got into all sorts of trouble.  

But that world has gone away. We're in a multipolar world now. And the United States faces a fierce competitor, China, it's not Russia. 

China is a feared competitor of the United States, and the United States is committed to containing China. It started with President Trump, moving away from the policy of engagement that we employ during the unipolar moment and developing a tough-minded containment policy. 
When president Biden moved into the white house in January 2021, he did not go back to a policy of engagement, which he had championed when he was vice president, and when he was head of the senate foreign relations committee. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of President Trump and continued the Trump administration's containment policy.

All of this tells you we are in a multipolar world. The United States is behaving according to the dictates of realism when it comes to dealing with China. 

Q. Why is China a tougher competitor for the United States? How come the economy is no longer a stabilizer of peace? 

During the unipolar moment, when I would make the argument that China cannot rise peacefully, the counter argument that people used against me all the time was that economic interdependence will prevent the war. 

There's so much economic interdependence between China and the United States and between China and the other countries in east Asia, that nobody in their right mind would start a war, because you would, in effect, kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

So economic independence is supposed to be a great cause of peace. What we've seen over the past 5 years is that this economic independence is a point of major friction between the United States and China. So instead of fostering cooperation, this economic interdependence has fostered security competition. So it has not worked the way people thought it would work.

Q. In a multipolar world, is the United States capable of handling Russia and China at the same time? 

I believe that the United States should not have picked a fight with Russia. I believe it was a huge strategic mistake because the United States drove the Russians into China’s arms. 

It would be much better if Russia were an ally of the United States against China. That was one way in which our policy towards Russia was foolish.

The other way in which our policy toward Russia was foolish is that it makes it more difficult for us to fully pivot to Asia. The United States should be reducing its forces in Europe and increasing its forces in East Asia. But that's not happening, because we, in effect, pursued policies that led to the present Ukraine war.

So I think at the moment, the United States is doing the right thing, for sure, in East Asia, I think the Biden administration's containment policy is smart, but I think, in terms of the Ukraine crisis and in terms of US-Russia relations, we made a huge error by picking a fight with the Russians. And that will hurt us in East Asia.

Q. Is it realistic for the United States to not pick a fight with Russia, and even be friends with Russia?

It's no longer realistic. The United States is in a fight with Russia that it's not going to get out of any time soon. This is a travesty in so many ways, but I would make a point that in April of 2008 when NATO decided that it was going to bring Ukraine into the alliance, it was at that point that the trouble started. The United States should not have done that. 

And then for the next 14 years, the United States should have looked for opportunities to back away from the policy of incorporating Ukraine into NATO. But the United States did not do that. Instead, it doubled down and worked harder and harder to bring Ukraine into NATO, and it eventually blew up in their face. 

But we had opportunities in the past to head this problem off the past and to avoid antagonizing the Russians and driving them into the arms of China. But we did not embrace those opportunities. We kept playing tough with the Russians. The result was now deeply involved in a war against Russia.

We're not doing the actual fighting at this point, but we're doing everything but the fighting, that, again, makes it difficult for the United States to pivot to East Asia, which is, in my opinion, and number one security concern. And number two, it drives the Russians into China’s arms, which is not in America's interest.

Q. How do you foresee the relationship between China and the US in the near future? Will the tension escalate? 

I think the relationship between China and the United States will get worse with the passage of time.

Because China is going to grow more powerful, become more assertive. And the United States at the same time is going to go to great lengths, not only to contain China, but the United States will try to roll back Chinese power.

If you look at what the United States is now doing about semiconductors, what you see is that the United States is trying to weaken the Chinese economy. This is going to enrich the Chinese and cause them to work harder to compete with the United States. So the intensity of the competition in terms of cutting-edge technologies will grow stronger and stronger over time.

And then with regard to Taiwan, what's going to happen with Taiwan is that the United States and Taiwan are going to grow closer and closer together. Because as I said before, the United States is interested in having Taiwan, maintaining its independence, and not letting Taiwan fall into the hands of China. So as the United States does more to protect Taiwan from China, that will, in effect, anger China more and more. 

China considers Taiwan a sacred territory and is deeply committed to making Taiwan part of the mainland once again. And it's the Americans who were standing in the way. 

So there are two good reasons why we should expect more trouble moving down the road. And I think it's going to take really smart management in both Beijing and Washington to avoid this cold war between China and the United States from turning into a hot war.

Q. What options does Taiwan have?

Draw as close to the United States as you can. And you want to make sure that the Americans provide security for Taiwan. You also want to make sure you don't do anything to unnecessarily provoke China. I think, for example, that if Taiwan were to declare its independence, China would probably attack Taiwan.

Q. But it seems contradictory. Whenever Taiwan moves closer to the United States, Beijing would be angrier.

Exactly right. And that's why I said, I think the competition between the United States and China, it's likely to intensify over time. 

One does not want to underestimate how dangerous the competition between the United States and China is going to be. And one does not want to underestimate how important Taiwan is as a point of conflict in the relationship between the United States and Taiwan.

Some people like to say that an analogous situation in the original cold war was Berlin, but that's not really true. The Soviets didn't care much about Berlin. They certainly did not consider Berlin sacred territory. It was not a flashpoint way Taiwan is from a nationalist point of view.

Furthermore, Berlin mattered little for the security competition, for the military competition, between the United States and its allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other side. Berlin just did not matter much at all. The United States fully understood. It could not defend Berlin, which was why Berlin was lost. 

Taiwan is a different story. 

Taiwan is so strategically important that the United States wants to make sure it remains allied with the United States. It would be a significant, strategic loss for the United States if China were to conquer Taiwan.

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Have you read?

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• “Stronger than ever”: Robert Parker on the US-Taiwan relationship

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