OPINION:
When considering foreign policy issues in the presidential campaign, few seem to rival the war in Ukraine. Democrats consider that war a defining struggle for the future of democracy in the world. Many Republicans are skeptical, and former President Donald Trump has said he will make peace in Ukraine quickly if elected. But what of Asia?
In theory, this is an area of greater consensus across the deep partisan divide. President Biden inherited a rather hard-line “great power competition” strategy designed by the hawks in the Trump administration, such as Mike Pompeo and Matthew Pottinger.
The Biden administration has embraced most of this agenda and even accelerated military preparations to confront China in some respects. Mr. Biden has said on four occasions that he would defend the island of Taiwan. Republicans had seemingly been preparing to accuse Mr. Biden of not doing enough to defend Taiwan, neglecting it by favoring Ukraine’s defense needs. But in a series of July surprises, Mr. Trump cast serious doubt on a hypothetical future Trump administration’s commitment to defending the island.
First, Taiwan was not mentioned in the Republican Party platform. That in itself constitutes an abrupt change, and some speculated whether this reflected Mr. Trump’s personal view. But the real bombshell hit later in July, when Mr. Trump made a series of extraordinary statements about the island. Hinting at U.S. economic dependence on advanced microchips made in Taiwan, Mr. Trump said, apparently with some bitterness: “I mean, how stupid are we? [Taiwan] took all of our chip business. They’re immensely wealthy.”
Turning to the delicate matter of Taiwan’s defense, the former president said: “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense. … I don’t think we’re any different from an insurance policy. Why? Why are we doing this?”
Apparently, Mr. Trump also observed that Taiwan represents “the apple of President Xi’s eye,“ asserting that “Taiwan is 9,500 miles away” from the U.S. and a mere “68 miles away from China.”
While the remarks may not move the U.S. completely away from strategic ambiguity, they certainly show the former president’s readiness to question what had appeared to be a consensus in Washington in favor of greater American support for defending the island. Challenging this consensus is especially welcome given the chasm between the preferences of official Washington and the voters. Indeed, a recent poll from my organization found that only 30% of Americans support using the U.S. military to defend Taiwan from China.
The importance of Mr. Trump’s recent statements — contrary to over a decade of building up military might and alliances to counter China — was not lost on a major regional think tank, the Lowy Institute in Australia. A July report from that institute said, “No one should have been surprised by Donald Trump’s latest expression of reluctance to defend Taiwan.”
This Australian assessment likewise observes that Mr. Trump regularly boasts that he did not start any new wars as president. On the other hand, the Trump administration had many hawkish advisers on China, as noted above, and relations between Washington and Beijing unquestionably took a nosedive on his watch. Nevertheless, this analysis concludes that he is “highly unlikely to knowingly enter a military conflict with China … [and is described as] ‘particularly dyspeptic about Taiwan.’”
While many will criticize this somewhat novel approach to Taiwan, Mr. Trump’s statements on this vital national security issue are welcome and timely. Hard questions about Taiwan need to be asked of Washington’s myriad, well-compensated Taiwan advocates. For starters, why should American lives be sacrificed to defend the “Republic of China” — an entity that the U.S. government does not even recognize as an actual sovereign state? Are we not just walking blindly into yet another Asian civil war, as has been our atrocious habit since 1945?
To address the feasibility problem directly, how could U.S. forces prevail when China’s large armed forces are so proximate and prepared for this fight while our forces are on the end of a logistics train that stretches over 10,000 miles across the Pacific? Why does our military invest so much in aircraft carriers and land-based aircraft when both platforms are highly vulnerable to China’s combat systems, which now include hypersonic weapons?
Do any of our allies really have the will and capabilities to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in such a hypothetical war? What kind of consequences for the world trading system, and for crucial issues such as climate change, should we expect from armed conflict with the world’s second-largest economy and largest global emitter? And then there is the question that few China hawks care to dwell on: How can we be sure that such a conflict over Taiwan will not escalate to the use of nuclear weapons?
Mr. Trump now appears, in his decidedly undiplomatic and transactional style that many Americans still seem to appreciate, to have put his finger directly on a vitally important national security debate — the sooner, the better. To date, unfortunately, this critical Taiwan debate has been stymied by a rather stolid, ill-considered consensus that is increasingly out of touch with the facts.
• Lyle Goldstein is the director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities.
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