TAIWAN DISPUTED BY CHINA AND THE US. A LIKELY FUTURE WAR?

Foreword

The relationship between China and Taiwan has been a long-standing geopolitical issue that has captivated international attention for decades.

Tensions are rising over Taiwan. The fabric of political under-standings that contributed to cross-strait peace and security for decades has begun to unravel as China's power and assertiveness grows and competition between the US and China spreads.

China emphasises the importance of Taiwan's strategic location, world-leading chip industry and other geopolitical factors. Bringing Taiwan under Beijing's control and reunifying China is President Xi Jinping's national goal.

Washington does not keep formal ties with Taipei and does not support Taiwan independence. Nor does it recognise Taiwan as part of China in its one-China policy.

Taiwan

Empires have jockeyed over Taiwan for centuries, with occupations by the Spanish, Dutch and China's Qing dynasty. After the Qing's surrender of Taiwan to the Japanese following a humiliating military defeat in 1895, later generations of Chinese, including Xi's, adopted reunification as a rallying cry.

After World War II, Taiwan was returned to Chinese sovereignty, but the Chinese Civil War led to the establishment of separate governments on the mainland and the island. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949 on the mainland, while the Republic of China (ROC) retreated to Taiwan.

To the US and Japan, Taiwan is a vital stronghold in a string of archipelagos that they rely upon to contain China and safeguard trade routes.

Taiwan has thrived under American protection to become a critical supplier of semiconductors and other high-tech goods. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the biggest contract manufacturer of advanced chips in the world by producing 60% of global output.

Taiwan has been governed independently of China since 1949, but Beijing views the island as part of its territory. Beijing has vowed to eventually unify Taiwan with the mainland, using force if necessary. The Democratic Progressive Party, whose platform favours independence, won a third consecutive term in 2024, while Beijing has ramped up political and military pressure on Taipei.

Some analysts fear the US and China could go to war over Taiwan. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to the island in 2022 heightened tensions between the countries.

Taiwan's Geostrategic Value

Taiwan measures almost 36,000 square kilometres. It sits at the midpoint of the first islands chain, the transnational archipelago running south from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. To its west, the Taiwan Strait separates the island from the mainland by just 70 nautical miles at its narrowest and by about 220 nautical miles at its widest. To the south, the Luzon Strait connects the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean. To the north-east, Japan's Southwest Islands form a series of narrow seas and choke points to the open waters of the Pacific. Taiwan's north-eastern port city of Suao is merely 60 nautical miles from Yonaguni, the most western tip of Japanese territory.

Militarily, the Taiwan Strait is a strategic thoroughfare that allows Chinese naval and air forces to transit between the Yellow, East, and South China Seas. Chinese control of Taiwan would unify the three Seas into a singular, integrated body of water. The Chinese navy's North, East, and South Sea Fleets would then be free to swing through the strait to concentrate their forces in times of danger, enabling China's maritime defence power to form a synergy.

Thus Taiwan holds essential strategic and military value to China. This axiom has many adherents in China, and it feeds a larger storyline that rationalizes Beijing's resolute policy to take the island, by force or by insidious means. This geostrategic orthodoxy explains, in part, why Xi Jinping believes reunification is a prerequisite to China's renewal toward national greatness.

Taiwan's reunion with the mainland

To Chinese analysts, Taiwan's reunion with the mainland would confer to Beijing strategic vistas hitherto unavailable to it. At present, the first islands chain imprisons China in a semi-sealed state. Moreover, the islands chain's occupants are either formally allied or closely aligned with the United States, the only great power with the will and means to frustrate China's maritime ambitions. Beijing has long feared that a maritime coalition led by Washington might seek to choke off Chinese access to the seas in a war over Taiwan. Control of the island would thus shatter the semi-sealed predicament of China's sea areas while transforming Taiwan, the central segment of the first islands chain, from a barrier into a portal to the Pacific.

Taiwan's return to the motherland would empower Beijing to impose its will on its maritime surroundings with Taiwan being the crucial link to sea power in the western Pacific. After China achieves cross-strait unification, Chinese forces on the island would be able to radiate power along the first islands chain and beyond. Direct access to the deep-ocean basin off the island's east coast would maximize China's maritime strategic force with the greatest deterrent power, namely, its strategic ballistic missile submarines.

In short, reunification would fill a major gap in China's defensive perimeter, furnish Beijing a commanding position over critical sea lanes, and give the Chinese military a forward position from which to project power in peace and in war.

Why do Chinese worry about Taiwan independence?

It's their unfinished civil war. It just looms very large in the history and mythology of the People's Republic of China. They fought a civil war with this nationalist government. They essentially defeated them. The nationalists escaped to the island which Beijing consider an integral part of China. And then, because of American support and other intervening factors, China's aim is to prevent Taiwanese independence and some day retake Taiwan.

Preventing Taiwanese independence is sort of a core principle of politics and no politician could go against that. The prevention of Taiwan going independent is absolutely critical to the legitimacy of the Chinese communist regime. Chinese leaders believe that, if they were to let Taiwan go independent and not respond, they would probably be overthrown by their own nationalistic people.

A possible US-China clash over Taiwan?

Both sides have avoided serious conflict by leaving unsettled the question of who actually owns the island. But it's becoming harder to avoid it as China's military ratchets up exercises near what President Xi Jinping views as his country's lost territory. Standing in the way is the US Pacific Fleet.

Thus, since mid July the naval attack team of the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong has been operating in the Philippine Sea, after having crossed the Luzon Strait, between Taiwan and the main Philippine island. The team also includes the destroyer Yan'an, the cruiser Gullin, the frigate Yuncheng and the support vessel Chaganhu. Previously, in early July, a Russian-Chinese naval squad crossed the Osumi Strait, between the southern tip of the Japanese island of Kyushu and the Osumi Islands, conducting joint exercises in the Western Pacific.

These are normal exercises in the open sea, but they attract attention because they constitute an event widely considered by both American and Chinese strategists as overcoming the first islands chain.

Would the US intervene?

The US, as a major power with interests in the Asia-Pacific region, drew a fine line between maintaining its commitment to Taiwan's security and avoiding a direct confrontation with China. The US policy of strategic ambiguity seeks to discourage any military aggression against Taiwan while not specifically committing to military intervention. But, as US-China rivalry intensifies, both sides are attaching higher stakes to the Taiwan issue, and taking firmer postures, raising questions about whether they remain committed to the understandings that for years have kept the peace. Washington is anxious over the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan because Beijing's military capabilities have grown and its intentions appear increasingly aggressive. But Washington's behaviour may well be making conflict more likely.

As US-China competition ramps up, so, too, do the rewards for US politicians looking to gain votes by talking tough about Beijing.

The US has provided unprecedented forms of support to Taipei that makes the relationship look increasingly official. Highly publicised senior-level contact between the US and Taiwan has increased in frequency; cooperation in a range of areas, including security, has deepened. Washington has encouraged its allies and partners to be more engaged on Taiwan. This is why, concerned with what China sees as US attempt to create the conditions for Taiwan's permanent separation from the mainland, Beijing has significantly stepped up its operations in the air and on the seas around the island, straining Taiwan's limited military resources. China has also staged unprecedentedly large exercises in which its military has rehearsed the opening stages of an attack on Taiwan, further deepening Washington's suspicions.

Considerations

General Douglas MacArthur described Taiwan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier and base for submarines in an ideal position for an offensive strategy and at the same time a guarantee defensive or counter-offensive operations of friendly forces. The objective of  joining Taiwan with the People's Republic of China is not only politically motivated with the end of the  Chinese civil war and the definitive defeat of the Kuomintang, but above all it represents the crucial strategic aim of opening the Pacific routes to the Chinese navy.                                                                                          

The risk of war over Taiwan has grown in recent years. Should tensions over control of the island spiral into direct conflict between China and US, two nuclear powers and the world's two largest economies, the impact would fall on a spectrum between profound and cataclysmic. Global supply chains and commercial shipping would be significantly disrupted. In 2023, 88% of the world's large container ships transited through the Taiwan Strait. A blockade of Taiwan alone - such as presumably would occur before an armed conflict - would result in huge global economic losses. If, following Chinese aggression against Taiwan, the G7 were to impose sanctions on Beijing, they would likely impede trade and financial flows, while a complete interruption of China’s trade would cost the world an awful lot of money.

Conclusion

For decades, China, Taiwan, and the US were willing and able to set aside their differences over the island's status and how to settle it. At various turns, tensions rose, but the parties time and again showed a capacity to pull themselves - and one another - back from the edge. The willingness to live with those differences, and with continued irresolution, reflected a shared appreciation that conflict should be avoided and that with patience a peaceful solution might over the long term present itself.

The foundation for this status quo was the mutual understanding that while each of the parties would naturally seek to further its own interests in the interim, none would breach the bottom lines of the others.   But changes in the larger environment have made it more difficult for the three parties to stay within the boundaries of this status quo, and it is increasingly the worse for wear. The result is an increasing risk of armed conflict, something that none of the parties appears to want. Taipei, Beijing and Washington can still choose to manage this risk by providing each other with reinforced reasons to believe that waiting for a peaceful solution remains the best path forward. For too long, they have allowed themselves to slip down a long, slow slide into potentially catastrophic confrontation. Now is the time to begin moving step by step in reverse  preserving the status quo and ensuring that the parties do not fritter away the opportunity to keep the peace across the Taiwan Strait.