NBC got together a think tank of defense experts including some sitting members of Congress to wargame out what might happen if the PRC tried to invade Taiwan.
I saw this awhile back. It's a bit hopey what-if popcorn programming. I don't think Chinese nor Taiwanese militaries are prepared for a war. US is could be most ready but would take 3-6 months to figure out where to go or respond in the pacific.
This seems to be a rehash of news from last year. Apparently, China wins (only just) in every simulation the Pentagon ran. Personally, It felt like fear mongering because they were pushing the AUKUS defense pact at the time. I don't know what to think now because of Russia's actions and China's support.
Biden yesterday bluntly stated that the US would defend Taiwan if the PRC invaded going against the stated policy of "Strategic Ambiguity". https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/world/asia/biden-taiwan-china.html Biden Says U.S. Military Would Defend Taiwan if China Invaded TOKYO — President Biden indicated on Monday that he would use military force to defend Taiwan if it were ever attacked by China, dispensing with the “strategic ambiguity” traditionally favored by American presidents and repeating even more unequivocally statements that his staff tried to walk back in the past. At a news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan during a visit to Tokyo, Mr. Biden suggested that he would be willing to go further on behalf of Taiwan than he has in helping Ukraine, where he has provided tens of billions of dollars in arms as well as intelligence assistance to help defeat Russian invaders but refused to send American troops. “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons,” a reporter said to Mr. Biden. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” “Yes,” Mr. Biden answered flatly. “You are?” the reporter followed up. “That’s the commitment we made,” he said. The president’s declaration, offered without caveat or clarification, surprised some members of his own administration watching in the room, who did not expect him to promise such unvarnished resolve. The United States historically has warned China against using force against Taiwan while generally remaining vague about how far it would go to aid the island in such a circumstance. The White House quickly tried to deny that the president meant what he seemed to be saying. “As the president said, our policy has not changed,” the White House said in a statement hurriedly sent to reporters. “He reiterated our One China Policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also reiterated our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself.” But Mr. Biden’s comments went beyond simply reiterating that the United States would provide Taiwan with arms, because the question was posed as a contrast to what he had done with Ukraine. The president made no effort to qualify what he intended when he agreed that he would “get involved militarily.” In fact, he repeated the notion that his commitment to Taiwan went beyond what he had done for Ukraine. “The idea that that can be taken by force, just taken by force, it’s just not appropriate,” he said of Taiwan. “It would dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so it’s a burden that is even stronger.” Mr. Biden had ignored the practiced imprecision of his predecessors with regard to China and Taiwan before in his presidency. Last August, in reassuring allies after his decision to abandon the government of Afghanistan, he promised that “we would respond” if there was an attack against a fellow member of NATO and then added, “same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan.” Taiwan, however, has never been granted the same U.S. security guarantees as Japan, South Korea or America’s NATO allies, and so the comment was seen as significant. Two months later, Mr. Biden was asked during a televised town hall if the United States would protect Taiwan from attack. “Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” he said. That also set off a frantic scramble by the White House to walk back his remark by insisting that he was not changing longstanding policy. Indeed, the president has made a habit of disregarding the cautions his staff would prefer he take in confronting overseas adversaries. In March, Mr. Biden went further than his administration had gone by calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a war criminal in response to a reporter’s question. Barely a week later, he caused a stir when he ad-libbed a line at the end of a speech in Poland declaring that Mr. Putin “cannot remain in power.” The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been watched closely in Asia for whatever lessons it would hold for China’s longstanding ambition to reincorporate Taiwan. If Russia had succeeded in conquering Ukraine, once part of its empire, some feared it would offer a dangerous precedent. Yet Russia’s abject failure to take over the entire country and the unified Western response may serve as a red flag to military adventurism. China, which has considered Taiwan to be one of its provinces for more than seven decades, sent 14 aircraft into the island’s air defense zone last week on the day that Mr. Biden arrived in Asia, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, part of a pattern of increasing incursions over the last year. Taiwan scrambled fighter jets in response, but no direct conflict was reported. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry welcomed Mr. Biden’s latest comments on Monday, expressing “gratitude” to the president for affirming America’s “rock-solid commitment to Taiwan.” In a statement, the ministry said Taiwan would “continue to improve its self-defense capabilities and deepen cooperation with the United States and Japan and other like-minded countries.” Beijing, on the other hand, issued a ritual rejection of the president’s remarks. “On issues concerning China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and other core interests, China has no room for compromise,” Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters, adding that no one should underestimate China’s determination to defend itself. Mr. Biden’s comments came barely an hour before he formally unveiled a new 13-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework intended to serve as a counter to Chinese influence in the region. Wrapping up the event, Mr. Biden ignored shouted questions about what a military intervention in Taiwan would look like and whether he was prepared to put American troops on the ground. Mr. Kishida, who spoke in strong terms about China during the news conference, expressed concern about a Ukraine-style conflict over Taiwan. Any “unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force like Russia’s aggression against Ukraine this time should never be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. Nonetheless, he stuck to the traditional policy and maintained before the president’s comments that U.S.-Japan policy on the island was still the same. “Our two countries’ basic position on Taiwan remains unchanged,” he said. Mr. Biden’s unscripted declaration put Japan in a complicated position. With Taiwan just 65 miles from Yonaguni, the westernmost inhabited Japanese island, a war with China carries enormous potential consequences for Japan, which has disavowed armed conflict since its defeat in World War II. “Certainly, Mr. Biden said ‘America is in,’” said Narushige Michishita, vice president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “That means Japan will be in, too.” While Mr. Kishida would not be so blunt as Mr. Biden, he added, his administration aims to increase the defense budget, while discussing plans to acquire weapons capable of striking missile launch sites in enemy territory and to conduct more exercises with American forces. “Chinese planners must take the possibility of Japan getting involved into account when they plan and when they decide whether or not to attack Taiwan,” Mr. Michishita said. Forcing China to consider the prospect of facing American and Japanese forces, he said, would ultimately “enhance the possibility of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Biden: America Will Defend Taiwan The President continues his recent penchant for saying the quiet part out loud. https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/biden-america-will-defend-taiwan/ excerpt: As has happened so many times in recent months, the President is speaking the blunt truth in departure from longstanding practice. For complicated reasons, the United States maintained that the rump government that fled the mainland for Formosa/Taiwan was the legitimate government of China when Mao on the Communists took over in 1949. That softened in 1972 when President Nixon did that thing that only he could do and changed altogether when President Carter formally recognized the PRC on January 1, 1979. As part of that opening, the United States formally ended the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which committed us to the defense of Taiwan, and agreed to pretend that there was but One China. Nearly simultaneously, though, the Taiwan Relations Act went into effect, essentially stating that, while the United States would have no formal diplomatic relations with the “governing authorities on Taiwan,” it would have unofficial official relations. For all intent and purposes, we treat Taiwan as an independent country. While we have maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on the matter, we have also long been unofficially committed to the defense of Taiwan from a Chinese invasion as though they were still a treaty ally. This is all manifestly silly. A series of legal fictions. And China is fully aware of all of this and has been since the beginning. But, oftentimes in diplomatic relations, fictions are enough. China gets to pretend that the United States recognizes that there is but One China and that they have the right to take Taiwan back, by force if necessary, any time they choose. And the United States pretends that World War III wouldn’t thereby ensue because they know China is well aware that it would. Joe Biden has been doing foreign policy a long time. It’s therefore entirely possible that he knows something I don’t here. But saying the quiet part out loud serves no obvious strategic purpose and seems needlessly to poke the panda at a time when its relationship with our adversary Russia is strained. Why now? Making matters worse, frankly, is that every time the President does this, his staff tries to walk it back—giving the impression that the Commander-in-Chief isn’t thinking before shooting off his mouth. more at the link
Video goes into numbers China needs to invade and clear the mountainous regions of Taiwan. Taiwan serves the CCP more as a rallying cry than an expensive and bloody piece of property.
I bet we’d let China take Taiwan once we got enough assets out (or maybe if we knew before hand we’d put up slim resistance ) #1 geographical proximity favors China by a long haul #2 Americans don’t care enough. We (generally speaking ) have fear of China , but that’s not enough to push us to war . In the US we have Chinese food , Japanese food , even Vietnamese food . Do we have Taiwanese food ? I don’t think so , not enough anyways . the word and country Taiwan isn’t ingrained in the American psyche . When I say Taiwan some people will be like “the part of China?” didn’t watch the news clips . I don’t like subjecting myself to fear mongering . I’m a bit jumpy
lol he bluntly said yes to a reporter's question. Now everyone's like, "WTF? WHY HE NO BULLSHIT?? IS THIS WW3???" I guess some lies and spin are useful?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens...framework-china-11653339196?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Biden’s Real Taiwan Mistake The big blunder is not including the island democracy in the new Indo-Pacific economic framework. By The Editorial Board May 23, 2022 6:40 pm ET The press is saying President Biden blundered Monday in committing the U.S. to defend Taiwan, but after three similar statements in the last year maybe he means it. The arguably much bigger mistake is his decision not to include Taiwan in the new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that the Administration launched on Monday. Asked by a reporter if the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily against China, Mr. Biden answered with a blunt “yes.” He went on to say that, “We agree with the One China policy. We signed onto it and all the attendant agreements made from there. But the idea that it could be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not—it’s just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine.” That wasn’t a model of clarity, but it sounded like a change in policy from the “strategic ambiguity” toward the defense of Taiwan that has long been U.S. policy. Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington committed to arming the island democracy to defend itself but was unclear about whether the American forces would join the fight. And, as they often do, the ever-nimble White House communications shop quickly told the press that Mr. Biden hadn’t meant to suggest a policy shift. The President is a master of the verbal muddle, but perhaps he is doing this intentionally. Knowing the U.S. is likely to intervene—and if it does, that the U.K., Australia and Japan are likely to join—may give Chinese President Xi Jinping some pause about the costs of an invasion. The problem is that no one can be sure what the U.S. policy now is. The constant White House walk-backs of the President’s statements undermine his personal credibility with allies and adversaries. We’d support more clarity in defense of Taiwan, but it ought to be announced in more considered fashion—with support lined up at home and abroad. It would also require a larger and more rapid plan to arm Taiwan and build up U.S. defenses. One lesson of the Ukraine war is not to wait until the invasion begins to start sending enough weapons. Send them now to make deterrence more credible. China has built its military to be able to overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses with an amphibious and aerial invasion. But it has also built a force to prevent the U.S. from rapidly reinforcing Taiwan with air and naval assets. China has a long-range missile force that could cripple U.S. bases and airfields in the region. Those missiles would also attack U.S. warships, including aircraft carriers, if they move within range to deploy U.S. fighters to defend the island. Mr. Biden’s budget sets the Navy on a path to shrink to 280 ships in 2027 from 298 today even as China greatly expands its fleet. A credible defense of Taiwan and U.S. territories and allies in Asia is going to require a much bigger military budget. *** All of which makes it odd that Taiwan wasn’t included in the 13-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework the President rolled out on Monday. The new platform is clearly intended to counter China’s rising economic influence. It includes Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand and much of Southeast Asia. The exclusion of Taiwan makes no sense if you’re trying to show the U.S. commitment to the region. Taiwan is an economic powerhouse whose participation would enhance any trade or supply-chain agreements. Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, ducked a question on why Taiwan was excluded. He said the U.S. plans “to pursue a deeper bilateral engagement with Taiwan on trade and economic matters in the coming days and weeks.” This would be welcome, but it’s still no reason to exclude Taipei from this new economic community. The framework is also disappointing in its overall lack of ambition. It includes no reduction in tariffs or trade barriers, which would help the world economy. The White House says the deal is “intended to advance resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness and competitiveness of our economies.” At least it included “growth” with the mumbo-jumbo. The framework’s generality underscores the U.S. mistake in abandoning the Pacific trade pact that Barack Obama negotiated. Donald Trump walked away from it, but Mr. Biden has been unwilling to re-enter the accord that went ahead without the U.S. That blunder has let China set the rules of trade for Asia with its own regional pact. At least the new framework is an attempt to get back in the Pacific mix on matters other than defense and security. But it still has a long way to go to restore U.S. economic leadership in the world’s fastest-growing region. Appeared in the May 24, 2022, print edition.
The dance that the US is playing with the PRC over Taiwan is that Biden has made it obvious what everyone knows that if the PRC were to try to take Taiwan by force the US would defend it. The PRC though can take Taiwan by other means and most of it's decades long strategy is to not use force but instead rely on economic and other soft power means to convince Taiwan to voluntarily join the PRC. Technically the US official stance is that there is "One China" even as it has a divided government. Also the official stance is that the PRC government is the official "Chinese Government" which is why it holds the China UN seat and Taiwan has to be listed under names like "ROC" of "Chinese Taipei". Also not everyone in Taiwan wants outright independence and from what I recall most Taiwanese are fine with the current ambiguous state. If the US were to include Taiwan in a new trade and defense agreement of sovereign states that would not only go against the current ambigous state of Taiwan as it would be an acknowledgement of Taiwanese sovereignty, it's not clear that the Taiwanese government themselves would agree to it as there are deep divisions there. At the minimum rather than discouraging the PRC to attack it very well could hasten a PRC attempt to take Taiwan militarily as the red line they've laid out is a Taiwanese declaration of independence.
WSJ's blunder is that it conveniently assumes/pretends that it is the press. as if there is no WaPo, NYT, LATimes, Tribune, USAToday, Politico, etc.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-wo...udies-china-u-s-11673981972?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Who Would Win a War Over Taiwan? A war-game exercise reveals holes in U.S. deterrence strategy. By The Editorial Board Jan. 19, 2023 6:50 pm ET Good news: The Chinese military can’t easily seize Taiwan by force. That’s the gist of the headlines about a recent war game from a Washington think-tank. But that’s not the full story, and the details in the 160-page report show that even a victorious fight for Taiwan would be a ruinous affair, and the U.S. is still showing little sense of urgency in deterring it. The Center for Strategic and International Studies set out to test what would happen if China attempted an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Analysts played the war game 24 times, and in most instances U.S. intervention beat back the invasion. Taiwan remained an autonomous democracy, albeit as a ravaged island without basic services like electricity. War games are a product of choices and assumptions, but there were four preconditions to defeating an invasion, none of them guaranteed. First the Taiwanese have to fight. The island is ramping up its spending on defense but its conscription and readiness are underwhelming. Condition two: Arms need to be pre-positioned; the U.S. can’t pour in weapons over friendly borders after the fight starts a la Ukraine. American weapons deliveries to Taiwan now lag years behind orders. Three: The U.S. must be able to rely on its bases in Japan. American fighter jets lack the range to commute to the war without Japan’s outer islands, one more reason Tokyo is America’s most important Pacific ally. The fourth condition? The U.S. “must be able to strike the Chinese fleet rapidly and en masse” with long-range weapons. The cost in blood of U.S. sailors and airmen would be enormous. “In three weeks,” the report notes, the U.S. would suffer “about half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Commanders would have to “move forward despite a high level of casualties not seen in living memory.” The American public has no experience since World War II of enduring dozens of lost ships, including two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers (crew: 5,000) badly damaged or lost in most scenarios. The casualties and equipment losses compound the longer the U.S. waits to intervene, a warning about the costs of political indecision in a crisis. It’s also worth asking if a U.S. President in his 80s would have the stamina and concentration to manage the flood of difficult decisions coming at him. The weapons that can help win faster are available, yet the U.S. is making little progress in acquiring them in sufficient numbers. In the war game, American attack submarines “wreaked havoc” on the Chinese fleet. The U.S. Navy now has a fleet of about 50 attack subs and a goal of 66, but the shipbuilding plan doesn’t hit 60 boats until 2045. Congress wants to buy three hulls a year but the U.S. industrial base delivers about 1.2. Another war-winner: Long-range anti-ship weapons, known as LRASMs. Bombers could fire these weapons without having to enter contested airspace, which significantly reduces U.S. casualties. One problem: “The United States expended its global LRASM inventory within the first few days in all scenarios.” The Pentagon should run a public campaign to buy a LRASM to save American pilots, and procure them in the thousands. *** One known unknown is how well the Chinese military would perform, a warning to the Communist Party. A contested amphibious assault, across about 100 miles of ocean, is a varsity operation, much harder than rolling over a land border as Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine. The last time a Chinese combat plane shot down a manned aircraft was 1967. Missile defenses may work well in peacetime testing but fail at higher rates in combat. One question Chinese President Xi Jinping might ask himself, after watching Mr. Putin’s travails in Europe, is whether the reports he’s receiving on his military’s prowess are accurate. Some readers may conclude the answer to all this is to let Taiwan fall, but that would end America’s status as a credible global power. U.S. allies would recalibrate their alliances, and rogues would take more risks. All the more reason to spend the money and energy on demonstrating to China that it will lose a Taiwan war. CSIS has done a service in putting out an unclassified document that can educate the public on what is required. Appeared in the January 20, 2023, print edition as 'Who Would Win a War Over Taiwan?'.
He would generate a lot of excitement have some promissing talks betweent the PRC and Taiwan and then blow a sure thing at the signing of a peace treaty.
false equivalency by WSJ Ukraine is slightly smaller than Texas in size; Taiwan is about the size of Maryland Ukraine has a population of ~ 45 million, ~24 million for Taiwan intellectual dishonesty / convenient sleight of hand by WSJ, pretending as if nothing has changed in China since 1967. 56 years ago, in 1967, China was a 3rd world country, isolated from the rest of the world, in the waning days of Mao's economic folly, "the Great Leap Forward". it had no industrial/mfg base; its GDP was smaller than Mexico's since the early 1980s, thanks to the pragmatic Deng, China has adopted the "communism with Chinese characteristics" economic policies towards becoming a modern economy. China has ben the 2nd largest economy in the world for almost a decade, surpassing economic giants such as Germany and Japan. it has become the factory for the world. the IMF has granted Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to its currency. China's RMB is one of five global currencies that have SDRs; others include USD, Euro, Yen and Sterling China has built and operated 59 pairs of bullet trains., servicing 59 cities. the US currently has no bullet trains.
