How Taiwan is preparing for a war that may never come

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait have gotten increasingly worse since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei in August, raising concerns over the risk of possible conflict between the United States and China in the near future.

At the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference on Monday in Richmond, Virginia, Taiwan’s vice defense minister, Wang Shin-lung (王信龍 Wáng Xìnlóng), called (in English, Chinese) for global efforts to contain security threats from China, as Beijing seeks to “normalize” its military activities surrounding the island.

• China has repeatedly crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait — the unofficial boundary that separates the jurisdictions between the self-ruled island and the Chinese mainland — since it first conducted war games in response to Pelosi’s visit.
• Wang said that he had conducted “candid exchanges” with his American counterparts on the “obstacles and possible risks…in terms of U.S. arms sales,” and that the U.S. had promised to “do its best to assist Taiwan.”
• Wang also noted that “Taipei and Washington have reached a consensus concerning Taiwan’s military buildup strategy, which has been described as ‘asymmetrical warfare.’”
• Wang said the biggest challenge was to make the most of a limited budget, and that Taiwan needed to “spend money on the edge of the blade” (錢必須花在刀口上), i.e., very carefully.

Since Beijing’s military drills, Taiwan has intensified its defense efforts by rallying democratic support at home and abroad.

• President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) yesterday announced the launch of its first English-language TV channel, TaiwanPlus, which began last year as a website and video-streaming platform. The launch of a broadcast station is intended to bolster Taiwan’s international voice and forge closer ties with like-minded countries.
• “If Taiwan is under military threat, we will bravely stand up to assist Taiwan and support Taiwan,” said Klaus-Peter Willsch, the leader of a cross-party German delegation that is currently paying a visit to the island.
• Last week, Taiwan’s navy welcomed a 10,600-ton, domestically made amphibious warfare ship in a bid to shore up its defense self-sufficiency. The government also proposed in August a $19 billion defense budget for next year, a double-digit increase from 2022.

“We call ourselves Taiwanese,” said Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯 Xú Qiǎoxīn), a rising star of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) opposition group, a marked shift in tone as even those who have historically leaned toward Beijing have been influenced by the consolidating democracy led by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

• Hsu has argued for mandatory military service for women along with men.

Meanwhile, across the contentious stretch of sea, China under Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 has roughly doubled its defense spending in the last decade, according to a report from London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, which it uses to build up the world’s largest navy and biggest standing army and to beef up its nuclear and ballistic arsenal.

• Beijing in August released its third white paper on Taiwan (in English, Chinese) that — unlike the previous editions — did not renounce the use of force.

“But if war is Beijing’s plan, there ought to be reliable indications that it is coming,” writes John Culver, a former CIA veteran who spoke to the Sinica Podcast in August. A surprise attack by China “would be a casualty of the sheer scale of the undertaking” in light of Russia’s disastrous war on Ukraine.

• However, the assumption that a use of force is the only reunification tactic at Beijing’s disposal is a “dangerous oversimplification”: Economic, informational, legal, and diplomatic strategies are also readily available to isolate or put pressure on Taipei.
• Biden’s recent gaffes that seem to contradict Washington’s long-held commitment to the “One China” policy have further upset the delicate balance of peace between the superpowers, which have coexisted under an often-uncomfortable strategic ambiguity.

Update: On October 5, The New York Times published a story on the same subject with extensive quotes from U.S. defense sources: U.S. aims to turn Taiwan into giant weapons depot: “Officials say Taiwan needs to become a “porcupine” with enough weapons to hold out if the Chinese military blockades and invades it, even if Washington decides to send troops.”