How to avoid war over Taiwan

A superpower conflict would shake the world

Europe is witnessing its bloodiest cross-border war since 1945, but Asia risks
something even worse: conflict between America and China over Taiwan. Tensions
are high, as American forces pivot to a new doctrine known as “distributed lethality”
designed to blunt Chinese missile attacks. Last week dozens of Chinese jets breached
Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone”. This week China’s foreign minister
condemned what he called America’s strategy of “all-round containment and
suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death”.

As America rearms in Asia and tries to galvanise its allies, two questions loom. Is it
willing to risk a direct war with another nuclear power to defend Taiwan, something it
has not been prepared to do for Ukraine? And by competing with China militarily in
Asia, could it provoke the very war it is trying to prevent?

No one can be sure how an invasion of Taiwan might start. China could use “grey-
zone” tactics that are coercive, but not quite acts of war, to blockade the self-
governing island and sap its economy and morale. Or it could launch pre-emptive
missile strikes on American bases in Guam and Japan, clearing the way for
an amphibious assault. Since Taiwan could resist an attack on its own only for days or
weeks, any conflict could escalate quickly into a superpower confrontation.

Rather than the trenches and human-wave attacks seen in Ukraine, a war over Taiwan
could involve a new generation of arms, such as hypersonic missiles and anti-satellite
weapons, causing untold destruction and provoking unpredictable retaliation. The
economic fallout would be devastating. Taiwan is the world’s essential supplier of
advanced semiconductors. America, China and Japan, the three largest economies,
and among the most interconnected, would deploy sanctions, crippling global trade.
America would urge Europe and its other friends to impose an embargo on China.

War is no longer a remote possibility, because an unstated bargain has frayed. Since
the 1970s America has been careful neither to encourage Taiwan formally to declare
independence nor to promise explicitly to defend it. While not ruling out force, China
has said it would favour peaceful reunification. But those positions are changing.
President Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for an
invasion by 2027, says the cia. President Joe Biden has said that America would
defend Taiwan if China were to attack (aides say policy is unchanged). The military
balance no longer so clearly favours America as it did in the 1990s. And public
opinion has shifted in Taiwan, not least because of how China has snuffed out
freedoms in Hong Kong. Only 7% of Taiwanese favour reunification.
Both sides are shoring up their positions and trying to signal their resolve, with
destabilising consequences. Some acts generate headlines, as when Nancy Pelosi, then
speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taipei last year; others are almost
invisible, such as the mysterious severing of undersea internet cables to remote
Taiwanese islands. Diplomacy has stalled. Top American and Chinese defence
officials have not spoken since November. During the recent spy-balloon incident, a
“hotline” failed when China did not pick up. Rhetoric aimed at domestic audiences
has grown more martial, whether on the American campaign trail or from China’s top
leaders. What one side sees as a defensive act to protect its red lines, the other sees as
an aggressive attempt to thwart its ambitions. Thus both sides are tempted to keep
hardening their positions.

It is unclear how far America would go to defend Taiwan. The island is not a domino.
China has some territorial designs beyond it, but does not want to invade or directly
rule all of Asia. And as our special report explains, it is unclear how many Taiwanese
see China as a real threat, or have the stomach for a fight.

The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, deserve American help. The island is admirably
liberal and democratic, and proof that such values are not alien to Chinese culture. It
would be a tragedy if its people had to submit to a dictatorship. If America walked
away, the credibility of its security umbrella in Asia would be gravely in doubt. Some
Asian countries would accommodate China more; South Korea and Japan might seek
nuclear weapons. It would boost China’s worldview that the interests of states come
before the individual freedoms enshrined in the un after the second world war.

But the help Taiwan receives should aim to deter a Chinese attack without provoking
one. America needs to consider Mr Xi’s calculus. A blanket American security
guarantee might embolden Taiwan to declare formal independence, a red line for him.
The promise of a much larger American military presence on Taiwan could lead
China to invade now, before it arrives. A botched invasion, however, would cost Mr
Xi and the Communist Party dearly. America needs to calibrate its stance: reassure Mr
Xi that his red lines remain intact, but convince him that aggression carries
unacceptable risks. The goal should not be to solve the Taiwan question, but to defer
it.

Taiwan has avoided provocation. Its president, Tsai Ing-wen, has not declared
independence. But it needs to do more to deter its neighbour, by boosting defence
spending so that it can survive longer without American help, and by preparing its
citizens to resist grey-zone tactics, from disinformation to vote-rigging. For its part,
America should try harder to reassure China and to deter it. It should avoid symbolic
acts that provoke China without strengthening Taiwan’s capacity to defend itself. It
should keep modernising its armed forces and rallying its allies. And it should be
prepared to break a future blockade, by stockpiling fuel, planning an airlift, providing
backup internet links and building an allied consensus on sanctions.

America and today’s Chinese regime will never agree about Taiwan. But they do
share a common interest in avoiding a third world war. The first 15 years of the
American-Soviet cold war featured a terrifying mixture of brinkmanship and near-
catastrophic mistakes, until the Cuban missile crisis prompted a revival of diplomacy.
This is the terrain the world is now on. Unfortunately, the potential common ground
between America and China on Taiwan is shrinking. Somehow, the two rival systems
must find a way to live together less dangerously.