THE MOST drastic measure that Beijing could take against Taiwan if relations with the DPP-led government were to deteriorate beyond recovery is the employment of military force. For now, a military escalation is a remote scenario, and Beijing would doubtless ponder it only as an absolute last resort. But it is not an altogether inconceivable step, considering China’s conduct in previous crises in the Taiwan Strait (including its threat, during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995–96, to turn the strait into a “sea of fire”) and its increasing willingness to employ means of military coercion in disputes with other regional powers. Beijing’s overall posture vis-à-vis Taipei remained threatening even during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, as was underscored by reports in 2015 that a mock-up of the inner city of Taipei, including a replica of Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building, was used as an urban warfare training ground for PLA soldiers on a Chinese military base. Beijing has solemnly declared that it would respond with military force to any official Taiwanese pronouncement of independence—which continues to be stipulated as an explicit long-term goal in the DPP’s charter. A few days after the DPP’s triumph in the 2016 elections, China’s state-owned television broadcast reports about Chinese live-fire military exercises and landing drills off the coast of Fujian province, directly across from Taiwan, which was interpreted as a clear warning for the DPP.

Following the Taiwan phone call and Trump’s potential willingness to abandon the one-China principle, the prospect of a military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait now appears less remote. Since early December, China has substantially stepped up its military activities around Taiwan. Chinese military aircraft have repeatedly circled the international airspace surrounding Taiwan within visible range of the island, and a group of warships, including China’s sole aircraft carrier, passed some ninety nautical miles south of it. China’s armed forces are reportedly “considering strong measures” to deter the island from moving further out of Beijing’s grasp, and the Communist Party–owned daily Global Times published an op-ed declaring that “the military status quo across the Taiwan Straits needs to be reshaped” and advising Beijing to get “ready to achieve reunification through the use of force.”

The potential for armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait depends in no small part on developments in other geopolitical hot spots in the region, particularly the South China Sea. Beijing’s increasingly assertive moves and Washington’s intransigent response—manifested in numerous close encounters between U.S. and Chinese ships and aircraft—risk sparking an open confrontation. Should tensions in the South China Sea escalate, the best option for Taipei would be to avoid any direct involvement. More likely than not, however, it would be put under pressure by both China and the United States to take a stance, not least due to the fact that Taiwan is the site of strategically important military assets, such as a highly advanced PAVE PAWS long-range early-warning radar, one of very few such systems in the world. More importantly, by virtue of controlling the island of Itu Aba (Taiping), the largest natural feature in the disputed Spratly Islands, Taiwan already has “boots on the ground” in the South China Sea and would thus find it hard to avoid involvement in any armed confrontation there. Taiwan’s presence in the region was highlighted again when outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou chose to visit Itu Aba in January 2016, irritating not only Vietnam and the Philippines, but also the United States.

In the event of an outbreak of open hostilities in the South or East China Sea, Taiwan’s ability to cooperate with any of the other actors in the region would be constrained by the fact that the Taiwanese government’s official position on the territorial disputes is largely identical to Beijing’s: Taipei has long claimed most of the contested islands and reefs as a part of the sovereign territory of “China.” It therefore finds itself in a particularly intricate situation: it has a number of natural allies in the region that share its aversion to the newfound assertiveness in the foreign policy pursued by China, yet it officially agrees with Beijing on the issue of China’s territorial claims vis-à-vis these states. Speculations that the DPP-led Taiwanese government, which emphasizes Taiwan’s autonomy and its historical distinctness from China, may choose to officially dissociate itself from these expansive territorial claims, have so far proven unfounded. When an international tribunal established by the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in July that many of China’s core claims in the South China Sea are groundless, Taipei joined Beijing in roundly rejecting the ruling. President Tsai stated that the tribunal’s decision (which included the ruling that Itu Aba should be classified as a rock and as such is not entitled to a two-hundred-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone) had “gravely harmed” Taiwan’s rights in the South China Sea, and in response Taipei dispatched a warship to patrol the contested region and reassert Taiwanese claims there. Beijing and Taipei displayed a wholly uncharacteristic unity in their joint dismissal of the ruling, as the vice chairman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council stated that the tribunal’s rejection of the “nine-dash line” that marks China’s claims to 80 percent of the South China Sea, was unacceptable, while the Chinese government praised Taiwan’s efforts to “defend” Itu Aba.

 

SHOULD CHINA decide to employ military force in the Taiwan Strait—including any measure short of an outright invasion, such as a naval blockade—the situation for Taiwan would be dire. The balance of military power, always highly unfavorable for Taipei, has never been as lopsided as it is today. According to estimates by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense (based in particular on an assessment of the development of missile systems, bombers and fourth-generation stealth fighter aircraft), China will have gained sufficient military capabilities to launch a large-scale invasion of Taiwan with good prospects of success by 2020. While Beijing has consistently boosted its armed forces, Taiwan’s military budget remains remarkably low, accounting for little more than 2 percent of its GDP, much to the chagrin of senior U.S. defense officials.

Taipei’s relative military disadvantage has been compounded by the fact that its principal ally, the United States, as well as other Western governments, have become very reluctant to supply state-of-the-art defense technology to the Taiwanese military out of concern about adversarial reactions from Beijing. The resulting lack of access to critical new defense technology is affecting the entire range of relevant weapons systems. In mid-December 2015, the Obama administration finally cleared another major arms sale worth $1.83 billion to Taiwan, including two decommissioned guided-missile frigates, amphibious assault vehicles, and antitank and surface-to-air missiles. It was the first such sales clearance in more than four years, but it appears not to have included any critical cutting-edge military technology.

One of the most pressing concerns for Taiwan’s military planners has been the development of an indigenous attack submarine, which is regarded as an essential missing link in the island’s defense structure. The project has proven very difficult to develop, as most countries with the requisite technological know-how have refused to cooperate with Taipei for fear of jeopardizing their ties with Beijing, although Washington now appears willing to provide at least a limited degree of assistance in the development process. The plans for submarine development are part of the asymmetric defense strategy adopted by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense in response to the continuous growth of China’s military power. Another central component of this strategy is the development of a fleet of state-of-the-art Tuo Chiang–class stealth corvettes, each equipped with sixteen potent Hsiung Feng antiship missiles. The rationale for developing this type of warship is to employ it as a cheap and effective means of countering China’s massive naval development at a fraction of its cost (a flotilla of five Tuo Chiang–class corvettes costs about $350 million). By resorting to these and similar means of asymmetric defense, including a large network of “smart mines,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense currently estimates that the Taiwanese armed forces would be able to fend off a Chinese invasion for at least thirty days. Following the projected thirty-day period, Taiwan’s survival would depend on large-scale military support from the United States.

The nature and degree of American involvement in a potential cross-Strait confrontation would be a crucial variable that critically affects the strategic calculations of the leaderships in Beijing and in Taipei. It is a commonly held belief among the Taiwanese public that, should there be a military conflict with Beijing, the United States would be bound to intervene in support of Taiwan. In practice, however, there is no alliance treaty between Washington and Taipei that explicitly specifies an American commitment to defend the island. The Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress in 1979—which, along with the “Six Assurances” given to Taiwan by Ronald Reagan in 1982, was reaffirmed by the House of Representatives as recently as May 2016—stipulates that the United States will do what is necessary to “enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.” But this falls far short of an explicit defense commitment. Nor would such a commitment be backed by a majority of the American public: According to a recent poll, more than 70 percent of Americans would oppose sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.