In back-to-back articles published in recent weeks, Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, posited that China has become too powerful, and too critical a player in the global economy, for the continuation of tacit U.S. security guarantees to Taiwan, the island-nation that Beijing regards as an inalienable part of China. In White’s bleak worldview, the risks of major conflict—perhaps even nuclear war—are too enormous, and consequently, Taiwan should simply be abandoned to its “inevitable” fate. Not only is this wrong, it’s a very dangerous proposition.
I would first like to thank Professor White for his response to my article “Don’t Let China Swallow Taiwan,” which gives me an opportunity to expand upon and to refine my earlier observations on the subject. Although I have strong disagreements with his argument, his is a position that has enjoyed a modicum of traction in some circles, and as such, it is essential that it be properly countered.
To start with, Mr. White’s response to my piece hinges on a misreading of the assumptions that underlie my argument. I do not, as he claims, subscribe to the “widely held assumption” that the United States is “willing [to] go to war with China to prevent Taiwan being forcibly united with the mainland.” In fact, given the unwillingness or inability of the international community to stand up to Russia over tensions in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, I fear that the United States and its Asian allies may not be inclined to take action to prevent the forced annexation of Taiwan, the Taiwan Relations Act notwithstanding. On my most optimistic days, I am agnostic on the matter. But I do maintain, however, that the international community should be willing to stand up to China and signal that commitment accordingly. Nothing would be more dangerous than for Beijing to conclude that aggression would go unpunished and that the United States and a coterie of key allies do not have the will or the capacity to intervene.
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