Should America Defend Taiwan?

If China were to invade Taiwan—an island democracy in the South China Sea—would it be in America’s national interest to defend it? China scholar Helen Raleigh weighs in on this critically important question.Show more

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Transcript:
Is it in America’s national interest to defend Taiwan, an island less than 100 miles off the eastern coast of China?

Every American President of the last seventy-five years has had to face this question.

Each one has responded in a slightly different way. But the bottom-line answer they have all given is…

Maybe..

Fortunately, this ambiguous commitment has never been put to the ultimate test.

But that test might not be far off.

The Chinese Communist Party – the CCP – believes that Taiwan belongs to them and has made it very clear that it intends to take control of the island.

The Taiwanese, however, hold a different opinion. They want to determine their own destiny.

Economically, they’ve done fine on their own. Despite a population of only 23 million people, Taiwan is now one of the world’s leading economies. With a strong industrial base, it is home to the world’s most advanced maker of computer chips, Taiwan Semiconductor. Apple, Lockheed, and Google are clients.

It’s also a well-functioning democracy.

China, which isn’t a democracy, doesn’t care.

It wants Taiwan.

Does it have a legitimate claim?

If we look at the island’s history, it’s hard to make a great case that it does.

From time immemorial the island was inhabited by indigenous people. Beginning in the 16th century, the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish each established a small colonial presence. So taken with the island’s natural beauty, the Portuguese called it “Ilha Formosa,” or “beautiful island.”

In 1683, the armies of the Qing Empire, the ruling Chinese dynasty at the time, conquered the island. But they didn’t do much with it. Life went on as it always had.

Then in 1895, Japan colonized Taiwan after defeating China in a bitter war.

On the mainland, the Nationalist Party overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China (the ROC) in 1911.

The ROC government took over control of Taiwan in 1945 after the Allies defeated Japan in World War II. Almost immediately, a brutal civil war broke out between the ROC, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. By 1949, Mao had prevailed and established the People’s Republic of China. Chiang and the remainder of the ROC government, along with two million followers, fled to Taiwan.

From that moment on, the two sides traveled along opposite paths.

Taiwan was firmly settled in the American camp. China was firmly settled in the Soviet camp.

It’s not that Taiwan was a model of democracy – Chiang was a dictator until his death in 1975. But he was a valuable asset to the United States during the Cold War. With a large standing army at his command, Chiang exerted a restraining influence on Mao.

In exchange for this, the United States continued to recognize the ROC as the official representative of the Chinese people. But this was unsustainable. Communist China was a nation with close to a billion people, one-fifth of the world’s population.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were the first to accept this reality. As a gesture to Mao, they kicked Taiwan out of the UN Security Council and gave its seat to Communist China. In 1972, Nixon and Kissinger made their historic trip to China.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter granted Communist China full diplomatic recognition.

As a counterbalance – call it a consolation prize – the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. Although the Act didn’t guarantee that the US would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Communist China, it did not rule out US intervention, either.

To Taiwan’s credit, it didn’t let these diplomatic setbacks stop its march to democracy. After Chiang’s death in 1975, his successors gradually implemented political and economic reforms.

The economy boomed. It’s still booming.

None of this matters to the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, Taiwan’s success has only inflamed tensions.

Here’s why:

Taiwan’s fully functioning democracy and dynamic economy discredits the CCP’s claim that democracy is a Western idea incompatible with Chinese culture, and that only the Communist Party can provide the Chinese people with stability and prosperity.

Taiwan is a standing refutation of this obviously false claim.

So, is Taiwan worth defending?

If the US were to lose access to Taiwan’s technology, the economic consequences would be catastrophic. Made-in-Taiwan chips power everything from smartphones to missiles.

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