The foreign-policy community in Washington clearly tilts toward the DPP. The pro-American party has held the presidency for the past eight years as both the Trump and Biden administrations forged closer ties with Taipei. The DPP’s candidate, Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, is the current vice president. His running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, has been popular in Washington since 2020 as Taiwan’s special envoy. The DPP emphasizes democracy and freedom in a way that resonates in the United States.
So while a DPP victory would be hailed as an ideological rebuke of Beijing, I wonder whether a KMT victory this time around wouldn’t be a strategic reprieve for Washington. With wars in Europe and the Middle East, U.S. power is stretched dangerously, historically thin. The temporary reduction in cross-strait tensions that would accompany a KMT victory could give Washington a window — if politicians are willing to seize it — to put the U.S. military deterrent on a firmer footing.
Zoom out from the current election: Maintaining Taiwan’s sovereignty is one of the few fixed priorities in the United States’ erratic foreign policy. Letting the strategic island fall to Beijing would devastate Washington’s alliance structure and military position in Asia. The Defense Department says China is the United States’ most formidable rival, and Taiwan — just 100 miles from China’s coast with a population of about 24 million — is the U.S. ally China most consistently threatens.
The United States hasn’t kept up with the challenge. Adm. John Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in 2022 that China is conducting “the largest military buildup in history since World War II.” Australian and British officials agree. Meantime, the Pentagon budget is roughly flat as a share of U.S. gross domestic product, and far below Cold War levels. The military-industrial base is under pressure from supplying Ukraine in its war with Russia even as the Biden administration tries to supply Israel’s war with Hamas and deter a war with Iran.
The shortage of missiles is especially dire, as the Wall Street Journal reports, noting a simulation that found “America would run out of all-important long-range anti-ship missiles within the first week” of a war over Taiwan. The United States has allowed its ability to ensure Taiwan’s political independence — which it has guaranteed, more or less, since Japan lost control of the island in 1945 — to fall into doubt.
Amid a deteriorating world situation, a stronger showing by the KMT, represented by Hou Yu-ih, the former mayor of New Taipei City, might be a blessing in disguise for the United States. China, or at least China’s ruling Communist Party, will never concede Taiwan’s sovereignty. The best path to preventing a war of “unification” is probably to postpone it, ideally indefinitely, through fictions such as the “one China” policy, in which the United States hedges about Taiwan’s official status while maintaining its de facto independence. The KMT, mugged by Xi’s 2020 crackdown in Hong Kong, has been forced to take the China threat more seriously and would be in no political position to give away the store to China even if it wanted to.
A third consecutive DPP term, on the other hand, could empower hawks in Beijing to argue that Taiwanese nationalists are so firmly in control that any resolution other than one involving the use of force is unrealistic. And they could make that argument at a time when U.S. deterrent power is more decayed than it has been in decades. The DPP, despite some worthy reforms, has failed to fundamentally alter the island’s severe defense deficiencies in its eight years in power. As Michael J. Lostumbo observes, “much of Taiwan’s defense budget is locked into capabilities that are neither survivable nor potent.” Taipei is relying on the U.S. Air Force and Navy to ride to the rescue.
The DPP is the favorite to win next week. Lai has led throughout the campaign. But with a third-party in the mix and one recent poll showing Lai’s lead at only three percentage points, anything is possible. Taiwanese voters will surely take the world situation into account as they cast their ballots, and they are in the best position to judge their own national interest.
Whatever they decide, avoiding Taiwan’s absorption by China will remain a top U.S. foreign policy priority. If the DPP wins as expected, the long-term trend of convergence between Washington and Taipei will continue. That convergence can help ward off a Chinese attack if the threat is still remote and if Taiwan and the United States diligently build up their defenses in the coming years.
But if the threat is imminent, a KMT upset could buy the United States crucial time to restore its eroded military deterrent. It’s that deterrent on which Taiwan’s independence — its ability to choose its own leadership in the first place — ultimately depends.
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