If China Invades Taiwan, What Will America Do?

In a war growing more imminent that could escalate to the point of nuclear exchange, we deserve clarity, not ambiguity

Americans Deserve Clarity, Not Ambiguity, On China and Taiwan

If China were to invade Taiwan tomorrow, should America defend it, to what extent, and why?

This question is becoming ever less academic and ever more pressing. For its part, just last week the Biden administration threatened "terrible consequences" should China strike.

Given the increasing urgency of the matter, its outsize geopolitical significance and the way in which any such conflict involving America could escalate—with dramatic implications for our way of life—the American people deserve a genuine national conversation about Taiwan.

Elevating the issue would manifestly be in America's national interest: It would be expedient and simply the right thing to do.

I unpack this argument—why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is growing more imminent, the stakes of such a gambit for China and America, and why it is squarely within the national interest for our leaders to articulate our Taiwan policy and all of its myriad ramifications—in a new piece at Newsweek.

As I write in part:

For America's foreign policy to have any legitimacy, there must be buy-in from the people. What former United Nations Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick wrote in her vital 1990 essay, "A Normal Country in a Normal Time," is as fitting today as it was 31 years ago:

It has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction and control of the people. We should reject utterly any claim that foreign policy is the special province of special people—beyond the control of those: who must pay its costs and bear its consequences.

If defending Taiwan is in our national interest, the Biden administration must make the case to the American people as to why that is the case—particularly given our war-weariness, the facially unclear relevance to Topeka of what happens a world away in Taipei and the way in which any conflict could escalate, up to and including the possibility of an exchange of nuclear weapons. Right now, it sometimes seems we are being sleepwalked into such a potential engagement without any discussion whatsoever.

For a picture of just how devastating a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan could become, see the spirited debate I moderated between Michael Pillsbury on the one hand, and Michael Anton and David Goldman on the other, at the recent National Conservatism II conference in Orlando, Florida.

Whether a Chinese incursion spirals into a cataclysmic conflagration or is limited to attacks on U.S. military assets and those of our allies and partners in the region, our blood and treasure will be at stake. And we should expect that China might engage in all manner of attacks aimed at destabilizing the American system and raising the costs to American action, exploiting our dependence on China for all manner of goods and the CCP's penetration of virtually every aspect of American society. America could impose costs too, via our superior military and force-multiplying allies and partners in the region, exploiting China's foreign energy dependence and its broader reliance on U.S. capital markets and a global trade architecture still dominated by the U.S.—all of which our leaders ought to telegraph, for deterrent purposes. In my view, America ought to seek to thwart China's regional hegemonic ambitions by arming allies like Taiwan to the hilt, sharing intelligence and fostering alliances and partnerships to build a further bulwark against China—achieving peace through shared strength, not direct confrontation.

Read the whole thing here.