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Chinese President Xi Jinping taught President Donald Trump two lessons on Taiwan this week. First, that Trump’s rhetorical deference to the Chinese Communist Party’s chairman over Taiwan won’t earn any respite from Xi’s escalating pressure. Second, China could move so quickly against Taiwan that any U.S. military intervention might arrive too late to make a difference.
China sent this message by launching surprise multiday military exercises surrounding Taiwan. Involving the People’s Liberation Army’s space, air, naval, and ground forces, the exercises simulated a total blockade of Taiwan and attacks on its critical infrastructure. Notably, the PLA also declared its preparation for “All-Dimensional Deterrence outside the island chain.” This is a clear reference to intercepting any U.S. military forces in the Western Pacific Ocean that might intervene in Taiwan’s defense against an actual attack.
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This explicit recognition of military operations against the United States underlines Xi’s first lesson for Trump. This is an aggressive and very public posturing from the Chinese. And while the Chinese are playing up a recent and admittedly large U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, it is notable that these exercises come so soon after Trump hectored Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaishi for doing exactly what he and numerous other U.S. presidents have requested that Japanese prime ministers do. Namely, adopt a clearer strategic posture warning of possible Japanese military intervention against a future Chinese attack on Taiwan.
When Takaichi warned that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would risk Japan’s survival and thus justify a Japanese military response, China went berserk. Trump then rewarded Takaichi for her courage by telling her to shut up. He thought this would earn him Xi’s favor. Instead, as these exercises prove, Trump’s decision to put America’s primary adversary before one of America’s closest allies (even after the adversary threatened to cut Takaichi’s head off) encouraged only Xi’s more aggressive posture. And not just against Taiwan. PLA exercises this week also highlighted simulating fighting in the Gulf of America and off the coast of Florida.
Trump isn’t worried about any of this, however.
Asked about the PLA exercises on Monday, Trump insisted that he has “a great relationship with President Xi and he hasn’t told me anything about it… I don’t believe he’s going to be [attacking Taiwan]… nothing worries me, nothing.”
This is a good example of the problematic personality prism through which Trump views his interaction with foreign leaders. He doesn’t recognize that the New York City real estate business model of personal loyalty and mutual benefit often offers a poor template for international diplomacy. Sometimes international relations really are a zero-sum game in which someone has to lose for someone else to win. The future status of Taiwan is one such example. It will either remain free and sovereign under a bolstered defense umbrella or be subsumed by either Chinese political pressure or military force.
That leads us to Xi’s second lesson: advertising the PLA’s ability to act very quickly and thus greatly reduce the warning time the U.S. military would have to deploy against any move on Taiwan.
The array of forces the PLA has surged into this exercise is significant, representing an impressive feat of command and control and forward logistics. While the U.S. currently has a carrier strike group, a Marine Expeditionary Unit (with F-35B fighter jets), and a number of submarines operating relatively close to Taiwan, any credible U.S. response to an actual PLA attack would require the vast majority of the U.S. Navy. Getting those forces into the fight would take between two and three weeks in the very best scenario.
It is true that full-scale preparations for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would offer weeks of warning time for the U.S. Yet, were China to conduct a snap surprise attack that only then led to the associated mobilization of hospitals, logistics trains, and forces, Beijing could reduce the warning time of an attack to a matter of days. Along with cyberattacks designed to deter American intervention on the home front, Beijing might hope to make its invasion a fait accompli soon after it began. Considering still woefully inadequate Taiwanese defensive preparations for any attack, this is no small concern.
It also bears reminding that the PLA of 2025 is not the PLA of 2005 or 2015.
As the reliable South China Morning Post reports, China is preparing to enter mass production for its new YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship missile. The missile, which can be launched from China’s superb Type-055 air defense cruisers, has a range of around 930 miles. That would put Chinese warships operating close to the Chinese mainland (and thus under an integrated air-land-sea air defense umbrella) well within striking range of U.S. aircraft carrier sortie zones during a Taiwan conflict. The YJ-20 is designed to defeat even the most advanced U.S. air defense systems and has a purported terminal engagement speed of 7,700 miles per hour. This is just one example of impressive PLA weapons systems that are credibly designed to complicate U.S. war planning and defeat U.S. warfighting assets.
Put another way, Trump should be worried.
If Taiwan falls under Beijing’s control, it will mean the world’s most advanced semiconductor chip manufacturer also falls under Beijing’s control. It will mean China’s much increased ability to dominate Pacific trade routes through the East and South China Seas, and to militarily blackmail America’s treaty defense allies — Japan, the Philippines, and Australia — into obedience with Beijing’s demands. It will also encourage nations from Asia to Europe to Latin America, and indeed the world over, to believe that China, rather than America, is the ascendant 21st-century power worth deferring to.
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In short, it would be a catastrophe for American prosperity, security, and human freedom. On that latter point, if one considers what China does to its own people in Xinjiang province and Hong Kong, just consider what a Chinese superpower would mean for the rest of us.
Whether Trump likes it or not, Xi is educating Trump that he is increasingly allergic to Taiwan’s independence and increasingly prepared to do something very significant about it. If Trump’s only response to these lessons is to take solace in a non-existent bromance, he risks history recording him poorly for it.
