Taiwan is in trouble. With Taiwan may go the freedom of Asia and beyond.
Recently proposed U.S. legislation seeks to deter the growing Chinese threat to invade the island democracy. The Arm Taiwan Act of 2021, introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, lays out a plan to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses. Hawley says the bill “will ensure [that] Taiwan has the asymmetric defenses it needs to deter a Chinese invasion — so long as Taiwan is prepared to make the difficult choices required to defend itself in the hard years ahead.”
The legislation deserves broad congressional support.
China has coveted Taiwan since 1949, when communists under Mao Zedong successfully defeated the Nationalist Party forces of Chiang Kai-shek. He then retreated to the island nation. Unlike China, Taiwan became a democracy several decades later. However, the Chinese Communist Party does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty and has refused to rule out using force to capture the country.
At the beginning of October, China’s People Liberation Army executed major incursions into Taiwanese airspace. As the Hudson Institute’s Seth Cropsey observed: “… these actions are a calculated attempt to test Taiwanese defenses, identify weak points, and gather tactical and operational intelligence for a future attack on the island republic.”
China is preparing. As Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng acknowledged in October, Beijing is “capable now” of invading the country. By 2025 — or perhaps sooner — there will be “lowered costs and losses associated with invading Taiwan.”
The Arm Taiwan Act will make a Chinese invasion costly.
The bill calls for the Pentagon to form the Taiwan Security Assistance Initiative and authorizes $3 billion annually for the initiative from 2023-2027. Importantly, the act also specifies how the money should be spent. In the past, several U.S. defense experts have criticized Taiwan’s defense strategy and acquisitions.
Analyst Edward Luttwak has lamented that instead of building up Taiwan’s coastal defenses and asymmetric capabilities, Taipei has spent considerable time and money on costly platforms that will easily be outclassed by China’s. For example, Taiwan’s focus on ocean-going submarines — at a cost of $2 billion each— has led to concerns about the nation’s defense planning, leading critics to castigate it as unrealistic and dangerous.
Hawley’s bill would ensure that taxpayer money is spent more efficiently. It conditions the “future sale, lease, or other provision of conventional weapons by the United States to Taiwan on demonstrated progress by Taiwan toward fielding a credible asymmetric defense,” to include mobile and coastal air defenses, naval mines, missile boats, man-portable anti-armor weapons, and civil defense forces.
As the senator’s office has noted: by expanding the island’s asymmetric defense capabilities, Taiwan “can have a disproportionate effect on the cross-Strait military balance” as they are “difficult to target and neutralize by virtue of their mobility, concealability and numbers.” This enables “Taiwanese forces to fight longer and more effectively, especially in the initial period of war, when U.S. forces may be able to only provide initial support.” The goal is to make a Chinese invasion costly and prolonged — giving the U.S. and its allies enough time to intervene.
Another long-standing concern has been Taiwan’s lackluster defense spending. For years, Taipei has been behind countries such as Finland and Israel, both of which spend a vastly higher amount on defense despite having smaller GDPs and populations. Accordingly, the proposed legislation requires the Pentagon to certify that Taipei is spending not less than 3% of its GDP on defense annually by the year 2027.
The Arm Taiwan Act extends fair requirements. It will boost confidence both for Taiwan and its neighbors. The legislation deserves broad, bipartisan support.
The writer is a Washington D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst. His views are his own.
