SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — While wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza, the past week has seen a spike in tensions over a global conflict that may be years away - or never come at all: A war over Taiwan.
Last Thursday Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had detected more than thirty Chinese military aircraft near Taiwan in a 24-hour window, the second-highest figure this year. Taiwan's foreign minister said on Wednesday that China has built "enormous" military bases on three islands surrounding Taiwan's main outpost in the South China Sea. And while forecasts vary widely as to whether and when China might move forcefully against Taiwan, U.S. Adm. John Aquilino, head of the Indo-Pacific Command, said the Chinese military would likely be ready for an assault on the island within three years.
“All indications point to the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027,” Adm. Aquilino told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. Citing an “aggressive military buildup” by the mainland, he added that “the PLA’s actions indicate their ability to meet Xi’s preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed.”
Will that direction come? Military and policy analysts are divided about China’s plans - an invasion? economic blockade? peaceful takeover? - and the timing of any action. But the primacy of reunification with Taiwan as a goal for Xi is not in question.
Indeed, it hasn’t been in question since the People’s Republic of China was created in 1949; the PRC has always regarded Taiwan as a renegade province. The difference today is that Xi has not only regularly repeated the claim - he has paired strong rhetoric with muscular military measures.
China increased its defense budget by 7.2 percent this year, and has regularly sent spy balloons as well as military aircraft into or near Taiwanese airspace. Xi has exhorted his military to prepare for the possibility of conflict, and in his most recent New Year’s address he called unification - however it comes to pass - a “historical inevitability.”
As for Taiwan, in the 75 years since the PRC was born, the island has thrived as a democratic nation and economic juggernaut. In January’s presidential election, Taiwanese voters chose Lai Ching-te, the ruling party candidate who rejects utterly the Chinese claim over Taiwan. China’s Foreign Ministry said the results “will not change the basic fact that Taiwan is part of China and there is only one China in the world.”
Earlier this month, Retired Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, the former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, was invited to Taiwan by top government officials for a series of high-level visits. Studeman met with Taiwan’s political and military leaders, and visited Kinmen Island in the Taiwan Strait, which sits just three miles from the coast of China. Kinmen has seen a series of recent maritime confrontations between China and Taiwan, and the island has also - according to reports published last week - hosted training by U.S. special operations forces for the Taiwanese military.
Cipher Brief Publisher and CEO Suzanne Kelly spoke with Adm. Studeman while he was in Taipei, for a special episode of the State Secrets podcast. Studeman said that among the takeaways from his meetings was this sobering note: When it came to a potential Chinese military move on Taiwan, “the question wasn't whether. The question was when.”
THE INTERVIEW
The Cipher Brief spoke with Rear Adm. Mike Studeman (Ret.) to discuss the threat Taiwan faces from China and what the island is doing to defend itself.
This excerpt of the interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: Who have you met with and what are some of your impressions?
Adm. Studeman: We started off with a visit with the chief of the general staff here, the chief of the Navy. We ended up going around to a number of shipbuilding centers, think tanks, the National Defense University, and just yesterday we were out at Kinmen Island, one of the offshore islands just a few miles off the coast of Xiamen.
The Cipher Brief: So just a few miles off the Chinese coast. What were your impressions from that trip in particular?
Adm. Studeman: Kinmen has been on the front lines for many years. That was an area where the Chinese communists had tried not just to evict the KMT (Kuomintang), but to crush it in a series of defeats near the end of the Civil War (in 1949). So there are battlefields there, on the beaches - about 10,000 Chinese communists were defeated in an amphibious invasion attempt using old fishing boats and things like that. So the Taiwan forces held their own there.
There are a couple of recent incidents that have occurred around Kinmen. There have been drones (from China) that have come close. Kinmen has improved their drone defense. They're prepared to take them down if they approach within a certain distance, inside the restricted zone around Kinmen. And there was a recent Coast Guard incident. A fishing boat had come into a restricted zone, and the Taiwan Coast Guard chased it out, and unfortunately there were a couple of fishermen that died when their boat turned over. And that resulted in a fracas. There was a response by the mainland - they increased the number of Chinese Coast Guard vessels from five to seven, that were patrolling around Kinmen, and then up to nine.
This was stabilized. It was managed. But it shows you the degree of interest and the concern about flashpoints getting out of control.
The Cipher Brief: I'm curious about the tone, the people you've been talking to, what they are most concerned about. Is it a readiness issue? Is it being caught off guard? Is it not having support they might need?
Adm. Studeman: First of all, there's a great deal of appreciation for the assistance that Taiwan gets. Some of their international contacts are very important for their trade and for their security. There is a concern about the nature of U.S. global leadership. That came out very strong. If we isolate and withdraw from the world, many democracies are going to be hurt. There was a request for us not to forgo the role that the United States should be filling in the world, to lead and provide positive vision for the future, and be here and make sure that we defend the freedoms that exist here among the allies, partners, and others. So that was a very clear message from very senior people, including former National Security Council staff advisors, and (outgoing) President Tsai Ing-wen.
We talked about whether or not there would be a major offensive against Taiwan, and when that would occur. The question wasn't whether. The question was when.
There are various views on this. Nobody knows for sure. There's no iron countdown that we're aware of, that Xi Jinping is operating off of.
But we see all the modernization, and the Taiwanese do too. They've got more gray-zone activities near their borders, balloons that fly over Taiwan almost constantly. And so they're very concerned about where this goes. Not only the slow boil, but something that can convert very quickly into something more serious, a blockade or an invasion.
The sense on timing, given what Xi Jinping is saying to his people and what he's doing to prepare his forces and to insulate his economy — they think that something is likely within single-digit years. There's debate over when that might be exactly, but many more people are saying that the next five years are very dangerous years, and their concerns are that the back half of the 2020s, the latest the early part of the 30s, Xi Jinping may be tempted to do something while his powers may be at their peak before other issues in the Chinese economy may begin to bite. So there's a deep concern and it's resulting in a lot of preparations.
The Cipher Brief: Based on what you just said, I'm curious how much the U.S. election is on the mind of people in Taiwan right now.
Adm. Studeman: Very much. This came up in a few different fora, and it isn't necessarily an easy conversation. The concern is an inwardness, where America forgoes its international role, that it walks away from the international world order, or simply focuses on domestic concerns, not realizing how interconnected America is with the world.
For people out here in the front lines in the Western Pacific, it’s an existential issue. This isn't just another issue to hit the news. They may become the next Hong Kong if they’re not careful. So they need the U.S. not only in terms of its direct role and partnership and ability to defend and deter, but also the U.S. ability to bring together other partners to unite in coalitions to prevent the very thing that would affect - not just here - but the globe in terms of economic impacts.
They say if there's a war over Taiwan, it would affect 10% of global GDP, about $10 trillion worth. And so nobody can afford for that to happen. But that requires engagement. So that was their concern.
The Cipher Brief: Let's shift to Taiwan's own election. There's an inauguration that's set for May 20th. What can we expect regarding the new leaders? And do you think China may exercise its ability to saber-rattle during this transition?
Adm. Studeman: I think that President-elect Lai is going to be someone who provides continuity from President Tsai. He was the vice president before. He's aware of the issues. I think that when President Tsai talked about peaceful coexistence as the overall strategy, President-elect Lai will continue those words. I don't think he will cross a red line in any way. He's looking for stability in the status quo.
But he knows he also has to do more on the defense and security side. He will likely inherit an economy which is showing some positive signs where wages and exports are increasing in a good way for Taiwan, so it may have a larger GDP in 2024 than 2023.
The question is how he ends up using his political capital, because this debate over what the defense budget should be here - it may not have been discussed in the presidential campaign because it's sensitive, but it may be something he decides to tackle. The population is willing to increase the defense budget to about 3% from 2.5, maybe you'd argue it should be even more. But the Legislative Yuan is going to have to debate this, and so they may haggle.
They’ll probably take longer to get to where they want to go, and President Lai will probably focus on trying to get the economy going in a way that looks pretty good right now. I think he's going to have to take a really hard look at investments for how to structure the military and the society — civil defenses, for example — to prepare Taiwan for the worst.
The Cipher Brief: You've talked about drones, and you mentioned gray-zone behavior that you're seeing there. Let's dig in a little bit deeper on that gray zone and how significant that is to Taiwan's preparedness.
Adm. Studeman: When they talk about their strategy, they talk about multi-domain deterrence, and that includes everything from deterring a war, a blockade, an invasion, all the way through deterring some of those gray-zone activities. But the Chinese, clearly, they've got a strategy to begin to exhaust the Taiwan forces by having more patrols in more places. They currently have naval forces that periodically patrol on the eastern side, northwest, southwest, Taiwan Strait. You have surface patrols, aerial patrols, operating in their air defense identification zone (ADIZ), making long-range patrols into the West Philippine Sea. This requires Taiwan to respond, and they're thinking of creative ways to do that without being exhausted.
But it's very clear that the PLA strategy, the Chinese strategy, is to try to make it look like an inevitable trajectory towards assimilation of Taiwan where they can't do anything about it. They're trying to erode morale and will. They're trying to demonstrate the power and strength of the PLA here without generating a crisis at the immediate moment.
The Taiwan military has had to respond in new ways. Most interestingly, the Taiwanese are really drawing the line. There have been some patrols (from China), for example, that have come within 24 nautical miles, the edge of their contiguous zone. But the Taiwanese have a plan that if the PLA moves any closer towards their 12-nautical-mile territorial waters, or inside, that constitutes for them what they call not a first shot, but a first move. And the defense minister has been very clear that the frontline commanders have been given authority to deal with a first move as they see fit, including stronger actions that are required to eject that patrol vessel from inside that area.
So their rules of engagement have changed according to the situation that they're facing. And they're going to have to look at other capabilities that they'll have to deploy in coming years to handle the sheer quantity and volume of the PLA that's trying to show that, unlike Ukraine, which had Poland and other land borders, that they can isolate Taiwan successfully and there will be no possibility of an air or surface bridge.
Taiwan is going to have to show that they can keep open, at a minimum, their eastern flank, if not their north and south. And it's going to require a combination of some symmetrical and asymmetrical capabilities that they're going to have to get into their security forces within single-digit years to make a difference.
The Cipher Brief: Do you see something like this having the potential to really set off a broader engagement?
Adm. Studeman: I don't see that right now, either between PLA or Taiwan forces or PLA-US forces, actually resulting in a downward spiral into a war. I think those things can be managed.
But the PLA is the entity that's raising the risks. Nobody else has changed their control patterns or strategic objectives. It's all been China-initiated. And this aggressive approach has created a situation with a likelihood of a mishap in the air or some encounters at sea that will further destabilize the region. China could do something about it, but their strategic intent goes in the other direction, and that is to create more anxiety and instability as they try to achieve their overall goals.
So my concern is that this will, over years, create a sense of fragility that then has knock-on effects with different allies and partners in the area, with the way that investments are made, for example, what businesses choose to invest in terms of China or Taiwan or other countries in the region here. So it's not helpful in any way.
And it goes all the way back to Xi Jinping's personal desire to, on his watch, under his tenure, resolve the Taiwan issue and make it part of his legacy because he wants to be in the pantheon of Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong.
The Cipher Brief: If you're talking about global leaders who are pushing aggressive actions because they're concerned about their legacy, Vladimir Putin also comes to mind. Are the people in Taiwan, and the leaders in particular, looking to Ukraine to try to understand better ways to defend themselves?
Adm. Studeman: My second brief to the President's side and the National Security Team while I was still active duty was about Ukraine, and lessons learned. And they have taken them to heart. There's a series of things they've been doing. They're looking at resilience. They're looking at whole-of-society approaches. They are reviewing their critical infrastructure and how to make that stronger in terms of its defenses - more distributed, diversifying a number of different things that could end up being critical points that the Chinese could take out with ballistic missiles or other capabilities.
They formed an all-out defense mobilization agency last year that reports to the Ministry of Defense, but essentially it's designed to bring different ministries together to take a look at what is required to deal with an emergency, all the way up to wartime.
They've done a number of reforms. President Tsai extended the conscription period from four months to a year. The training dollars have increased so they can improve the quality of their training. The reservists are getting more equipment. There have been increases in the defense budget.
The Taiwanese are trying to make sure that they can actually deter by demonstrating their capabilities to behave like Ukraine if attacked. Much more to go for them, but they have started. And these things are hard political debates, too. President Tsai told me that she doesn't want to cause societal panic by pushing too much too fast. But so far they've gotten a number of different initiatives that I think will pay off.
The Cipher Brief: Are you focusing any of your attention on lessons learned from the Ukraine conflict by China?
Adm. Studeman: China's learned a lot of lessons there, but unfortunately the one lesson we wanted them to learn, that it's probably not wise to conduct an aggressive action against a neighbor, is probably one they have not have not learned themselves.
There's no evidence that Xi Jinping is deterred from his grand strategy of returning Taiwan, unifying Taiwan and assimilating it like Hong Kong. So this is a great concern. The speeches we see the PLA getting from Xi Jinping suggest that he's preparing them for a major test, combat operations. “High winds, high seas,” he talks about that with his people all the time. He's gotten rid of the whole notion of peaceful unification. That was eliminated just recently.
The military is modernizing very quickly. You know about the nuclear forces, but amphibious training, all warfare activities continue at a sprint.
The criteria that Xi Jinping put in place was that if he demands Taiwan to unify and they refuse, that constitutes grounds for him to conduct offensive operations. And so we see these strategic criteria, new ones being put in place, which would give China the ability to take the initiative anytime they wanted, not dependent on Taiwan to, let's say, cross a red line and do something that they could be faulted for. This is so that China can go whenever they want.
But the modernization that we see with the military forces - the kind of multi-month training that they do, the investment in nuclear forces, the rushing in every warfare area - all of those capabilities that are being developed suggest that they are on the path. They are beating the war drums and preparing themselves for moving against Taiwan.
And you see this with Xi Jinping's prioritization of the securitizing of the economy. He's insulating China from the playbook that they saw the West apply against Russia because of Ukraine. And so they're trying to anticipate exactly what they need to do, and they've made a lot of moves that suggest no longer is the economy getting rich the number one. It's actually security that’s number one in geopolitics. That's been the strategic change in the dynamics.
The Cipher Brief: China has obviously expressed its political will for this reunification to happen sooner rather than later. But there's also military ability. China's military hasn't launched an amphibious assault. They're very difficult. How do you assess how something like that might turn out?
Adm. Studeman: I always worry about people who claim that untested militaries will always lose, because it's just not what history tells us. If you want to use an example from this region, remember the Japanese were also derided for their capabilities until they defeated the Russians at the Strait of Tsushima in 1905. And so this is something to be very, very circumspect about. You have a fervent PLA that ideologically believes that Taiwan should be theirs. They have been acculturated for years now about their patriotic duty. They have been given a lot of resources to create capabilities across all warfare areas. They're operating from interior lines, which means that they have much closer support capability near mainland China than, for example, the United States coming all the way over from the mid-Pacific.
The will, in any kind of war, is always more important, perhaps, than capabilities - the ability to stick it out and to endure hardship. These are the things that the PLA has as strengths. And so we would be wise not to underestimate both the intent and the capabilities of the PLA.
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