Tim Willasey-Wilsey, Former Senior Member, British Foreign Office
Former Senior Member of the British Foreign Office
Tim Willasey-Wilsey served for over 27 years in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is now Visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London. Much of his career was spent in Asia. Tim has focused for many years on South Asia and North East Asia as well as the issues of terrorism, organised crime, insurgency and conflict resolution.
Willasey-Wilsey’s piece posited a strategically important possibility, that China may choose to invade Taiwan as a means to seek unification, instead of following a more peaceful and diplomatic route. Willasey-Wilsey drafted the piece as if it were being considered by a hawkish member of China’s Civil Military Commission (CMC).
Today, he tells us that the same hawkish member would now add 4 new points to his argument.
- With increasing talk of a Cold War with the United States China cannot afford to have a hostile territory only 100 miles off its eastern coast; a base for potential subversion and for belligerent intelligence activities. Cuba caused the United States constant trouble from the 1950s to the 1980s. The difference was that Cuba had never presented a serious alternative political model for US society.
- The Trump administration’s approval of a range of new military exports to Taiwan including anti-ship and surface to surface missiles would threaten not only Chinese invasion forces but also the embarkation ports from which an operation would be launched. There was an argument for moving before these weapons could be delivered.
- There were worrying signs that the US might be willing to tear up the various agreements by which it withdrew its forces in 1979 and tacitly agreed to the “One China” policy. Richard Haas has spoken of the need to replace “strategic ambiguity with strategic certainty”; that the US would respond militarily to Chinese aggression. There has even been talk in US military circles of returning US troops to the island as a deterrent.
- Finally, our hawkish CMC member would warn against thinking a Biden Presidency would take a different view on China. Biden’s diplomacy would certainly be more sophisticated than Trump’s but there is a long strand of bipartisan agreement on China; which could be seen in the reactions to Mike Pence’s important speech on China at the Hudson Institute in October 2018.
Nobody on the CMC, or indeed in the wider Party, would dispute the need to “reunify” Taiwan with China as soon as possible. The more cautious members of the Committee might, however, make 4 observations of their own.
- Seaborne invasions are inherently risky. For every success such as Normandy 1944 there is a disaster like Gallipoli 1915. Taiwan is a difficult country to invade, with few beaches and vertiginous central highlands. It presents defenders with excellent opportunities to delay a Chinese victory; a period which might allow for US military intervention and international diplomatic manoeuvring.
- Although Chinese military and amphibious capabilities have been transformed over the past 15 years, there is still a lack of some key equipment, experience and training to ensure success. In another 3 to 5 years the situation would be considerably improved.
- Even with the extensive use of deception, any invasion would require such scale as to provide the US with ample intelligence warning of mobilisation. Washington would probably have time to deploy additional submarines to the Taiwan Strait.
- Finally, the cautious Party officials would make an economic argument. Taiwan needs China. Its economy is dependent on China and many Taiwanese businessmen fully recognise the folly of cutting links with the mainland and over-reliance on an increasingly unreliable and self-obsessed US. Further efforts by the Chinese intelligence services and the United Front organisations should, over time, persuade the Taiwanese to understand this reality.
Most senior party members would be swayed by these latter points. The Party instinctively dislikes short term tactical thinking and does not have the dexterity to manage sudden changes of policy. Far better to stick to trusted historical principles.
Even if Xi Jinping knows nothing about Winston Churchill’s nightmares about Gallipoli on the eve of the Normandy invasion, he would not be human if he did not have fears of what a failed invasion would look like; sinking ships, drowning sailors, stranded paratroopers surrendering to victorious Taiwanese forces, and all providing a platform for the many enemies he made in reaching the pinnacle of the Party hierarchy.
The chances, therefore, are that China will choose another path; strangulation. It may have begun already. Chinese ships now hug the Taiwan Straits Median Line and fighter jets probe beyond it. Media sources are becoming increasingly strident and China’s sanctions against Boeing and Lockheed Martin could easily be extended to Taiwanese firms. Disputed islands, like the Pratas, could be isolated. For Beijing, a perfect scenario would be for Taiwan to shoot down a Chinese aircraft, leading to the imposition of a maritime embargo and an air exclusion zone. Gradually, it would dawn on the Taiwanese that the US, without being presented with a clear pretext, would be unable and unwilling to ride to their rescue.
Finally, there is Xi’s legacy. A leading British sinologist has observed privately that Xi needs to secure Taiwan if he is to be ranked alongside Mao (who won the mainland) and Deng (who negotiated the return of Hong Kong). Xi knows that Party historians and ideologues will not look kindly on failure.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is Visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and a former senior British diplomat.
Read more on Taiwan and its global impact on semiconductor manufacturing in The Cipher Brief
