TAIWAN, as widely understood, is one of the most dangerous flashpoint in the U.S.-China relations and has fair probability to serve as catalyst for crisis and war. In a recent article in The National Interest, Ted Galen Carpenter proposed an intriguing proposal. In order to avoid such an avoidable catastrophe, he urged the U.S., China, and Taiwan to consider Finland option to put an end contest for dominating the island nation.
Such proposal requires immense compromise among the parties involved. For China’s part, they will have to give up sovereignty and territorial claim over Taiwan. As a reward, Taiwan and the U.S. need to provide guarantee that Taiwan will terminate any alliance they have. As an insurance policy, Taiwan needs to deny the right for foreign military basing on their soil except for those of limited China’s one.
“Almost no one would entirely happy with such a proposal,” he rightly remarked. However, China will surely be the least happy party of such agreement. They will hardly consider such proposal keeping in mind the huge and disproportionate concessions they would have to fulfill and honor. In short, Beijing will become the biggest loser.
THE U.S. meanwhile would be the biggest winner in such a deal. Taiwan currently serves more as a liabilitythan as a benefit for U.S., both in times of peace and war. In times of peace, Taiwan is continuously testing U.S.’s credibility and resolve while having little to offer in terms of its contribution for U.S.-led containment against China. Moreover, it is a dangerous flashpoint that could unintentionally bring U.S. into a war with China.
In times of war, Taiwan will be an even bigger liability for Pentagon. After all, the island is very hard to defendgiven its geographical proximity with mainland China. Its capital, Taipei, is only 300km away from Fuzhou while it sits 600km away from Okinawa, 1,100km from Manila, and 2,100km from Tokyo. In other words, China’s missile force and air force can easily strike the island hard from safe-distance and from deep-inside the mainland. That being said, Taiwan is also useless for the U.S. forces in offensive terms. The island sits to close to the mainland that made it vulnerable and (possibly) indefensible. After all, one needs to consider that China’s military modernization efforts all this time is geared primarily for Taiwan contingency. In sum, Finland option for Taiwan is a blessing in disguise for the U.S.
From Taiwan’s strategic calculus, they won’t have much to regret either from a Finland option deal. After all, it will serve their mid-term goal – that is to preserve their de facto independence, stability, and peace in their region. Furthermore, from Mr. Carpenter’s proposal, Taiwan for me seems does not obliged to make sizeable concessions.
First, Mr. Carpenter said Taiwan will not get formal independence. How on earth this would ever be called a concession. With or without this ‘concession,’ Taiwan’s formal independence is impossible for the foreseeable future and it resembles a general truth nowadays.
Second, Taiwan must renounce their alliance with the U.S. I do not think Taipei got something to lose from this so called ‘concession’ either. With or without an alliance, it is doubtful that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in times of war considering China’s considerable A2/AD assets. After all, even if Taiwan is protected by such alliance (just like they do now) and the U.S. is honoring their commitment in times of war, Taiwan is nearly indefensible considering China’s strength and close geographical proximity.
Third, Taiwan should give Beijing the right for limited military presence on the island to protect their national interests there. This for me sound as the only real concession Taiwan has to make if the Finland option deal is to be inked. However, in sum, I believe that from Mr. Carpenter’s proposal, Taiwan will get nothing to lose – at most, they will only have to formalize things that are either informally happens now or inevitable in the future.
Much different from the U.S.’ and Taiwan’s strategic calculus, Finland option will incur significant costs from China’s perspective. For sure, I am not convinced that Zhongnanhai will ever consider such proposal. It is simply because Taiwan for China is not the same as Finland for Soviet Union. The political and geostrategic costs for Soviets for agreeing the Finland option is insignificant compared to what Chinese would have to make.
For political reasons, it is inconceivable and a near impossibility for any Chinese leadership to relinquish the claim. Most of all, Taiwan is important for CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) legitimacy. The permanent loss of Taiwan will undoubtedly results in the considerable weakening of CCP’s domestic political clout and dominance.
It is also important to note that Taiwan was snatched up from China by world great-powers of 19th and 20th century. It was taken while China was weak and not considered as a great power – a position it used to enjoy all along its more than two-millennia-long history. Bringing the island back under Beijing’s control willrepresents an end to century of humiliation and symbolically bringing China back into world’s league of great-powers.
Geostrategic considerations will also prevent China from making the kind of concessions the Soviet did. It must be remembered that Taiwan is not Finland. It will be more appropriate to make comparison between Germany during the Cold War with Taiwan today since both are geographically significant – while Finland, with all due respect, was not. In other words, Taiwan is just too significant for China’s military operations to be formally relinquished – just as how significant Germany was during the Cold War for both sides.
For China, controlling Taiwan will further strengthen its A2/AD strategy and posture in the Western Pacific. Possessing Taiwan will give an extra-depth (300km) for China’s defense against U.S.’s moves into China seas. Besides, Taiwan mountainous eastern coastline can surely be engineered to hide missile launchers, aircrafts, and other platforms and logistics to make life hard for American sailors and airmen. Considering China’s expertise in tunneling, it is not a hard feat to make another underground great wall throughout eastern Taiwan.
Furthermore, Taiwan central geographical position means it can be utilized to control the naval access in-and-out of East and South China seas toward the Pacific Ocean and vice versa. By controlling Taiwan, it will be easier for China to monitor the gates of – and closing it down if necessary – China seas. As for China’s sizeable submarine fleet, control of the island means much easier access or breakthrough into the Pacific Ocean.
FOR all the reasons stated, it just does not make any sense for China to make considerable concessions at this point. Currently, China’s military and economic power grows faster than the U.S. For sure, the rise of China represents the fastest rise of any great-power in modern history. In the foreseeable future, it is likely that China will continue to grow faster than the U.S. and push even closer the U.S.-China military and economic gaps.
Some reports have even asserted that China is now strong enough to take on U.S. forces and force it to a draw (at the very least) if war erupts in East Asia these days. If the powerless China of our grandparent’s days never made concessions on Taiwan issue, why on earth the superpower China of our days will make a big one now?
Written by: Zidny Ilman. Zidny Ilman is the coordinator of Indonesia Berbicara's Pusat Kajian (Research Center). This article was first published in The National Interest.
