This article is based on Kevin Rudd’s Richard Larkins Oration delivered at Monash University on Wednesday night.
If humanity is to avoid a bloody war over Taiwan, we all need a clear understanding of what such a confrontation might actually look like.
We now live in a dangerous time. Although the Chinese Communist Party is not on a general war footing in preparation for an imminent invasion, Chinese President Xi Jinping has now prioritised security squarely above economics.
The Chinese president’s report to October’s 20th Party Congress shifted the party’s formal conclusion about China’s external security environment: instead of “peace and development” as “the main trend of our time”, Xi emphasises “dangers in peacetime” and preparation for the “dangerous storm”.
This confirms our analysis that a clear danger zone is emerging in the late 2020s and early 2030s, when China believes it will have sufficiently narrowed its military gap with the United States and insulated itself against financial sanctions. China is also watching for weakening US and allied political resolve, particularly if a neo-isolationist Republican were elected president in 2024, 2028 or 2032.
I continue to be worried about the ease (or, in some cases, excitement) with which some public figures talk loosely about the possibility of war. I include in this our alternative prime minister, Peter Dutton, who as defence minister declared it “inconceivable” that Australia would not join such a war — as though we are discussing some minor re-run of Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands, rather than a conflagration that could lead to World War III.
It may help our national discussion to think clearly about the different war scenarios that go beyond the classical image of a military invasion.
One possibility is that China could blockade Taiwan to strangle its economy, either through its now formidable naval assets or the threat of conventional rocket forces — capabilities we saw on display in China’s reaction to US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August. Such actions by China are likely to invite a US naval and air response.
Alternatively, China could launch a comprehensive cyberattack with the aim of crippling Taiwan’s civilian and military infrastructure. This would also invite American and Taiwanese countermeasures against Chinese critical infrastructure, enhancing the risk of non-cyber escalation given the vulnerability of military assets cut off from communications systems.
A third possibility is China attempting to take one of Taiwan’s offshore islands. Any Taiwanese government would face irresistible political pressure to defend its territorial integrity. The Chinese may gamble that American leaders could not justify a military response to their own people in defence of some distant island, and cause the rest of the world to doubt American resolve.
Fourth, China could still embark on a full-scale territorial invasion that, if it were to succeed, would probably involve a combined amphibious, airborne and special-forces operation bigger than the D-Day landings in 1944. This is the most problematic scenario of all, involving possible pre-emptive strikes on American military assets in nearby Guam, which is sovereign US territory, and Japan. It could also trigger US strikes against Chinese missile forces in Fujian. Needless to say, under this scenario, the immediate escalation into a general war could be rapid.
Add to all of these scenarios the risk of nuclear escalation if China were to begin losing a conventional war. In such a circumstance, it would be unwise to rule out the possible threat or use of nuclear weapons to safeguard the regime.
The real-world consequences of any such war would be of an order of magnitude not seen in our lifetimes. The civilian casualties on Taiwan — an island democracy of about 25 million people — would be impossible to predict. Taiwanese repeatedly tell pollsters they would fight to the bitter end. Nikkei estimates the global economic cost of war would immediately evaporate about 3% of global GDP and bring about a global depression. If China prevailed, it would upend the prevailing regional security order and undermine the credibility of US security guarantees to its treaty allies in Asia and Europe.
Australia’s economy would massively contract. We would also face the mass exodus of refugees seeking safety from war zones. Furthermore, if America failed, we would face the possibility of funding our own form of large-scale armed neutrality for the future — a profound challenge given our population size, vast geography and, at present, limited military resources.
We cannot imagine how the global order would be reshaped by such a war. What we know is that the first and second world wars both radically remoulded the world in ways that could not have been anticipated.
These questions demand serious, mature discussion. It is to all our benefit that Prime Minister Albanese has taken the temperature down in Australia-China relations in his recent meeting with President Xi Jinping. Just as it is good that presidents Biden and Xi had done likewise for the US-China relationship for the immediate period ahead.
But for us, the core strategic challenge for medium- to long-term US-China and Australia-China relations outlined above should no longer be kicked around as a domestic political football — either to win favour within the internal politics of the tawdry conservative political ecosystems of the Liberal and National parties, or as an attempted electoral wedge against Labor for being allegedly soft on China, as Dutton and Morrison sought to do during the last election, and spectacularly failed.
There are three core questions within this debate: first, how to manage the unfolding strategic competition between China and the US to reduce the risk of crisis, conflict and war by accident over the decade ahead; secondly, whether a combination of military, financial, economic, technological and political deterrence can be effectively deployed to cause the Chinese leadership to conclude, by the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, that the risks of war by design against Taiwan, the US and its allies are still too great to pull the trigger; and, finally, if war occurs, to consider the consequences of either Chinese or American failure.
These are the biggest questions this country has faced in its national security and foreign policy since World War II. And they require our focused national attention.
As things stand at the moment, I am rather persuaded by the argument that Taiwan has always been part of China and that the Chinese government in Beijing has not been able to exert control over this part of the country since it took control in 1949 because of military interference by the Americans. The situation is therefore somewhat similar to that which existed in Vietnam in the 1950’s 60’s and early 70’s, where America chose to interfere in the domestic conflict which arose in that country. Accordingly, the Chinese should be left to sort out their own domestic business as the Vietnamese should have in the past.
I would be vehemently opposed to involvement by Australian military forces in any sort of conflict that may (but hopefully will not) arise between America and China in the future. It is high time that we stopped being the ‘lap-dog’ of the Americans and start to stand on our own ‘two feet’.
“Taiwan has always been part of China”
Spot on. Just as importantly though (and maybe more so), they are ethnically and culturally the same. And there’s always been quite a bit of travel and migration from each to the other. I don’t think little Freddy Chau would be too happy to see his grandma and grandpa get nuked on the other side of the Taiwan Straight.
Given time – I think both sides will arrive at a mutually acceptable solution. The only thing I can see that could damage that outcome would be if the US turned Taiwan into the 51’st state of America. Would we be happy to see Tasmania join Vlad’s lot and see the Apple Isle covered in nukes pointing across Bass Straight ?
If Taiwan wants to be the 51st state of America then they had better move very smartly or they may have to settle for 52nd position (behind Australia).
Given international acceptance of the “one China” policy it would seem that any military action in response to an “invasion “ of Taiwan would not be legal.
Same as Tibet?
I agree with your last paragraph, but the situation is more nuanced than you imply:
https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/has-taiwan-always-been-part-of-china/
Many thanks for providing that link, Woop. The situation certainly is complex.
I thought that the detail provided under the heading “Status “”To Be Determined”” was particularly interesting. It is clear that both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong thought that Taiwan should be “returned to China”.
Later we read that “The U.S. government thus did not formally consider Taiwan to be “part of China,””
Surely what is or what is not part of China is something for the Chinese to sort out for themselves, rather than something to be decided by another nation situated some halfway around the globe.
Those days when America tells everyone else what to do and how to behave (because it has superior and overwhelming military and economic power at its disposal) seem to be coming to an end and the Chinese know it.
I agree with what you say in broad terms but Taiwan was only fully part of China since the Qing dynasty in the seventeenth century. There are other parts of the Qing Empire that largely but not exactly coincides with the present day borders of China that were not always part of China, as shown by the Great Wall, which marked the Northern Border of China during the Ming Empire.
Well argued and persuasive case for the urgent necessity of our federal parties to engage with these questions as matters of fundamental long-term national interest. That is antithetical to everything they stand for and do in our political system. They hardly ever look further than the next election and the narrow interests of party and pay-masters. If they were capable of any better we would, for example, have a proper energy and carbon emissions policy that takes account of global warming, it would have been in place for decades with bipartisan support, and we would take it for granted because it too is obviously a fundamental necessity.
P.S. on the example given in my comment, we might perhaps have had a Prime Minister years ago who took the view climate change is “the great moral challenge of our generation,” and never swerved from that commitment. Wouldn’t that have been great?
Well said, I listen with despair when I hear people like Stan Grant telling us that China has the worlds largest navy. I think Stan Grant is a great journalist but where does he get his information from. I’m afraid we are incapable of understanding the intricacies of these relationships. As an aside, really like your pen name, Sinking ship rat ?
“I think Stan Grant is a great journalist but where does he get his information from”
Falun Gong ?
China has the world’s largest navy, but many of it’s ships are of the Coast Guard patrol boat variety. The US has the greatest number of capital ships.
Question
Has the Republic of China(Aka Taiwan) renounce its claim to being the constitutional government of all China and the international waters and islands as is in its constitution
Kieran
Thanks for introducing semi-thoughtful debate on this topic. It would have been fairer to quote Mr Rudd’s entire speech? Much remains to be explored. To what extent does the Republic of China Taiwan still harbour aspirations to take over the People’s Republic of China?
Is there any statute of limitations which limits legitimate claims against the crimes of the descendants of warlords who fled to Taiwan in 47-49 taking with them the stolen wealth of so many Chinese people from the 1930s and 1940s??
And what of reparations for the savagery of the Allies in the Pacific who gave unexpended WW2 munitions to ROC Taiwan who then predictably bombed unmercifully the populace of southern China
It certainly is high time that those advocating Australian complicity with ROC Taiwan in some form of warfare to ‘defend’ the descendants of thugs and criminals from the 20th century Warlord era squarely faced history.
That Morrison and Dutton were prepared to beat the war drums for blatant political advantage was outrageous and speaks of their idiocy and unfitness to ever be in any position of power.