Blaze News originals: War over Taiwan in the near future would be a disaster for both the US and China

American lawmakers, foreign policy wonks, and military officials frequently raise the possibility of a shooting war with China, particularly over Taiwan.

Gen. Mike Minihan, commander of the U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command, noted in a memo early last year, "My gut tells me we will fight in 2025." The four-star general intimated that China would attempt to invade Taiwan in 2025 while America was still distracted with the results of the 2024 election.

At a foreign policy conference months later, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) indicated there was an appetite for such a war among some of his colleagues on the Hill.

"You come to my Republican caucus and you'll hear the beating of drums," said Paul, himself a critic of the "blathering about inevitability [of war]." "These are drums for war with whomever, but primarily war with China. Everything is about war with China."

That drum beat, which recently payed out billions in taxpayer dollars to Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to "counter communist China," has been echoed on the other side of the globe where China has not only engaged in saber rattling, but taken great strides to sharpen its blades — to grow and modernize its military in all domains of warfare, ending up with the largest navy in the world and the largest aviation force in the Indo-Pacific.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute revealed in its annual report last month that China — whose defense budget has more than doubled under President Xi Jinping over the past 11 years — is expanding its nuclear capabilities at such a rate where it could potentially deploy as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as either the U.S. or Russia in the coming decade. The Pentagon has estimated China will have 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.

Amidst this military buildup, Xi and other communist officials have spoken frankly about their desire to annex Taiwan, possibly by force, and routinized the buzzing of the island with military aircraft.

While the stage is set for a Sino-American conflict over Taiwan, David P. Goldman underscored to Blaze News it would be an unmitigated disaster for all parties involved were it to happen sometime in the near future, highlighting critical considerations that tend to be glossed over in mainstream discussions.

Goldman, the Spengler columnist for Asia Times Online and Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute, is the author of "You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form the World." Goldman contributes to numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and Tablet Magazine, and has written extensively on China.

At the outset, Blaze News presented Goldman with a concern he had expressed in 2022 — that "the knuckleheads who spent $6 trillion on forever wars and gutted our military by frittering away our resources will steer us into a confrontation with China that will lead to a war that nobody can win."

When asked how likely it was now that such a confrontation might happen, Goldman indicated he couldn't assign a probability but detailed why the prospect should be loathsome to both the U.S. and China.

"The problem is that the American Chinese military relationship is massively asymmetric. The United States military is more powerful than the Chinese military. We have many more nuclear missiles. We have many more modern aircraft. We don't have as many ships, but we have more tonnage, and we certainly have a military that has a great deal of combat experience," said Goldman.

Where land forces are concerned, Goldman indicated that the U.S. spends 15-times as much per unit than China, which also lacks a main battle tank and doesn't execute large-scale maneuvers. Goldman noted further that China lacks fighting experience, having not fought a real war since Korea in the early 1950s.

Barring experience, many of these advantages are immaterial when it comes to a conflict over Taiwan, suggested Goldman. After all, it is unlikely both that the U.S. would wage a land war with the People's Liberation Army and that the two countries' navies would engage one another in open waters.

'The fact that the Chinese can from their coast fire an arbitrarily large number of missiles at an American expeditionary force is a gigantic advantage.'

Goldman suggested it would be foolhardy for China to attempt an amphibious D-Day-style assault on Taiwan, as it would suffer a "hideous number of casualties." Instead, it would blockade the island in order to starve out a surrender.

Taiwan produces none of its own energy. There's no energy resources that has to import everything. It has perhaps 11 days storage of natural gas, which is its most important energy source, and with a blockade, the Chinese don't have to do anything but tell the shipping companies that if the natural gas LNG tanker gets too close to Taiwan, they will hit it with an anti-ship gun. At that point, the Taiwanese economy would shut down in three weeks, and the Taiwanese would have to accept Chinese terms. There's nothing that our navy can do to stop the blockade.

An attempt to break such a blockade — or even to counter the more unlikely naval assault — would expose American forces to China's coastal defenses and "home theater advantage."

"The short logistical lines are a fundamental feature of warfare, and in an era where missile warfare, missile and anti-missile warfare are probably the most important single factor in determining the outcome of an engagement, the fact that the Chinese can from their coast fire an arbitrarily large number of missiles at an American expeditionary force is a gigantic advantage," Goldman told Blaze News.

Maj. Christopher Mihal, a nuclear and counter-WMD officer with the U.S. Army, noted years before China went into high gear with its military buildup, that it already had "enough antiship missiles to attack every U.S. surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship's missile defense."

The missiles at the PLA's disposal include long-range missiles, which Goldman indicated could hit the American Air Base in Guam; the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, which is regarded as an aircraft carrier killer; and hypersonic missiles, for which there presently is no counter.

Absent hypersonic missiles, American forces in the South China Sea would still be in trouble.

"Now there are anti-missile countermeasures, but the problem is the simple volume," continued Goldman. "An American destroyer, for example, can carry 100 interceptors, and those interceptors certainly can take down an ordinary cruise missile of the Tomahawk type. But once their interceptors are used up, they have to turn around and go away."

"Because of a home theater advantage with China's ability to store and launch missiles from its mainland, the U.S. is at an enormous disadvantage. It would almost certainly lose such an engagement," said Goldman. "If, you know, God forbid, we got into a kinetic action and the Chinese destroyed an American aircraft carrier with 10,000 servicemen on board, I think the reaction would be enormous, and [Americans would] feel compelled to do something."

Goldman indicated that payback for a destroyed carrier, such as F-18 strikes on mainland Chinese targets or missile strikes could easily lead to nuclear confrontation — a possibility explored in U.S. Navy Ret. Admiral James Stavridis' popular work of scenario fiction, "2034."

Besides China's "arbitrarily" large number of mortar systems and ship-killing missiles, Goldman noted that China also has scores of diesel electric submarines that could lurk in wait for American ships.

'We should be developing different kinds of weapons that have the potential to counteract this inherent Chinese advantage.'

Unlike certain personalities in Washington, Goldman noted that for these and other reasons, the "American military is extremely reluctant to engage [China]."

The Pentagon's awareness of China's home theater advantage may itself diminish the risk of a direct confrontation in the short to medium term. Should such caution afford America some time, Goldman advocates that it be spent on research and development, largely with the aim of blunting China's military edge.

"I think that we were very complacent investing in the same weapon systems we've had for many years, thinking that they would suffice," Goldman told Blaze News. "We were simply oblivious to the impact of the Chinese missile buildup."

In order to succeed in the Chinese theater, Goldman stressed the need of anti-missile technologies, including directed energy weapons and drone swarms.

"Given the technologies involved and our disadvantage against China's home theater arsenal, we should, in fact, be cautious, and we should be developing different kinds of weapons that have the potential to counteract this inherent Chinese advantage and try to develop them faster than the Chinese did, but that would take a while," said Goldman.

Former President Donald Trump's proposed "great Iron Dome over our country" is the kind of thinking Goldman suggested was necessary — a government initiative that doesn't dish out subsidies to civilian contractors but executes with a sense of national security need on the model of the Apollo program or the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative.

But in the meantime, "The best thing we could do is to try to keep the status quo on China's coast and not attempt to push any issue of our liking."

The status quo has been maintained stateside in the form of the One-China policy, whereby the American government: acknowledges that Taiwan is technically part of China and that Beijing is the "sole legal government of China"; rejects the use of force to settle the dispute; will sell Taiwan weapons for its self-defense; sidesteps Beijing to maintain ties with Taipei; and reserves the ability to come to Taiwan's defense without formally committing to doing so.

In theory, this approach enables the U.S. to support Taiwan without too greatly alienating Beijing. However, incidents such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) 2022 visit to Taiwan have revealed just how sensitive the status quo really is to disruption.

Blaze News asked Goldman why China would not act now to capture Taiwan, given its awareness of its regional advantages as well as America's materiel exhaustion in Ukraine and the apparent weakness in the White House.

"They would pay a very heavy price to do so," Goldman told Blaze News.

While China could extract concessions and perhaps a surrender from a blockaded Taiwan in a matter of days or weeks, such would be a pyrrhic victory.

"I think the outrage in the United States would push us to stop importing all the Chinese goods and possibly could encourage other people to do so. I think Europe and Japan would probably get involved, as well as South Korea," said Goldman. "There would be a global economic depression and a very severe depression in China."

'It will cease to be economically viable.'

Although the "Chinese economy could probably limp through," America and allied nations would nevertheless find various ways to keep tripping them up, such as starving them off Persian oil by blockading the Straits of Malacca, or largely cutting off their supply of chicken and pork. Although China could see roughly half of its seaborne imports of food replaced by China over existing rail lines, the food embargoes will nevertheless prove impactful.

Goldman noted further that the economic and resource warfare brought on in response to the annexation of Taiwan — which would be "horrible for all sides, but ... extremely uncomfortable for China" — would likely also prove to be domestically destabilizing for China, especially for its communist regime.

"I think that would be very bad for the political standing of the Communist Party of China. I don't believe the Chinese people like the Communist Party of China. Now, that said, the Chinese have never particularly liked their emperors. They've always viewed them as a necessary evil, but they'll go along with pretty much any ruler as long as that ruler brings stability and prosperity," continued Goldman. "The economic devastation that I think would ensue from military action to acquire Taiwan would be a big net negative for the Chinese Communist Party. Would be an enormous risk for them to take."

Bloomberg Economics estimated in January that a war over Taiwan would cost roughly $10 trillion — more than the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. The Chinese, cut off from major trade partners and at a loss for advanced semiconductors, would take an estimated 16.7% hit to its GDP. Taiwan's economy would be in tatters, suffering a 40% blow. The U.S. would reportedly suffer a 6.7% hit to its GDP. Global GDP would drop an estimated 10.2%.

While the conquest of Taiwan is likely a matter of pride for Xi as well as a surefire way to establish his legacy, Goldman suggested he is far too much of a "rational, calculating man" to take such an excessive risk — especially when Taiwan is just one generation away from falling into Beijing's lap uncoerced.

"Taiwan has the lowest fertility rate of any country in the world, maybe, except in South Korea. If you assume that that fertility remains constant, Taiwan's working age population will fall by 75% — will shrink by three quarters in the course of the century. It will cease to be economically viable," said Goldman.

While China similarly has a shrinking population, it will still have at least 500 million people by 2100. Goldman suggested that Taiwan will "have no choice to open up to mainland immigrants that eventually will be absorbed back."

"The Chinese never fight for what they think they can get without fighting," said Goldman. "They're patient. They have a long-term view. And therefore, unless there is a threat of a Taiwanese move to sovereignty, as long as the status quo is respected, we will not have a military action to acquire Taiwan."

While Xi and other communists may be willing to play the waiting game, that won't stop them from continuing to cajole Taipei into reasserting ties with the mainland.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence indicated in its 2024 threat assessment that "Beijing will continue to apply military and economic pressure as well as public messaging and influence activities while promoting long-term cross-Strait economic and social integration to induce Taiwan to move toward unification."

Goldman indicated the U.S. should simultaneously maintain that the penalty for aggression against Taiwan "would be extreme" and that "we would accept a great deal of economic pain ourselves to punish China for a military action" against the island but that the status quo is mutually beneficial and worth preserving for the time being.

While, despite all the rhetoric, a war over Taiwan may be far off if inevitable to begin with, the U.S. still has to contend with China's ongoing efforts to displace its power worldwide, largely through the leveraging and co-option of the so-called Global South.

While IP theft, cyber warfare, illegal Chinese communist police stations, and espionage efforts on the part of Beijing are all troubling, Goldman suggested that "focusing on these relatively minor issues distracts attention from what we really ought to be worried about, which is China becoming the dominant manufacturing power in the world, and one by one, gaining hegemony in critical technologies, and extending their influence throughout the world as a result."

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