Britain shouldn’t defend Taiwan militarily | William Matthews

On a visit to Australia last week Defence Secretary John Healey commented that should Britain have to, it would fight alongside its ally. Despite some interpretations, he said nothing about what Britain would do in the event of a China-Taiwan war, though he did link Britain’s military presence in the region to deterrence. The problem is that while deterring Chinese aggression over Taiwan is undoubtedly desirable, Britain is in no position to credibly do so militarily. Instead, it should look to diplomacy.

But why should Britain care about deterring a China-Taiwan conflict in the first place? The challenge of navigating between a rising China and increasingly transactional USA while maintaining an effective relationship with Europe, responding to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and generally finding an international role in a post-Brexit and post-rules-based world all demand the attention of government. Taiwan is far away, unlike Ukraine, and hardly stirs up the same level of emotion domestically as the conflict in Gaza. Why expend further diplomatic effort on deterring Chinese aggression?

There is of course an argument to be made on principle. Taiwan is an established democracy, de facto independent, and its inhabitants have little desire to be absorbed into its huge authoritarian neighbour. Beijing’s policies in Hong Kong and perhaps even Xinjiang and Tibet hint at what could await those who oppose the regime following a successful invasion. 

However, as Britain’s resources are increasingly stretched by geopolitical and domestic challenges, a hard realist case is also needed. A China-Taiwan war would at minimum disrupt the fifth of international maritime trade that passes directly through the Taiwan Straits, almost certainly have an effect on wider trade flows through the East and South China Sea, and cut off the world’s access to Taiwan’s supply of over 60 per cent of the world’s semiconductors and around 90 per cent of the most advanced chips. The supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic would pale in comparison.

A war would easily pull in the United States, pitting it against a peer rival which has spent the last three decades building a military designed to defeat it in just such a conflict and which has over 200 times Washington’s shipbuilding capacity. The stakes would be extremely high. For Beijing, failure could be devastating both for its ambitions to take Taiwan and for the legitimacy of the CCP. For Washington, it could deal a terminal blow to its military supremacy, regional alliances, and global standing. Facing such consequences could well shift either side’s appetite for resorting to nuclear weapons. Britain would be under intense pressure to assist the USA, presenting unenviable choices — including weighing up the pros and cons of involvement should China win. 

So, deterrence is entirely in Britain’s interests. But its pursuit should be realistic. While naval missions to the region find favour with Britain’s regional partners, including Taiwan itself, they do not present a credible threat to China. In the event of war, any naval assistance from Britain would be slow to arrive and unlikely to make a tangible difference. China knows this, and so does the USA, which has called for Britain to refocus its limited capabilities on Europe.

Moreover, military deterrence does little against China’s “grey zone” tactics, from military exercises around the island to cyberattacks — any decisive counter would risk serious escalation. Importantly, these tactics suggest that all-out war is Beijing’s least-preferred option for taking Taiwan. China’s leaders are cautious, and unlikely to resort to full-scale invasion unless they deem the prospects of unification by other means to be impossible. Instead, Beijing’s behaviour indicates a strategy of gradually coercing Taipei into capitulation. If it can keep this up while continuing to modernise its military and out-produce the USA, it will eventually achieve a level of regional dominance that would make any attempt to intervene in the event of conflict too risky for Washington to stomach.

This does not mean the prospect of war should not be taken seriously; miscalculation or perceived provocation present very real risks. What it does present, though, is a window for diplomatic pushback on Beijing’s aims. Beijing has spent decades building up a reputation as a dependable partner to the third world. Their opinions matter for China’s growing reputation as the leader of an alternative international order to that created by the US.

This extends to Beijing’s approach to Taiwan. China expends huge diplomatic effort persuading countries across the third world to cut ties or downgrade their recognition of Taipei. This has resulted in ten countries cutting formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan since 2016, and the “recognition” of Taiwan as a part of China across much of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. In a significant recent case, South Africa withdrew recognition of the Taipei Liaison Office in Pretoria, forcing it to downgrade its status to a “Commercial Office” and relocate out of the capital to Johannesburg — a move seen as reflecting Beijing’s growing influence.

While clearly to Taiwan’s detriment, such actions underscore how seriously Beijing takes the stance of its partners on the legitimacy of its claims. It follows that the harder it is for China to make that case for unification, the more it may be given pause before acting decisively, whether through coercion or invasion.

Britain is well placed to take advantage of this. To be sure, it has next to no direct influence over China’s behaviour. But what it does have is an extensive network of diplomatic ties beyond the West, including via the Commonwealth, which can be leveraged to promote greater engagement of relations with Taipei. The potential of these relationships to shape the environment in which China operates, including in the Indo-Pacific, is often underappreciated. 

However, to fully make use of these relationships Britain needs to avoid lecturing and make the case based on partner countries’ own interests. This includes helping to identify useful opportunities for engagement with Taiwan and identify the risks that would be posed by a conflict. In Southeast Asia specifically, a strong case can be made that countering Beijing’s claims to Taiwan will also give China pause in further advancing its claims in the South China Sea — but for this to be credible it must be backed up by a greater willingness on Britain’s part to help rival claimants put up a united front. 

Britain must likewise avoid shying away from stepping up its own engagement with Taiwan. Already strong political, economic, and people-to-people ties can be enhanced further while falling short of formal diplomatic recognition — including through closer cooperation on shared concerns with grey-zone threats, and by using Britain’s position in international organisations to facilitate and advocate for greater Taiwanese participation.

Of course, there is no guarantee that such an approach will prove decisive. But it would almost certainly complicate Beijing’s ambitions, buying Taiwan more time and reducing Beijing’s appetite for risky escalation. It would also help Britain to find a role in a new world order based on its actual capacities as a diplomatic actor, rather than by clinging to an increasingly untenable global defence posture. The capacity for diplomatic deterrence is there. What is required is the political will to act on it.

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