Australia—Taiwan invasion kills Australian perception of the US and ends US influence in the Indo-Pacific

Noah Buchan, "The world after a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan," Taipei Times, 7-14-2023, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2023/07/14/2003803158-- 嘉玮

AUSTRALIA — ‘CHINA DREAM MADE MANIFEST’

The failure of the US and its allies to come to Taiwan’s defense would generate a highly permissive environment for Beijing, writes Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Taiwan is a means for China to supplant the US as the dominant strategic power in the Indo-Pacific, and failing to come to Taiwan’s defense would seriously undermine the perception that the US would come to the defense of other allies in the region.

Even worse, Taiwan’s loss after US military intervention would be a catastrophic blow to the interests of the US and probably represent the end of a free and open Indo-Pacific, as US influence in the region wanes in favor of China’s expansionism.

“Beijing’s grand strategic objective would be to promote a community of common destiny, led by China, in which its neighbors accept a ‘Chinese Century’ and a hegemonic new Middle Kingdom. It would be the China Dream made manifest,” Davis writes.

Davis says that a successful invasion and occupation of Taiwan would force Australia to reconsider whether the US could live up to its security commitments to Canberra — even if their current security commitments survive.

“At the most fundamental level,” Davis writes, “Australian and American interests are intertwined and linked at the military-strategic level, with Australian reliance on US extended nuclear deterrence security guarantees as a foundation for Australia’s defense policy for decades.”

A failure of the US to intervene in support of Taiwan would raise questions in Australia about the efficacy of US extended nuclear deterrence, not just for Australia, but for other key allies such as Japan and South Korea, particularly if an inability to intervene was in part seen to be driven by implicit or explicit Chinese threats of nuclear weapons use, in a manner similar to Russia’s use of nuclear threats against NATO during the Ukraine war.

Under these circumstances, Davis raises the possibility of a “nuclear sharing” agreement, which could see Australia developing alternative deterrence arrangements with India, South Korea and Japan to slow Chinese expansionism.

Ultimately, Davis writes, Australia shouldn’t wait until an invasion occurs, because hoping that Beijing accepts the current status quo across the Taiwan Strait indefinitely is an unlikely scenario. There needs to be a serious discussion among the US and its allies about the threat of a cross-strait invasion before 2030.

“Hope is not a strategy,” Davis writes.