Can we stop China?

 For a long time, China has wanted to gain control of the small, democratically governed island Taiwan, which China does not think should be viewed as a separate country. But Russia's war on Ukraine only made them more likely to invade. They have repeatedly flown fighter jets over Taiwan, in a display of military power. Today I am going to be answering the question: can the U.S. prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? The answer to this question is no. We will be exploring this through three main points: the U.S. defending Taiwan, sanctions on China, and the results of a war to the U.S.

When President Biden was asked in a CBS 60 Minutes interview whether the United States would defend Taiwan if it were invaded by China, his response was "yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack." When asked to clarify if the meaning of this was that actual U.S. troops would be in Taiwan defending them against China, unlike in Ukraine, he said "yes." But China is clear that it will do anything necessary to counter separatism, implying that they will attack US forces if a situation like that occurs. Biden says that by promising protection, he is not encouraging Taiwan to try to be independent "Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not encouraging their being independent. That's their decision," he said in the same interview. Although the U.S. can make threats about sending troops to defend Taiwan, it may not be a promise that is possible to keep. Some experts worry that if we make claims like this without proving that we can back them up, we will not deter China, but create more problems. Although the Taiwan Relations Act (1979) requires the US to provide arms to defend Taiwan, this does not necessarily mean that the US would provide armed forces. Until now it has not been clear that we would. The threats that the U.S. makes will not deter China from invading Taiwan because they are difficult to keep, and because China has said that they will attack U.S. forces if they are sent.

Another strategy the US is considering to dissuade an attack on Taiwan is sanctions on China. The European Union is under pressure to do the same thing. But China has a large part in the global supply chain, and putting sanctions on the second-largest economy in the world could hurt lots of other countries too. And this threat is also another that China would ignore. The US threatened sanctions on Russia, too, before they invaded Ukraine, but this failed to stop them. China is more important to economies than Russia, so the European Union is avoiding tough sanctions, and all 27 countries would need to agree. But Taiwan is asking more urgently for China to be sanctioned, and China fired missiles over the island, after U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited it, which China viewed as a provocation. Placing sanctions on China is not an easy decision to make, as it would not only harm China, and even if the U.S. or the EU did it, it might not stop China from invading Taiwan.

The results of a China-Taiwan war could be huge. TSMC, which stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is the world's largest microchip making company, and they sell their chips all around the world. If China invaded Taiwan, that company could be a huge blow to the supply chain of microchips, which would affect phones, cars, and lots of other tech industries around the world. A China-Taiwan war would have a much bigger impact than the Russia-Ukraine war. China's economy is ten times larger than that of Russia's, while Taiwan's is four times the amount of Ukraine's. So unfortunately, although China's invasion would be inimical, it may be imminent.

Today we have looked at the question: can the U.S prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? The answer is unfortunately no; as we have seen, the strategies that the rest of the world has to stop an invasion are either too difficult to commit to, or will not stop China. We have also looked at the effects that this war would have on the rest of the world, and they would be very deleterious to the world's economy. I believe that this shows that the U.S. is incapable of preventing China from waging war on Taiwan, the small, democratically governed island they call their own.