The Dispatch Podcast - Defending Taiwan | Interview: Michael Mazza

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Michael Mazza, a senior fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute, joins Jamie to discuss the United States’ relationship with Taiwan relationship and what to do if China invades. The Agenda: —Responding to Lyle Goldstein's argument —China’s military capabilities —Consequences of Taiwan falling —Taiwan’s chipmaking capabilities —Nuclear war The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today will continue the conversation I had last week on the China-Taiwan conflict, but from a different side. My guest is Michael Maza. He is senior director at Project 2049 Institute and a non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. He previously was a non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was recognized in 2010, 2011, in the first class of the Foreign Policy Initiative's Future Leader Program, which I too was among and met him there. Our conversation today is focused on what I believe is the biggest flashpoint in the world. He gives a very different take from last week. I think these two conversations are very important, both this one and the one I did last week

with Lyle Goldstein, and give you a strong understanding of both perspectives. of what should be done in that region. So I think you're going to find this conversation fascinating. I hope you listen to both of them, and I think then you will be in a very good position to come to your own view of what should be done on this very important topic. So without further ado, I give you, Mr. Michael Mazza.

Michael Mazza, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Thanks, Jamie. Good to see you. Thank you for joining me. As I mentioned in my last week's episode, I wanted to get a alternative view to what was presented last week by Lyle Goldstein, in part because I think this, the Chinese, Taiwan situation, whatever you want to call of the straight, is the biggest flashpoint in the world, at least in my mind. So let me just start with the same first question I asked last week of Lyle, is that if we woke up tomorrow and heard that China was beginning its invasion of Taiwan or going about the process, at least, to try to take over Taiwan, what do you think the U.S. should do?

Yeah. Well, look, I think it depends on just how far along in that process are. The invasion hadn't started yet. You know, I think you do send ships to the Taiwan straight in order to interpose ourselves between the two sides. I think you prepare to intervene militarily. And in the meantime, you signal that you're going to significantly ramp up economic pressure. You know, I would move as close as feasibly possible to a complete severing of the U.S.-China economic relationship or signal you're prepared to do so if China does proceed with the invasion.

I would have ready to go intelligence dumps on Chinese political and military leaders, their financial holdings in particular, that and the economic measures really meant to target the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. You know, all of this with the intention of, you know, stopping an invasion before it can really get going. Let me ask you, how close do you think China is to trying something like this? capable, are they now? Do they need to ramp up over years? Or are they in a position if they wanted to to attempt something like this, you know, in the near future? It's hard to know exactly how

close they are, but I'd say that they're pretty close. So, you know, this 2027 year has been thrown around quite a bit. Admiral Phil Davidson first raised this several years ago saying he thought the Chinese would be ready to invade by that point in time. The director of the CIA a couple years ago, said that Xi Jinping had ordered the PLA to be ready by 2027. And as far as we can tell, they're on track, on track to have that capability. That doesn't mean Xi Jinping has set a deadline that we are going to invade in 2027, but he wants to be able to do so. And again, as far as we can tell from open source, which is all I worked in, that, you know, we seem to be reaching that point. Is there any question do you think in Xi's mind after what he witnessed in Ukraine, where

everyone thought that Russia was just going to walk into Ukraine and this would be an easy victory for the Russian military. And here we are several years later. And it's clear that Russia thought its capabilities were much greater than they actually were. At least Vladimir Putin thought his ability was much greater than they were, where she may think the Chinese military is more capable than it is and maybe some of the money that was supposed to go to the military ended up, you mentioned open source on where economic resources of the leadership is, maybe some of that money was stored away in the West and not put towards the military. Yeah, look, I hope that Xi Jinping is thinking twice about how capable the PLA is,

given what he witnessed in Russia or in Ukraine. And I think there's reason to think he is worried about that. So just over the past week, we've seen the downfall of two more senior Chinese military figures, charged with corruption. There have been a number of such cases at the very highest levels over the past year or so. When Xi Jinping first came to power in 2012, this was a problem that he targeted corruption and senior levels of the PLA. They were pilfering large amounts of money. And what we're seeing and what he's obviously seeing is that problem has not been solved. So I suspect that that does give him pause and it does suggest that the PLA is not as far along

as perhaps you might have hoped it would be at this point. If you're an American policymaker and you're trying to come down how far the U.S. should go in support of Taiwan, one thing that you might look at is the defense budget in Taiwan, right? And I think this is something you've written about over the years. In the last five years, they have increased it from 2% to, I think, two and a half percent of GDP. But given the threat, given what China might be able to do,

that seems rather low. How willing is the Taiwanese government really to fight against a possible invasion? And a corollary to that, the people themselves, if China was invaded tomorrow, would they, you know, grab arms and fight on the beaches in order to stop what would be the extinguishing of their democracy? Both good questions. Let me start with the first one first. So, yeah, I agree with the, you know, the suggestion. And as you know, I've written it that Taiwan is not spending sufficient amount on defense. It is increasing its defense budget. It is making significant investments in its ability to defend itself. But Taiwan has been promising for about 20 years that it would get that share of defense spending up to 3% of GDP, gross domestic

product. And it still hasn't done that. That is troubling. That being said, Taiwan is a liberal democracy. It has to respond to the, you know, the desires of its voters. And so like any democratic government, it is pulled in multiple directions and it is making choices in ways that reflect the priorities of the people. Now, that brings us to your second question, which is how willing are Taiwanese themselves to fight? It's a really difficult thing to assess. And there have been a number of efforts to study this question through surveys, public polling, and they give a mixed picture. The honest answer is probably we don't really know. I would point to a couple of things. One, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, you saw a sort of organic rise

increase in people seeking out all kinds of training that would be useful in a crisis, whether that be Chinese invasion or major natural disaster, people getting trained in CPR, learning how to respond to civil crises. And so that sends, I think, a good picture that growing numbers of Taiwanese are concerned about where things may be headed in the Taiwan Strait and want to be ready for bad outcomes. The other thing I'd say here is, you know, in the interview you did with Liao Goldstein last week, he pointed to the fact that Chinese soldiers would likely be far more motivated than Russia soldiers were in Ukraine, that they would have good morale.

And that may all be true. But people in Taiwan will be quite literally fighting for their homes and their families, and there's perhaps no greater motivation than that. You mentioned in the first part of that answer that, you know, has Taiwan's a democracy has competing, the government has competing interests that they have to, to, to, to, utilize their funds to do and to put money towards. But does that suggest that either the Taiwanese people don't think the threat is real, that China will do this, or that they don't, they, you know, if it got to that point, they're willing to come to some sort of deal that would prevent this invasion

because, you know, it doesn't seem like that is something that they're demanding that the government to prepare for this potential, you know, cataclysmic war. That's fair. That's fair point and good question. My sense is Taiwanese voters and much of, you know, many people in Taiwanese government and national security establishment, look at the urgency of this question differently than the United States does. So here in the United States, in Washington in particular, we have gotten very concerned with

the question of invasion and we have gotten very focused on the 2027 timeline. In Taiwan, they have been dealing with this threat, and it's the only, you know, serious threat they deal with apart from natural disasters. They've been dealing with it exclusively for, you know, seven, eight decades. They understand China probably better than we do. And my sense is they've assessed that the threat is growing, it's growing more urgent, it's growing more dangerous, but it is not imminent in the way that some in the United States seem to think that it is. I think Taiwan assesses that China would still prefer and is still more likely. to attempt to solve this problem or this challenge from China's perspective in different ways

than other ways than outright invasion. And so this doesn't suggest the lack or the insufficient defense bending doesn't suggest to me that they're not taking a threat seriously. It suggests to me that they've assessed it differently. I think in some ways they're a little optimistic, but I think in others their assessment is more realistic than our own. What other ways do you think they believe that China might want to deal with the threat differently? So there are military options short of all-out invasion, things like a naval blockade,

things like what's called an air and missile blockade, essentially using air strikes or missile strikes to take out ports and critical infrastructure that could do things like very targeted strikes on senior leadership in Taiwan. I am skeptical that any of those actions would, results in Taiwan's, excuse me, in China's preferred outcome, which of course is unification under leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. But those are all possible. Those aside, there are for the, you know, what's come to be called gray zone operations or political warfare operations, things like using a variety of non-lethal tools for the most part to put pressure on Taiwan. Cyber attacks, going after financial institutions, flying drones over the

island. They're already flying drones over the outlying islands, using political warfare tactics in order to advance their preferred outcomes within Taiwan's political system. So there are a variety of ways that China can use to certainly put pressure on Taiwan and to try to shape an environment such that a political arrangement beneficial to China becomes more likely. There's no easy way for China to achieve its goal of unification here. Beyond, and I don't take this, slightly unlike, I think Lyle did, obviously the loss of a democracy in Taiwan. What would be the consequences for the U.S. of Taiwan falling to China? I like to think of Taiwan as being important to the United States for three main reasons,

sort of three buckets. Stepping back from that, I'll step back from Taiwan for a second. Again, Lyle brought up U.S. vital interests a lot in your conversation with him, which is appropriate, you know, I don't think the question is whether the U.S. has a vital national interest in Taiwan narrowly understood. I would say that the United States has a vital national interest in preventing a hostile hegemon from dominating the eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass. That happened prior to World War II. We know what that outcome looked like. It has a vital national interest in ensuring its own economic prosperity. And the United States has a vital

national interest in ensuring that the world is safe for democracies, which means it's safe for the United States. And I would say that those three vital national interests drive U.S. interest in Taiwan, and that Taiwan's fate bears on all three of those things. So, you know, what happens if China is to, were to annex Taiwan? Again, I mentioned three buckets. The first bucket is geography. Geography still matters. You know, after World War II, you know, after World War the United States assessed it was never again going to let a hostile power on the other side of the Pacific be able to project power across the Pacific against the United States. Again, we saw what the outcome of such a, you know, such a situation was on December 7, 1941. And so the United States

established a forward defense perimeter. And if you look at the map of Asia today of the Western Pacific, you know, to China's northeast, our two U.S. treaty allies, South Korea and Japan, to its southeast, is a third. The Philippines to its south. Thailand is a U.S. treaty ally, Australia a bit farther off. And then in the middle, there is a gap. And that gap is where Taiwan is. Now, Taiwan used to be a U.S. treaty ally up until 1979. It was part of that forward defense perimeter. We withdrew forces from Taiwan. It is no longer a treaty ally, but the United States still has an interest in Taiwan remaining in friendly hands, because if China were to annex it, China would have that easy and open access to the Pacific, can project power against Guam and Hawaii and the U.S.

homeland, could more easily threaten U.S. treaty allies, Japan and the Philippines, could more easily control access to the South China Sea. So for geographic reasons, Taiwan is important to U.S. interests. It's important for economic interests as well. As I said, we have a vital natural national interest in ensuring our own economic vitality. People like to talk about chips when they think about Taiwan. Chips were important, but the economic relationship is much more than ships. Taiwan is consistently a top 10 trade partner for the United States. It's consistently a top eight export market for U.S. agriculture. exports to Taiwan support over 200,000 jobs in the United States. There's abundant foreign direct investment going in both directions. And so if China were

to annex Taiwan, if those investments were to get to be hurt, if the trade relationship were to be severed, that hurts a lot of everyday Americans in states all across the country. And then that third bucket is values democracy. And this gets back to your original question. You know, as I said, I think U.S. leaders have long assessed that a world that is safer democracy is a world in which the United States can be secure, and thus the United States has an interest in the flourishing and the proliferation of democratic systems of government. That doesn't mean it has to go around and try to install those systems of government when and where it sees fit. But letting them fall is a danger. It is a danger to fostering that world

in which democracies can flourish. It's a danger to U.S. credibility. Credibility is a controversial subject, but it is real. Other allies and partners do care about how the U.S. reacts to crises around the world. And the last thing I'll say on this question of democracy and human rights is that liberals in China and elsewhere in Asia look to Taiwan as a model. And when it comes to China in particular, as proof that a Chinese-speaking society can't embrace democracy, that those two things are compatible, which is the opposite of what the Chinese government watch the Chinese people to think. Let's explore some of those here, and let me put up what I think some of the objections that Lyle Goldstein would put up to some of these. With geography, I think he argues that,

yes, there is some defense, you know, further defense capability of the region having Taiwan and allied hands are friendlier hands, but really the U.S. can defend Japan and other allies with Taiwan being under China's grip, that you don't lose too much of the defense by losing Taiwan. And furthermore, he would say that, and this I think is key, and I would like your thoughts on this, that he doesn't believe China's ambitions are greater than Taiwan and what he refers to, perhaps not compellingly or a little pejoratively, the rocks of some of the other countries, those uninhabited islands of the Philippines in Japan that he doesn't think is worth going to war over, for instance. Beyond those, which he thinks that China has a historic claim to,

he doesn't believe that China has greater ambitions in taking over the population centers of the Philippines or the population centers of Japan. How would you respond to that? Look, I think that that's probably fair, that they don't have those intentions. At least they don't have them right now. Look, it would be an outlandish proposition, just even if they wanted to do it for China to try to invade and occupy Japan. So I don't see that as a serious concern, but there are hints of Chinese claims to Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, which are Japan's southern islands, which are inhabited, which are undisputed Japanese territory. And so even if there is no Chinese interest in occupying, you know, Kyushu, for example, Japan has to worry about, you know,

all of its people, all of its islands. And so it has a legitimate concern in defending them and a legitimate concern in ensuring that sort of the regional security environment is conducive to it doing so. You know, Lyle pointed to the geographic distance from China to Japan and the Philippines, there's something to be said for that, but Japan also occupied the Philippines, you know, during World War II, and so geographic distances can be surmounted. You know, the other thing I'd say here is that China has proven itself, I would argue, in recent years, as an expansionist power.

And going back to the earliest days of the People's Republic of China under, you know, Chinese Communist Party rule, the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, invaded Tibet and Xinjiang and occupied them. They were not part, or at least not clearly part of China at that point in time. They have built vultges in recent years on the wrong side of their border with Bhutan, slowly encroaching on that country. Of course, we've seen what they've done in the South China Sea. China has slowly been expanding the perimeter of territory it controls,

and it would only be natural for Japan, South Korea, Philippines, And, you know, it's other neighbors to worry about that, how that will eventually affect them. You mentioned the democracy element, and there is a question that I think ties to democracy, geography, and the strategic element, which is if U.S., even though, you know, we don't maintain the policy that we will go to war for Taiwan, but if it allowed China to annex Taiwan without a fight, that others in the region, our allies would see us as maybe a weak power. not someone who will stand up for their interests. I think what Lyle has written, I don't know if he said it on the podcast, is that there's no other choice in the region if you want to stand up to China

than to stand with the U.S. So even if you let Taiwan go, where is Japan going to turn to? And the U.S. has abandoned other allies in the past. Like in Afghanistan, abandoning our allies just recently there. What effect do you think, is he right to some? Do they have alternatives to standing by the U.S.? would they turn to China and try to come to some sort of agreement with China?

What would the consequences actually be tangibly? So I do think they have alternatives, and I think different countries will make different choices. So I would think that a country like the Philippines, smaller country, which has a smaller economy that's poor that has less power from military, more likely to seek to come to some accommodation with China. That's a sovereign choice that Manila can make, but I would argue that would not be in U.S. interests. A country like Japan, a country like Korea, far wealthier, far more developed with powerful militaries, they might seek to maintain their alliance with the United States,

but because they will not like it the United States as a reliable partner, I think they're likely to develop their own nuclear weapons. And so, you know, I think a Chinese successful invasion and occupation of Taiwan would essentially put the nail in the coffin of the non-proliferation regime. I think we'd get a nuclear Japan and a nuclear South Korea fairly quickly. And then other countries in Asia could well follow suit. Again, I think that's not an American interests. I think a country in which nuclear weapons have further proliferated, a world in which nuclear weapons have further proliferated is probably a less stable world. You know, countries, again, like Japan and South Korea are likely to be responsible in their use in managing those

weapons, other countries, maybe not so much. One question I wish I raised with Lyle, but it seems to be a risk to me, and I'd like your perspective on it, if the U.S. allowed China to annex Taiwan, what likelihood do you think that North Korea would become more aggressive with trying to take over South Korea? I know there's a difference that we are more clear that obviously we recognize South Korea as a country and our military is on the border, but do you think it would have negative consequences? with North Korea. I do. I don't know that North Korea becomes more aggressive in trying to, and thinking about invading South Korea. It's sort of just an outlandish thing to

consider, given the capabilities of South Korean military and the size of the South Korean population. But certainly, you know, North Korea would become more provocative, would be more willing to play with fire, I would feel it had to worry less about potential U.S. responses. and so I think we'd certainly get a less peaceful, more unstable Korean peninsula in that eventuality. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of everything else,

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All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. The economic argument, you know, it strikes me and I could be wrong that the chips still are the primary aspect of the economic. You know, while Taiwan's a major trading partner, you might be able to replace that trade elsewhere, whereas the chips are fairly unique. Do you think that China would, if they annexed Taiwan, would share the most sophisticated version of these chips with the U.S.?

And as a corollary to that, why does Taiwan have this special ability to make chips? And could the U.S. create, and I know we're trying to, a homegrown chip manufacturing ability as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as. great as Taiwan has. Yeah. Good questions. Frankly speaking, there are better people to speak to about the chip industry and ship trade than I am. You are right. You know, Taiwan makes the world's most advanced chips. Those are not replaceable in the short term, as far as my understanding goes. You know, on your first question, if China were to annex Taiwan, I cannot imagine that they would allow Taiwanese companies to continue exporting those advanced chips to the United States, not after we've cut off China's access to those chips or tried to, and presumably not after,

you know, perhaps we've just been a war. And if not war, we've been in a period of high tensions where we're trying to put a stop to what China is doing. So yes, I think that source of supply gets cut off in this scenario. You know, how quickly can it be reconstituted elsewhere? Again, there are better folks to talk to you about that than I. but Taiwan has a wealth of not just existing investment in, you know, in factories and facilities, but human talent as well, intellectual talent that just doesn't exist in this country or elsewhere in the same way than it exists in Taiwan. Taiwan made a very intentional effort to invest in chip making, in chip design. In part, this was the, in large part, this was, came from the actions of

individual entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity, who spent time in Silicon Valley in the 70s and then, you know, some of the 80s and saw an opportunity to create a new industry to fill a gap and do that in Taiwan. You know, they deserve nothing but credit for, for doing so. But when it comes to how important those chips are for purposes of U.S., you know, national and economic security, you know, we do have to worry about where they come from if for some reason they can't come from Taiwan anymore. Looming in the background of this discussion is obviously nuclear war. And I guess my question to you is, how serious is the threat of nuclear war if China invaded Taiwan and the U.S.

responded? It's serious. You know, we are talking about two nuclear powers, the United States and China. Russia's hovering there in the, you know, in the background, which, you know, has an interest in how this contest turns out. And so we do have to worry about nuclear escalation. We can't shunt it aside. It should be part of all conversations about this topic. You know, I'm glad that you brought it up. I'm glad Lyle brought it up on your conversation with him last week. The question is how manageable are those risks? You know, if we look to the war in Ukraine, which is the most, I think most recent useful example that we have, I think, the risks are quite manageable. The United States signaled early on that it was very concerned

about nuclear escalation. Because of that, it altered the way that it supported Ukraine, slowed the pace of the provision of weapons, made decisions about withholding certain type of weapons. Often those decisions were overturned eventually, and we haven't seen anything close to nuclear escalation. So I do think this is manageable. Now, the difference between Taiwan and Ukraine is substantial. Taiwan, I would argue, is more important to China than Ukraine is to Russia. There are, you know, by all Chinese interests at stake here, as China has defined them. But I think that this can be, again, I think the risks can be managed.

And I think the most important way to do that is to make it clear that, one, the United States is willing to climb that ladder if we absolutely have to. I think President Biden made a mistake in expressing fear of doing so after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I think it's also, and even more important, to convey that going up that ladder is not going to bring China any closer to a resolution of the Taiwan question. That it's likely to only push that further off. Again, this is not to be taken lightly. This is serious business. but I do think it's a manageable, you know, a manageable business.

I know you've written before about how our politician should speak to the American people about this more. You gave a mock speech of a president what he should say about our policy towards Taiwan. We talked previously in this conversation about Taiwan being a democracy and therefore having different interests. I wonder, do you think the American people would have proposed to them at the moment, have the will saying we, here's Taiwan, this is why we want to stand for it. The risks of standing for it are potential nuclear war, not a guarantee, not even maybe a likelihood, but certainly more so than maybe anywhere else in the world. Maybe there's an exception there with North Korea. Economic catastrophe because we're so intermingled with China economically. Do you think the American

people have the will for this fight? Look, I think this is a question. of political leadership. I don't think it's a sure thing that you can bring the American people along, but I would argue that nobody's really tried. And part of the benefit of making the case to the American people is if you succeed, the deterrent effect goes way up, right? Right now, Beijing can look at the United States

and say to itself, no American president ever talks to the American people about Taiwan, and nobody in senior American leadership explains to the American people why we have this relationship with Taiwan, why we care about Taiwan's continuing de facto independence. You know, if it comes to war, they're not going to be able to, out of nowhere, make the case to the American people that this is in the off thing. But if over a period of years we're making that case, American leaders are making that case and bringing the American people along, then that that serves as a deterrent. And I think the American people can be brought along in large

part because we've seen it in the past, right? We saw America gearing up for World War II prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. There was, you know, broad-based, bipartisan American support for the Cold War and the national security policies that were strategy, containment that was put in place in order to wage the Cold War. We saw American support for the Persian Gulf War, eventually for the invasion of Iraq a second time, obviously Afghanistan. Say what you want about how each of those turned out. But the fact of the matter is Americans are open to these sorts of arguments if they're made. We won't know whether or not they'll go along, whether or not voters will go along unless, again, unless leaders make the case. And then we'll

see. Let me further on that, I guess. We do seem in an era where these type of cases aren't being made. And we saw unanimity between the former president, who will now be the current president again in January, and Joe Biden, the current president on Afghanistan, both made a decision that it was time to leave, even though there were case to be made that a small number of troops in Afghanistan could prevent a rise of terrorism. There's far less downside to that than the China-Taiwan conflict. Do you see any prospect where an American leader in this environment is making that case or is willing to make that case? Yes. On the presidential level. Yeah.

No, look, I think we came very close in 2022. You know, Russia invaded Taiwan, Russia invaded Ukraine. President Biden mobilized the U.S. government to provide support for Ukraine, provide support for its ability to defend itself. what was lacking from that effort was a significant effort to explain to the American people why we were doing this and why it was important. I think that was a mistake. Perhaps that was driven by political calculations, but I do think the opportunity was there to do it. Given polling about that conflict early in the war, I think the American people would have been open to hearing

the arguments for why this was so important to U.S. national interests. It's just going to take the right president to make that case. President Biden hasn't been that president. I don't expect President Trump will be that president, though we may have to wait for the right leader to come along. But I do think, you know, sort of the environment is right for these arguments to be made if somebody would make them. Let me ask you this. They haven't made the case either Trump or Biden. If Taiwan invaded tomorrow or on February 1st, depending on the president, do you think Joe Biden or Donald Trump would be prepared to go to war over it? So President Biden has said four or five times, sometimes very directly, that the United

States would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China. That is in contravention of typical U.S. policy, which is to be ambiguous about whether or not we would defend Taiwan. So the way I read that is that, you know, in his head, President Biden is committed to being involved in that fight in some way. I don't know exactly what that looks like. It may not mean we're deploying the Marine Corps to Taiwan, but I don't think we stand aside. I'm far less certain when it comes to President Trump. During his first term, President Trump, I would argue, said a lot of not reassuring things about Taiwan, comparing it unfavorably to how big China was, suggesting that

it's not defensible. But he also did a lot of good things. That a lot of bad things, did a lot of good things, sold a lot of, of needed weapons to Taiwan, normalized the relationship in important ways. And so to my mind, the president is perhaps torn in two different directions. Maybe his views are different than those of senior staff. It's hard to know exactly what drives those divisions between rhetoric and policy. Certainly over the last year, He has said similar things about Taiwan, which don't leave me feeling comfortable about his commitment to its de facto independence. He hasn't done much to suggest that he is a staunch ally of Taiwan or that he even thinks about it in strategic terms. But it was also his first administration that really advanced the sort of competitive framing for U.S.-Taiwan, yes, U.S.-China relations.

He blames China, as far as we know, for his election loss in 2020 because of COVID. So I don't know how to predict how he will act. All I can say is, you know, you can make any case you want based on things he said in time in the past. Well, here's my question, why, though, in some ways. Is it unfair to the Taiwanese government and the Taiwanese people not to exactly know what America will do? because if they knew we weren't going to respond in a significant way, weren't willing to send the military, weren't willing to escalate to the extent necessary to stop China,

would they potentially make a different decision about what their policy is going to be? Yeah, no, it's a great point. So what we're talking about here is this longstanding approach of strategic ambiguity, right? So the idea here, this goes back several decades now, is that China could not be sure the U.S. wouldn't intervene in a conflict thereby they'd be deferred from starting, deterred from starting one. And Taiwan wouldn't be, couldn't be confident the United States would intervene on its behalf.

And thereby Taiwan was deterred from declaring independence or pursuing some sort of formal separation from China. That works for a time. Some people would argue it's still working. The problem is, you know, there's a couple problems. One is you're trying to deter two unequally likely outcomes. with the same policy. At this point in time, the threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait comes almost entirely, in my opinion, comes almost entirely from China, from Beijing, not from

Taiwan. There is very low likelihood that Taiwan would, again, sort of declare independence, pursue formal separation. There's very little public support for that in Taiwan. It's not a legitimate risk. So we don't need to deter that anymore. The thing we need to focus on deterring, in my perspective, is the threat from China, the threat of invasion or other use of force.

And I think the way to do that is to be clear. And here I have a very stark disagreement with O'Iall Goldstein, which is, I think we should move to a position of strategic clarity, not be clear that Taiwan's on its own, but be clear that the United States will, in fact, intervene. I think this significantly enhances our ability to deter China. It gives Taiwan and the Taiwanese people the confidence they need to prepare for a fight. They'll be able to know how to prepare for a fight, knowing that the United States will be able to play certain roles,

will have certain responsibilities that they don't need to worry about. You're right. As of now, Taiwan and its people live in this sort of, you know, no man's land where they can't be sure of how the United States will respond and thus can't prepare adequately for, you know, the crisis they may one day face. I guess the question would be the American president would have to make the decision that they'd be willing to go to war in this case. You know, that's not kind of the tone of the error right now is being willing to war to go.

Let me propose, and the risk that this might trigger China, that I guess is a risk as well. Let me ask you about the alternative. And I asked Lyon, he obviously was enthusiastic about talking about it. But what if the American president says, you know, we are willing to. to support you defensively with defensive weapons, but we're not going to war. Would that change the tone in Taiwan? Is there an accommodation? Is there any type of federation that could be created that would protect? They're obviously seeing what happened in Hong Kong. It makes it much more difficult to project that. Is there any type of scenario where you could see Taiwan willingness to

come to some type of negotiation where you try to put some safeguards or guardrails around their, their vibrant society, democratic society, but still come to some sort of federation with China. Yeah, I really don't think so. So stepping back a bit, there was a, you know, eight-year-long effort, essentially, under the presidency of Ma Yingzhou, which was two presidents ago in Taiwan, to engage in a cross-rate reproachment or detain, you know, not to pursue political negotiations to move to some sort of peace treaty or confederation, but simply to calm things down to ensure peace and stability, to build positive economic ties across the street.

And that effort, that effort failed. So we have been down that road a bit in the past. And that was during a time when the United States was withholding weapons, was less openly concerned about the threat from China. So in a sense, we've run this experiment. The second thing I'll say is things are, if it wasn't clear at that point that this was a, you know, a fool's errand, it's clear now, you know, in part because of what happened in Hong Kong. So while this horrible crackdown was happening in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping gave a speech, again, calling for one country, two systems for Taiwan. So one country, two systems is the idea that Hong Kong and China were both part of one country,

China, but they had two different systems in place. That idea was originally developed with Taiwan in mind. Hong Kong was the test case from China's point of view. So even as it had this horrible crackdown going on, Xi Jinping was saying this is still the model to apply to Taiwan. And Taiwanese reasonably said no, no thanks. Back in the past, Chinese leadership did make significant sort of promises to Taiwan about what a post-unification Taiwan could look like, promises that they'd be able to keep their military, they'd be able to keep their political system, for example. And over time, sort of the list of things Taiwan could keep got smaller and smaller and smaller. And so in this last major speech, there was no mention of Taiwan being able to keep a military.

There was no mention of Taiwan keeping its own political system. And so Taiwan just has little reason to be confident in China sticking by its word, if it were to agree to a seemingly beneficial arrangement, or that China would even agree to such an arrangement to begin with. Do you fear that Trump might be willing to give up Taiwan in some sort of negotiated economic arrangement with China or perhaps greater effort against fentanyl or. North Korea? Yeah. So there's a few things to say there. One, it's not Trump's to give away. So what we're really talking about when we talk about those sorts of scenarios is some sort

of severing of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, right, where Taiwan is left to its own devices. I could see the president, President Trump, sort of making concessions vis-a-vis Taiwan, perhaps not selling certain weapons, perhaps slowing the pace of the types of training we do. But it's difficult for me to imagine anything that China could give the United States that would merit President Trump or any other president, you know, severing the U.S. relationship with Taiwan entirely. That is such a huge prize for China. It has such great value to China. There's just nothing of equal value. I don't believe that we could get from China. And so I don't think there is such a trade to be had. Let me close with this. What do you think people like Lyle Goldstein, people who are

more restrained on their view of what should do we do in this situation, in this conflict, people who favor negotiated settlement or hope to get something that would lower the tensions like that? What do you think they not understand about the situation between China and Taiwan? Maybe it's what they don't understand about China and maybe what they don't understand about Taiwan. Yeah. You know, there's a few things here. So one of the realities we have to grapple with

is that Taiwan is a democracy. And in an important ways, it is not the same place that it was when it was under one party rule. The history here is quite important. I don't want to go through it in great length

at the moment. But the only reason that Chinese forces went to Taiwan after World War II from an American point of view is because Douglas MacArthur, who was the Supreme Allied commander, ordered them there to accept Japanese surrender. The U.S. position on Taiwan is that status is undetermined. Yes, we don't have diplomatic relations with the government there, but we also don't say Taiwan is not a country. Taiwan doesn't have sovereignty. We say it's undetermined because the number of treaties pertainting to territorial, territorial dispositions after World War II, make that the case. Japan gave up

its claim to Taiwan, but it didn't transfer that claim to anyone else. Taiwan, for most of its history, has not been under the political control of governments in China. That is a relatively recent thing. It happened relatively late in the De Ching dynasty, which preceded Taiwan, China's Republican period. And then it didn't happen again until the KMT army, the Republic of China Army fled to Taiwan in 1949, you know, after being defeated by the People's Liberation Army. So there

is a long history of separation, of China and Taiwan being two different places with different people, different cultures, and that has reasserted itself in Taiwan's I should say those differences have reasserted themselves in Taiwan's

democratic era. And we have to sort of grapple with that reality. The Taiwanese people, for the most part, don't think of themselves as in a civil war with China. They want to be left alone to do their own thing as they've been doing for decades and decades. The other thing I'd say is I think we have to take very seriously China's threats to Taiwan. I mean, I think many restraint-oriented folks recognize that. Certainly, you know, Lyle understands the importance that Xi Jinping places on Taiwan. But I think they also need to, they also, many of them fail to

recognize that there is an ideological component to Taiwan, to China's foreign policy. It's national security policy here. So it is not just the case that the United States cares about Taiwan because it's a democracy. China cares about Taiwan because it's a democracy and doesn't like that it's a democracy. China conceives of itself as in an ideological competition with the United States and with the West. Xi Jinping says this frequently. And I think it doesn't get enough credence for many here in the United States. We are in an ideological competition, and what happens to places like Taiwan will have a bearing on how that competition turns out. Michael Mazza, thank you for joining the Dispatch Podcast. Thanks for having me.

You know what I'm going to do.