US deterring Taiwan invasion by naming China top national security threat and boosting alliances: Pentagon

Appraisal made as American military keeps up ‘freedom of navigation’ patrols in South China Sea to counter PLA’s growing strength and assertiveness
‘The challenge is enormous. The capabilities are growing. The ambition is there,’ says US assistant secretary of defence

US-China relations

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 4:40am, 3 Mar 2023

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The US Indo-Pacific military strategy rolled out the past two years – identifying China as the ultimate American national security challenge, strengthening defence ties with the Philippines, Japan and other allies, and staying on course with robust “freedom of navigation” patrols – should be sufficient to deter Beijing from invading Taiwan within the next decade, but it will not be easy, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday.

In recent months, the US military has put in place a latticework of alliances and networks on China’s periphery to counter the People’s Liberation Army’s growing strength and assertiveness.

Beijing has condemned the moves as hostile and aggressive, while Washington has justified them as necessary to counter China’s “dangerous” provocations. This comes as bilateral relations between the rivals deteriorate further, fuelling concern of an inadvertent clash.

“It’s not going to be easy. The challenge is enormous. The capabilities are growing. The ambition is there,” said Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, speaking at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. “It’s going to be really hard. But we’re getting after it with urgency, but also competence and commitment.”

Officials and defence experts said many important pieces have been put into place in recent months they hope will act as a deterrent to any Chinese aggression.

The Philippines agreed in February to open four more bases to American troops. Australia, Britain and the US announced an alliance 18 months ago, dubbed Aukus, providing Canberra with advanced nuclear submarines and shared technology.

And Japan agreed in December to double its defence spending and host a rapid response US Marines littoral force on islands near Taiwan, which will “not be the only one in the region”, Ratner said.

But effective implementation was essential, officials added, including closer integration among allies and an end to archaic US rules and entrenched bureaucracies that discourage information sharing.

“The environment is very fluid. It’s very dynamic,” said Rebeccah Heinrichs, a Hudson senior fellow. “China is also engaged in a strategic breakout of its nuclear weapons programme. China’s making their nuclear triad mature and more capable.”

China and US flex military might around Taiwan as tensions flare between rivals

One promising US-led programme, dubbed the Indo-Pacific Domain Awareness Initiative, will allow small countries to track in real time Chinese vessels that are building reefs, mapping sea beds, fishing illegally or scooping up resources, even when they turn off their transponders to avoid detection.

This, along with greater use of social media, will help under-resourced players counter Beijing’s claims that its vessels were not in the region, were innocent and were being unfairly singled out, said Lindsey Ford, US deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia, who likened the task to starting out a two-layer cake.

“Suddenly they’re looking at a seven-layer cake in terms of the data that they’re given, and instead of waiting an hour for that cake to be baked, it’s served on a plate immediately,” she said. “Just to say, ‘OK, we’re not going to fight you in talking points. We’ll just show what’s actually happening.’”

“And I think that’s actually been pretty effective, especially for smaller countries who may not always have the military capability to push back.”

The awareness initiative is being tested in Southeast Asia with plans to roll it out across the region.

On other fronts, American officials said the Pentagon was scouting facilities in the Philippines to identify sites in advance of basing more US forces in the country. This will lead to the largest US military presence on that archipelago in decades.

Some senior current and former US officials as well as defence experts have speculated that China might attack Taiwan in 2024, 2025, 2027 or some other year. Others have criticised the comments as uninformed and irresponsible.

But there is little doubt that the PLA is growing larger, more muscular and more effective after a modernisation programme begun in 2015.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunited by force if necessary. While few countries, including the US, recognise the self-governing island as an independent state, Washington is bound by law to support Taiwan’s military defence, a policy Beijing strongly opposes.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But China has repeatedly said Taiwan is an internal issue of no concern to outsiders.

“If the US refuses to change course and goes down that wrong path, there will be real consequences,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in Beijing on Tuesday. “And it will come at real costs to the US.”

‘Economic Nato’ alliance, other ideas to counter China proposed by US lawmakers

Officials said China was taking increasingly provocative steps in and around the Taiwan Strait, Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. These include harassing US and allied vessels and aircraft in international territory by pointing lasers, releasing chaff, flying aircraft uncomfortably close and impeding military ships with “commercial” fishing vessels.

“I don’t think they’re picking a fight,” said Ratner, citing a number of recent “dangerous” incidents. “They may be trying to coerce and bully but they’re not picking a fight. I think they’re smart enough not to do that. We’re going to keep sailing, flying and operate, and we’re not going to let this behaviour intimidate us.”

US officials said the Pentagon was capable of multitasking, concentrating on the longer-term “pacing challenge” of China while simultaneously helping Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

But they acknowledged that the region’s more diffuse security architecture, with its tangle of alliances and partnerships involving the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and India, presented unique challenges compared with its European counterpart dominated by a more singular Nato.

Many of the strategies and objectives that Washington sees with China also apply to North Korea, officials said, namely to deter the leadership from doing something rash.

“The goal of these activities is to deter aggression. And to deter conflict,” Ratner said. “It’s not to deter [General Secretary] Kim Jong-un from killing a bunch of fish with his missiles.”

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