Realpolitik - Has Taiwan Been Prudent Enough To Buy/Develop Sufficient Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?

[johnkarls]

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I propose that we focus on whether Taiwan has been prudent enough to buy/develop sufficient nuclear weapons to deter China.

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First, this topic seems timely as we are in the middle of reading for our Dec. 13 meeting “The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy” by Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh (Random House 10/27/1991) and how Israel’s nuclear missiles enabled Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to avoid becoming the answer to a trivia question – WHAT WAS ISRAEL?

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Second, quite a bit has been published in the last few months on which I propose we focus (NB: we have not always focused on a book if no appropriate book is available – in other words, we are not prisoners of book publishers whose editors BTW are often woefully ignorant) –

The 147-page Council on Foreign Relations Task Force Report entitled “U.S.-Taiwan Relations in a New Era: Responding to a More Assertive China” – June 2023

and six Foreign Affairs Magazine articles –

(1) The World According to Xi Jinping: What China’s Ideologue in Chief Really Believes - By Kevin Rudd - November/December 2022

(2) How to Out-Deter China: Washington Must Make Beijing Understand the Costs of a Conflict Over Taiwan - By Joel Wuthnow - March 24, 2023

(3) What It Will Take to Deter China in the Taiwan Strait: Washington Must Take Difficult Steps to Prevent Catastrophe - By David Sacks and Ivan Kanapathy - June 15, 2023

(4) Taiwan’s Path Between Extremes: The Kuomintang Presidential Candidate Lays Out a Plan to Avert War With China - By Hou Yu-ih (long-time mayor of Taiwan’s largest city in addition to being the Kuomintang Presidential Candidate in the 1/13/2024 Presidential Election) - September 18, 2023

(5) The Right Way to Deter China From Attacking Taiwan: American Hard Power Is Not Enough By Ryan Hass and Jude Blanchette November 8, 2023

(6) Taiwan and the True Sources of Deterrence: Why America Must Reassure, Not Just Threaten, China - By Bonnie S. Glaser, Jessica Chen Weiss, and Thomas J. Christensen - November 30, 2023

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Third, it would appear that the “writing is on the wall” re American support (or possible lack thereof) –

Per The Economist on 3/6/2023 (https://www.economist.com/special-repor ... -important) - computer chips (aka semiconductors) are required for everything from computers to mobile phones to automobiles -- and Taiwan produces over 60% of the world's semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones.

According to Intel (https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/c ... -a-fab.pdf) building a semiconductor factory requires about three years to complete.

The CHIPS and Science Act of 8/9/2022 provides roughly $280 billion in new funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States.

ACCORDINGLY, HERE’S HOPING THAT CHINA DOES NOT TAKE OVER TAIWAN BEFORE 8/9/2025 (Intel’s “three years” following enactment).

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Fourth, there are serious questions about whether America has the will (and the ability) to support THREE WARS SIMULTANEOUSLY – Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

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Fifth, there are many ways Taiwan could already have acquired nuclear weapons (vs. simply developed them) if it had possessed sufficient foresight (which it presumably had) –

(1) Many nuclear weapons went missing in the wake of the dissolution of the old USSR – including the notorious 132 suitcase-size nukes, 84 of which have never been recovered.

(2) PBS’ Nova Science Series aired a documentary on 3/9/1975 about the results of an experiment initiated by the documentary’s producer who had been curious about how easy it would be for “any reasonably-bright student” to design and construct a nuclear weapon. So he had asked a friend on the M.I.T. faculty to put him in touch with a student. And the student was NOT even a physics major!!! [He was a chemistry major!!!] In just 5 weeks, the student had designed a nuclear weapon from public-source information which experts opined would be fully functional. The 3/9/1975 PBS Nova Program created such an uproar that very few viewers focused on the fact that the student had only designed a nuclear weapon, but had NOT constructed it. This was probably due to the fact that the construction (vs. the design) is child’s play. For example, a British Royal Commission reported in September 1976 in the wake of the 3/9/1975 Nova Program -- “The equipment required [to actually construct the nuclear weapon] would not be significantly more elaborate than that already used by criminal groups in the illicit manufacture of heroin.” [The British Royal Commission was concerned at that time that nuclear weapons could be so easily designed and constructed by the Irish Republican Army.]

(3) In addition to the nations that are commonly viewed as having nuclear weapons, it is usually recognized by experts that quite a few others could produce nuclear weapons on a moment’s notice. Presumably Taiwan is on this list and, like Israel prior to its Existential "Moment of Truth" in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, has already developed nuclear weapons.

(4) Who knows what might be available for purchase on the black market from terrorist groups? After all, Osama bin Laden issued 5 fatwäs commanding his followers to nuke 10 million Americans -- about which the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote a famous book and about which Tim Russert’s 5/29/2005 Meet the Press interviewed former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and then-current Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission).

[If an MIT student can design a functional nuclear weapon from publicly-available information, and if the British Royal Commission concerned in 1976 about the Irish Republican Army (IRA) nuking London, admitted the equipment needed to actually construct such weapons is no more elaborate than employed by organized crime to manufacture heroin, why should we assume that Osama’s Al Qaeda and its offshoots have not long-since obeyed Osama’s fatwās to develop nuclear weapons – even though they have not yet obeyed his fatwās to nuke 10 million of us???]

{BTW, Osama’s fatwās to nuke 10 million Americans can NOT be revoked now that Osama is dead – a non-revocation principle to which the U.K. had to bow when re-establishing relations with Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 who had issued a fatwā to kill Salmon Rushdie whose book “The Satanic Verses” Khomeini thought blasphemous toward the Prophet Muhammad.]

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Sixth, in order to accomplish his “Opening to China” in 1972, Kissinger famously had to recognize China’s claim to Taiwan, though neither he nor President Nixon had authority to enter into a treaty to that effect without a 2/3 vote of the Senate and though Congress actually passed laws supporting Taiwan such as the Taiwan Relations Act signed into law 4/10/1979.

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Seventh, we do NOT have to consider (unless members unearth relevant reference materials and want to consider them) what would be sufficient nuclear weapons for Taiwan to deter China –

taking into account such considerations as mode of delivery (presumably they would have to be “suitcase bombs” smuggled into China), and

what tactics should be employed (e.g., smuggling “suitcase bombs” into many Chinese cities, smuggling only one or two solely into Beijing, or smuggling as many as possible into the areas of China from which an attack on Taiwan would be launched).

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Food For Thought

If the U.S. abandons Taiwan to “the tender mercies” of China, how soon will China be claiming:

Singapore – 74.2% of 6.0 million are Chinese (per CIA’s World Factbook)

Malaysia – 20.6% of 34.2 million Chinese (per CIA’s World Factbook)

San Francisco – 37.3% “Asian alone” per U.S. Census Bureau (no further breakdown for Chinese)

After all, it didn’t take China long to “digest” Hong Kong.

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More Food For Thought

Some Pacific total populations (not just Chinese) per the CIA’s World Factbook:

Japan – 123.7 million
South Korea – 52.0 million
Australia –26.5 million

TAIWAN – 23.6 million

Hong Kong – 7.3 million (still listed separately as a "country" by the CIA World Factbook)
Singapore – 6.0 million

U.S. Possessions –
Guam – 0.2 million
American Samoa – 0.04 million

Hawaii – 1.4 million (per U.S. Census Bureau)

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Yet More Food For Thought

During World War II, Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communists sheltered on the Chinese border with the USSR while Chiang Kai-shek and his Chinese Nationalists (aka Kuomintang) sheltered on the Chinese border with Burma from which Allied Pilots flew "the hump” (as the supply route over the Himalayas was called).

Following World War II, the Soviets and Chairman Mao waged a Chinese civil war that in 4 short years forced Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists to retreat to Taiwan.

Causing U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy to launch his decade-long Anti-Communist Scare Campaign with a famous 1950 speech attacking President Truman and titled “Who Lost China?” claiming Truman did NOT provide sufficient support to Chiang Kai-shek (whose wife BTW was one of Hillary Clinton’s fellow Wellesley College alums – BTW Sen. McCarthy, despite being Republican, was a favorite of Papa Joe Kennedy (our Hitler-adoring Ambassador to the U.K. 1938-1940 where he “egged on” Neville Chamberlain) and dated one of the sisters of President Kennedy whose U.S. Senate voting record was once described as “to the right of Genghis Kahn” though there is no record that Genghis Kahn ever served in the Senate).

HOWEVER, the official name of Taiwan is “Republic of China” while the official name of China is “People’s Republic of China.”

ACCORDINGLY, it seems logical that the “Republic of China” claims ownership of the “People’s Republic of China” just like the PRC claims ownership of the ROC.

THOUGH OF COURSE, the world is more afraid of the PRC to notice whether the ROC has any claim.

[johnkarls]

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https://www.economist.com/interactive/2 ... n-election

[NB: The Economist is a British weekly newspaper founded 180 years ago and currently printed in magazine format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture.]


Taiwanese election 2024
Who will be the next president of Taiwan?
Last updated on January 2nd 2024

Latest polling averages, %
Low
Likely
High

Lai Ching-te
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
32% - 36% - 39%

Hou Yu-ih
Kuomintang (KMT)
24% - 31% - 38%

Ko Wen-je
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP)
17% - 24% - 31%

Editor's note (January 3rd 2024): Taiwan does not allow new opinion polls to be published within ten days of the election on January 13th. Our tracker shows the most recent voter sentiment.

On January 13th 2024, voters will elect Taiwan’s next president, as well as its legislature. How to deal with China is the central theme of the campaign. Communist China has never ruled the democratic island of 24m people, but still claims it as its territory and refuses to rule out a military attack. Almost every day China sends warplanes into the Taiwan Strait. America is also stepping up military exercises with its allies across the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan’s next president will be at the centre of simmering superpower rivalries.

The Economist is tracking the election. Here you will find the latest polls, short guides to each candidate and an explanation of what Taiwan’s election means for the island and for the world. And follow the contests elsewhere, with our US Republican primaries and UK election poll trackers.

Voting intention, %

Dropped out

Jun2023 Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan2024 0 10 20 30 40 50 Jan 1stKo 24Hou 31

Lai 36

The candidates

Lai Ching-te
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)

Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, is a softly spoken former doctor who has held almost every top political post in Taiwan. He was a legislator for over a decade, then a popular mayor of the southern city of Tainan. Mr Lai is most appealing to hardline independence supporters, but in the past he has also been popular with centrist voters. Distrusted by China, he once described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”. Mr Lai has promised to stick to Ms Tsai’s careful dictum: that because Taiwan is already independent, it needs no further declarations. Still, if he wins, China seems sure to continue to threaten and isolate Taiwan.

Hou Yu-ih
Kuomintang (KMT)

Hou Yu-ih is a burly former policeman who in 2006 headed Taiwan’s National Police Agency. Born to street-market pork dealers in Chiayi, a pro-independence stronghold in the south, he has a “Taiwanese flavour”, in the words of a former DPP legislator. There are hopes in the KMT that he will counter the party’s elite image and appeal to voters outside the party’s traditional base of mainland immigrants and their descendants. Last year Mr Hou easily won re-election as the mayor of New Taipei City (the exurbs surrounding the capital) as a moderate with a reputation for efficiency. He advocates talks with the Communist Party to lower cross-strait tensions.

Ko Wen-je
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP)

Ko Wen-je was a surgeon until he ran for mayor of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, as an independent in 2014. He defeated a KMT politician in a landslide, despite having no prior political experience, and served for two terms until 2022. Four years ago he founded the Taiwan People’s Party. Mr Ko casts himself as a “rational” and “scientific” technocrat, and has focused more on domestic concerns such as energy and housing than relations with China. His TPP is not strong enough to win a legislative majority and his best hope is that it ends up holding the balance of power in parliament. Mr Ko advocates a coalition with the KMT. Mr Ko claims to offer a “third choice” for voters between provoking China and deferring to it. In fact, his China policies are closer to the KMT’s.

What’s at stake?

Voters will decide if they want to continue with the policies of President Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party. The presidential election is based on a direct, first-past-the-post system. Ms Tsai was elected in 2016 and is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. She is a moderate, and angered Beijing’s leaders by refusing to openly state that Taiwan is part of China. During her time in office China severed formal communications with Taiwan and stepped up military pressure. Ms Tsai successfully presented the self-governing island to America as a willing partner in its pushback against China. The DPP’s presidential candidate, and the frontrunner, is William Lai Ching-te, her deputy. He says he will continue with her approach.

He is far from certain to win, however. Although almost two-thirds of the island’s people say they identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, a viewpoint that is exclusive to the DPP among Taiwan’s major parties, most Taiwanese also want a reignited dialogue with the mainland. And the DPP has image problems. The party grew out of opposition to four decades of dictatorship previously imposed on Taiwan by the Kuomintang, whose leaders fled China’s mainland in 1949. But, after eight years in power, the DPP is seen by many young people as the establishment. During Ms Tsai’s rule wages have grown slowly, housing has remained expensive and there have been power blackouts.

Pitted against Mr Lai are Hou Yu-ih of the now-democratic KMT and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). In November Mr Ko and Mr Hou announced that they would team up. Were they to do so, polls suggest they might overturn DPP rule. But almost immediately the arrangement fell apart. The two parties could not agree which of their candidates would run as president and which as vice president. The TPP and KMT had earlier agreed to co-operate on legislative candidates to maximise their share of the island’s 113-seat parliament.

Mr Hou supports lowering cross-strait tensions through dialogue with the Chinese Communist Party under the “1992 consensus”: that there is “only one China”, but the two sides have different understandings of what that means. Ms Tsai’s predecessor as president, Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT, used this formula to relax cross-strait tensions. But China may not be as flexible as it used to be. In 2019 China’s leader, Xi Jinping, gave a harsh speech linking the 1992 consensus with the mainland’s “one China principle” and said Taiwan should be ruled like Hong Kong, which in theory operates its own political system, but where China has stamped out democratic freedoms. Mr Ko, who professes to be a centrist, is in touch with the Chinese authorities and says he has asked them to consider an alternative formula that would be less divisive than the 1992 consensus, which is reviled by the DPP.

A victory for Mr Hou or Mr Ko might lead to restored cross-strait communications and a superficial easing of tensions. But any Taiwanese president will have little control over the geopolitical fault lines that the island stands on, expressed in China’s military build up and its deepening rivalry with America.

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Sources: National polls; The Economist