Trump’s Venezuela strike will not spark a Taiwan attack
His decision to capture Maduro has not signaled a green light for China to invade the island
American President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Venezuela and capture president Nicolás Maduro ignited a flurry of commentary in the United States. It revolved around what this would mean for China’s Taiwan ambitions.
Some worried that Beijing could invoke Trump’s unilateral actions as a precedent to snatch Taiwan’s president. Others argued that the US had lost the moral high ground to intervene on the island’s behalf.
In reality, Trump’s actions will have little impact on Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s plans.
First, and most fundamentally, China has not refrained from attacking Taiwan because it was waiting for the US to set a precedent it could follow.
Instead, Beijing has not attacked Taipei because it lacks confidence that it can succeed at an acceptable cost. If China develops a military that it believes can overrun Taiwan and defeat a US-led coalition, then cross-Strait dynamics will fundamentally change.
Conquer cities
Until that day comes, though, Xi will continue with its strategy of employing coercion to wear down Taiwan’s people, with the aim of forcing the island to the negotiating table. Trump’s strikes on Venezuela do not change this dynamic.
Second, China understands that the US operation in Venezuela does not offer a model for Taiwan. The strikes have so far been confined to removing the country’s leader, with little planning for what comes next.
Despite Trump’s statements that Washington would “run” Venezuela, details are sparse. China, however, aims to govern Taiwan indefinitely. To achieve that objective, it would almost surely seek to take out its political and military leadership as part of any full-scale attack.
But Beijing has no illusions that this alone would cause Taiwanese society to crumble and lead to unification. Instead, China would need to land hundreds of thousands of troops on the island, conquer cities, and impose martial law on 23 million people.
Ultimately, Xi faces a far more daunting task than the one Trump faced in Venezuela, which reinforces deterrence.
Third, while Trump’s actions may have violated international law, China does not believe international law applies to the case of Taiwan. It does not view the island as a sovereign country and its leadership as the legitimate rulers.
Instead, Beijing insists that it is an internal affair, giving it nearly unlimited latitude to do what it pleases in the Taiwan Strait. For China, these norms around sovereignty never applied to Taiwan, and therefore Trump undermined something that is irrelevant to their calculations.
Fourth, while the Venezuelan strike may make it more difficult for the US to present its case for intervening on Taipei’s behalf if China attacked, that would not prevent it from doing so.
International order
The reality of international politics is that Washington would defend Taiwan if it believes that it has a vital national interest in doing so. Beijing understands this.
The attack on Venezuela only further solidifies China’s long-held belief that the so-called rules-based international order is just a façade and a cover for American dominance.
Fifth and finally, while China will seize on Trump’s actions to portray the US as an irresponsible power that flouts international law and sows chaos, this will not affect the willingness of Washington’s allies to contribute to a defense of Taiwan.
American allies have been careful not to explicitly criticize the strikes on Venezuela. They would not refrain from supporting the US in the Taiwan Strait because they believed Washington violated international law in Latin America.
Rather, countries like Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea would support a US-led intervention if they believed that their alliance with the US remained critical to their security and were committed to maintaining a balance of power in the region.
The US ability to insert special forces into a heavily protected part of Venezuela and exfiltrate its president could also demonstrate to Taiwan the importance of investing in the protection of its political leadership, as well as developing robust continuity of government plans.
Taipei assumes that Beijing will attempt to remove its political leadership at the outset of a conflict. China’s construction of a replica of Taiwan’s presidential office at a combat training center in Inner Mongolia is just one piece of evidence of such intent.
But the US strikes could add needed urgency for the island to refine the continuity of its government model.
American operation
There are reasons to disagree with Trump’s decision to strike Venezuela and seize Maduro, from his failure to consult the US Congress to his lack of planning for what comes next.
Objecting to the strikes on the basis that this will give China a green light to attack Taiwan, however, is misplaced. China is neither more nor less likely to use force against Taipei than it was prior to the American operation in Venezuela.
This is because Beijing remains unsure that it has the military capability to compel unification and because it is confident that its strategy of coercion is working.
David Sacks is a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
This edited article was published by the Council on Foreign Relations under a Creative Commons license. Read the original here.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.