Within two weeks of Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was touring Australia and Asia with a simple message: the U.S. was not leaving, America’s regional allies were doubling down on relationships with both Washington and between each other – and the presidential transition would be a bad time for China to attack Taiwan.
Since Trump’s win, the media has been heavily focused on the implications for Europe in general and Ukraine. They include Trump vowing to impose a peace deal, U.S. President Joe Biden removing previous restrictions on the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine, and Russian invasion forces advancing on an increasingly unstable battlefield in Ukraine's east.
The oil-producing Middle East has also become a greater area of concern, tying down two U.S. aircraft carriers for much of the late summer and early autumn amid fears of serious escalation between Israel and Iran.
But despite the rising trepidation about both regions, for those at the very top of the Pentagon Asia remains the top concern, with a rapidly rearming China that senior U.S. officials say looks well on course to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. U.S. intelligence says Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be prepared to take the island by that year, but has not decided yet to order such action.
Recent weeks have seen further U.S.-Chinese tension and the coming weeks look set to bring more, with each side blaming the other and with more escalation likely in the run-up to Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
For now, the friction looks likely to stay bloodless – but the posturing by both sides is unambiguously intended to signal military strength and realistic capability to fight a major war.
Within both Beijing and Taiwan itself, decision-makers are already looking to get a measure of the new Trump administration, which will probably contain multiple hawkish Republicans hungry to impose heavy tariffs on China and contain it militarily. But it will also include those, including perhaps the president himself, who favour a more transactional approach.
A Taiwan security source said China "hopes to draw a red line and establish its power" during the U.S. government transition and extend its sphere of influence.
Gauging whether that is possible will likely be a priority for Beijing, which has made it repeatedly clear it wants the U.S. to scale back arms sales to Taiwan.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, is spending its final weeks locking in agreements with allies that should significantly increase Washington’s ability to intervene should China go ahead with an invasion.
As Austin visited Darwin in northern Australia, it was announced that Japanese troops would now begin training there next year alongside Australian counterparts and U.S. Marines, followed by the Philippines.
The Pentagon meanwhile announced that the U.S. would have three aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific over the January inauguration.
That decision – which will remove a carrier from the Middle East – itself points to the heightened importance of Asia.
In particular, it suggests the Pentagon believes Iran may be sufficiently deterred from heightened misbehaviour in the Middle East – both by the prospect of a hawkish Trump presidency and the damage Israel has reportedly already done to Iran’s air defences – but is less confident on China.
Austin also announced that the U.S. had delivered new maritime drones to the Philippines to help them in that confrontation. And Japanese media outlet Kyodo reported for the first time the U.S. was working with Tokyo to set up long-range missile batteries on Japanese and Filipino islands near Taiwan to help fight off a Chinese invasion if it comes.
TESTING ON TAIWAN
In Washington last week, the head of the U.S. Indo Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Paparo, announced that his team had successfully defended Taiwan in a series of classified wargames that included secret unmanned systems. The Biden administration also approved a $2 billion arms package to the island itself last week including air defence missiles.
“I believe Taiwan can be defended from air, land and sea, including undersea,” Paparo said. “I have got a number of plans which have been tested in classified environments that have proven success in doing so ... There has been no change in U.S. policy on Taiwan.”
More intense posturing might start as soon as the coming days.
On Wednesday, Taiwanese security officials told Reuters they believed Beijing would deliberately step up military activity around the island as Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te embarks on a tour of Pacific nations due to conclude Dec. 6.
Within Taiwan itself, confidence the U.S. military would intervene if the island were attacked slumped from 65% before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine to 34% after, gradually recovering to 42% in February this year. Since Trump's election that confidence has dropped to an all-time low of just below 30 percent, according to the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation.
Under the 1979 U.S.-Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. military is charged with responding to any changes in the island’s military situation – but it is left “strategically ambiguous” whether the U.S. would come to its defence.
Biden has said several times he would definitely intervene if he were president. But Trump has so far only pledged further tariffs and sanctions against China in such a case, although he has also said China's Xi would not risk attacking Taiwan as he "knows I'm (expletive) crazy".
Both Trump and incoming Vice President JD Vance have at times instead suggested Taiwan might need to pay to receive ongoing U.S. protection. Incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in contrast, has explicitly presented fighting for Taiwan as a necessity to stop Beijing dominating the rest of Asia.
China’s drills around Taiwan as well as across the broader region have been larger this year than ever before.
In September, Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo told reporters Chinese drills were now so sophisticated that it might be impossible to tell the difference between an exercise and an attack, blockade or even outright invasion.
This week, Taiwanese media reported that China’s ever-increasing military flights near the island had prompted the military to revise how close an aircraft needed to get to the Taiwan coast to trigger an air raid warning down to 24 nautical miles from 70. By some estimates, that could give as little as three minutes warning.
Taiwanese officials defended that reduction, saying the alternative was endless false alerts that would prove hugely disruptive and also undermine public morale.
'PLAYING WITH FIRE'
Few expect an imminent assault on Taiwan – although the presence of three U.S. carriers is intended to make sure Beijing does not feel tempted. More likely, China hopes to make a sufficient show of force that the new Trump administration backs off in its support of both Taiwan and the nearby Philippines.
Trump has voiced concern over talk of a potential Taiwan war in the past, particularly citing the potential disruption in cutting-edge microchip production.
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes up to 90 percent of the world's most advanced computer chips, and while it has recently opened a new factory in Arizona, production there is only now ramping up.
Since Trump's election, Chinese officials appear to have doubled down on efforts to get the new U.S. administration to scale back support for the government in Taipei and stop sending further arms.
Just over a week after the election, China's ambassador to Washington, Xie Feng, told a forum in Hong Kong that Taiwan was now the largest potential source of conflict between the two.
"The Taiwan question is at the very core of China's core interests," he said. "If mishandled, it could be the biggest flashpoint that may trigger conflict and confrontation ... Any forces trying to play Taiwan as a card would be playing with fire."
Last week, Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun pulled out at the very last minute from a meeting with U.S. counterpart Austin at a regional security meeting in Laos – a development Chinese officials blamed on mounting U.S. support for Taiwan.
Dong was later reported by Britain's Financial Times as having been fired for involvement in corruption – but Chinese officials denied this report and blamed Washington for the cancellation.
"The responsibility lies fully with the American side," said a Chinese defence ministry spokesman. "The U.S. side cannot undermine China's core interests in the Taiwan issue, yet at the same time try to conduct exchanges with the (mainland) Chinese military as if nothing had happened."
The defence ministry said the U.S. should "immediately correct its mistakes" in order to reopen exchanges.
The Biden administration will have been frustrated by the cancellation of that meeting. Since 2022, when China cancelled military-to-military communications with the U.S. following the visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, the U.S. has put considerable diplomatic effort into reopening those channels.
In September, Chinese General Wu Yunan, commander of the People's Liberation Army Southern Command, visited the U.S. Indo Pacific Command for a chiefs of defence conference in Hawaii. His exchange of views with U.S. Admiral Paparo was described by U.S. officials as "candid".
Those meetings may now be at an end – at least until Trump's inauguration. Whether they resume may be an early bellwether of where things go from here.
(The views expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)
