A War Between China & US Over Taiwan – What Happens?

James Holmes

The standard line is that Zheng He reestablished Chinese diplomacy vis-à-vis Southeast and South Asia, and thus scored a triumph of nonviolent naval strategy. And so he did. That’s the smiling visage Beijing likes to put on its regional diplomacy. But Ming benevolence constitutes only part of the tale. Zheng He also crushed a hostile fleet near Malacca, sent troops into combat on the island of Ceylon, and staged shows of force during his voyages.

He prevailed without fighting when possible but fought when need be—at sea or on land. By casting today’s People’s Liberation Army Navy as the heir to the Ming admiral’s “treasure fleet,” Xi Jinping puts the region on notice that—now as six centuries ago—a mailed fist nestles within the velvet glove of Chinese diplomacy.

Message received!

Suppose Taipei and Washington step over Beijing’s red line, setting armed strife in motion. How would a Taiwan Strait clash unfold? Well, since Xi evidently intended the live-fire exercise in part as a rejoinder to American actions against Russian client Syria, let’s compare a hypothetical cross-strait war to the Eastern Mediterranean imbroglio. Three glaring differences leap out. And all three portend ill for America and Taiwan.

First of all, the strategic setting in East Asia is at once more and less permissive for U.S. naval and air forces than in the Eastern Mediterranean. More permissive because the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean to Taiwan’s east affords naval task forces ample maneuver space. Denizens of Europe, the Levant and North Africa who once styled the middle sea the “Great Sea” never got a load of the Pacific.

Off Syria, threats to U.S. forces could emanate from any point of the compass, not to mention the wild blue above and the depths beneath. By contrast, Pacific waters resemble a featureless plain. Navies thrive on the open sea, where they can flit hither and yon. With cunning and some luck, they can elude foes’ efforts to detect, track, and target them. In theory, then, the Western Pacific is a combat theater made for the U.S. Navy.

But in practice the surroundings are far more forbidding than the Mediterranean Sea. Any naval action will take place within reach of PLA Navy ships of war. Chinese commanders will array shore-based firepower—mainly missiles and missile-toting warplanes—to back up the fleet. A detachment of U.S. and allied forces squared off against a Russian detachment in Syria. The encounter was modest in scale. A detachment of U.S. forces will confront the combined might of China’s armed forces in the Pacific. An encounter there could sprawl across East Asia.