With China’s aggression on full display, Biden must respond

China’s display last month of coercive diplomacy against India, Japan and Taiwan were a stark reminder of the risks of war in the Indo-Pacific. China’s forces clashed with India’s in the Tawang sector of the Line of Actual Control. Against Japan, a Chinese carrier strike group, led by the carrier Liaoning, conducted exercises simulating attacks against Japan’s Nansei Islands while other forces did so against Taiwan.

Also directed against Taiwan, over the Christmas weekend, as reported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, were 71 People’s Liberation Army aircraft and seven People’s Liberation Army Navy surface vessels — all in one day and all along the median line in the Taiwan Strait, with the majority crossing the line into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone.

China’s actions against Taiwan are particularly concerning since Taiwan is not a nuclear state, as is India, nor is it under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, as is Japan. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has consistently mentioned his desire to force Taiwan’s incorporation into China, most recently in his October address to the 20^th Communist Party Congress. Accordingly, assumptions about China’s willingness to attack Taiwan should be informed by Xi’s willingness to order an attack, whether it is an invasion of the island, a limited attack, or the employment of a full or partial blockade.  These assumptions also must be informed by the capabilities and willingness of the United States to stand with its allies such as Australia and Japan to deter an attack against Taiwan — or defeat it, should it come.

Given Xi’s determination, U.S. capabilities are not what they should be. Adm. Charles Richard, commander of United States Strategic Command from 2019 until December 2022, has been consistent in calling attention to the gap between what is needed versus what the U.S. possesses to deter conflict with China. In November, in one of his last public speeches before he retired, Richard told the Naval Submarine League, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep growing, it is not going to matter how good our [operational plan] is, or how good our forces are — we’re not going to have enough of them. That is a near- term problem.”

And, he said, “The Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warm up. … The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be long before we are tested in ways that we haven’t been tested in a long time.”

This warning was not a one-off. The year before, he cautioned that “we are witnessing a strategic breakout by China. The explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking — and frankly, the word ‘breathtaking’ may not be enough.” Also in 2021, Richard stated that China is engaged in a “strategic breakout” that is “inconsistent with a minimum deterrence posture” because “China has correctly figured out that you can’t coerce a peer — in other words, us — from a minimum deterrent posture.”

A major consequence of this is that “the breathtaking growth and strategic nuclear capability enables China to change their posture and their strategy” as they desire. Richard identified that “what matters is, they are building the capability to execute any plausible nuclear employment strategy — the last brick in the wall of a military capable of coercion.”

That China seeks a military with conventional and nuclear forces capable of coercing the United States and its allies is alarming for the future of strategic stability in international politics, and for the ability of the U.S. to protect its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. The events of December against India, Japan and Taiwan capture the fruits of China’s growing capabilities. As Xi has greater capabilities to coerce other states, he is applying that ability.

Like Cassandra, the Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo in Greek mythology, Adm. Richard is telling the truth. It remains to be seen whether his warnings are heeded, or if, again like Cassandra, he is ignored. There are three interrelated implications of Richard’s expressed alarm:

First, Washington faces a new era in the Indo-Pacific, where China’s desire to coerce the U.S. and its allies and partners is realized. China’s military power provides immediate political gain in the region if it is unmatched by U.S. military power in the region and locally, in the East and South China Seas, and the willpower to employ that power. Richard has implied that if nothing is done, this new era will be defined by a failure of deterrence, leading to war and/or the prospect of U.S. ejection from the Indo-Pacific, where it has been dominant since the end of World War II.

Second, China’s growth stresses the U.S. alliance, as with Japan, and relationships with partners such as India and Taiwan. If the U.S. is not seen to counter China’s expansion and its greater willingness to employ coercive tools, doubts regarding the credibility of U.S. commitments will surface with regularity and give rise to considerations, even if expressed sotto voce, of allies and partners seeking their own path to security. An independent path to security might include abandoning an alliance with the U.S., acquiring nuclear weapons to deter China, pursuing neutrality, or even bandwagoning with China.