Editor’s Note: Center Senior Fellow Grant Newsham is quoted in this piece by John Feng, and Newsham’s February 2021 Report on Taiwan is also mentioned.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) justifies the potential use of force against Taiwan because it views the island nation as part of its territory, its return a “historic mission” that has been glorified by successive Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders.
After Texas Senator John Cornyn warned Congress this week that a hostile takeover of the democratic island—and its 23.5 million people—would be the first step in the China’s quest for world supremacy, experts discussed with Newsweek wider implications for the United States and a postwar Asian regional order that has held for more than seven decades.
There are two lines of inquiry that follow the question of “what comes next?” after a successful Chinese military operation to occupy Taiwan. Both center on expanded interpretations of the American geopolitical “domino theory,” which once referred to the fears of communism spreading throughout Asia during the Cold War and today might apply to an expansion of the China’s territorial boundaries as well as sphere of influence in the region and beyond.
“If China is able to capture Taiwan, there’s no reason to believe that the Chinese Communist Party would stop there. China also has territorial claims against the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam and India,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor on Tuesday while endorsing stronger deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.
He added: “We shouldn’t view Taiwan as the CCP’s ultimate goal but as the first domino in a quest to reach regional and global dominance. If Taiwan falls, it will not be the end, but rather a beginning.”
Of the many options available to China—a missile barrage, seizing outlying islands, a naval blockade or even a surprise decapitation attack against the Taiwanese leadership—a full-scale amphibious assault remains by far the riskiest. According to the Project 2049 Institute’s Senior Director Ian Easton—author of 2017’s The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia—the unprecedented landing operation would require upwards of two million People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops and accompany military vehicles and equipment.
During a parliamentary session last month, Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told Taiwanese lawmakers that China was already capable of attacking Taiwan, but its “cost and attrition” would be lowest after 2025.
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