60 Chapter Four
The key issue for Taiwanese survival and (factual) independence is the
commitment of the USA. As I have argued, without a clear U.S.
commitment it is not possible to create an effective balancing coalition.
This means that if the USA abandons Taiwan (a possibility discussed by
Hickey 2013), Taiwan will lose the only potential ally capable of
providing significant help in a war with China. Given the ever-growing
Chinese economy, Taiwan’s ability to balance Chinese military build up
will be strongly limited in the future. Therefore, without the USA, there
are basically two options: (i) to surrender^7 to China or (ii) to go nuclear.
Neither the first nor the second option is desirable; the task for the
government in Taipei would be to choose the lesser evil. The first option
would result in Taiwan losing part of her (internal) sovereignty and
needing to accommodate her foreign policy to reflect Chinese interests.
Eventually, Taiwan could find itself acting as an unsinkable Chinese
aircraft carrier and a forward base in Pacific–surely a dangerous position
in a region prone to great power competition. The second option would
create tremendous problems, too. Firstly, it could destroy the Taiwanese
reputation abroad.^8 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, such an
enormous power shift could spur Chinese aggression (see Monteiro, Debs
2014). Given the fact that nuclearization would require several years of
intensive preparations, China would have enough time to try to prevent
this power shift. Nevertheless, if the USA abandons Taiwan, China may
very well be aware of the implications of hypothetical Taiwanese
nuclearization. As Debs and Rosato (2014) have shown, an unopposed
stronger state has rational incentives to attack a weaker state, regardless of
any factual military build up. From this perspective, the situation is indeed
grim and there is no perfect solution.
The tragedy of Taiwan reminds us that geopolitical configurations and
an anarchical structure of international politics still operate in the twenty-
first century. These structural forces may not be visible all the time, but
under certain circumstances they are exposed and they demonstrate their
power.
(^7) The term surrender has very broad meaning here. It is possible to imagine on the
one hand a scenario resembling Finlandization, or on the other hand gradual
loosening of internal and external sovereignty ending in factual end of Taiwan as
(at least partially) independent unit.
(^8) Further, acquiring of nuclear weapons would indeed bolster Taiwanese deterrent,
however it would not secure lasting peace and it would not remove necessity to
invest in conventional arms.