Taiwan Should Not Present Itself as Another Ukraine

Taiwan’s government often argues that its security is closely linked to that of Ukraine, while also downplaying concerns that U.S. military support for Europe comes at a cost for the Indo-Pacific. The most prominent example yet comes courtesy of Taiwan’s former Foreign Minister Joseph Wu,  who recently claimed that the world should be “defending Taiwan by defending Ukraine.” Shortly after, Wu took over as Secretary General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, making it clear that linking Taiwan to Ukraine is a priority of Taiwan’s government. 

Secretary General Wu, a fierce freedom fighter who spent his years at the foreign ministry pushing back against China’s aggression, has a rational basis for claiming that Taiwan’s security is linked to democratic countries’ support for Ukraine. Yet going all in on this strategy and dismissing legitimate concerns about U.S. military credibility in the Indo-Pacific may not be the best approach for Taiwan’s engagement with a United States facing costly security challenges in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. 

Ukraine has a major advantage over Taiwan in generating and taining international support: The world clearly views Russia’s invasion as an aggressive violation of a sovereign country’s borders. Conversely, China has been dangerously successful in spreading the lie that Taiwan’s fate is an “internal affair” of China. Taiwan is right to underscore that China’s efforts to “reunify” Taiwan by threatening or using force are matters of international concern. Secretary General Wu directly addresses this in his essay, arguing that “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait can be tained only by viewing and treating it as an international issue.” 

Wu is also speaking to the U.S. Congress by drawing parallels between Taiwan and Ukraine. From Taipei’s perspective, Taiwan’s most urgent existential threat is not the Chinese Communist Party, but the loss of bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. Since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations and our defense treaty with Taiwan in 1979, Taiwan’s near-universal support in the American legislature has been the defining enabler of its continued existence, technological development, democratic transition, economic success, and military capabilities. Congressional support counterbalances U.S. presidents’ tendencies to embrace Communist China and undergirds other countries’ relations with Taiwan. Taiwan just can’t afford to alienate the majorities in Congress that continue to vote in favor of U.S. assistance for Ukraine. 

Wu went further, however, with the unqualified statement that U.S. military support for Ukraine “does not detract from the defense of places such as Taiwan.” Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true. 

American support for Ukraine draws on finite resources that are also needed to support Taiwan and ongoing American entanglements in the Middle East. This applies both to scarce munitions and weapons systems that the U.S. defense industrial base is failing to produce sufficiently, and the political will of a justifiably war-weary American public. Taiwan needs the support of the Members of Congress who are concerned with those tradeoffs, not just the majorities who recently voted in favor of further Ukraine aid. 

Unlike Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a military contingency involving Taiwan would probably involve the United States as a combatant. The U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” reserves the right to come to Taiwan’s defense because a Taiwan conflict would have a direct, severe impact on the economic wellbeing of American families and significantly harm American national security. Even were this not the case, to ensure the success of an attack on Taiwan, China may also attack U.S. treaty allies Japan and the Philippines. Beijing would possibly make a preemptive strike on the U.S. military itself, including in Okinawa and Guam. 

All that adds up to mean that Taiwan’s defense is a weightier debate on a more consequential conflict for U.S. interests than U.S. aid to Ukraine. In that debate, the support of the realists and skeptics among our elected leaders will be even more decisive. Taiwan needs to account for this when engaging with the U.S. Congress.

Today, it is no surprise that Taiwan’s leaders continue to highlight Taiwan’s connections to Ukraine. But as Taiwan engages Congress, it should avoid dismissing the substantive concerns of those who are worried about the material capacity of the United States military to deter China as conflicts proliferate around the globe. 

It will do us no good to know, as Secretary General Wu writes, that “the agendas of Moscow and Beijing” are linked, only to conclude that having taken on the former, we aren’t able to fight back against the latter.