As China surrounded Taiwan with a massive naval and air armada for a large-scale rehearsal for an attack, Adm. Jon Leonard was being briefed at the Hawaii headquarters of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
“Over the past two months, we have seen a significant buildup of ground, air, and operational logistics units in the Chinese Eastern Command’s bases,” a Navy captain said, pointing to a large screen displaying a mass of red icons enveloping the island.
“Accompanying the military buildup has been a ratcheting up of information operations and psychological warfare against the government and populace of Taiwan,” the captain continued.
Then it was Leonard’s turn to brief his staff, and he began with a bit of Cold War history.
“In 1983, NATO undertook one of its largest ever exercises in Western Europe, called Able Archer,” he recounted. “The exercise was so realistic, several members of the Soviet Politburo were convinced it was a ruse for a NATO-initiated war with the Warsaw Pact.”
“When we detected the movements of joint forces, missile organizations, and logistics units earlier this year,” he continued, “we had to once again ask ourselves: is this another large-scale PLA exercise, or just a ruse to cover for a grab for Taiwan by the Chinese?”
The above account is fiction, a plotline from the novel White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan by retired Australian army Gen. Mick Ryan, which imagines a war between China and the United States and its Pacific allies in 2028.
But the scenario, China using an announced exercise as cover for an invasion of Taiwan to seize it, or a naval blockade to squeeze it, is a real possibility.
“With large exercises like this, the PLA gets three strategic returns,” Ryan said in a post on X. “It normalizes large-scale activity around Taiwan, to deceive about future intentions, bullies and seeks to coerce the democratic government of Taiwan, and projects an air of ‘inevitability’ to the region and he world about its eventual takeover of Taiwan.”
“Of course, it is not inevitable,” Ryan said. “But the CCP is using the same propaganda playbook as Putin in Ukraine.”
The goal of the real-life military drills China conducted from May 23-25, dubbed “Joint Sword-2024A,” was plainly stated by the Eastern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army.
“The drills focus on joint sea-air combat-readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control, and joint precision strikes on key targets,” a spokesperson said, adding, “The drills also serve as a strong punishment for the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces and a stern warning against the interference and provocation by external forces.”
The “punishment” was in reaction to the inaugural address of Taiwan’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, who had the temerity to refer to Taiwan as “a sovereign, independent nation” while vowing his government would “neither yield to nor provoke” Beijing while seeking to “maintain the status quo” of Taiwan as a democracy.
A defense ministry spokesman, Senior Col. Wu Qian, accused Lai of “attempting to seek Taiwan independence by force” and “pushing the Taiwan compatriots towards the danger of war.”
“This is totally an act of playing with fire, and those who play with fire will end up getting burned,” Wu said.
The U.S. is not bound by treaty to defend Taiwan, but it is obligated under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide the self-governing island with sufficient self-defense capability.
But after China’s mock bombing runs, aggressive naval maneuvers, and threatening rhetoric, two U.S. congressional delegations rushed to meet with Lai to reassure him of continuing U.S. support.
“There should be no doubt, there should be no skepticism in the United States, Taiwan, or anywhere in the world, of American resolve to maintain the status quo and peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), co-chairman of the Taiwan caucus, said at a news conference in the capital, Taipei.
But the resistance by some in Congress to funding Ukraine’s defense against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression has some Taiwan backers fearing Beijing may conclude the U.S. would be unwilling or unable to defend Taiwan if China attacks.
“I don’t want anyone to think that we can’t support Taiwan because of Ukraine,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the New York Times. “The stuff going to Ukraine is old and it’s old NATO stuff; this is all brand-new for Taiwan.”
There is a nearly $20 billion backlog of arms sales to Taiwan approved in 2019 and 2020 and still awaiting delivery, including 66 F-16 fighter jets.
“I just think our defense industrial base is overloaded right now, and it cannot handle this amount of conflict in the world,” McCaul said.
Asia scholars Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellows at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, write in Foreign Affairs that invasion does not appear to be China’s preferred option.
“China’s patient, long-term Taiwan policy which treats unification as a ‘historical inevitability,’ together with its modest record of military action abroad, suggests that Beijing’s more probable plan is to gradually intensify the policy it is already pursuing: a creeping encroachment into Taiwan’s airspace, maritime space, and information space,” they argue. “The United States must also break its fixation on the prospect of an invasion and become more alert to the dangers posed by a slow strangulation of Taiwan.”
In his novel, Mick Ryan has his fictional admiral announcing that the president has settled on a bold and provocative move to deter China: sending U.S. troops to Taiwan as a tripwire.
“If they attack Taiwan, they will also be attacking American forces. We know the Chinese leadership believes that if they can seize the island before US intervention, the American people may not be willing to shed blood for us to take it back,” the admiral explains to his staff.
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“But the president and his advisers reason that if any attack automatically endangers American service personnel, it might provide enough of a deterrent — at least for another year or two,” the admiral continues.
In the imagined future of the book, war comes nonetheless.
