Will it be Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?
FOR EUROPEANS at the Munich Security Conference the talk was all about betrayal and “appeasement”. President Donald Trump’s looming abandonment of Ukraine raised fears that America was renouncing its role as the guarantor of European security. Yet the earthquake in relations across the Atlantic seemed to cause barely a ripple in the Pacific, where America’s generals and securocrats at the Honolulu Defence Forum waxed about the importance of boosting Asian allies. Perhaps, suggested one South Korean attendee, cutting a deal with Russia will allow America to focus on deterring the might of China.
The surface calm is in part the result of Asian governments lying low, either because they are indifferent to Europe’s woes or because they want to win Mr Trump’s favour (or at least avoid his ire) and hope he will continue to guarantee Asia’s security. In fact, the countries most likely to be at the receiving end of China’s military bullying have the greatest reason to fear it will be emboldened by a Russian victory.
Take Taiwan. Successive governments have argued that denying Russia a victory in Ukraine was vital to dissuading China from invading the self-governing island. The notion of “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow”, is now all the more alarming. One opposition-leaning newspaper, the United Daily News, was quick to warn that Taiwan will become an “abandoned chess piece” in the Sino-American game if it keeps clinging to America. In Japan the headline of an editorial in the Nikkei, a Japanese daily, opined: “Don’t let America decide Ukraine’s fate.” It argued that Mr Trump’s indifference to upholding a liberal world order “is extremely unfortunate, as it only undermines trust in the United States”.
India, for its part, has pursued a “multi-aligned” foreign policy, drawing closer to America while retaining close ties with Russia and, recently, improving relations with China. It may now spy opportunity in even an unstable Ukraine settlement, not just because it could import Russian oil more easily but also because a fragmenting world order could give it greater influence. In between, most countries in South-East Asia are ambivalent about America, are drifting towards China and are comfortable with Mr Trump’s transactionalism. For Singapore’s defence minister, Ng Eng Hen, America was moving from a force for “moral legitimacy” to something closer to “a landlord seeking rent”.
The mood at the Honolulu conference was undoubtedly grim, but for markedly different reasons from that in Munich. Many in America see Russia as a foe that their European allies should be able to handle, if only they would take defence seriously. China, though, is a formidable rival that can only be contained with the help of allies.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of America’s Indo-Pacific Command, warned that China was on “a dangerous course”. Its large and increasingly sophisticated wargames around Taiwan were not mere exercises but “rehearsals” for invasion of the island, and could provide the “fig-leaf” to hide preparations for war. At the same time, he sounded the alarm over the readiness of American forces. “Our [munitions] magazines run low. Our maintenance backlogs grow longer each month for every critical joint-force element […] Critical air, missile, maritime and space platforms age faster than we can replace them currently, and we operate on increasingly thin margins for error.” China’s growing collaboration with Russia and North Korea was creating a “triangle of trouble” and turning the region from “free and open” to “contested and controlled”.
How to confront such a daunting menace? In part by adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence and hastening weapons production. But, crucially, also by working more closely with allies and partners, encouraging joint operations, collaborating in defence production and more. Their very geography, along islands that girdle China from Japan to Australia, acts as a barrier to Chinese military power in the Pacific and provides a springboard for American forces. “We can never take them for granted, and we can never make them strong enough,” declared the admiral.
Speaking in Brussels, Pete Hegseth, the American defence secretary, told European allies that they would have to take primary responsibility for their own security. America was henceforth giving priority to confronting China, which has “the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific”. What is more, Mr Trump “will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker”.
Sensing such a moment might come, NATO allies have tried in recent years to show that they can help America preserve the balance of power in the Pacific. A Canadian warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on February 16th, provoking the mainland’s fury. A French aircraft-carrier, the FS Charles de Gaulle, is in the region conducting exercises with the American navy and regional partners. An Italian one, the ITS Cavour, came through last year. A British one will return later this year. The Trump administration seems to shrug off such efforts as pointless gestures. Mr Hegseth privately told European allies they should stick to defending their own region.
In Honolulu, though, China hawks were divided over the Trump administration’s abrupt about-turn in Europe. Some argued that “deterrence cannot be divided”. If America lost credibility as an ally in Europe, it would lose credibility in Asia, too. David Stilwell, a former state department official in the first Trump administration, flipped the equation to denounce free-riding allies. He said “weakness in one place creates weakness everywhere—these are unhealthy relationships and they breed aggression”. Some thought that doing less in Europe would lead to America doing more in Asia, such that the long-anticipated and oft-interrupted American “pivot to Asia” would at last come to pass. Others worried America would simply do less everywhere.
Thus far Mr Trump has not shown much of his hand in the Indo-Pacific. He has imposed tariffs on China but has sought to woo its leader, Xi Jinping, perhaps in hope of striking a big trade deal. He has shown no sign of raising American defence spending to 5% of GDP (up from just over 3%), as he is demanding of European allies.
Mr Trump’s early guests to the White House included Japan’s prime minister, Ishiba Shigeru, closely followed by India’s, Narendra Modi. That appears to signal a continuing focus in the Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile, the diplomatic language about Taiwan seems to be hardening. The joint statement by Mr Trump and Mr Ishiba said they “opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion”, the addition of “coercion” being a novelty. So was the quiet change in the State Department’s website, which dropped the explicit reference to America opposing Taiwan’s independence. In contrast, the gutting of USAID and the halt in funding for many humanitarian and other projects around the world suggest Mr Trump is not serious about contesting China’s influence globally.
Strategists may talk about the “convergence” of the European and Asian theatres. But military trade-offs are becoming starker as America’s arsenals are depleted. Its munitions shortage in Asia is caused at least in part by its support for Europe, for instance in air-defence systems. Sending more of them to Ukraine means there are fewer to defend thinly protected bases in the Pacific.
If hard choices must be made, Admiral Paparo was clear about where America’s priorities should lie: “If you were to choose the world’s centre of gravity 100 years ago it would have been somewhere in east-central Europe. Today, it’s squarely in the Indo-Pacific.”■