האם ארה"ב תגיב בתקיפות במידה וסין תנסה להשתלט על טייוואן? | גרנט ניושאם

One of the critical issues facing U.S.-China relations is Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party has pledged to take the island under control by force if necessary. If Beijing attempted to take over the island, how would the U.S. respond? We spoke with retired Marine Colonel Grant Newsham for his take. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy. Grant Newsham, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. I'm glad to be here. From the military perspective, Taiwan is part of what's known as the First Silent Chain, which blocks the deep-sea submarines of China from entering the Pacific Ocean that could then hit the continental U.S. Given that, though, some are contemplating that if the Chinese Communist Party were to launch a blockade or a slow-moving quarantine of the island, the U.S. wouldn't, or allied nations wouldn't be so fast to respond, as some are pointing to the response to Ukraine, which is a sovereign nation, whereas Taiwan only has about a dozen countries that diplomatically recognize it. How do you view that? If there was a slow-moving blockade or a quarantine around Taiwan, what would that kind of response look like? Nobody quite knows. I think people know what the possibilities are. You could have a coalition led by the United States that goes all in to defend Taiwan and to push through supplies and the wherewithal to survive, and dare the Chinese to attack them. Or you could have an administration that just says, well, this isn't worth the risk of a war in this case, and sort of back off and allow the Chinese to strangle Taiwan. Nobody quite knows. And I don't think the People's Republic of China knows exactly what the U.S. response would be. I think that the Trump administration probably would stick its neck out to defend Taiwan in the event that the Chinese do pressure it in the way that you've described. Although I do note that some people are being hired for positions in the administration, in the Department of Defense in particular, who don't seem to think that Taiwan is all that valuable and that we should do anything to avoid a war with China. I've even heard one person who's rumored for a spot say that it wasn't worth defending Taiwan because we might lose, and that would be catastrophic. Therefore, let it go. It is surprising some of the people that seem to be getting hired for these positions. But if you look at Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, and Pete Hegseth in the Department of Defense, these people are very clear about the threat from China and the importance of Taiwan. But you have to look at the other people in an administration. So the answer I would give is, we just don't know. But I think Xi Jinping would be rolling the dice if he were to try to go after Taiwan. And once a war starts, it never quite ends up the way anybody thinks it would. Now, speaking of this being a global conflict, there's also been maybe focus on that region where you see Japan increasing its defense spending past the more pacifist phase it had after World War II. You actually have a chapter in Matt Pottinger's book, The Boiling Moat, where you talk about Japan and some officials inside Japan saying that the Taiwan issue is actually a Japanese issue and that Japan can't just wait for the U.S. Talk to us about that and what the Japan-U.S. relationship means for that region. Well, in Japan, there is a phrase you will hear a lot, which is Taiwan's defense is Japan's defense. You hear that all the time. And there's plenty of Japanese in the military and the political class who do believe that. There's others, just like in the United States, however, who see the risk of war as just being too much and the idea that we have to keep economic ties intact and therefore it's really not worth defending Taiwan. So you get the Japanese military is doing the best it can. It's not doing everything it can do, but it's doing the best it can for now to try and get ready for a fight. I don't believe, however, that it's ready. For example, it doesn't have adequate war stocks, necessary ammunition, hardware, casualty handling facilities. It doesn't have a good reserve system, and it perhaps doesn't even have the plans to respond to a fight on Taiwan. Also, the ability of the Japanese military to operate with the United States forces is very limited. And considering how many decades the defense alliance has been in place, it's scandalous. The exceptions— Grant Newsham, thank you so much for your time. Well, thanks very much. Glad to be here.