2013: How the War Began

dThe war that erupted between the United States and China in 2013 was a classic case of miscalculation by both parties. Neither Beijing nor Washington thought that the other side would escalate the long-standing tensions over Taiwan to the point of armed conflict. Yet armed conflict was the result, and the world has been paying the price ever since. For a quarter century, the world’s two leading powers have been locked in a cold war that has been at least as intense as the earlier surly confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The prospects for global peace and prosperity that looked so promising in the 1990s following the end of the first cold war have turned to ashes. U.S. policymakers have undoubtedly asked themselves many times whether the brief but intense war that broke out in July 2013 could have been avoided. They probably have asked themselves at least as many times whether defending Taiwan was worth the price.

As the secretary of state prepared to enter the White House on the morning of June 2, 2013, he wondered whether Taiwan’s president had finally pushed Beijing too far. The day before, the Taiwanese leader announced that he would seek an amendment to the constitution changing the island’s official name from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan, a move that was certain to infuriate the PRC. It may not officially have been a declaration of Taiwanese independence, but it was the functional equivalent of one. And it certainly would be the surprise of the century if Beijing did not regard it as Typically, Taiwan’s president had made that blockbuster of an announcement without any advance notice to the United States. That seemed to be his standard operating procedure since his re-election to the presidency in March 2012. Even more than his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, the current leader had a habit of blindsiding Taiwan’s protector, the United States, with potentially dangerous initiatives. This was just the latest and most provocative one.

Although both presidents were members of the Democratic Progressive Party, the similarities tended to end there. For all of his faults, Chen Shui-bian had displayed a shrewd sense of what was and what was not possible in Taiwan’s delicate relationship with mainland China. His pro-independence rhetoric could at times be a bit much, but his actual policies tended to be relatively cautious. Chen’s successor showed little of that caution. His boldness was not all that surprising since he came from the hard-line independence faction in the DPP. To many hard-liners, Chen Shui-bian had been squishy and a disappointment.

The current president believed he also had a broader mandate to push his independence agenda. Throughout his presidency, Chen had had to deal with a national legislature controlled by the more moderate Kuomintang Party (KMT) and its allies. Whatever his private inclinations might have been, that political reality restrained his actions. Chen’s successor had no such political constraints. The DPP now controlled 55 percent of the Legislative Yuan, and the party’s even more rabidly pro-independence ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, controlled another 8 percent. The president himself had been re-elected with nearly 58 percent of the vote against the increasingly moribund KMT and what was left of the relatively pro-Beijing People First Party. Chen Shui-bian had never come close to getting a popular mandate of that magnitude.

The U.S. president had assembled the members of his national security team to hear the secretary of state’s report on the latest news out of Taipei and Beijing. The news was not good. Throngs of DPP and TSU supporters had gone into the streets of Taipei and other cities on the island to support their president’s proposed change of the country’s name. Most of them were waving the green flag of Taiwan’s independence movement. As yet there was no official reaction from Beijing, but the latest online edition of People’s Daily was more than a little ominous.

<blockquote>The patience of the People’s Republic of China is not unlimited, and the latest actions by the authorities on Taiwan are testing that patience to the breaking point. The government of the PRC has made it clear on numerous occasions that moves to establish so-called Taiwan independence are unacceptable and will lead our Taiwan compatriots to the abyss of disaster. Yet the current Taiwanese authorities and the other splittist forces seem determined to wrench Taiwan away from the motherland regardless of the danger. Make no mistake. The forces of the People’s Liberation Army are prepared to defend the unity of China at whatever cost. Taiwan separatism will not be allowed to succeed. It is time for sober-minded Taiwan compatriots to let the DPP, the TSU and the rest of that ilk understand that the Taiwanese people will not follow them into the abyss. It is also time for the United States to make it clear to the Taiwan authorities that any effort to establish a so-called Republic of Taiwan will gravely endanger the peace and stability of the entire region.</blockquote>

The U.S. president queried his advisors about how to respond to the latest moves. The director of national intelligence reported on the latest satellite data, which showed an unusual amount of activity at several Chinese military airfields in Fujian Province, directly across the Strait from Taiwan. That was a troubling indicator, but manned aircraft was only one element of the firepower the PRC could deploy against Taiwan. China also had more than twelve hundred missiles targeted against the island, and those would play a major role if Beijing ever decided to use military force. The secretary of state recommended that the president personally issue a statement reiterating the U.S. position against any unilateral changes in the status quo by either Taipei or Beijing. The secretary further recommended that the president explicitly condemn the Taiwanese leader’s call to amend the constitution as precisely the kind of unilateral change that jeopardized peace in the Taiwan Strait and make it clear that the United States would oppose such a change.

The president hesitated. Taiwan had a lot of friends in Congress and the media who would react badly to any statement that seemed to be appeasement of Beijing. He recognized that a statement of criticism had to be made, but he wanted it handled at a lower level to minimize the publicity and the resulting outcry. The president instructed the secretary of state to have the deputy secretary issue the statement-and to soften the condemnation of the Taiwan president’s proposal to "the United States cannot support" instead of the United States "opposes" the proposed name change to the Republic of Taiwan. The secretary protested that more subtle formulations were unlikely to dissuade DPP hard-liners, but the president would not be moved.

Before the meeting adjourned, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff recommended that the United States begin the process of redeploying some of its aircraft carrier battle groups in order to be prepared if the crisis escalated. Two carriers were the best candidates. The USS Stennis was just completing a call at Pearl Harbor, and the USS Ronald Reagan was conducting joint training exercises with the navies of India and several Southeast Asian nations in and around the
Strait of Malacca. The JCS chairman suggested that both carrier battle groups be relocated to waters closer to Taiwan. The president expressed his view that the diplomatic crisis would probably blow over in a short time just as all previous ones had, but he agreed that the redeployment of the two carriers was probably a prudent step.

Reactions from Beijing and Taipei to the State Department’s criticism of unilateral changes in the status quo were not encouraging. Speaking at a DPP conference the following day, the Taiwanese president bluntly rejected the U.S. criticism. "The Republic of China has been a sovereign state for more than a century and a full-fledged democracy for nearly two decades," he stated. "It is up to the people of Taiwan to decide if we should change the name of our country to the Republic of Taiwan. The communist authorities on the mainland have nothing to say about it, and even a friend like the United States has no right to interfere in the affairs of a sister democracy." His comments seemed to confirm the secretary of state’s worst fears, that the DPP government would not be dissuaded by gentle criticisms.

If the reaction from Taipei was disappointing, the subsequent reaction from Beijing was alarming. The Taiwan Affairs Office issued a shrill statement of condemnation coupled with a threat.

<blockquote>The separatist traitors do not represent the best interests of the people of Taiwan. We urge our Taiwan compatriots to repudiate this irresponsible leadership before it is too late. The People’s Republic of China has said repeatedly that it wants to settle the issue of Taiwan’s reunification by peaceful means. Some provocations are simply intolerable, however. If the Taiwan authorities insist on proclaiming a so-called Republic of Taiwan, it will prove impossible for the PRC to adhere to a peaceful course.</blockquote>

The PRC’s embassy in Washington, too, was unimpressed with the statement issued by the State Department. In a meeting with the secretary of state, China’s ambassador dismissed the U.S. position as "anemic and utterly inadequate." In a rare display of anger, the ambassador stated:

<blockquote>We are weary of your government’s supposed adherence to a one-China policy when you constantly take actions that run contrary to that policy. We have put up with your sales of advanced weaponry to Taiwan-including offensive weapons-despite your commitment in the Third Communiqué signed by Ronald Reagan to gradually eliminate all arms sales. We have tolerated your willingness to issue visas to Taiwanese officials to visit the United States despite our protests. We have even tolerated those officials meeting with prominent members of Congress and giving public speeches in which they condemn the PRC. But we will not tolerate having your government give quiet encouragement to a so-called Taiwan leader while he creates an entity called the Republic of Taiwan. You need to bring serious pressure to bear on him NOW, if you wish to preserve friendly relations between China and the United States.</blockquote>

The secretary was taken aback by the intensity of the ambassador’s protest. Beijing had long been unhappy about Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan as well as other aspects of U.S. policy. But most PRC protests had acquired a rote aspect to them over the years. This was different. There was an uncompromising undertone of menace to Beijing’s position.
Any hope that the crisis might dissipate ended on June 4, when the Taiwanese administration formally introduced its proposed constitutional changes. Once again there was an unpleasant surprise for the United States. Not only did the executive propose to change Taiwan’s name from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan, but there was another provision delineating the boundaries of the new republic. The territory claimed was Taiwan itself plus Kinmen (Quemoy) and other small islands just off the Chinese mainland. Gone was any claim to represent any portion of the mainland. If the name change was not the functional equivalent of a declaration of independence, the second provision certainly was.

To this day it is uncertain why the Taiwanese president decided on such a daring course of action in June 2013. His own long-time commitment to the cause of an independent Taiwan was undoubtedly a key factor, but there appeared to be some other elements. Part of the move may even have been defensive. At the time he submitted the proposed constitutional amendments, only sixteen countries had diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. That number had been shrinking for years; a decade earlier, nearly thirty countries maintained diplomatic ties with the ROC. Beijing’s strategy of isolating Taipei diplomatically was clearly working. Even the sixteen countries that still recognized the ROC were all small, poor countries, mainly in Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa. They were all prime candidates to be bribed by the PRC to change their diplomatic allegiance-as so many others already had done. Taiwan’s leaders may have thought that they had nothing to lose by being bold, since the alternative was slow, but inexorable, diplomatic extinction.

Another factor appears to have been pervasive Taiwanese confidence that the United States would defend the island’s security if the PRC tried to resort to coercive measures. Granted, America’s obligations under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act were not the same as a clear-cut defense commitment. The TRA obligated the United States to sell Taiwan arms of a defensive nature (loosely defined) and to regard any PRC threat or use of force as a grave breach of the peace of the East Asian region. The latter provision implied that the United States would use its own military forces to defend Taiwan from attack. Although previous U.S. administrations had sometimes cautioned Taiwanese leaders that the commitment was not unconditional and that they should refrain from provoking the PRC, the current Taiwanese president and his followers were convinced that if a crisis erupted-regardless of its origins-the United States would defend a thriving democracy against aggression from a dictatorial China.

Taiwan’s supporters in the U.S. Congress and much of the American media encouraged Taipei to think in those terms. The Taiwan government had added confidence about the current administration, since the sitting American president was a conservative Republican and the conservative wing of the GOP had always been the most supportive of Taiwan’s ambitions. Consequently, Taipei may have concluded that the time was propitious for making a bold bid for permanent separation from China.

The changing military balance across the Taiwan Strait may have been another factor leading to the conclusion that it was "now or never." In the late 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century, Taiwan seemed capable of matching-and perhaps more than matching-the PRC’s military capabilities. Indeed, Taiwan’s modern air force with its F-16s and Mirages was probably superior to anything China could put into the air. But that situation had been slowly changing. In recent years, the PRC had been spending close to $70 billion a year on its military and was purchasing cutting-edge planes, ships, and other hardware from Russia and the nations of the European Union. Meanwhile, Taiwan had steadily trimmed its defense budget, choosing instead to spend money on a variety of domestic priorities. The military balance between Taiwan and the PRC was already shifting in favor of the latter. There was no doubt that in a few years China would have a decisive military edge over Taiwan, and then the island would have to rely entirely on the United States for its security. In 2013 the nature of the balance was still uncertain, but time clearly was not on Taiwan’s side.

Whatever the specific motivations, the government in Taipei decided to cross what Beijing had repeatedly indicated was a bright red line. The PRC had made it clear that crossing that line would bring extremely unpleasant consequences, and Beijing’s response to the Taiwan administration’s proposed constitutional amendments was not long in coming. On June 5 the PRC president ordered the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army.

Both Taiwanese and U.S. officials seemed caught off guard by Beijing’s action. Taipei immediately ordered the mobilization of its forces, including calling reserves to active duty. The United States increased the alert level for its forces stationed in South Korea and Japan. That move in turn caused some agitation in both Seoul and Tokyo. The South Korean foreign ministry issued a statement emphasizing that its mutual security treaty with the United States did not cover contingencies in the Taiwan Strait. Seoul reiterated its adherence to a one-China policy and admonished Taipei to stop provoking a crisis with the PRC. Officials in the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and other East Asian countries issued similar statements over the subsequent week. Even America’s long-standing ally, Australia, made it clear that if an armed conflict erupted in the Taiwan Strait neither Taiwan nor the United States could expect help from Canberra.

Only Japan refrained from publicly chastising the Taiwanese and stating that it would not back the United States in a conflict with the PRC. Yet even Japan’s response was hedged and murky. The prime minister reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the alliance with the United States and stressed how important a vigorous U.S. military presence was to the security and stability of the East Asian and western Pacific regions. However, on the burgeoning crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the Japanese leader merely urged both Taipei and Beijing to "exercise restraint and display a commitment to settle this dispute by peaceful means."

The reaction of the U.S. government was more assertive. In opening remarks at a press conference on June 7, the president reminded China that the TRA put the United States on record that any effort by Beijing to coerce Taiwan "would be threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States." Beijing’s decision to mobilize the PLA was "most unhelpful" and served to "make an already tense situation worse." The president announced that the aircraft carriers Stennis and Reagan had been deployed to "waters near Taiwan" as a precaution. He went on to urge the Taipei government to put the proposed constitutional changes on "indefinite hold" as a gesture of good faith on Taiwan’s part to ease the crisis.

The president’s attempt to outline a balanced policy infuriated Taiwan partisans in the United States. Within hours of the president’s press conference, the House majority leader announced that he would introduce a resolution expressing support for Taiwan’s right to make changes in its constitution free from threats by its communist neighbor and affirming that the United States stood ready to carry out its obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, "including the use of force to repel aggression in the Taiwan Strait, should that become necessary." By the next day, that resolution had more than forty cosponsors.

The introduction of the resolution was an implicit criticism of the administration’s policy, but that reaction was mild compared to the sentiments expressed in the right-wing press excoriating the administration for its cautious response to China’s military mobilization.

<blockquote>If the experience of the 1930s taught us anything, it is that free nations make a colossal blunder when they attempt to appease totalitarian aggressors. Yet the administration seems to be determined to repeat the folly of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Instead of issuing a statement making it clear that the United States will defend democratic Taiwan, the president and his advisors persist in trying to placate the communist dictatorship in Beijing. The president should state unequivocally that if China attacks Taiwan, it means war with the United States. Faced with such a clear and determined policy, it is likely that Communist China will back down, especially since its military forces are no match for those of the United States. If the gang of thugs in Beijing persist in their saber rattling, the United States should escalate the stakes by threatening to abandon the one-China policy and recognize Taiwan’s independence. It is a policy that should have been reconsidered long ago in any case. If Beijing insists on disrupting the peace and tranquility of East Asia, China’s communist rulers need to know that they could lose far more than they anticipate.</blockquote>

Whether it was the mounting criticism from his political base, the troubling information from U.S. surveillance satellites about PLA troop movements across from Taiwan, or some combination of the two factors, the president ordered the Stennis and Reagan carrier battle groups to move closer to the possible theater of action-into position in waters just east of Taiwan. Following the advice of the joint chiefs of staff and the secretary of defense, he also ordered another carrier battle group, led by the USS Lincoln, to leave the Persian Gulf area (which for the moment was unusually quiet) and steam for the western Pacific to support the Reagan and Stennis. As yet, he refrained from ordering any ships into the Taiwan Strait itself. Even so, Beijing’s reaction was harsh. China’s foreign minister issued a statement again demanding that the United States cease its interference in China’s internal affairs. He described the deployment of U.S. naval forces as "extremely provocative," warning that such "threatening gestures" from the United States were jeopardizing the "entire range of China-U.S. relations."

What the foreign minister meant by the "entire range" of relations became evident within days. China’s Central Bank began selling massive quantities of the U.S. treasuries that it held. For nearly a decade, China had been the primary funding source for U.S. government debt-holding more than $1.2 trillion by 2013. With Washington’s annual budget deficit hovering near $800 billion, China’s policy on the debt issue was no small consideration. It kept interest rates in the United States several percentage points below what they might have been if China had not been willing to soak up those debt instruments. When the central bank declined to purchase any more debt and began to unload hundreds of billions of dollars in what it already held, the impact on U.S. financial markets was immediate and devastating. On what became known as Black Thursday, the yield on the ten-year U.S. treasury note spiked, the stock market plunged more than 12 percent, following smaller but still significant declines the two previous sessions, and the dollar plummeted more than 5 percent. The following day the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met in emergency session and raised the Federal Funds rate by 150 basis points (1.5 percentage points) in a desperate attempt to prevent a collapse of the dollar. That move soon proved insufficient to stem an even more dramatic decline.

China was clearly playing hardball, but despite the growing tensions, pro-Taiwan forces in the United States did not relax their pressure to get the administration to stand up to Beijing. The congressional resolution demanding that China end its threatening behavior toward Taiwan and pledging that the United States would defend Taiwan against aggression moved rapidly through the House of Representatives. During the floor debate in mid-June, a steady parade of House members-mainly conservative Republicans, but including more than a smattering of liberal Democrats-rose to praise Taiwan’s democracy and to denounce the PRC for everything from its belligerent military posture toward the island, to Beijing’s own dismal human rights record, to the flood of Chinese imports that produced America’s chronic massive trade deficit with that country. Only a handful of representatives dared to urge caution, warning that precipitous action could derail a crucial U.S. economic and political relationship, and suggesting that going eyeball to eyeball with a nuclear-armed nation had the potential for catastrophe.

The congressional tsunami of hostility toward the PRC caught many observers by surprise. The conventional wisdom had been that the U.S. business community, with its nearly $250 billion-a-year relationship with the PRC at stake, would use its considerable influence to rein in all but the most rabidly anti-PRC members of Congress. During the crisis of June 2013, that assumption was proven spectacularly wrong. Those who favored a cautious policy toward the PRC were routed by allegations that they were willing to sacrifice America’s honor and values to protect the interests of amoral corporations. In the end, the House passed the resolution by a vote of 359 to 67. A similar resolution was making its way through the Senate, and it was clear that the margin of victory in that chamber would be only a little less lopsided.
Beijing’s next move dramatically heightened the crisis. On June 22, PRC air, naval, and ground forces attacked the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu.

Within a matter of hours, Taiwan’s badly outnumbered and outgunned defense forces surrendered and the red flag of the People’s Republic of China rose over both territories. Taiwan’s president responded by going on national television and radio and vowing that Taiwanese forces were prepared to defend the country at all cost and would not rest until the conquered islands were retaken. He also explicitly called on the United States to honor the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act. "It is clear that the goal of China’s communist regime is nothing less than the subjugation of free and democratic Taiwan. In the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States said that such coercion would threaten the peace of all of East Asia. America now needs to take decisive action to repel this aggression or its word will mean nothing."

China’s attack on the offshore islands did not come entirely as a surprise to Washington. The movement of PRC military forces during the previous two weeks suggested that such a move was possible. Yet most members of the president’s national security team had not thought that Beijing would really go that far. The consensus had been that Chinese leaders were using the mobilization and new deployments to ratchet up the pressure on Taipei and force the Taiwanese regime to retreat on its proposed constitutional revisions. Now that China had instead resorted to military action, the United States faced a dilemma. It was a dilemma that went back as far as the Formosa Straits crises in the 1950s. At that time, the Eisenhower administration had agonized about what to do if the PRC attacked the offshore islands but did not launch an assault on Taiwan itself. Fortunately, China had never changed matters to the point where the United States had to decide whether to respond militarily. The current administration faced no such luxury.

The administration was badly divided about how to respond. The secretary of state opposed any U.S. military intervention. Those offshore islands were not essential to Taiwan’s economy or security, he said, noting that even some members of the DPP had previously expressed indifference about their fate. Opposition to military intervention also came from the secretary of the treasury, who warned that the U.S. financial markets had already been badly damaged by the ongoing tensions with China and that, if the crisis escalated, the effect on America’s economic health could be devastating. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of national intelligence strongly disagreed with the dovish position. They believed that the attack on the offshore islands was merely a prelude to an attempt to conquer Taiwan or intimidate it into surrendering. U.S. credibility was at stake, they stressed, and warned that if the United States did not respond militarily, not only Washington’s commitment to defend Taiwan would be in doubt, but so would the other security commitments in East Asia and beyond. This was a clear case of Chinese expansionist aggression, the JCS chairman emphasized, and the United States had to intervene.

The national security advisor proposed a compromise. Move the Stennis and the Reagan into the Taiwan Strait, she suggested, but refrain at present from taking any direct military action against PRC forces. Such a middle position between doing nothing and initiating a shooting war with China appealed to the president. Later that day, the Stennis and Reagan battle groups began to move into the Strait. Within days the Lincoln also would be in position just east of Taiwan.

The president also called in the PRC ambassador for a dressing down. The secretary of state, who attended the meeting, later said that he had never seen his boss quite so angry or determined. The president warned the Chinese ambassador that the seizure of the islands was "completely unacceptable," and that Beijing’s "reckless actions" risked igniting a war between the United States and China. But the ambassador was in no mood to give ground. He reiterated his government’s demand that the United States cease interfering in an "internal Chinese dispute." He warned further against any "unwise escalation"-especially against sending U.S. military units into the Taiwan Strait. It was, as diplomats are fond of saying, an "extremely frank exchange of views."

Beijing was not about to back down in the face of the U.S. moves. Indeed, the next day, the PRC defense ministry announced that it was imposing a blockade on "the renegade province of Taiwan" and warned all ships to refrain from approaching Taiwanese ports. The blockade announcement combined with the seizure of the offshore islands sent Taiwan’s supporters in the United States into a rage. As might be expected, right-wing pundits led the anti-PRC verbal barrage.

<blockquote>China’s communist government has proven itself to be an aggressor and an outlaw regime. The United States has no choice but to lead the civilized world in repelling this aggression and saving democratic Taiwan. Monsters like Adolf Hitler arise in every generation, and the PRC has shown itself to be the Nazi Germany of our generation. Some say that it would be too dangerous to confront China’s brutal aggression, but we must ignore such voices of timidity and appeasement. Yes, it may cost lives-including American lives-to stop China’s warmongering expansionism in its tracks. But it will cost even more later on if we let China subjugate free Taiwan. The appetite of a totalitarian aggressor is never satisfied. If the Chinese dictatorship succeeds in conquering Taiwan, where will it stop? Korea will likely be next, and Japan not long after. America’s entire position in East Asia and its credibility throughout the world will be destroyed if we do not act resolutely now. But if we do have the courage to lead, other nations will follow us and stand up to the communist aggressors. To the advocates of appeasement, it should be said that it is better to have a small war now than to have a larger and much more destructive war later. Indeed, our objective now should be nothing less than the removal of the outlaw regime in Beijing. Only then will there be lasting peace in East Asia. The president needs to decide whether he wants to be remembered as the twenty-first century’s Winston Churchill or Neville Chamberlain. America’s honor as well as its security is at stake. We must defend free and democratic Taiwan!</blockquote>

Although those pundits were confident that other nations would stand shoulder to shoulder with a resolute America in stopping China’s coercion of Taiwan, the administration found out differently. Even before Washington sounded out Seoul about its position, the Korean government made it clear that not only would it refuse to join any U.S. military action against the PRC, it forbade the United States from using its own military bases in the Republic of Korea for such purposes. Other governments throughout East Asia followed suit, declaring their neutrality in any armed conflict between the United States and China.

Even Japan left the United States in the lurch. After an agonizing and contentious meeting of the Japanese Cabinet, Tokyo refused to allow the United States to use its military facilities on Japanese territory for operations against PRC forces. Washington reacted with anger and dismay, pointing out that Japan’s de facto declaration of neutrality violated the spirit of the security statement adopted by the two governments in February 2005 declaring that a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute was a crucial security interest of both Japan and the United States. Japan’s reneging on that commitment, U.S. officials warned Tokyo, endangered the future of the U.S.-Japanese alliance. Nevertheless, Tokyo did not relent. Although there was considerable sympathy for Taiwan among the Japanese public as well as the country’s political elite, the fear of PRC economic and military retaliation for Japanese support of an American military defense of Taiwan was even greater. As the crisis of 2013 built to a climax, America stood alone in protecting Taiwan.

The crisis escalated another notch in the early morning hours of July 3. China finally put to use some of the twelve hundred missiles it had been amassing for two decades. Missiles began slamming into targets throughout Taiwan just before dawn. The initial barrage consisted of fewer than one hundred missiles, and Taiwan’s missile defense system intercepted more than 80 percent of that number. The physical damage inflicted by the warheads that actually hit their targets was quite modest, but the psychological impact was another matter. Taiwan’s stock market tried to open briefly that morning, but after share values plunged more than 20 percent in the first hour of trading, the Taiwanese president ordered all exchanges closed for the duration of the emergency. In addition to the economic impact, thousands of civilians made a panicked exodus from Taipei and other cities, clogging the highways and creating general chaos.

Taiwan’s air and naval forces quickly responded to the PRC attack. Although Taipei had reacted angrily to the blockade proclamation, it had not taken action against PRC naval vessels deployed in the Strait. Following the missile barrage, that restraint ended. Taiwanese planes attacked more than a dozen PRC surface vessels, and there were aerial dogfights over the Strait throughout the day. But the most dramatic move came when Taiwanese aircraft struck four of the missile batteries on the mainland, completely destroying two and badly damaging the other two. China responded with a second missile barrage, nearly twice as large as the first.

With all of the combat in and around the Taiwan Strait on July 3, what happened next probably should not have come as a surprise. To this day, no one is certain who fired the first shot in the conflict between U.S. and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait in the early morning hours on July 4. Beijing later claimed that a U.S. plane from one of the aircraft carriers strafed a Chinese destroyer in the western part of the Strait, barely ten miles off of the mainland coast, setting off the cascade of violence. The United States told a very different story. According to Washington, both aircraft carrier battle groups sought to avoid conflict with Chinese units while U.S. officials frantically pressed both Beijing and Taipei for a cease fire. At that point, Washington was even willing to concede the PLAs seizure of the offshore islands and had bluntly told Taipei that the United States was unwilling to go to war to dislodge those forces. The U.S. version of events was that China began the war with a missile attack from Chinese navy destroyers and submarines against the Reagan battle group.

It is impossible to determine with certainty whose version is correct, but there are several reasons to question the Chinese account. The fact that the PRC began a comprehensive campaign of electronic warfare to disrupt U.S. communications and launched several anti-satellite weapons, knocking out two key U.S. spy satellites, just as the confrontation got under way lends a good deal of credence to the American version. It seems likely that China initiated the conflict, not merely reacted to an American attack. In any case, those tactics were a bold stroke, and they proved highly effective. The advantage that the United States had enjoyed in every conflict since the First Gulf War of being able to see and manage the battlefield far better than any adversary virtually disappeared. In the Taiwan Strait war, American forces had no significant informational advantage over their Chinese opponents. That was a new and very unsettling experience.

In any case, it is indisputable that the Chinese missile assault on the Reagan and its support ships was massive and devastating. Three of those ships were sunk and four others damaged in the first hours of the battle. But the worst was yet to come. A coordinated attack using the new generation Advanced Sunburn missiles struck home in multiple locations on the Reagan itself. Shortly before 6 A.M. on July 4, 2013, the USS Ronald Reagan went to the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. Although vigorous rescue operations were mounted in the midst of the chaos, some 1,832 personnel perished with that ship. Chinese missile, aircraft, and submarine attacks on the Stennis battle group caused some damage, but the Stennis survived to retreat out of the Strait, losing only one of its escort vessels.

It is impossible to overstate how much the loss of the Reagan shocked not only the U.S. Navy but the American people. Before that episode, most people simply regarded the massive carriers in the U.S. fleet as invincible. The call for revenge against China was overwhelming, and U.S. forces in the western Pacific were not long in responding. Planes from the Stennis and the Lincoln attacked PRC air forces over the Strait, and although outnumbered, prevailed in most of the skirmishes. The counterattack against Chinese naval vessels in the Taiwan Strait was even more pronounced. The most dangerous action, though, was the decision to join the Taiwanese air force in striking airfields and other military installations on the mainland coast itself. On balance, it seemed that the U.S. and Taiwanese forces inflicted more damage than they suffered, but events were threatening to spiral out of control. It was especially ominous that both the United States and the PRC put their strategic nuclear forces on maximum alert. The United States and China teetered on the brink of all-out war.

At a White House meeting following the sinking of the Reagan, several members of the president’s national security team were in favor of escalation. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff could barely contain his anger. He advocated not only continuing to strike airfields and missile batteries on the mainland, but attacking military and infrastructure targets throughout the PRC. Clearly, that would require far more air power than the United States had available from the two remaining carriers. Indeed, the JCS chairman and the director of national intelligence urged the president to order the fleet of B-2 bombers from the continental United States into action. Those planes would focus on the government compound in Beijing as well as selected targets in China’s prize economic jewel, Shanghai. The hawks on the president’s national security team also suggested that the United States launch attacks from its bases in South Korea and Japan, whether the host governments in those countries approved the attacks or not. "What good are our so-called allies," the JCS chairman fumed, "if they won’t even let us use our own facilities when we’re under attack?"

Predictably, the secretary of state and the national security advisor urged caution and argued forcefully against escalation. The principal surprise in the meeting was that the secretary of defense supported their position and emphatically disagreed with her hawkish colleagues. She pointed out that China had more than two hundred nuclear warheads mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching any target in the United States, and that the PRC government had put those forces on the highest alert status. If the United States started bombing Beijing and Shanghai, she warned, there was no telling where the cycle of escalation would stop. An all-out war between the United States and China, possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons, would be a disaster beyond comprehension. She pleaded with the president not to take such a fateful step.

For once, the chief executive proved to be both decisive and prudent. As painful as the decision must have been, he opted against escalation. A similar process of fear-induced restraint seemed to be taking place within the PRC government, and both sides began to pull back from the abyss of nuclear confrontation. In a series of calls on July 4 and 5 over the hotline between Beijing and Washington, the two presidents negotiated a cease fire. China agreed to stop its bombardment of Taiwan and to lift the blockade, while the United States agreed not to dispute continued PRC control of the offshore islands and to withdraw its forces from the Strait. Beijing also agreed to withdraw its forces to the western half of the Strait, if Taiwan redeployed its forces to the eastern half. Although those moves formed the basis for the cease fire, China had other demands that had to be met before the crisis could come to an end. Beijing insisted on the resignation of the Taiwanese leader, the end to any effort to change the name of the Republic of China, and the opening of talks on reunification. China reluctantly agreed that Taiwan would not have to accept the one-China principle as a prerequisite for such talks, but that it would be the first topic of discussion.

Not surprisingly, when the United States informed the Taiwanese president of Beijing’s demand for his resignation, he flatly refused. The U.S. administration was at the limit of its patience with the volatile Taiwanese leader, though. Washington informed him that if he insisted on staying in office, the United States would withdraw all of its forces from the area and would no longer honor its commitment under the TRA to defend Taiwan. Faced with that ultimatum, he had little choice. On July 6, he announced his resignation to the Taiwanese people. His replacement, the vice president, promptly met Beijing’s other demands-withdrawing the proposed constitutional changes and agreeing to commence negotiations on reunification.

Although the new president came from the more pragmatic wing of the DPP, those concessions were an extremely bitter pill to swallow. Yet he seemed to have little choice. Taiwan had neglected its own defenses, not even purchasing all of the military hardware that the United States had offered to sell over the years. Taipei had put all of its hopes in U.S. military protection, and that protection had not proved sufficient. Given the damage the United States had suffered in this confrontation with China, it was clear that Washington’s military protection would be even less reliable in the future. Even many DPP stalwarts now concluded that Taiwan’s dream of internationally recognized independence was probably not achievable. The only remaining strategy was to stall as long as possible in reunification negotiations and then strike the best deal available.

Beijing gained a good many of its objectives in the crisis of 2013, although reunification talks would drag on for more than a decade, and when reunification finally occurred it was only in the form of a very loose confederation between Taiwan and the PRC. Moreover, China paid an extraordinarily high price for those gains. Public and congressional sentiment in the United States for retribution against the PRC was irresistible. Passage of the Anti-Aggression Act of 2013 in mid-July mandated not only the severing of diplomatic ties, but also a total embargo on commerce with the PRC and a ban on U.S. investment in China. Although the president had grave misgivings about both aspects, he did not resist when the legislation passed both houses of Congress by veto-proof majorities. The embargo did serious damage to the American economy and the global economy generally, but it had an absolutely devastating effect on China’s economic health. A decade-long recession settled over that country, leading to the social upheavals that for a time threatened the unity and stability of the country.

A cold war has settled over U.S.-China relations in the quarter century since the conflict of 2013. Diplomatic ties were restored in 2019, and amendments to the Anti-Aggression Act over the years have led to a limited resumption of commerce. Nevertheless, bilateral trade in 2038 is less than 20 percent of what it was in 2012, and the United States, China, and the rest of the global economy have all suffered the consequences. Equally troubling, the bitter U.S.-Chinese strategic and economic rivalry intensified throughout East Asia, with the United States gradually but inexorably losing ground to the PRC. All of those negative results occurred because of a festering dispute over the status of one small island.