My Take | A nuclear Taiwan is too terrifying to contemplate
- According to a Taiwanese academic, if the island isn’t sure that the US will come to its defence or about its own capacity to fight back an attacker alone, the island should develop its own nuclear weapons to create a deterrent ‘balance of terror’
Of the many analyses that I have read recently about cross-strait relations, an opinion piece that appeared on Monday in the Taipei Times disturbs me the most. It lays out, with impeccable logic, at least from Taiwan’s perspective, the rationale for the island to create its own nuclear deterrent.
This seems to me a very real possibility in the years ahead. In place of a hot war, what if the mainland and the island end up in a MAD (mutually assured destruction) situation?
In the newspaper article, Chen Shih-min, a political scientist at the National Taiwan University, lays down the current conundrum of the island’s defence posture: Is “Taiwan’s ‘resolute defence [strategy]’ enough to deter a Chinese invasion”? And can it be sure “the US would come to its defence”?
The problem, he points out, is that those in charge of Taiwan’s defence are unsure about the answers to either question, but especially about the second one.
From that premise of uncertainty, therefore, Chen draws the following conclusion: “If Taiwan is unsure about either of these, or wants to lock in the right to decide its own fate, it must develop an effective and independent deterrent.”
