Western Experts Wax Pessimistic on Taiwan, Fueling Wave of ‘America Skepticism Theory’

On Sept. 14, the United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute at West Point published an article titled, “Every Taiwan Citizen a Resistance Member: Preparing for a Chinese Occupation,” by Jeremiah “Lumpy” Lumbaca, PhD. Lumbaca was a member of the Green Berets and currently lectures on irregular warfare, counterterrorism and special operations at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a Hawaii-based institute that is part of the U.S. Department of Defense. In his article, he suggested ways for Taiwan to promote armed resistance activities should it fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

Coincidentally, on the same day, U.S. newspaper The Hill published a submission by retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, currently a senior research fellow at the Defense Priorities Foundation, a Washington think tank. That submission was titled, “We Should Not Choose To Fight a War with China if They Invade Taiwan”; in it, the author reflected on the present serious hostilities between Washington and Beijing and on how, judging from the policies adopted by either side, it is clear that the risk of marching toward conflict is extremely high, with Taiwan being the focal point.

In this way, Davis stressed that the national interests of the U.S. should be subjected to serious scrutiny, advocating that even if mainland China were to invade Taiwan, Washington should not choose to go to war with Beijing, as this would ultimately lead to the U.S. military incurring critical damage. Instead, the U.S. military should seize the opportunity to preserve its strength, allowing China’s People’s Liberation Army to land itself in hot water in Taiwan and wear itself out. The U.S. would thus be able to retain the upper hand against mainland China militarily and protect its national security interests.

In fact, people in U.S. security strategy circles, including academics, media commentators, retired generals and ex-officials, have in recent years been writing about the situation in the Taiwan Strait, putting forth various views and suggestions. But since these have been reported by the domestic media, they have touched off a high degree of suspicion about U.S. policies among the Taiwanese people.

This commentator himself has penned an article pointing out that the so-called “America Skepticism Theory” has actually moved on from its version 1.0 of worrying about a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, with the U.S. standing idly by, unwilling to send troops to intervene and come to the rescue. It has gradually turned into a state of affairs in which Washington is actively maneuvering to bring the two sides of the strait into conflict with each other, plunging Beijing into the mire of a Taiwan Strait war and thereby depleting the mainland’s military strength while calling on the international community to contain and impose sanctions on Beijing. This performance resembles a version 2.0 of the America Skepticism Theory playbook like the one currently dominating developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.

At first, when the upper echelons of those in power were confronted with the emergence of America Skepticism Theory in Taiwanese society, they launched fierce public opinion offensives, invariably mobilizing their internet armies and sparing no effort in crushing the opposition parties, no matter which version of the theory commentators preferred. Who would have imagined that Sun Xiaoya, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office, would unexpectedly step forward to state his opinion on American Skepticism Theory, asserting that it was not at all the same thing as anti-Americanism, and that protecting dissent was the very spirit of freedom of speech? As a result, those public opinion offensives have ended abruptly and been laid to rest. However, they also made Taiwanese people pay more attention to the evolution of public opinion on Taiwan among U.S. academic and security circles and caused all parties to devote more thought and discussion to what Washington might have up its sleeve.

The two above-mentioned articles will naturally attract the attention of Taiwanese society because of their authors, the media in which they are published or channels through which they are distributed, and their content. However, it must be noted that since these articles are written in English and distributed to a specific readership, we have to understand whom they are really designed to appeal to. Take, for example, Lumbaca’s suggestion that Taiwan actively engage in guerrilla warfare through armed resistance should it fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. This is not necessarily meant to encourage the Taiwanese people to accept such a viewpoint, but rather to allow U.S. national security advisers to examine Taiwan’s security situation from that perspective and propose solutions from the point of view of American interests.

Citing Ukraine as an example, Lumbaca constantly touts the ability of armed resistance to turn the tide of war, rendering the invaders unable to extricate themselves and forcing them into retreat. But what is both comical and absurd is that Lumbaca does not mention a single word about America’s own painful experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, after 20 years of suppressing resistance forces, it suffered setbacks in its appeasement campaigns to maintain social stability. Writing styles and standards for content selection such as this will really not garner any compliments.

What is even more absurd is that Lumbaca also calls for the establishment of an overseas government-in-exile, claiming that it will be “recognized as a legitimate sovereign authority” representing Taiwan by some countries. Given that the number of countries in the international community that currently recognize the Republic of China and maintain formal diplomatic relations with it can be counted on the fingers of one hand, this commentator fears it is all the more difficult to determine whether any such government-in-exile would represent the ROC or some other iteration of Taiwan — or whether any countries would recognize it. But given careful consideration, this reveals itself to be nothing more than a flight of fancy.

Although, where Taiwan is concerned, the way in which Lumbaca’s manuscript makes it clear from the outset that “[d]eterrence has failed. The People’s Liberation Army has invaded and occupied Taiwan” is pessimistic in the extreme, he does maintain a serious scholarly attitude. That said, there is clearly still room for a deeper understanding of Taiwanese society and the actual situation across the strait.

In recent years, the governing class has invested large sums of money in attracting many retired members of the U.S. military to conduct research in Taiwan, who have often appeared in Taiwan’s media and on political programs or have had pieces published in the Western media, expressing nonsensical views, ranging from the absurd to the atrocious. In contrast, Lumbaca and the think tank he serves are of a considerable standard. If we want to manage relations with American think tanks and attract scholars to Taiwan, then rather than looking for people indiscriminately and at random, we would be better off inviting scholars of Lumbaca’s caliber to come for research. After all, taxpayers need to get their money’s worth, and it does not pay to skimp on quality.

By Zhang Jing, Senior Research Fellow, Society for Strategic Studies, Republic of China