Why is the US vowing to protect Taiwan when they won't protect Ukraine?

Question

I have read on the news that the US military and the President have vowed to protect Taiwan if China invades the de facto independent, sovereign nation.

China arguably has a stronger claim to Taiwan than Russia does to Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan still calls itself China: its official name is the Republic of China. There is no ethnic Taiwanese population in the way that there is an ethnic Ukrainian population or a Taiwanese language (they speak Mandarin in China). Taiwan is more ethnically Chinese (97% Han Chinese/Taiwanese) than mainland China (92% Han Chinese).

Why is the US military and government vowing to protect Taiwan when they won't protect Ukraine? Is there an alliance Taiwan is part of that provides insurance from other countries in the event of an external invasion like NATO that Ukraine is not part of anything similar that would give it American protection?

I am not arguing that it is okay for China to invade Taiwan for these reasons. I think such an invasion would be devastating for world peace and the world order of respecting sovereign boundaries which is under attack by Russian imperialism in Ukraine and has the potential of being further attacked by Chinese imperialism.

Answer 1

The main reasons for the difference are likely:

• Taiwan's economic importance is more obvious. It does a great deal of high-tech manufacturing, and includes the world's leading computer chip manufacturing company, TSMC. Ukraine's grain exports are also important, but less so to the US than to other parts of the world.

• The US has a long-standing commitment to Taiwan, made when the US was vastly more powerful than the PRC. Nowadays, the military power of the two states is closer to equal, but the US does not want to back down.

• It's quite practical for the US to intervene in a PRC-Taiwan conflict, because Taiwan is an island, and the US has a powerful navy. In contrast, basing US troops in Ukraine would be seen as menacing Russia in new ways. Having ships near Taiwan is somewhat less threatening, and ships are far easier to move than armoured divisions.

• If it came to a naval battle in the Taiwan Strait, that doesn't immediately lead to a US invasion of mainland China or a Chinese invasion of the USA, so the risk of nuclear escalation is low. If the US based troops in Ukraine and they defeated the Russian forces there, nothing would prevent the US invading Russia, so the nuclear risk is high.

Answer 2

I take somewhat of an issue with the framing of this question.

when they won't protect Ukraine?

This seems like a bit of a willful misrepresentation of the situation.

The level of support for Ukraine, and pushback against Russia, seems almost unprecedented for the West, even during the Cold War.

You can contrast that with the various invasions the USSR carried out in Europe (and Afghanistan) - they got nowhere near that level of pushback.

Short of putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, against a nuclear state, to defend a state that it has no alliance with, the West is doing quite a lot.

As it should - I don't have problem with aiding Ukraine, only with the formulation of this question.

Who knows what help Taiwan will end up getting, if it ever comes to that?

Regarding putting boots on the ground, there is also the problem of NATO not doing a great job of signaling, in 2014. When dealing with nuclear states, you need to be somewhat clear on what your red lines are (but not necessarily on what your reactions will be). Had the EU and NATO pushed back harder in 2014, we wouldn't be where we are today. Suddenly doing it now, essentially retroactively, is not good crisis/expectation management between nuclear states.

One could even nominate Germany's wishy-washy statements about Nordstrom 2 in the weeks leading up to the invasion as another opportunity lost. Not that Obama's message that no one was going to war for Ukraine, nor Trump's pro-Kremlin "diplomacy" are heroes of this sorry tale. Nor are Berlin and Paris pushing of the Minsk accords. The West couldn't have done 2022 in 2014, Ukraine wasn't ready to defend itself, nor was it very unified against Russia. But the West needn't have been quite so 1938 and tolerant of Putin since.

Just like the Cuban missile crisis came around because the USSR misread what it could get away with (quite possibly because the US had been doing the same thing in Turkey).

Not a great way to minimize nuclear extinction risks.

The Taiwan situation is, for now, much better managed, as per John Dalman's answer. China knows it can expect significant opposition if it invades, it shouldn't be surprised if it happens.

Answer 3

While I agree with some of the points in the other answer, some of the points (while true) are not the cause of the commitment.

The main reason for the difference of approaches is inertia.

How the support for Taiwan started

The commitment to defend Taiwan was made when Taiwan was still considered "China," while China (i.e., PRC) was still commonly called the "Red China."

Supporting the the containment of China, as a Communist country, was in line with general policy of "containment" of the Communist regimes.

The Communist regimes were defined as regimes ruled by the Communist Party (an organization which, despite national differences, considered itself an international political organization) which had an explicit stated goal of world domination.

In light of this "containment" policy, the support for Taiwan was just another support for a country which some specific Communist country targeted for a take over. This was no different from supporting South Korea against the North Korea or supporting South Vietnam against the North Vietnam.

Change from "containment" to the Reagan Doctrine

During the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan, in 1985 State Of The Union address made a refinement to the containment doctrine in a statement that became known as the "Reagan Doctrine."

we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.

This doctrine meant that the United States would not only contain the Soviet attempts at military expansion along national border lines.

It allowed arming countries/movements fighting against invasions by the Communist regimes inside the countries which were invaded. However, it meant assistance, but not direct defense, for countries willing to attempt to fight off the invading armies or Communist proxy governments.

The combination of both

Today, there are

1. some countries which are under the US "nuclear umbrella" (commitment to retaliate with a nuclear strike if a nuclear weapon is used against them),
2. some countries which have US defense commitments (e.g., South Korea and Taiwan, all NATO countries, etc.),
3. and some countries which get heavy weapon assistance while having no commitment of direct military assistance. Israel is probably the oldest member of this list, but a number of other Middle Eastern countries are on it, too. Ukraine is probably on its to remaining on this list unless it joins NATO.

There is no universal reason why the countries in the 3rd category are not in the 2nd. It's different for each one. The relationship which resulted in their being added to that list arouse independently for each individual country.

Why Ukraine

It has come as a surprise to most people that the Communist expansionism has not gone away despite many countries rejecting Communism as their state ideology. The fact that the USSR's expansionism has been co-opted by Russia's new imperialism is not too far a leap though.

Ukraine's cause has been a surprise for a lot of people. So much so, that it is even a cause for dismay for some of them. Largely is has not yet settled in that Ukraine squarely fits the criterion stated in the Reagan Doctrine.

However, the political class clearly believes that it does (and I personally agree), so this is a case of the political class actually being ahead of the culture on seeing the change in the world.

Answer 4

The difference is simple: Ukraine is at war, while Taiwan isn't.

I think most of the other answers take this for granted without spelling it out enough.

Regarding Taiwan, the USA is trying to deter an attack. So they make a lot of grand claims, but at the same time keep them vague enough so they aren't forced to do anything specific if war comes. They are trying to imply that they would fight a full scale war against China if China invades Taiwan, but won't actually commit to it.

In Ukraine, the USA is trying to weaken Russia without provoking an escalation that would hurt the USA. That's the next phase: After your claims that you would intervene failed to deter an attack, people get to see what they are actually worth. In the case of Ukraine, those claims are worth a whole lot: If the USA did a lot more to fight against Russia, it's quite possible it would end in a nuclear war (no one knows - even now it's a possibility, how remote of a possibility is debateable).

Of course the process doesn't just have those two steps. It's an endless cycle of threats and partial (or full or completely non-existent) execution of those threats.

Answer 5

For Ukraine, the most crucial Russian demand throughout the years since the US-led provocation at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, which solemnly declared that Ukraine will join NATO, basically amounted to making Ukraine a neutral, buffer state between NATO and Russia. Before the 2022 invasion, they did not seem to intend to occupy and incorporate any parts of Ukraine. This goal rather evolved after the invasion (as frequently happens during wars).

For Taiwan on the other hand, China claims the island as its own. This is different from Russia's meager pre-war claims in Ukraine. Moreover, Taiwan is a cornerstone of the so-called "First Island Chain", which is basically the encirclement policy that the US has been implementing since the Trump administration. The idea is to encircle China with sentinel states that are armed to the teeth in an attempt to curb its expansion. The US is currently the most powerful state in the world with regard to its influence in foreign countries and it will therefore try to maintain this status at all costs. Currently, the only country that can challenge the US here is China, hence the tougher stance.

A third and lesser reason regarding the more aggressive US stance in Taiwan would then be the importance of Taiwan from a resources perspective. But I would like to emphasize that containing China is a far more important objective for the US here.

Finally, it is worth mentioning what Chomsky has been pointing out, namely that it seems to be official US policy to prepare for a war with both Russia and China. So since they got the former, it now makes sense to strive for the latter according to Machiavelli's principle "If the war is to be now or later, I'd rather have it now (before China gets any stronger)".

It cannot be emphasized enough that the current status quo regarding Taiwan (i.e. strategic ambiguity) is constantly being encroached upon by the US and not China.

Answer 6

Public Commitments

In diplomacy, to avoid war, you want to be predictable.

Actually fighting a war to defend Taiwan isn't what the USA wants to do. It wants Taiwan to remain as it is, and no war to occur.

By committing to defend Taiwan, the practical result is it is less likely Taiwan will be invaded.

By following through on public commitments like that, you make your other commitments more likely to be believed. And thus, reduce the chance of actually having to fight wars.

Ukraine did not have public commitments on the level of Taiwan when Moscow invaded the country in 2014. It had lesser commitments by Moscow, USA and a number of other countries under the Budapest memorandum.

The invasion of Crimea to secure Moscow's black sea port was also viewed as a limited act of aggression. It isn't as if Moscow had a dozen other key black sea ports, or anything similar it could do.

USA didn't respond with a direct nuclear power on nuclear power fight; no commitments to do so.

Then Moscow invaded eastern Ukraine using irregular troops. Ukraine lost a bunch of territory.

At that point, USA started helping Ukraine build up its military. Ukraine reduced exports and increased domestic stores of weapons, started a system of territorial defence and a larger standing army with western-style trained NCOs.

Attempts to end the war in the East where conducted.

In 2022, Moscow did a full scale invasion. Again, Ukraine had no firm guarantees of collective defence.

Ukraine is getting support at a really high level. But it is doctrine to NOT have an open direct confrontation between nuclear armed states unless a public commitment was made prior to the war in order to avoid accidentally escalating to Mutually Assured Destruction.