Max Meizlish and Elaine Dezenski
Taiwan is reportedly considering a $15 billion military package as an overture to President-elect Donald Trump. This comes just as the island nation agreed to spend over $2 billion in American weapons purchases next year. While such agreements may serve to warm relations with an incoming Trump administration and strengthen Taiwan’s military against an increasingly belligerent China, they will do little to address Beijing’s biggest vulnerability in a potential conflict with Taiwan — its “soft economic underbelly.”
This provides Trump a historic opportunity to not just support Taiwan militarily, but to capitalize on the deepening cracks in China’s economy that make it vulnerable to powerful, proactively developed American economic statecraft.
Slow growth, an unraveling real estate market, significant youth unemployment and plummeting foreign direct investment reveal deep vulnerabilities that threaten the Chinese Communist Party. These economic fissures give the United States and its allies a strategic opportunity: by publicly outlining the severe sanctions, export controls and investment restrictions China would face if it invades Taiwan, we can slow the pace of Chinese hostilities toward Taiwan — or even prevent them altogether. However, to ensure this approach succeeds, we must learn from recent history and act before it’s too late.
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