TAIPEI – Israel’s response to the devastating incursion perpetrated by Palestinian gunmen from the Gaza Strip is still in its very early stages. It is not yet possible to predict its ultimate reach.
But it is possible to consider the short- and medium-term impact on the dangerous geopolitical dynamic in and around the Taiwan Strait, which, because of China’s continuing efforts to subjugate democratic Taiwan, remains one of the world’s most volatile flashpoints.
One likely consequence of the Hamas assault is that Taiwan’s long wait for already contracted American weapons systems to defend against a possible Chinese attack will be extended even further.
Present estimates put the value of already contracted but not yet delivered American weapons systems to Taiwan at about US$18 billion. The systems include Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers – critical components for helping a much-depleted Taiwanese military resist China.
But following US moves to provide more military support to Israel, Taiwan will now fall to number three (at least) on the American list of preferred weapons customers – behind Ukraine, with which it had already been competing for scarce weapons allotments, and Israel itself, whose support in the US Congress and throughout the American government is very deeply rooted.
The problem for Taiwan is that the American armaments industry has experienced an immense contraction in the several decades since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.
The industry did not anticipate the emergence of a new Cold War – one pitting the United States and its Western allies against an authoritarian coalition consisting of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. That short-sightedness is now coming home to roost, and through no fault of its own, Taiwan – among others – has been left holding the bag.
Another possible consequence of the Gaza war is that China may now be tempted to turn up the military heat on Taiwan, hoping that a preoccupied US will not be in a position to respond effectively.
For the next several weeks at least, the eyes of America’s foreign policy bureaucracy will be set firmly on the Middle East – a fixation that will only intensify if Israel’s deterrence-obsessed leadership decides to go beyond Gaza and punish Iran for its possible role in both encouraging and financing the deadly Hamas assault.
Among other things, this fixation affords China an excellent opportunity to put further pressure on Taiwan through rapidly escalating “grey-zone” activities – violating the island’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone, for example, or dispatching naval assets towards its strategically vulnerable east coast.
There may also be some voices in China pushing for even more robust activities, up to and including an attack on one or more of Taiwan’s offshore islands or even a temporary quarantine of Taiwan itself.
But barring the outbreak of a full-scale Iran-Israel war, which would utterly transform the global geopolitical landscape, such a response is extremely unlikely, not least because of China’s roiling economic crisis and the continuing problems it faces with its own military leadership.
So while a full-scale Chinese attack on Taiwan is almost certainly off the table for now, an expansion in the already worrying level of China’s grey-zone activities in and around the Taiwan Strait is not, raising the chances of accidental conflict. Where that conflict could lead – particularly given the current high level of tension between China and the United States – is not a happy prospect to contemplate.
Another consequence of the Gaza war concerns China itself –the possibility that, whether it likes it or not, Beijing could now be forced to declare where it stands in the international order.
At least since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, China has played a delicate game, opting for the ill-defined middle ground between a full-scale embrace of unadulterated international authoritarianism on the one hand, and semi-fealty to the American-led international order on the other – the same international order that has allowed its economy to grow and its international influence to expand over the past three decades.
As one example, over the past year and a half, Beijing has carefully refrained from sending large-scale arms supplies to Russia (or at least getting caught at it), even while seemingly cheering on the Russian war effort.
China’s reaction to the Gaza incursion was therefore altogether predictable: calling on both sides to “exercise restraint” while at the same time giving a significant amount of media attention to Iran’s one-sided take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The problem for China is that this sort of unprincipled geopolitical fence-sitting may soon become impossible. This would be particularly true if Israel’s response to the Gaza incursion morphs into a war with Iran.
In that case, anyone with pretensions to global leadership would be required to get off the fence and finally pick a side – either the existing world order or the insurgent authoritarian coalition. Were China to defy expectations and go with the former, then a serious brake on any future Chinese kinetic move against Taiwan would likely come into effect.
On the other hand, were it to further embrace its already close identification with the authoritarian camp, then the exact opposite would occur, with extremely negative consequences for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Peter Enav is a former Associated Press correspondent who served both in Israel and as the AP Taipei bureau chief.
Mike Chinoy is a former CNN Senior Asia correspondent. They are the editors of the Taiwan Strait Risk Report, a monthly newsletter tracking the dangers of conflict over Taiwan.