The Financial Times reported that US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby recently asked Australian and Japanese defense officials how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan.
He also asked them to boost defense spending after NATO just agreed to do so during its latest summit. Colby lent credence to this report by tweeting that he’s “focused on implementing the President’s America First, common sense agenda of restoring deterrence and achieving peace through strength.”
This sequence shows that Trump 2.0 is serious about “Pivoting (back) to (East) Asia” in order to more robustly contain China. This requires freezing the Ukraine war and assembling a de facto Asian NATO – both of which, however, are uncertain.
Regarding the first, Trump is being drawn into “mission creep,” while the latter is challenged by Australia and Japan’s reluctance to step up. To elaborate, they seemingly expected the US to do all the “heavy lifting”, just like NATO expected till recently as well.
That would explain why they didn’t have a clear answer to Colby’s inquiry about how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan. Simply put, they likely never planned to do anything at all, thus exposing the shallowness of the de facto Asian NATO that the US has sought to assemble in recent years via the AUKUS+ format.
This refers to the AUKUS trilateral of Australia, the UK and the US alongside what can be described as the honorary members of Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan.
Australia and Japan are correspondingly envisaged as this informal bloc’s Southeast and Northeast Asian anchors, yet they’re evidently unwilling to fulfill the military roles that their US senior partner expects.
What the US apparently had in mind was them, at the very least, playing supportive logistical roles in the scenario of a Sino-US war, but their representatives reportedly didn’t suggest as much to Colby. This, in turn, reveals that they fear retaliation from China even if they don’t participate in combat.
Japan’s population and resultant economic density make it extremely vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes while unconventional warfare could be waged against Australia through sabotage and the like.
Moreover, China is both of their top trade partners, which opens up additional avenues for retaliation and coercion. At the same time, however, neither of them wants China to seize control of Taiwan’s chip-making powerhouse TSMC (if it even survives a speculative conflict) and thus seize a monopoly over the global semiconductor industry.
The US doesn’t want that either, but the problem is that the two envisaged anchors of its de facto Asian NATO aren’t willing to boost defense spending nor seemingly assist America in a war over Taiwan.
That’s unacceptable from Trump 2.0’s perspective so tariff and other forms of pressure could be applied to coerce Australia and Japan into at least spending more on their armed forces. The endgame, however, is for them to agree to play some sort of role (whether logistical or ideally combative) in that scenario.
Given that the US won’t relent on its “pivot (back) to (East) Asia”, it will likely coerce concessions from Australia and Japan one way or another. The same applies to the other members of AUKUS+, namely South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan, albeit with perhaps a slightly lower defense spending from the latter two.
All in all, the US is rounding up allies ahead of a possible war with China but it’s anyone’s guess whether it actually plans to spark a major conflict.
This article was first published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriber here.
China isn’t the US, they calculate their possible losses beforehand. Not to say they won’t take Taiwan, in all likelihood they will, but in 20 years. They’d want to get rid of their bond holdings and foreign portfolio investments first, as well as liquidate all direct investments in US companies. We’re talking around 4 trillion dollars here. Then they’ll pull the trigger.
@pierre- “once Taiwan falls”? Falls to whom? Surely the General Secretary of the CCP would not bring chaos and violence on a global scale through an invasion of the peaceful self-governing island of Taiwan?
There is greater advantage for both sides to maintain the status quo at present. Unless the General Secretary is an uncompromising ideologue he would understand that. He has not launched anything since taking power in 2012 and I doubt the military balance has tilted much since then.
The Taiwanese have become a bit jaded with the theatrics. However it’s effective in keeping the Americans onside. No one in Taiwan cares about this.
It’s like the boy crying wolf. If someone keeps saying an invasion is imminent for 80 years you cease caring and get on with life.
By the way there would be no functional TSMC following a conflict. A lot of inputs still have to come from the West. This is a red herring.
Looks like the fall of Singapore 2 is in the making but even quicker this time. Once Taiwan falls the PRC (as the Japanese did in WW2) will “pick off” Japan as the golden prize then other asian countries. If Japan and Taiwan were serious they would be begging for Arrow 3 and 4, Iron Beam, Iron Dome etc and requesting joint plants in respective countries now.
But they aren’t. They must know something we don’t or they are suicidal which is doubtful.
Aside from this the opposition party in Taiwan tends to obstruct any moves to increase defense spending and all parties have a lot of factional struggles. Corruption charges and countercharges fly in every direction. The general public has got to be tired and cynical by now.
The US should get out of East Asia. It’s not wanted and adds no value. Any issues in East Asia should and can be sorted out by the parties – no one wants or needs the US interfering.
@lupus The responsible regional allies (Japan, ROK, Philippines, Australia to name a few) disagree with everything you just said. And the USA is a pacific nation, so by definition a stakeholder. Unlike CCP, the USA has no plans to invade anyone in the region.
I would love to hear your definition of ‘responsible’. You talk about plans to invade as if China has launched an actual invasion, rather than simply saying for decades that it will eventually reunite – preferably by peaceful means – with the breakaway province governed by an old Western ally. How many invasions have the US and UK participated in?
Good Lord, swing and a miss. This author obviously hasn’t read Japan’s 2025 White Paper on Defense which clearly spells out that Japan (like all other responsible regional allies) views the CCP and its General Secretary’s as the ONE and ONLY threat to peace and security as a result of his crazy plan to invade the peaceful self-governing island of Taiwan.
Well OK, don’t want to be accused of exaggerating…the white paper does talk a bit about Russia and North Korea….so I can’t say ONLY….but CCP definitely gets top billing as the primary destabilizing force of n the region. So well done General Secretary’s- you’re number one!
Your comic book caricatures are fascinating. I guess Trump did not get the memo. You better pick up the phone and tell him not to phonehis pal Xi. We wouldn’t want the two men to sit down like adults and prevent WW3 would we.? What would India do then. It needs other people to fight its battles.
Would you handcuff yourself to a sinking Ti tanic or buy front row seats after it hit the ice berg?
Countries do not have permanent enemies or friends. Only permanent interests.
Some countries are permanently perfidious