Time To Think About The Unthinkable
By Francis P. Sempa
July 07, 2023AP
Twice in the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Taiwan from a Communist Chinese invasion. Writing in The Diplomat, Yi-Lan Fang and Lin Tzu-Yao, both of whom have served as legislative assistants in the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s unicameral legislature, argue that the United States should extend its nuclear umbrella to the island. They view this step as a practical alternative to Taiwan developing its own nuclear deterrent. And they note that Taiwan’s Foreign Minister has confirmed that “the issue has been discussed, without elaborating as to the content of the discussion.”
The EurAsian Times reports that Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told legislators that “Taipei and Washington are engaged in talks” about the American nuclear umbrella being used to deter a Chinese invasion. And the paper quotes Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security, who observed that “the extension of an ally’s nuclear umbrella over Taiwan would significantly benefit Taiwan’s security” by reducing “its susceptibility to nuclear coercion.”
After China conducted its first successful nuclear weapons test in the early 1960s, Taiwan’s government under Chiang Kai-shek sought to acquire nuclear weapons. A key player in Taiwan’s nuclear research, Dr. Chang Hsien-yi, studied nuclear engineering in the United States and was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency which enabled the United States to monitor the progress of Taiwan’s effort to acquire nuclear weapons. According to Yi-Lan Fang and Lin Tzu-Yao, Chang defected to the U.S. in 1988, after which Washington persuaded the Taiwanese government to end its nuclear weapons program. Since then, successive U.S. administrations have relied on a policy of “strategic ambiguity” to deter China from forcibly annexing Taiwan.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/07/07/time_to_think_about_the_unthinkable_964795.html
