Taiwan’s government is increasing energy storage and rethinking the island’s energy mix. It is looking anew at nuclear power, just months after it shut down its last reactor.
But Taiwan’s drive for energy self-sufficiency has a long way to go, leaving the island more immediately focused on a U.S. assessment that Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants his military to be ready to seize Taiwan by force by 2027.
Two U.S. senators introduced legislation in September that would support Taiwan’s ability to secure a reliable supply of American LNG, including providing U.S. insurance for shippers to keep deliveries flowing if the island is threatened.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.) said he co-sponsored the legislation with Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) after participating in a wargame that showed Taiwan running out of LNG within 11 days in a blockade.
“It really highlighted how this could be the Achilles’ heel of Taiwan,” Ricketts said of the wargame, which was run by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD.
While Taiwan could temporarily resist a Chinese blockade and briefly sustain its output of power, the island would require U.S. intervention to restore electricity over a longer period, according to the results of a series of wargames run by the Washington-based
Any Chinese use of force to subdue Taiwan would quickly test President Trump’s appetite for military intervention against Beijing.
U.S. policy about whether to come to Taiwan’s defense in an invasion is intentionally vague. While an overt Chinese attack would force Washington to act quickly, a more subtle interruption of Taiwan’s seaborne trade, including of fuel, would complicate decision-making in Washington.
For example, Beijing could subject vessels serving Taiwan to inspection by declaring a law-enforcement or health action, allowing Beijing to quietly raise pressure on Taipei. Since a blockade is an act of war against an enemy state, China would call its action something else, such as a quarantine.
A Chinese quarantine would force Taiwan and the U.S. to decide whether to take military action and potentially be accused of starting a war.
“This is the kind of coercion that flies under the threshold of war, but could still bring Taiwan to its knees,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the FDD, who testified Tuesday about the topic on Capitol Hill at a hearing chaired by Ricketts.
In a blockade, Taiwan’s LNG supplies would last under two weeks, while coal would last seven, the CSIS wargames concluded.
The Wall Street Journal
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