If something happens to Taiwan, it means something happens to the United States

 Direct translation

Miles Yu : If something happens to Taiwan, it means something happens to the United States

Commentator : Miles Yu / Editor: Li Guangsong / https://www.aboluowang.com/2025/1126/2310975.html / Image : Aboluowang

In her recent policy statement, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi articulated a significant position on the Taiwan issue, one that stands in stark contrast to the prevailing global narrative regarding tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

While most of the world remains trapped in the discourse framework relentlessly promoted by Beijing, portraying Taiwan as a Chinese "internal affair," a "unification vs. independence" issue, and therefore outside the scope of international concern, Ms. Takaichi completely circumvents this premise.

Instead, she grounds Japan's position in the concrete geographical and strategic realities of Japan's security environment, rather than in abstract sovereignty issues or historical claims. In doing so, she provides a model for democracies, particularly the United States, to rethink their own interests in Taiwan's future.

Beijing's preferred narrative—that Taiwan "belongs to China" and other countries should remain neutral—has long influenced global discourse, even among democracies skeptical of China's intentions.

This framework subtly compels the international community to view Taiwan's security issue from a Chinese nationalist perspective, rather than from the perspective of Indo-Pacific geopolitical balance. The result is a timid diplomatic vocabulary: countries express "opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo," "support for a peaceful resolution," or "maintaining strategic ambiguity," but rarely clearly explain what Taiwan's fate means for their own national security.

Ms. Takaichi, however, cuts to the chase. She does not waste time arguing about China's historical claims or Taiwan's political status, but focuses with remarkable clarity on the implications for Japan. She points out that Taiwan is less than seventy miles from Yonaguni Island, Japan. Japan's key shipping lanes, energy transport routes, and defense perimeter all directly intersect with Taiwan's airspace and waters. A Taiwan controlled by China would not only alter the balance of power in East Asia but would also allow the People's Liberation Army to directly pressure Japan's southern flank, threaten the Ryukyu Islands, restrict Japan's maritime routes, and deeply extend Beijing's anti-access/area denial capabilities into the Western Pacific.

In other words, if Taiwan falls, Japan's security will collapse.

This argument is starkly different from common pro-Taiwan justifications based on morality or values. It is not out of sympathy for a thriving democracy under threat—though Japan certainly does possess such sympathy; nor is it to defend "international norms"—though Tokyo also values ​​them highly. Instead, Sanae Takaichi explicitly asserts: defending Taiwan is defending Japan. These interests are direct, concrete, and unambiguously tied to Japan's national interests.

This repositioning has two important implications. First, it avoids falling into the rhetoric traps favored by Beijing, such as "Chinese sovereignty" or "unification versus Taiwan independence," which are rhetorical traps. Once foreign governments accept that the Taiwan issue is "essentially a matter of Chinese ownership," all subsequent discourse becomes passive, limited, or weakened.

Second, it provides other democracies with a clear and frank template for articulating their own interests. Washington, in particular, should pay close attention.

The United States' long-standing policy toward Taiwan has emphasized deterrence, democracy, and maintaining peace and stability. These principles are important but they fail to fully express the specific national interests facing the United States.

Like Japan, if Taiwan falls under Beijing's control, the United States' strategic environment and its own national interests will be fundamentally altered. Beyond the prospect of Taiwan's global semiconductor manufacturing leadership falling into the hands of communist China—a near-certain blow to the U.S. economy—a PLA-controlled Taiwan would also tear apart the First Island Chain, allowing China unimpeded military projection into the Central Pacific.

This would also give China control of the region's last strategic chokepoint, linking its claims in the East China Sea with its ambitions in the South China Sea, effectively placing the entire Western Pacific under Beijing's control.

It would also undermine U.S. alliances with Japan and the Philippines, threaten Guam, and destroy the U.S.'s credibility as the guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific.

Furthermore, it would accelerate the collapse of democratic confidence in the region and encourage the expansion of other authoritarian powers. Crucially, it would enable Beijing to challenge U.S. air and sea superiority in a way that directly impacts U.S. economic and security interests, with effects lasting for decades.

However, Washington continues to address the Taiwan issue primarily in rhetoric of supporting democracy or opposing coercion. While these goals are commendable, they are far from sufficient to mobilize sustained national will.

What the United States needs is the same strategic clarity as Sanae Takaichi: defending Taiwan is not only not Taiwan's own problem, nor even primarily a problem belonging to China, but a matter of U.S. interests that will immediately impact U.S. security. By viewing Taiwan as a matter of self-interest, rather than an altruistic moral handout, Washington can more effectively explain Taiwan's importance to itself and its allies.

This is not merely about protecting a democracy, nor simply about avoiding conflict, but about preventing a drastic shift in the global balance of power and preventing the United States from becoming less secure, less influential, and less able to shape the international order.

Therefore, Takaichi's argument not only reminds Japan of its own geopolitical vulnerability but also extends a strategic invitation to the United States: to view Taiwan with a more realistic perspective.

Taiwan's defense is in the national interests of both Japan and the United States. Beijing wants the world to continue debating Taiwan's "status."

Takaichi suggests that democracies should focus on their own interests, their own geography, and their own security. Washington should heed this advice. Defending Taiwan, in its most pragmatic and far-reaching sense, is defending America's own future.