Biden plays down the Communist Party threat, and Republicans, including Trump, are noncommittal on Taiwan.
The 2024 presidential race is the first since America woke up to a double shock from China: Not only has Beijing spurned U.S. “engagement” and emerged as our top strategic rival, but America also faces the real risk of losing a war to China over Taiwan by 2027, if not sooner. Responding to these shocks is the primary national-security challenge facing the next commander in chief.
The candidates, however, are saying surprisingly little about the subject. The first Republican primary debate all but ignored it. There was only one question about China, which North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum answered. Discussion shifted to securing the southern border, with China mentioned later only in passing. Voters deserve a direct discussion of the Chinese military threat.
Start with Joe Biden. He has repeatedly committed to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an assault from Beijing. This is a momentous commitment. Yet he also has sought to cut the defense budget, defer naval shipbuilding, and play down the China threat.
Visiting Vietnam last week, Mr. Biden asserted that China’s economic woes make a Taiwan invasion less likely. In June he told donors, “Don’t worry about China. I mean, worry about China. But don’t worry about China. No, but I really mean it. China is real—has real economic difficulties.” In this year’s State of the Union address, he said, “Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger. Name me a world leader who’d change places with Xi Jinping. Name me one. Name me one.” This is a Biden pattern. In 2019, he said, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. . . . They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. . . . They’re not competition for us.”
Mr. Biden has taken important steps to compete with China: semiconductor export controls, the Chips Act, new security arrangements with U.S. allies. But his words play down the China threat and he appears not to appreciate the gravity of his pledges to wage war if China moves militarily against Taiwan.
Underestimating the China risk is a longstanding American strategic error. For decades, we saw China as weaker, less productive, less innovative, less stable and less hostile to us than it has been. China has internal challenges, including slower economic growth, declining exports and high youth unemployment. But it is hostile and capable, and the U.S. is underprepared to counter it.
China’s economic and technological strength dwarfs that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Since 1885 the U.S. has never faced a competitor or group of competitors with a gross domestic product greater than 40% of our own. China’s economy is likely at least 75% of ours. It also has a larger navy (even more so in its home waters) and a shipbuilding capability that far exceeds ours.
Republican candidates talk about China in speeches and op-eds and on the stump. But they generally focus on issues such as trade, fentanyl and stopping Beijing-linked purchases of U.S. land. These are important but distinct from the matter of preparing to deter or win a war against China.
Some of the key questions:
- Should U.S. forces defend Taiwan from Beijing?Among Republicans, Donald Trump reportedly dismissed the notion of defending Taiwan while he was president, and he has been noncommittal since. Ron DeSantis has been similarly noncommittal. Chris Christie says he would use the U.S. military against China if it was unavoidable. Nikki Haley pledges to “do whatever we need to do to defend Taiwan, much like we have done what we needed to do to defend Ukraine,” which elides the question of whether the U.S. would fight. Vivek Ramaswamy’s position shifted three times in two weeks. Others are no clearer.
The danger, however, is that abandoning Taiwan would increase risks of an even greater war down the road, emboldening Beijing to attack other neighbors and bully an enfeebled America.
- How much should we spend on defense?America spent 7.5% of GDP on defense on average during the Cold War. Today we spend about 3.1%. That amounts to only 12% of the federal budget—a post-World War II low and less than half what it was a decade ago, when the world was far less dangerous. There is justified desire for fiscal restraint in Washington, but it makes no sense to economize in ways that make war, and U.S. defeat, more likely.
Harry Truman tripled defense spending (from about 5% of GDP to 14%) after the Korean War began. Ronald Reagan took it from 5.2% of GDP to 6.8% in the 1980s on the way to winning the Cold War. Thus far, only one Republican candidate, Mike Pence, has called for a GDP floor for defense spending, of at least 3.5%. More appropriate would be doubling to 6%, still below the Cold War average.
- Where is our “600-ship Navy”?Reagan’s 1980 campaign pledge of a 600-ship Navy was good strategy and good messaging of the kind that is wanting today. The Navy now has 299 ships (82 short of its own requirements) and has averaged 10 ships below procurement plans since 2017. The commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command has called for six shipyards, up from four. The Army plans to build only 22 tanks this year. Raytheon’s CEO recently made a shocking plea to “find a way to get along with China” because it would be “impractical” to pull U.S. supply chains out of China in case of war.
The industrial and material demands of the Ukraine war are a warning. A think-tank study this year found that in a Taiwan war, the U.S. might lose more combat aircraft and ships in several weeks than it has in the last half-century. Today’s Reaganesque plan may focus on missiles or other capabilities over ship counts, but the point is to boost capabilities commensurate with the threat.
Yet, apart from Mr. Pence, no candidate’s website promises a specific increase to the U.S. military’s budget and capability. Any candidate seeking the mantle of Reagan (or FDR) owes voters better. Next week’s debate may provide an opportunity.
Mr. Scheinmann is executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Society. Mr. Feith, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, served on the State Department policy-planning staff and as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, 2017-21.
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Appeared in the September 20, 2023, print edition as ‘Why Aren’t the Presidential Candidates Debating China?’.