Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said Chinese leader Xi Jinping should see the global support Ukraine is receiving and know that Taiwan would receive the same support if China were to invade.
“Any attempt by Xi to forcefully invade Taiwan would be catastrophic for the Chinese Communist Party," Lamborn told State Newswire. “Democratic states worldwide have proven that unprovoked aggression against free and independent states is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Xi must know that this unity for Ukraine would extend to Taiwan, resulting in intolerable economic, diplomatic, and political consequences for his regime.”
Lamborn was responding to "'Reunification' with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China," a report released Nov. 22 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The report, authored by Jude Blanchette, CSIS' Freeman Chair in China Studies and Gerard DiPippo, CSIS Senior Fellow of the Economics Program, states most focus has been on the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, without giving consideration to nonmilitary consequences of such a move.
"This brief explores the implications of a Chinese attack on Taiwan based on reasonable, albeit speculative, assumptions," CSIS states in its synopsis.
"Nearly all discussions of China’s potential invasion of Taiwan ignore the economic and diplomatic costs of such a move," the report states, "make unrealistic assumptions about what China could achieve (including technological and economic gains), or otherwise minimize the challenges that China would face if an invasion of Taiwan were successful."
The report assumes that China would not use nuclear weapons and that U.S. military forces would engage in a limited intervention that would not ultimately defeat China. "Meaningful” intervention by the U.S. military would drastically increase the costs incurred by China, according to the report. The military conflict would most likely take place close to China's “most economically important and populated provinces.” Chinese forces would be occupying an island with “a hostile population” and “a shattered local economy,” the report states.
The report states that if China were to use direct lethal force to defeat Taiwan's army and depose the island's existing civilian leadership, Beijing would face potentially severe costs on multiple fronts, and sacrifice progress toward becoming a global superpower. A forced "reunification" would be immediately met with economic repercussions from the global community, the CSIS report states, compromising China's ability to import and export goods, decrease the value of Chinese currency, harm its domestic markets, and impact business sentiment toward China.
The Taiwan Relations Act, enacted in 1979, asserts that the U.S. aims to maintain peaceful trade and cultural relations with both Taiwan and China, but specifies that “the United States shall provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character and shall maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan,” according to the Congressional Record.
Lamborn served in Colorado's General Assembly for more than 10 years before being elected to represent the state's Fifth Congressional District in 2006, according to his website. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Ranking Member on the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.
