A China-Taiwan war simulation that assumes a Trump return to office in 2025 warns Taiwan would be ‘toast’
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
What would happen if tensions escalated between Taiwan and China in 2025 during a potential second Trump administration?
One war game simulation suggested the conflict would be swift — and ended with a troubling omen for Taiwan.
“Taiwan was toast,” Alexander C. Huang, an international relations director for Taiwan’s KMT political party, told The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof.
KMT, or Kuomintang, is Taiwan’s main opposition party that opposes the island country’s independence.
Huang told Kristof that the simulation was intended to last three hours but ended in just two without shots being fired.
According to Kristof, in the game, Taiwan couldn’t meet the hypothetical demands China and America would make in the simulation, such as a timeline for a unification — in which China and Taiwan are consolidated — and pressure from the US to spend more on Taiwan’s military.
War games are conducted as part of an exercise to think out potential scenarios and strategies in case of a conflict, but the results should not be taken as guaranteed.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based national security think tank, ran a simulation 24 times and found that in “most scenarios,” the US, Taiwan, and Japan could fend off China during an amphibious invasion.
But the defense would come at a “high cost,” with Taiwan’s economy decimated, the found.
Donald Trump’s unpredictability also has some political experts and analysts concerned about what a second Trump term could mean for China-Taiwan relations.
“Trump is completely unreliable as an ally or an opponent” for China, Stanley Rosen, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute, previously told Business Insider.
In interviews, Trump has repeatedly refused to explicitly say if he would come to Taiwan’s defense if China invaded.
“Trump is very popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong because they think he talks tough and is tough,” Rosen said. “But he doesn’t follow through.”
