Amid global instability — from U.S. President Donald Trump's war against Iran to the Russia/Ukraine war — geopolitics experts are concerned that another major crisis could erupt if Mainland China invades Taiwan. Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will examined that possibility in a Friday column, warning that the consequences of such an invasion would be enormous.

“Deterrence employs military, diplomatic, economic, technological and political measures to prevent wars,” Will wrote in his Washington Post column. “The number of times deterrence has failed approximately equals the number of wars history has seen. Deterrence failed to protect Ukraine against aggression, the consequences of which are slight compared with those that would follow a failure to deter Chinese President Xi Jinping from invading Taiwan, or attempting to coerce its surrender by measures (intended to be) just short of war. Xi has ordered his military to be able to seize Taiwan in 2027.”

“Deterring this involves influencing one person: Xi,” Will added. “But the myriad variables involved are staggering.”

The Never Trump conservative based his argument in part on the work of geopolitics expert Eyck Freymann and Freymann’s 2026 book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China.

Freymann, a Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford University in California, argues that an invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China would have severe consequences not only for Taiwan but also for many other countries.

“He believes that U.S. abandonment of Taiwan ‘isn’t an option,’” Will wrote. “The ‘disastrous, cascading consequences’ of Taiwan's forced submission to Beijing would include the collapse of U.S. credibility, Beijing's domination of its Indo-Pacific neighbors, including their involvement in the global economy, and an incentive for Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons.”

Will also highlighted Taiwan’s role in the semiconductor industry. “Taiwan, a vibrant democracy of 23 million, is the world's most important supplier of the high-end chips that power economic modernity, including 90 percent of the most advanced chips powering artificial intelligence … Xi's constant ‘gray zone’ operations — economic, legal, cyber and sociocultural — include military violations of Taiwan's territorial waters and airspace,” he wrote.

Xi could seek to supplement those operations with a quarantine — Beijing’s control of Taiwan’s international trade, justified as “customs enforcement.” Freymann writes that such measures could “incrementally establish the norm that Taiwan no longer has full practical control over” its global economic interactions.

According to Freymann, deterring a Mainland China invasion would require demonstrating to Xi that the United States could “decisively” defeat China in an “all-out air-naval war” near China.

“Freymann says — startlingly, without elaboration — that by seizing Taiwan, Xi could make himself ‘untouchable by rivals in his old age,’” Will observed. “It is relevant, and unsettling, that Xi, who visits here next week, has thrived in such a high-risk, high-stakes, uncivilized political milieu.”

Source: Alternet. The book referenced by Will is Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China.