A military conflict between the US and China over Taiwan could rapidly snowball into a nuclear crisis, a new defence assessment warned after Beijing issued a stark warning to Washington over its support to the island.
The report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a defence research organisation based in London, warns the world is on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race “with the Asia-Pacific at its core”.
The assessment was released during the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s biggest defence conference, which concludes in Singapore this weekend.
The report notes that “regional states and those with strategic interests are expanding their nuclear arsenals while non-nuclear weapons states pursue long-range conventional-strike capabilities, both challenging strategic stability”.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and doesn’t rule out the use of force to take control of the island, although it claims to prefer “peaceful reunification”. Taiwan’s democratically-elected government rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty.
China is ramping up pressure on Taiwan by increasing its military presence around the island, keeping Taipei on high alert.
On Thursday, China’s foreign ministry reiterated that maintaining peace in the region required strict opposition to Taiwan’s independence.
It also urged the US to honour and implement mutual understandings between their two nations.
The new assessment examines evolving military doctrines across the Indo-Pacific and how a conflict over Taiwan might play out.
“Conflict with China would risk escalation, potentially to a nuclear level, given the strategic importance of Taiwan to Beijing,” it argues.
“There’s currently little public evidence to suggest that both militaries understand the necessary guard rails to prevent, or rules of engagement that would restrict both sides potentially targeting each other’s key command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance nodes.”
“The prospect of nuclear escalation,” it concludes, “will thus continue to loom large in a major US-China conflict.”
The Shangri-La Dialogue runs from 19 to 31 May, with American defence secretary Pete Hegseth set to address the event on Saturday.
China is yet to confirm if defence minister Dong Jun is attending.
The fate of Taiwan and uncertainty about US commitments to key regional players are expected to feature prominently in discussions at the conference, alongside the US-Israeli war against Iran.
This comes after Chinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed Beijing’s red lines on Taiwan directly to Donald Trump during the US president’s landmark visit to the Asian rival earlier this month. Taiwan featured prominently in the very first meeting of the leaders as Mr Xi warned that US support for Taipei could lead to a clash or even conflict.
Following the meeting, Washington paused a $14bn arms sale to Taiwan. That came after Mr Trump had suggested that he could use arms sales to Taiwan as a “negotiating chip” in future talks with Beijing.
Daniel Salisbury, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, noted that there was no specific discussion on nuclear weapons during the Trump-Xi summit and that the situation between their nations was “quite difficult” on the nuclear front.
In contrast, he said, the US had many conversations with the Soviet Union about arms control and risk reduction measures during the Cold War. He noted that any conversation with Beijing would be more complicated given that a lot of its nuclear arsenal was concealed.
“That culture of discussion is just not there at the moment so there’s far less to build on in that relationship,” he said.
China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons is dwarfed by both America’s and Russia’s but it is rapidly building up and improving its capabilities. A US Department of Defence report estimates that China will possess 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.
Russia and the US field 4,400 and 3,700 active nuclear warheads, respectively, while China’s arsenal numbers 620, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
