Trump’s Taiwan Contingency Plan: Right Questions, Wrong Approach

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According to a Financial Times report published on 13 July 2025, United States (US) Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eldridge Colby has been on a mission to persuade Washington’s key Indo-Pacific allies, particularly Australia and Japan, to clarify their positions in the event of a US-China shooting war over Taiwan. Understandably, both allies refrained from giving any direct answer. Forging such contingencies requires robust political commitment and confidence-building among allies. However, the Donald Trump administration has not been sending the right signals to its Indo-Pacific partners.

While the question of whether and when China intends to invade Taiwan is a subject of intense speculation, one apparent “deadline” that often stands out is 2027, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). President Xi Jinping considers this period as the time when China would have comprehensively improved its “strategic capabilities to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests”. The Trump administration also appears to take this deadline seriously, given the warning by former US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson in 2021– also referred to as the “Davidson Window”.

Ultimately, if the US and China enter a shooting war over Taiwan, Washington would want to leverage its alliance network in the Western Pacific. However, the past few weeks have revealed faultlines within the hub-and-spokes network.

Ultimately, if the US and China enter a shooting war over Taiwan, Washington would want to leverage its alliance network in the Western Pacific. However, the past few weeks have revealed faultlines within the hub-and-spokes network, particularly due to the Trump administration's haphazard approach towards its key Western Pacific allies – Japan and Australia.

What needs to be established first is that while the US has bilateral treaty alliances with Japan and Australia, neither ally’s security treaty with Washington legally and explicitly commits them to any military role in a conflict that does not involve a direct attack against territory under their administration. However, there are nuances in the treaties' texts—for instance, Article VI of the US-Japan defense treaty notes that Tokyo would accept and support the deployment of US forces on Japanese soil to contribute to regional stability; however, it does not explicitly mention the active involvement of the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) outside a defence-of-Japan scenario. Similarly, Australia's  1951 alliance treaty with the US revolves around mutual consultation in the face of “common danger”.

Nevertheless, the absence of an explicit legal obligation in the treaties does not mean that a potential allied action is not possible in the event of a contingency. This is where political leadership, inter-state coordination, and confidence-building play a significant part in filling these gaps. Along with Japan's reinvigorated efforts to enhance its national security capabilities in the past few years, its defence circles have begun acknowledging that an attack on Taiwan would have direct implications for the East Asian country, especially if the PLA sought to target US bases in Japan. In 2022, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for the US to abandon its ‘strategic ambiguity’ over Taiwan. On the other hand, Australia has been more tempered in its approach, mainly due to its trade relationship with China. However, Canberra has become increasingly aware that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan might not remain confined to that geographic space alone, especially given that China has escalated its provocative and aggressive actions against Australia in the past four years.

The absence of an explicit legal obligation in the treaties does not mean that a potential allied action is not possible in the event of a contingency. This is where political leadership, inter-state coordination, and confidence-building play a significant part in filling these gaps.

While contingency planning is crucial between the US, Japan, and Australia, Washington has not been able to cultivate the right conditions to forward such an agenda with its allies. In fact, the Trump administration has bluntly asserted its dominance in renegotiating the terms of what it views as an unfair patron-client relationship with its allies. This was evident when the administration demanded that its Indo-Pacific allies raise their defence spending to five percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a manner that was unpalatable to Canberra, Seoul, and especially Tokyo. The Trump administration will also likely extend its review of the AUKUS pact, leaving Australian policymakers feeling more uncertain. On the economic front, early into Trump’s second term, the US waged an indiscriminate trade war, following the administration’s decision to levy what it termed “reciprocal tariffs”. Given that Japan could not secure an equitable trade deal with the US, Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on Washington’s most important ally in the Indo-Pacific, calling it “spoiled” for not submitting to his terms for a trade deal.

While the US maintains significant military and economic power in the Indo-Pacific, the Trump administration's inability to recognise the need to work with its key regional allies on equitable terms only creates more challenges for a cohesive response to any critical conflict in the region. The apparent misalignment between Trump's defence expectations and economic demands hinders integrated planning and coordination, even though both Japan and Australia are well aware of the implications of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Furthermore, the fact that the US also maintains an ambiguous posture regarding Taiwan's defence makes it even more challenging for key allies to explicitly commit to Taipei’s defence, given the uncertainties of regional dynamics.

While contingency planning is crucial between the US, Japan, and Australia, Washington has not been able to cultivate the right conditions to forward such an agenda with its allies.

Therefore, while all members of the hub-and-spoke network recognise the urgency of contingency planning for a conflict scenario in the Taiwan Strait, the US must rethink its diplomatic approach, recognising that any successful allied response would hinge on the degree of collective political will rather than any written treaty obligation. Ultimately, Washington will have to reorient how it engages with its allies in the Indo-Pacific if it intends to execute a collective plan of action.

Don McLain Gill is a Philippines-based geopolitical analyst, author, and lecturer at the Department of International Studies, De La Salle University.

• International Affairs
• China
• USA and Canada
• china taiwan relations
• chinese aggression Taiwan
• us taiwan defence ties
• us taiwan defence treaty
• us taiwan relations
• us taiwan relationship

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