Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate Taiwan and Saudi Arabia seem to be the most popular policy affs. Today I want to talk about strategic negative arguments that exploit weaknesses inherent to the Taiwan aff. The Taiwan aff is one of the best and most popular affs on the topic, so let’s take it down a peg. Taiwan affs come in a couple of flavors, but by far the most common advantages are US-China war and relations. Let’s focus on the US-China war advantage, as that’s both the most common advantage for and the most common DA against Taiwan affs. A ton of debates look like this: the aff reads a big US-China war advantage with a ton of internal links, and a little itty bitty relations advantage. The neg reads a diverse 1NC (maybe) but collapses down to a deterrence DA in what essentially becomes a case turn.
Most aff internal links fit into two categories: arms sales bad and adjustment good. Arms sales bad is the argument that a strong Taiwan backed by the US (arms sales) rightfully scares China, and they will attack Taiwan to prevent a successful containment strategy by the US. In other words, if China fears encirclement (that the US is using its alliance with Taiwan to surround and contain China) they will lash out to preserve freedom of action in their sphere of influence- and to push the US out of it. Removing arms sales from Taiwan solves because without US backing Taiwanese leaders will have to back down from claims of independence- without the US backing them vis-à-vis arms sales they’ll be forced to reconcile with China. The second category of internal links is adjustment good. This is the argument that US arms don’t actually help Taiwan- they’re either provocative (incentivize Chinese attack) or not useful to Taiwan (don’t bolster deterrence). Ending arms sales, the aff argues, will force Taiwan to make strategic adjustments in military policy and develop indigenous capabilities that are better suited to deterring China. Some teams read specific internal links about particular warplanes/subs the US is helping Taiwan develop being bad, and some make varying arguments about what Taiwan would develop in the absence of US aid. The common thread is that the new tech/strategies would be both less provocative and more effective. This category of link arguments looks strategic for the aff because it’s both an internal link to war (specific arms sales are provocative) and a link turn to the deterrence DA (ending arms sales leads to more effective weapons systems). However, I think there’s two big problems for the aff. I call these window of weakness and perception of reversibility. 1) Window of weakness. This is a response to the adjustment good link turn to deterrence- that developing new strategies and tech will take time. For example, maybe the aff says that ending arms sales leads Taiwan to develop diesel subs and littoral combat ships. Sure, maybe those things would be awesome, but Taiwan can’t build them overnight. By ending US arms sales (including technical support and maintenance for US weapons), the plan creates an immediate vulnerability. Even worse, Taiwan’s preparation to develop new technology that is more threatening to China (all aff args) creates an incentive for China to attack in the interim- during Taiwan’s window of weakness. An immediate vulnerability plus the promise of a more significant future threat means China not only has an incentive to attack, but there is pressure to do so because windows close- China will lose it’s only opportunity to strike if it doesn’t act quickly and attack before Taiwan develops the new weapons systems the aff is talking about. This pressure is an additional internal link to war, but it’s also a timeframe argument for the neg war scenarios outweighing. 2) Perception of reversibility. We all know fiat is durable. That means, in order for a good debate to happen, we have to presume not only that the plan happens, but that it is not rolled back. In other words, the plan is not just implemented- it’s implementation is assumed to be durable and lasting. If we didn’t make this assumption, a good debate could not happen. The reason is the inherency doublebind- if affs could be rolled back, they would be, for the very reasons the aff isn’t happening now. If the US wants give Taiwan arms sales and your definition/understanding of fiat allows that to happen, of course it will happen. Okay- that’s how fiat works. That means the plan can’t be rolled back- a future president can’t decide they want to restore arms sales to Taiwan and then do that, because fiat is durable. But. Here’s the catch. Other countries don’t know about fiat. Durable fiat means a future President Warren or Biden can’t restore arms sales to Taiwan. But China doesn’t know that. That President Biden couldn’t reverse the plan in 2021 doesn’t mean Candidate Biden couldn’t campaign on a promise to do that every day. And given the current political dynamics surrounding Trump, foreign policy, abandoning allies, and arms sales in particular, I think it’s a darn good bet that Biden et al would be calling the plan malarkey every day between now and November 3rd, 2020. So you’re China. The US has ended arms sales to Taiwan, but Trump is on shaky political grounds. He might win re-election, but he might not. He’s already been impeached. And even if he wins in 2020, the GOP might lose the Senate, or the dems might win in 2024. Arms sales are gone for now, but the backlash to that policy is palatable. There’s a number of different ways you could envision arms sales being restored to Taiwan if Trump’s political circumstances weaken- or if he just changes his mind. Again- fiat obviously precludes that. But this is a perception argument. It’s not a question of whether the plan will be rolled back, it’s a question of whether China thinks it might be. Again, other countries don’t know if fiat is real. So why’s it matter? If China thinks arms sales will be restored, they’ll act accordingly – and according to the aff, that means starting a war. The best thing about both of these arguments is they put the logic of the aff to work against itself. The impact to perception of reversibility is that China will behave as if arms sales will be restored- and the aff argues that if China thinks Taiwan is receiving arms sales, they’ll go to war. The impact to window of weakness is that China believes Taiwan will be vulnerable- and according to the aff adjustment good internal links, that means they’ll go to war. These args let you use arguments the aff made to beat the aff. Have questions or comments? Post below! Do you have a topic you’d like us to address in a future post? Email us at [email protected] Go Pokes!
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