By Julian Ku
The UN Charter prohibits any country from coming to Taiwan’s defense if China invades the island.
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Julian Ku, a law professor at Hofstra University, which responds to a recent Pacific Realist article that argued that Taiwan played a significant if unstated role in Japan’s move toward collective self-defense. This article first appeared on the always excellent Opinio Juris, a one-stop shop for insightful and timely analysis of IR and current events from an international legal perspective.
I’ve been swamped with various projects and distractions here in Taiwan (mostly food-related), so I didn’t notice until today this very interesting Zachary Keck post about how Japan’s recent decision to re-interpret its constitutional provision to allow expanded overseas military activities would enable Japan to help defend Taiwan against an attack from China. It’s a fascinating post, but it also made me think of an interesting wrinkle that cuts against his argument. It is almost certainly true that international law prohibits any military action by Japan (or the U.S.) to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.
In his post, Keck notes that Japan’s decision to reinterpret its constitution does NOT allow Japan to fully exercise its rights to collective self-defense under international law, but it does allow Japan to provide military support to allies where Japan itself is threatened. But he then argues that even under this more narrow “collective self-defense” right, Japan could (and probably would) intervene to assist Taiwan in a military defense against a Chinese invasion.
Read the full story at The Diplomat