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It’s April 22, 2027, and 72 hours into a first-strike Chinese attack on Taiwan and the U.S. military response. Already, the toll on all sides is staggering.
It was a war game, but one with a serious purpose and high-profile players: members of the House select committee on China. The conflict unfolded on Risk board game-style tabletop maps and markers under a giant gold chandelier in the House Ways and Means Committee room.
The exercise explored American diplomatic, economic, and military options if the United States and China were to reach the brink of war over Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own. The exercise played out one night last week and was observed by The Associated Press. It was part of the committee’s in-depth review of U.S. policies toward China as lawmakers, especially in the Republican-led House, focus on tensions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In the war game, Beijing’s missiles and rockets cascade down on Taiwan and on U.S. forces as far away as Japan and Guam. Initial casualties include hundreds, possibly thousands, of U.S. troops. Taiwan’s and China’s losses are even higher.
Discouragingly for Washington, alarmed and alienated allies in the war game leave Americans to fight almost entirely alone in support of Taiwan.
And forget about a U.S. hotline call to Chinese leader Xi Jinping or one of his top generals to calm things down—not happening, at least not under this role-playing scenario.
The war game wasn’t about planning a war, lawmakers said. It was about figuring out how to strengthen U.S. deterrence, to keep a war involving the United States, China, and Taiwan from ever starting.
Ideally, the members of Congress would walk out of the war game with two convictions, the committee chairman, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), told colleagues at the outset: “One is a sense of urgency.”
The second: “A sense … that there are meaningful things we can do in this Congress through legislative action to improve the prospect of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Gallagher said.
In reality, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s top Democrat, told lawmakers, “we cannot have a situation where we are faced with what we are going to be facing tonight.”
The “only way to do that is to deter aggression and to prevent a conflict from arising,” said Rep. Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).
The United States doesn’t formally recognize the Taiwan government but is Taipei’s most vital provider of weapons and other security assistance.
