China continues to have “very strong and direct” objections to US arms sales to Taiwan, a meeting of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington has been told.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia David Sedney said that during talks with Chinese military leaders in Beijing last week he found that the level of concern remained high despite improved relations with the US and a reduction of political tension with Taipei.
But significantly, he said that while the Chinese objections remained strong, they were presented in such a way as to allow the talks to continue and not to stop other discussions.
The talks formally restarted US military-to-military exchanges with China, which Beijing cut off last year to protest former US president George W. Bush administration’s approval in October of a US$6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan.
Asked if the US had seen any “draw-down,” or reduction, in Chinese weaponry facing Taiwan, Sedney said “no,” there had been none and there was no change in the Chinese posture toward Taiwan.
Sedney said there was a willingness on both sides to discuss and come up with confidence-building measures “in this important and serious area” but did not detail what they were.
The commission hearing, held in a US Senate office building, was to examine China’s global military and security activities and their impact on US economic and security interests.
“As China emerges as a power with global ambitions, it is natural, indeed expected, that its military and security activities abroad will expand consistent with its capacities and strategic aims,” Sedney said in his opening statement.
“Far from seeking to contain China, US policy has been one of actively involving China in the international community of nations, and in this regard the United States has done much over the last 30 years to assist, facilitate and encourage China’s development and integration in the global system,” he said.
He said the US should take every possible opportunity to encourage China to wield its growing power and resources responsibly.
“US-China dialogue is crucial to this effort, due to the fragile dynamics of today’s economic and security environment,” he said.
In what appeared to be a reference to Taiwan, he said: “Strategic miscalculations that could provoke outbreaks of regional or global conflict or instability would be extremely damaging to both China’s and our interests. Our ongoing efforts at strategic dialogue have resulted in some incremental, modest progress.”
“I believe that we have become more successful recently at convincing the Chinese that our concerns are genuine — not simply an excuse to undermine China and its sovereignty, but in fact issues that a responsible world power needs to consider — but, of course, there is still a long way to go,” he said.
John Norris, US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said the US still had differences with some key elements of China’s security policy as well as a “lack of transparency about its military modernization.”
“We meanwhile will continue to abide by our obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act to make available arms for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability,” he said. “Where we have differences, we will continue to make our viewpoint on such matters clear to the PRC [People’s Republic of China], and we of course will defend our interests. But we cannot define our bilateral relationship on our differences to the detriment of possible progress on key US priorities.”
Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College, said that China’s decision to send warships to the Arabian Sea to help with the fight against Somali pirates indicated a degree of confidence on Beijing’s part “about the Taiwan situation, a perhaps increasing confidence that de jure Taiwan independence is no longer in the offing, and that the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] may safely be dedicated to situations fitting China’s increasing role as a global power.”
“This in turn may indicate Beijing’s reordering or at least loosening of strategic priorities … If the PLA no longer has to devote its attention and resources almost solely to a Taiwan scenario, then it has forces available for Beijing to employ in military operations other than war. This possibility may be supported by China’s 2008 Defense White Paper, in which Taiwan was mentioned only once,” Cole said.
Retired Rear Admiral Eric McVadon pointed out the “seeming contradiction” of simultaneously engaging with a modernizing China and hedging against an emerging China “obsessed with Taiwan.”
“What is new is an influential China that now increasingly must be taken seriously militarily — as is dramatically illustrated by the existing submarine-launched cruise-missile threat to US Navy forces and the impending ballistic missile designed to hit ships at sea,” McVadon said.
“Even with the Taiwan issue unresolved, cooperation while hedging makes sense ... Maritime engagement with China would give the US Pacific Command and Pacific Fleet an added link for operational cooperation in the region and a means in this sensitive arena to maintain personal contacts and close communications both routinely and during a crisis,” he said.
“It would reinforce the idea of cooperation despite continuing differences across the Strait. Put another way, the Taiwan issue is not the whole story. The macro-view of US-China relations encompasses many areas of strategic alignment and cooperative efforts on profoundly important international security issues where expanded Chinese influence is not feared but welcomed,” he said.
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