The US, the study says, should avoid pressuring Taiwan to enter into discussions that the Taiwanese leadership deems premature and should also make clear its support in principle for cross-strait agreements that are reached by the “free and uncoerced choice of the people on both sides.”
Green said the US had a critical role in providing support and leverage for Taiwan’s position when it came to negotiating military CBMs.
“Beijing would be very satisfied with an outcome where some symbolic CBMs lead to a peace framework agreement that is predicated on an end to US arms sales to Taiwan or otherwise constraining Taiwan’s defense,” he said.
“The military imbalance is growing to Beijing’s advantage. In this environment there may be a temptation in Beijing to not push meaningful CBMs, but rather to watch Taiwan’s strategic military situation get more and more problematic and then use the CBM process to lock that vulnerability in with constraints on Taiwan’s readiness,” he said.
Cossa said that as Ma’s popularity has dropped, China’s perception that time was on its side and that it would leave some issues until Ma’s second term, had begun to fade.
He said: “No one in Beijing talks about Ma’s second term now. They talk about the need to consolidate what has been done.”
RSS