Beijing may be “miscalculating” its leverage over the US and arms sales to Taiwan, China academic Alan Romberg said.
Romberg, director of the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, said in a newly published study that China’s more assertive attitude on arms sales may “backfire.”
Beijing may be failing to take adequate account that it is not China alone that has a strategic interest in “the Taiwan question,” Romberg wrote.
“Other nations, including the United States, may not have a role in determining the ultimate shape of relations between Taiwan and the mainland — that is up to the two sides. But they have a major stake in seeing that any resolution is not only peaceful, but uncoerced,” Romberg said.
Romberg added that China’s argument that Taiwan is a “core issue” for itself, but not for others, implicitly undervalues the genuine national security interests of other nations and does not contribute to constructive thinking about how to manage differences.
“No one should sell short the importance of the Taiwan issue to the PRC [People’s Republic of China]. It is fundamental. But understanding that does not define the entirety of the issue or limit the legitimacy of the national interests of other players in maintaining peace and stability in the region. Nor does it really explain why, just at the time that China-US relations have expanded beyond the familiar, often stale agenda of bilateral questions to encompass matters of truly global importance, Beijing has decided to raise the stakes,” Romberg said.
Nevertheless, Romberg said, the retaliatory steps China has announced in reaction to the latest arms sales — including sanctions against US companies — “will do no lasting harm.”
The big problems will come, he added, if China goes further in “teaching the United States a lesson,” for the consequences could be far-reaching.
While US President Barack Obama would not take gratuitous swipes at the PRC to show it the US can also be tough, he said, if China were to get in the way of efforts to deal with Iran or North Korea’s nuclear programs or become obstructionist on measures to deal with the international economic crisis, climate change and energy security, “then much of the sense of common purpose developed over the past year would likely evaporate.”
“These extreme outcomes seem very unlikely. But keeping in mind that the second shoe is yet to drop — the Dalai Lama’s meeting with the president — we at least ought to be aware that getting past the arms sales issue is not the only challenge,” Romberg wrote.
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