US President Barack Obama should sell advanced new weapons to Taiwan if China tries to take over another reef in the South China Sea, according to a Washington defense expert.
“Washington must begin to craft some sort of organized and coherent strategy when it comes to China — and not one that focuses on trade or profits, but [that] ensures there will be costs for its coercive actions,” Center for the National Interest senior fellow for defense policy Harry Kazianis wrote in an article published on the Real Clear Defense Web site, where he serves as an editor.
Any non-kinetic move China makes to undo the “status quo” in Asia should be met with a move of equal significance that reinforces US allies and partners’ military capabilities, Kazianis wrote.
Kazianis, also a senior fellow at the China Policy Institute, said that if Beijing tries to take over another reef in the South China Sea, Washington should decide that it is time to sell Taiwan F-16C/D aircraft.
At the same time, Obama should help Taipei advance its domestic submarine program and “float the idea” that Taipei could receive the F-35 warplane, he wrote.
“The strategy is simple: China moves to solidify its position in one area, we could counter with our allies and partners in another,” Kazianis wrote.
Such a strategy need not adopt the same “bullying or confrontational” tone that Beijing has employed, he said.
Rather, it should serve as a show of strength to halt Chinese attempts to alter the “status quo” and to ensure stability throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
“We too have the capability to craft strategies short of war that can also maintain the status quo and reinforce the existing international order,” he wrote.
The proposal comes as American Enterprise Institute defense expert Michael Mazza published a study saying that China is changing the geography of the South China Sea by constructing new landmasses that could upset the military balance in the region.
He recommends bolstered and sustained surveillance by US Navy ships and aircraft, along with missions by US warships within the Spratly Islands (南沙群島) that Taiwan claims and live-fire exercises to “demonstrate how the navy might deal with a fortified enemy islet.”
Such responses would signal that the US does not fear a confrontation at sea with China, “whose naval and air forces have been acting dangerously in response to regular US naval operations,” Mazza said.
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