A US political magazine has published a speculative scenario predicting that a US sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes to Taiwan would result in trade restrictions and an “increasingly fierce arms race” with China.
“In the long run, it is true, selling F-35s to Taiwan will not dramatically alter US-China relations, nor will it fundamentally change Chinese foreign policy,” the article published by conservative magazine National Interest said.
“But history and more general empirical studies suggest that it will confirm the common Chinese sense of American containment, reinforce the ‘peace through strength’ position of hawks on both sides and accelerate Sino-American rivalry,” it added.
Written by graduate students Jared McKinney and Nicholas Butts, the article theorizes that if former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president later this year, she might under certain circumstances sell F-35s to Taiwan.
The Taiwanese military has expressed significant interest in buying F-35s, but realistically the US is highly unlikely to sell the advanced fighters, because it would result in severe protests from Beijing.
Nevertheless, the article suggested a possible Chinese reaction if such a sale were to go forward.
Both McKinney and Butts are dual-degree candidates at the London School of Economics and Peking University.
They suggested that China would drastically cut tourism to Taiwan, restrict trade with companies that support the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and launch disciplinary investigations against any Taiwanese businesspeople living in China who support the DPP.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) might also halt both official and unofficial cross-strait dialogue; encourage Taiwan’s business elites to work to restore positive and peaceful cross-strait relations; and aggressively poach Taiwan’s diplomatic partners.
At the same time, he might cease to cooperate on cybersecurity and accelerate covert efforts to infiltrate critical US infrastructure and acquire US trade secrets, as well as explore the possibility of selling missiles and fighter planes to Iran.
McKinney and Butts argued that “imaginative gaming” in US-China relations is worthwhile, because they said there is an increasingly widespread belief in Washington that China “really doesn’t have any good options.”
“China is far from helpless. By linking issues to other parts of its foreign policy — such as cybersecurity cooperation or arms sales to Iran — China can respond in a creative manner that hurts American interests without causing economic self-destruction or immediate conflict escalation,” they said.
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