The US should continue to inform Beijing that cross-strait relations can only be pursued in the absence of threat or use of force, according to a report released by a New York-based policy organization.
While recent remarks by president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) indicated a desire to work constructively with China, some heightened tensions can be expected ahead of her inauguration, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Stephen Young wrote in the report, titled Building a Regional Order in East Asia: Community, Competition, Conflict, that was published by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy at the end of last month.
The committee was founded in 1974 to help resolve conflicts that threaten US interests.
Young said it is possible that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would exert greater pressure on Taiwan in the coming months on the issue of “reunification.”
Any sharp rhetoric or actions toward Taiwan by China would become a security and political issue for the US government, he said.
“Washington must continue to speak plainly to Beijing about our long-term insistence that cross-strait ties can only be pursued in the absence of the use or threat of force,” Young said.
The US should also continue to provide weapons of defense to Taiwan and respect Taiwan’s strong democratic system, and the US military should maintain its strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region, he wrote.
He said the US should caution China to adhere to peaceful means of pursuing cross-strait relations and caution Taiwan to avoid “pushing the envelope on sovereignty issues that could cross a red line with Beijing.”
Young also said that Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were not likely to eagerly seek closer ties with China “anytime soon,” and it remained to be seen whether Xi would reverse the economic engagement between China and Taiwan.
Donald Zagoria, a senior vice president of the committee, said the US should let Beijing and Taipei know that its primary interest in cross-strait relations is “the maintenance of cross-strait peace and stability.”
“We should push for the DPP and Beijing to reach an agreement that will respect the existing political framework for cross-strait relations built by Beijing and the Kuomintang [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] over the past eight years,” he wrote in the report.
As the DPP does not recognize the so-called “1992 consensus,” Zagoria said that tensions across the Taiwan Strait would likely increase unless the DPP and China can work out a “new, mutually agreeable formula for cross-strait relations.”
On the issue of South China Sea disputes, Zagoria said the US should “continue to press for a rules-based regime in East Asia and urge China and its neighbors to sign a code of conduct to regulate maritime activities.”
Other contributors to Building a Regional Order in East Asia include Sun Zhe (孫哲), co-director of the China Initiative at School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University, and retired US admiral Michael McDevitt, who works for the Center for Naval Analyses run by the Arlington, Virginia-based CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization.
Sun wrote that a binding code of conduct on the South China Sea must be worked out and that China has to work with other countries on the issue.
McDevitt suggested that US policymakers press the ASEAN to conclude a code of conduct that can be presented to Beijing as a common ASEAN position.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: