US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday met with high-level Chinese Communist Party member Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) in Luxembourg, where the two discussed regional and global security issues, including tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Yang told Sullivan that Beijing was open to more dialogue with the US, but that it was also concerned that the “US side has been insisting on further containing and suppressing China in an all-round way,” Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The meeting came on the same day Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) told the US that the Taiwan Strait was “not international waters.”
It might be important for the US and China to keep “open lines of communication to manage competition between our two countries,” as the White House said in a statement following the Luxembourg meeting, but the US should have no illusions about what can be achieved through talks with Beijing.
With its saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait, the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea, China has shown no interest in being a productive member of the international community. Its aim is to change the norms of the existing global order to match its own ambitions. China has already tested global resolve toward action on its military buildup in the South China Sea, its increasing encroachment around Japanese and Australian territorial waters, its intrusion on Indian territory in Sikkim and Ladakh, and its buzzing of Australian and Canadian surveillance aircraft over international waters, among other acts of aggression.
It has also never stopped preparing its military to invade Taiwan, nor has it ever renounced plans to attempt such an assault. In its talks with the US, China is not coming to the table with a willingness to compromise or negotiate — it is coming to such talks to lay out its inflexible position, and to voice warnings to the US and Washington’s allies.
It is imperative that the US demonstrate its own inflexible resolve to protect its own interests and those of like-minded democracies — most importantly, Taiwan. It is acknowledged in Washington that the fall of Taiwan would be disastrous to US interests in the region. It would destroy confidence among regional allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia; it would endanger US bases in the region; and it would disrupt global shipping, as most goods shipped across the Pacific traverse the region, and it would shift the regional balance of power.
Washington flip-flopped on a statement regarding Taiwanese independence that was published on the US Department of State Web site. It has also reiterated on multiple occasions that Washington adheres to a “one China” policy.
Rather than hold onto an ambiguous policy that facilitates pronouncements that must be later retracted or “clarified,” the US should say that it supports whatever Taiwanese decide for themselves — whether that be independence, unification or the “status quo.” The US should no longer allow itself to be bound by any policy regarding Taiwan that is unilaterally devised by Beijing.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) could assertively encourage the US to move toward this stance.
It could be the thinking of some politicians that a soft approach to Beijing would avoid conflict, but the opposite seems to be true — Beijing’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy demonstrates that it will prey on weakness. The Tsai administration should approach Washington about including Taiwan in a regional security pact, similar to that among the US, the UK and Australia.
What is needed in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan is an increase of patrols and joint operations between local allies to send a clear message to Beijing that its aggressive posturing has its limits.
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