The US will have to bolster its regional deterrence capability to manage the threat to Taiwan posed by an increasingly assertive China, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman James Moriarty said.
China has not only become more confident in its power, but it has also handed Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) authority to make nearly all key policy decisions, he said in an interview posted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday.
This has “shifted the system” in Beijing, introducing “a level of uncertainty that didn’t exist when you had a genuine collective leadership where different voices could be heard,” he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Xi has it made clear that he wants to see progress on “reunification” with Taiwan during his term, although he has not set a firm deadline for doing so, Moriarty said.
Beijing appears to have given up on “winning hearts and minds” across the Taiwan Strait, following the failure of policies such as the “31 incentives,” which it proposed in 2018 to attract Taiwanese talent and businesses, he said.
Instead, it has shifted to using “gray zone tactics and coercion,” in an attempt to pressure Taiwanese to accept unification because “they don’t see any other road,” he said.
However, there is “no hope” that this approach would succeed, given what Taiwanese have seen happen in Hong Kong, Moriarty said.
The US and Taiwan must prepare for China’s eventual realization that neither peaceful nor coercive tactics would push Taiwanese into accepting reunification, he said.
Asked what Taiwan can do, Moriarty said that direct negotiations with Beijing are unlikely, given that the latter has set its desired outcome — Taiwan’s acceptance of the so-called “1992 consensus” — as a precondition for resuming talks.
“Unfortunately, I fear that we’re at a stage where deterrence is probably the most important thing Taiwan can do,” he said.
The US, for its part, must work to “shrink the Pacific,” by expanding its presence in the region and working closely with allies such as Japan and South Korea to deter China, he said.
Asked if Washington should replace its policy of “strategic ambiguity” with an explicit guarantee to defend Taiwan, Moriarty expressed skepticism.
Such a move could ultimately be counterproductive by convincing Beijing that it had to act preemptively before conditions became even more difficult, he said.
In related news, US President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top US Department of Defense position pledged that preventing Chinese aggression against Taiwan would be a top focus should she be confirmed.
In a letter on Friday to US Senator Josh Hawley, US assistant secretary of defense nominee Mara Karlin said that Washington should “prioritize deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan,” in line with its commitments in the Taiwan Relations Act and in light of “increasing Chinese coercion.”
Karlin said she believed China would remain the “pacing threat” to the department in the years ahead, which would make it — and the threat it poses to Taiwan — a top priority in military planning.
After receiving the letter, Hawley agreed on Monday to release a hold he had placed on Karlin’s nomination, setting her up for a final confirmation vote in the US Senate.
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