Attempts to exploit political transition in the US to create a “strategic gap” disregard Washington’s strategic policy on Taiwan and would not succeed, a Taiwanese national security official said yesterday.
The remarks came as a response to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on Saturday that reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) aims to pressure Washington into explicitly opposing Taiwanese independence, following renewed high-level US-China exchanges.
The Taiwanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is unsurprising that China seizes every possible opportunity to undermine the mutual trust and cooperation between Taiwan, the US and their allies.
Photo: Reuters
“Beijing once believed it could drive a wedge between Washington and Europe during tariff negotiations, weakening Europe’s stance on Russia and distracting it from Indo-Pacific security,” they said.
Instead, European nations became more alert to the complex threats posed by China and strengthened their presence in the Indo-Pacific region, they added.
“A steadily developing Taiwan is the key to regional stability in the Indo-Pacific, which in turn is a core strategic interest for the US,” the official said.
While Washington seeks to ease tensions with Beijing, it is simultaneously bolstering its security presence along the first and second island chains, evidenced by recent larger-scale multinational military exercises, they said.
Citing an unnamed source, the WSJ article said that Xi is seeking to exploit US President Donald Trump’s eagerness to secure an economic agreement with Beijing by pressing Trump to issue a formal statement that the US “opposes” Taiwanese independence.
Bringing Taiwan under China’s control has long been central to Xi’s “China Dream,” and this aspiration was frustrated during the administration of former US president Joe Biden, which reiterated the long-standing US position that Washington “does not support” Taiwanese independence, it said.
For Beijing, the difference between “does not support” and “opposes” is far from merely semantic, with the former implying neutrality, and the latter meaning the US would align itself with Beijing in rejecting Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Such a shift would mark the most significant change to Washington’s Taiwan policy since the advent of strategic ambiguity, the article said.
Beijing hoped to capitalize on a warming of relations amid a renewal of high-level exchanges and the recent TikTok deal, it added.
The report cited Evan Medeiros, a former senior Asia adviser in the administration of former US president Barack Obama and now a professor at Georgetown University, as saying that driving a wedge between Washington and Taipei is important to Beijing’s ambitions toward Taiwan.
Doing so would weaken Taiwan’s confidence and increase Beijing’s leverage, it cited him as saying, adding that Xi is likely to view upcoming interactions with Trump as the best opportunities to undermine Taiwan-US ties.
While the Trump administration’s official position remains opposed to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, recent actions have raised concerns in Washington and Taipei, the article said.
The US administration has delayed portions of planned military aid to Taiwan and denied President William Lai’s (賴清德) request for a US transit stop on his recent Latin America trip, prompting him to cancel the visit altogether, it said.
Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, was quoted by the WSJ as saying that any US policy shift on Taiwan would not occur overnight.
“Beijing will persistently and repeatedly press its position step by step, gradually eroding Taiwan’s confidence in US commitments in the process,” she said.
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