US officials should avoid “symbolic political gestures” that seem to support Taiwan, but erode Beijing’s confidence in the US’ “one China policy,” increasing chances of a Taiwan Strait conflict, US experts said.
Such gestures include calls by top officials under former US president Donald Trump and members of the US Congress for Washington to move from “strategic ambiguity” to “strategic clarity,” an analysis titled “Avoiding War Over Taiwan” that was signed by 14 experts on US-China relations said.
These calls do not help to present “credible threat” to top officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who already “fully expect and plan for US intervention” if China attempted to take Taiwan by force, the analysis said.
“A formal US policy shift from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity would undercut deterrence, rather than enhance it,” it said, referring to the issue of whether the US should openly commit to defending Taiwan if China were to attack it.
An unconditional US pledge to defend Taiwan accompanied by stationing US forces in the nation during peacetime — as former US national security adviser John Bolton has advocated — would be even riskier, it said.
It would create the illusion of the restoration of the US-Republic of China joint defense treaty, which would be akin to the two sides re-establishing formal diplomatic ties, it said.
CCP elites could interpret that scenario as the US committing to defend Taiwan’s “permanent separation” from China and handing a blank check for future Taiwanese politicians to pursue de jure independence, which is “anathema” to Beijing.
A “US policy that appears designed to wrest Taiwan permanently from the Chinese nation” would “be worse than a war” from CCP officials’ perspective and would leave them with little incentive to forgo the use of force against Taiwan or US forces coming to Taiwan’s defense, it said.
US politicians should also refrain from making “politically advantageous but strategically damaging statements about Taiwan,” it said.
Among examples of this are former US secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s call for Washington to formally recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state and the original language of the draft Taiwan policy act, which said Taiwan should be designated a “non-NATO ally” of the US.
If those policies were adopted, it would undercut Washington’s assurances to Beijing that it would accept any outcome that is peacefully agreed on by China and Taiwan, that it does not support Taiwan independence, and that it opposes any unilateral change to the “status quo,” the analysis said.
Those assurances have served as an important element of deterrence, and undermining them would “greatly increase, rather than decrease, the likelihood of conflict across the Taiwan Strait,” it said.
To present a credible threat to China, the US should focus on substantive measures that would make Taiwan and its forces in Asia stronger and more resilient, the analysis said.
The US should continue to pursue an “active denial” strategy by denying China the prospect of having a “quick and cheap military victory” over Taiwan, it said.
That could be done by increasing US access to additional locations from which to operate in the Asia-Pacific region, bolstering the defense of existing US facilities there and reducing the vulnerability of supplies from the continental US to the front lines.
It should take action to shift away from a reliance on “vulnerable aircraft carriers and a few large, concentrated air and naval bases,” and instead focus on adopting a “more mobile, dispersed and ultimately resilient military posture in the region that will be much harder for China to attack and destroy,” the analysis said.
Taiwan must adopt a “porcupine strategy” by creating more robust and mobile coastal and air defenses that would “inflict real pain” in the event of a military invasion by China, it said.
The analysis was released on Oct. 12 by the Asia Society Center on China-US Relations and UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.
Among the 14 academics who signed it were Columbia University professor of political science Andrew Nathan, Georgetown University professor Evan Madeiros, Columbia University international relations professor Thomas Christensen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology political science professor M. Taylor Fravel and Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS