A Taiwan Strait crisis is likely to occur this year, US and Taiwan experts say, according to a report published on Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Washington-based think tank’s China Power Project partnered with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research to survey 52 US and 35 Taiwanese experts from Nov. 28 to Dec. 15 last year, prior to the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 13, on their evaluations of China’s approach to Taiwan.
More than half of the experts said they believed a crisis in the Taiwan Strait is “very likely” or “likely” this year, at 67 percent of US experts and 57 percent of Taiwanese experts respectively, the report showed.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Three-quarters of the US experts and two-thirds of the Taiwanese experts said that a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in November last year “did not stabilize relations such that it significantly reduced the potential of a Taiwan Strait crisis,” it said.
Three out of five US experts said they believed that Beijing is most likely to conduct a “large-scale military exercise encircling Taiwan to achieve temporary blockade-like effects” this year if its leaders consider Taiwan’s election results unfavorable to Chinese interests, with 43 percent of the Taiwanese experts agreeing.
About half of the Taiwanese experts, 49 percent, considered “highly coercive nonmilitary actions” to be the most likely action Beijing takes in such a situation.
On when China would take such an action, 42 percent of the US experts and 43 percent of the Taiwanese experts said that Beijing would “wait to assess if the new president implements significant policy changes before responding,” while 34 percent of the Taiwanese experts said that it would do so by the inauguration of the new president on May 20.
A majority of the experts said that although China has the capability to launch a blockade of Taiwan, it could not mount an effective invasion, the report said.
An invasion would be more complicated than a blockade and require a much larger commitment of military forces, it said, adding that the likelihood of military intervention by the US and its allies might also be a factor.
The experts said that international partners are more likely to intervene if China launched an invasion, compared with a blockade, in the next five years.
Ninety-six percent of the US experts were “moderately” to “completely” confident that the US would intervene in the event of an invasion, while 72 percent of Taiwanese experts agreed.
If China’s primary goal is to coerce Taiwan into changing certain policies rather than annex it the next five years, the majority of the experts said it would most likely resort to blockading the nation, the report said.
If the aim is to force an immediate unification, most experts said that Beijing would mostly likely seek to launch a “highly kinetic joint blockade of Taiwan.”
Regarding whether China would be willing to use a nuclear weapon against the US or its allies in a conflict over Taiwan, 89 percent of Taiwanese experts said “no,” while only 56 percent of US excerpts agreed.
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