Executive Summary
Ongoing disagreements between China and Taiwan over the desirability of unification and the intense rivalry between the United States and China are straining the three-way relationship. If the United States is to maintain a constructive role in preventing the outbreak of a cross-Strait war, it needs to implement a strategy to prevent Chinese aggression against Taiwan that is consistent with U.S. interests and capabilities, and that provides clarity around existential issues. important to prevent a nuclear escalation, in the event of a conflict. The inclusion of the concept of “integrated deterrence” in the 2022 US National Defense Strategy is a reasonable approach to doing so. This could be improved by: reaffirming the US One-China policy; investment in conventional capabilities that are compatible with the geography of the Western Pacific and resistant to China’s military system war concepts; clear signals of the economic and political consequences of aggression against Taiwan; and reducing US domestic vulnerability to Chinese embargoes and cyber attacks.
Introduction
China’s economic and military rise is changing geopolitics globally. No region is immune or isolated from the tug-of-war between China’s growing role in international politics and US vigilance about it. Yet nowhere has this dynamic emerged as quickly or as dangerously as in East Asia itself, and particularly in the politics of the already fragile relationship between China, Taiwan and the United States. The combination of China’s desire to expand its influence, the US’s desire to keep it on its own, and Taiwan’s history, international aspirations, and role in the global economy make the island’s status a highly controversial and flammable issue.
Ongoing disagreements between China and Taiwan over the desirability of unification and the intense rivalry between the United States and China are straining the three-way relationship. If the United States is to maintain a constructive role in preventing the outbreak of a cross-Strait war, it needs to implement a strategy to prevent Chinese aggression against Taiwan that is consistent with U.S. interests and capabilities, and that provides clarity around existential issues. important to prevent a nuclear escalation, in the event of a conflict. Some common minds in the United States today are wrong in believing that conventional US military supremacy in and around Taiwan can realistically be restored to what it once was, or that the threat of nuclear escalation can be used wisely by Washington in the event of a serious crisis. .1 The United States is also too slow to increase its own resilience to possible Chinese economic, cyber, and/or military attacks.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments:
Lori Merritt edited this paper and Rachel Slattery provided the layout.
