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Taiwan is regarded as a potential flashpoint for a hot conflict between Beijing and Washington. Photo: AP

US and China seek the right level of pressure as Taiwan tensions grow

  • The issue of the self-ruled island is regarded as one area of tension between Beijing and Washington which could lead to conflict
  • Both sides are trying to lay down firm markers while avoiding the risk of miscalculation
Taiwan
With Taiwan often seen as a potential trigger for “hot conflict” between Beijing and Washington, a crucial question is whether the nuclear-armed powers know what level of pressure is just right as both try and lay down firm markers amid their flaring tensions.

Beijing considers the self-ruled, US-aligned island as a province to be reunited with the mainland and this month has sent a record number of military planes on sorties into the Taiwanese air defence zone. The island’s defence minister has warned that the PLA would be able to launch a full-scale invasion in 2025.

US allies have meanwhile stepped up, with Japan resolutely backing Taiwan – including its bid to join a regional trade pact – and Australia entering the new Aukus partnership with the US and Britain in what is widely viewed as a response to a rising China.

PLA reinforces mainland drill with threat to ‘crush’ Taiwan separatists

Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University and the American Enterprise Institute, said Beijing’s flights were more about simply sending a message than preparing for a near-term invasion.

“This is to tell Taiwan that no one can help them,” she said. “Moves like Aukus or Japan’s statements on Taiwan – none of this is going to change their strategic calculus.”

The United States switched recognition in 1979 to Beijing but is required by Congress to provide weapons for Taiwan’s self-defence, an arrangement which has largely preserved the peace, even if it annoys Beijing.

The risk of miscalculation was recently laid bare by top US general Mark Milley, who testified that he called his Chinese counterpart to make clear that former president Donald Trump did not intend to attack during his turbulent final months in office.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed Taiwan during a lengthy meeting last week in Zurich with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi.

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Taiwan denounces mainland China for ‘over the top’ flights into island’s air defence zone

Taiwan denounces mainland China for ‘over the top’ flights into island’s air defence zone

Asked afterwards in a BBC interview if the US was prepared to take military action to defend Taiwan, Sullivan said: “Let me just say this – we are going to take action now to try to prevent that day from ever coming to pass.”

Among such steps, a Pentagon official confirmed that US special operations forces have been training Taiwanese troops.

But the Biden administration has so far held off on one proposal on the table – allowing Taipei’s de facto embassy in Washington to move away from decades of delicate diplomatic speak and call itself the Taiwan representative office.

Mastro argued that such action would have little effect or could even backfire as many in Beijing are convinced, despite Washington’s denials, that the US supports Taiwan’s outright independence.

“I think it’s worth taking risks for arms sales, for example. That helps Taiwan hold out a bit longer,” she said. “Things like name changes are designed to show that the United States is willing to fight, but in the end it just increases China’s resolve.”

What is the Aukus alliance, and what does it have to do with China?

Kuo Yujen, a political analyst at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, said US efforts – starting with Trump – had aimed to show Beijing that its growing assertiveness would be “counterproductive to China’s purpose and the stability of the Taiwan Strait”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has fanned nationalism in the face of what many in Beijing see as US decline. But some experts see Xi also calibrating his message on Taiwan.

In a speech on Saturday for the 110th anniversary of the revolution that led to the founding of the Republic of China – still Taiwan’s formal name – Xi said “national reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the nation as a whole, including our brethren in Taiwan”.

Craig Singleton, a fellow at the generally hawkish Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said Xi was “unusually practical and measured” and that Washington should take notice.

“It makes little sense to continue feeding Taiwan’s desire for large, expensive weapons systems which would almost certainly be destroyed by the Chinese military within the first few hours of a conflict.” Instead, he said, the US needed to brace for rising Chinese intimidation of Taiwan and prepare to “compete in a prolonged grey-zone war campaign”.

Michael Swaine, a China scholar at the dovish Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in a recent essay that Beijing had been responding “to political, not military, developments” on Taiwan and that Washington and Beijing needed to step up dialogue on striking a balance between “deterrence and political reassurance”.

“Both sides need to recognise that they are both contributing to the slow-motion train wreck we are witnessing,” he said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Washington, Beijing seek to calibrate response over Taiwan as tensions grow
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