The US should cut arms sales to Taiwan if China reduces its “threatening stance” towards the nation, former US deputy secretary of state James Steinberg said.
He said that Beijing’s missile buildup and the possibility of Washington countering it by helping Taiwan to improve its missile defenses “creates the potential for a new round of escalation.”
Writing with Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, Steinberg said that even though cross-strait tensions have eased in recent years, Taiwan remains a “contentious issue” in US-China relations.
They said this is in part because China has not renounced the use of force to unify Taiwan with the mainland and in part because the US continues to sell arms to Taipei.
“Some tension would seem to be inevitable given the fundamental differences in interests between the parties,” Steinberg and O’Hanlon said.
Beijing should make its stated intention of seeking a peaceful path to unification credible by putting some limits on its military modernization and stopping military exercises focused on intimidating Taiwan through missile barrages or blockades, they added.
“For Washington, it means making sure that the arms it sells [to] Taipei are in fact defensive and demonstrating a willingness to scale back such arms sales in response to meaningful, observable, and hard-to-reverse reductions in China’s threatening stance toward Taiwan,” they added. “Fortunately, both sides are already pursuing key elements of such an agenda.”
Both Steinberg and O’Hanlon are believed to have influence within the administration of US President Barack Obama and their opinions are read at the highest levels.
“Washington needs to make Beijing understand that it will defend not just its own territory and people, but also those of its formal allies and sometimes even its nonallied friends,” they said. “It is crucial to signal to Beijing early and clearly that there are some lines it will not be permitted to cross with impunity.”
One difficulty, they said, is that Beijing asserts an ever-expanding list of “core” interests and has often handled them truculently, turning even relatively minor and routine disputes into potentially dangerous confrontations and needlessly risky tests of mutual resolve.
“Beijing needs to recognize that over time such behavior dilutes the legitimacy and force of its more important claims, sending conflicting signals and undermining its own long-term interests,” they said.
Steinberg, now dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, said that US-Chinese relations may be approaching an “inflection point.”
The bipartisan US consensus on seeking constructive relations with China has frayed and the Chinese are increasingly pessimistic about the future of bilateral dealings. Trust in Washington and Beijing remains scarce and the possibility of an accidental or even intentional conflict between the US and China “seems to be growing,” Steinberg and O’Hanlon said.
“Given the vast potential costs such a conflict would carry for both sides, figuring out how to keep it at bay is among the most important international challenges of the coming years and decades,” they said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by