Many Chinese foreign policy analysts now believe that Beijing has been too “accommodating and passive” in dealing with US support for Taiwan, a new Washington diplomatic study says.
“US efforts to sustain and enhance its military superiority in China’s backyard will further stoke Beijing’s worst fears and beliefs about American containment,” the study by Carnegie Endowment senior associate Michael Swaine says.
Titled The Need for a Stable US-China Balance of Power, it says that while the US is set to remain the strongest military power on a global level indefinitely, it might not always be able to keep up with China in the area covered by the so-called first and second island chains.
“A continuing US capacity to shift military assets from other parts of the globe to Asia in a crisis or conflict could conceivably correct America’s relative military decline in the western Pacific,” Swaine said in the report.
However, such a surge-based “solution” would require considerable time to implement, while Chinese military action against Taiwan “would almost certainly involve a very rapid strike aimed at establishing a fait accompli that could prove extremely difficult and costly to undo,” he said.
Swaine is described by Carnegie as “one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies.”
He said in the report that neutralizing the cross-strait threat would require the US to cut arms sales to Taiwan in return for verifiable limits on Chinese ballistic missiles and strike aircraft deployed near Taiwan.
“Beijing would also likely need to provide credible assurances that it would not use force against Taiwan in any conceivable contingency short of an outright Taiwanese declaration of de jure independence or the US placement of forces on the island,” Swaine said.
He said Beijing might view such a conditional limitation of its right to employ force as acceptable if viewed as a requirement for the creation of an overall stable balance of power in the western Pacific.
“Chinese leaders might also regard it as a step toward the eventual unification of the island with the mainland,” Swaine said.
He said that US decisionmakers are “extremely loath” to make significant adjustments in the current status of the Korean Peninsula or Taiwan.
“Any movement toward a reduction in or even a significant modification of the US security commitment to these two actors could result in either moving to acquire nuclear arms and/or threats or attacks from North Korea or China,” he said.
However, if understandings could be reached on the overall need for strategic adjustment, then specific concessions to minimize potential instabilities would become more possible.
Swaine concludes the report by saying that if both US and Chinese leaders could convince Taipei of the benefits of mutual assurances and restraints — none of which would require US abandonment of Taiwan — adverse outcomes, including a resort to nuclear weapons, could be avoided.
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