The US House of Representatives on Sept. 9 voted overwhelmingly to pass the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act of 2023. The core content of the act is to impose financial sanctions on the most senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their immediate relatives with the goal of preventing a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. This act symbolizes the US’ close attention to Taiwan’s safety and uses strict economic measures to intimidate the CCP from attempting to escalate tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
The act states that the moment China initiates an invasion of Taiwan, financial sanctions would immediately take effect against CCP officials and members of their immediate family. This would include freezing all of their assets in the US and elsewhere. They would also be prohibited from accessing the US financial system.
The act simultaneously calls on the US government to mobilize the international community and urge other nations to impose sanctions on CCP officials. The act’s purpose is to counter the individual wealth and global influence of Chinese leaders, forcing them to think very carefully about issues surrounding Taiwan before acting rashly.
The bill was introduced by US Representative French Hill, who indicated that its intention is to force the CCP to understand that any and all hostile military action against Taiwan would result in severe consequences at both the personal and international levels.
Hill said the US must ensure that senior CCP officials cannot so frivolously threaten Taiwan’s sovereignty without paying a price. He emphasized that imposing sanctions on the wealth of CCP officials would effectively deter their unchecked ambition toward Taiwan.
Aside from the sanctions on CCP officials, the bill also emphasizes that the US would utilize the influence of international financial organizations — in particular the IMF — to unite other nations to jointly pressure China. The US would employ the power of discourse to prevent China from further increasing its influence over currencies and economies. This goal was also behind the Chinese Currency Accountability Act of 2023, which similarly attempts to restrain China’s global economic expansion.
The act illustrates the US’ increasingly tough policy toward China — particularly in the context of Taiwan — and would likely lead to heightened tensions between the two nations. With military affairs in the Taiwan Strait growing more complicated by the day, the US House passed the act to make clear to the world its determination to defend Taiwan.
US economic pressure on China is not limited to the realms of technology and trade, but now extends to sanctions on individual CCP officials. This would undoubtedly intensify hostilities between the two nations. China would likely come up with a sharp response that would garner attention from the international community.
Whether the US’ financial sanctions successfully prevent the CCP from threatening Taiwan would be decided by both international cooperation and the methods employed by the Chinese leadership to respond to this pressure.
The act exhibits the US government’s unyielding attitude toward Taiwan’s defense by utilizing financial sanctions to control China’s aggressive behavior. It has added yet another variable to the China-US relationship and would influence the development of the strategic situation in the Taiwan Strait.
Achieving a balance in the realms of diplomacy, economics and military affairs has become a crucial challenge that must be confronted by the US, Taiwan and the rest of the international community.
Kristy Cho is a writer.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS