A military crisis in the Taiwan Strait that would involve the US was ranked as a “Tier 1” contingency, the results of the Preventive Priorities Survey released by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank showed on Wednesday.
Tier 1 contingencies should be given a top priority when Washington this year makes efforts to prevent potential conflicts, the US think tank said.
The likelihood of “an escalation of coercive pressure by China toward Taiwan, including heightened military activity, precipitates a severe cross-strait crisis involving the United States and other countries in the region” was “moderate,” but it would have a “high” impact on US interests, the survey said.
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The council first included the possibility of a Taiwan Strait crisis as a “Tier 2” contingency in 2019, reclassifying it as Tier 1 in 2021.
With most Tier 1 contingencies concerning potential flashpoints involving the world’s superpowers, the risk of the US becoming embroiled in a military confrontation with China or Russia, or both, has risen, the survey said.
“Although no Tier 1 contingency was judged to be very likely in 2023, it is still sobering that each was given an even chance of occurring,” the council said.
“The [US President] Joe Biden administration is faced with great power rivalries and nuclear program tensions as it attempts to navigate a dangerous geopolitical landscape. Striking a balance between advocating for US interests and avoiding a confrontation with China or Russia will be the most significant challenge of 2023,” said Paul Stares, director of the council’s Center for Preventive Action.
The center conducted the survey in November last year.
It asked foreign policy experts to evaluate 30 ongoing or potential “violent” conflicts based on their likelihood of occurring or escalating this year, as well as their possible impact on US interests, the council said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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