Opinion | How Beijing is seeking to counter US belligerence over Taiwan and avoid a war
- In response to provocative actions by Taiwanese pro-independence and foreign forces, three strategies have emerged
- Beijing is demonstrating its own conventional and cyber warfare capabilities, moving to engage in dialogue with regional US allies, and utilising economic statecraft
Even as past US administrations sold arms to Taiwan, they prioritised a peaceful resolution to tension across the Taiwan Strait. But, in recent years, deliveries of offensive arms, regular warship transits through the Taiwan Strait and the treatment of Taiwan as a “critical node” in the Indo-Pacific have suggested that Washington may now be opposed even to peaceful cross-strait unification.
In the 1982 communique, the United States pledged to gradually decrease arms sales to Taiwan until a “final resolution”. Moreover, the Taiwan Relations Act obliges the US to provide Taiwan with the necessary arms for defence only. However, the Trump and Biden administrations have deviated from this commitment by supplying weapons in excess of the defence requirement.