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

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Riaz Khokhar is a political science graduate from the University of Gothenburg and a former research officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS) and an Asia studies visiting fellow at the East-West Centre in Washington.

Published: 1:30am, 12 Jun 2023

It is no surprise that Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu did not meet his US counterpart Lloyd Austin at this month’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. For one thing, Beijing has repeatedly cautioned Washington against arms sales to Taiwan, which it views as support for pro-independence forces.

The 1982 US-China communique stated that arms sales to Taiwan would not be a long-term policy and signalled a phased reduction. However, Washington continues to justify these sales under the Taiwan Relations Act and Six Assurances.

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.