China’s latest maritime strategy document, released in May of this year, states that China’s navy will start
shifting its focus further offshore to include open seas protection missions. Such a shift implies an aspirational capability to keep intervening American forces away
from Taiwan. American political leaders have not given up on Taiwan, and the 2015 U.S. National Military Strategy places a premium on reassuring allies of America’s
commitments. However, the fact that China’s improving military capabilities will make an American military intervention on behalf of Taiwan more and more costly
must not be ignored.
The best option
for preventing a war
in the Taiwan Strait
is
deepening the strategy of
accommodation
that Beijing and Taipei have already started
.
According to Baohui Zhang,
accommodation “relies on expanding common interests,
institutionalizing dialogues, promoting
security
confidence-building
and offering assurances
to establish mutual trust
.” The Ma Ying-jeou administration in Taiwan has tried
to use accommodation as a way to lock in the status quo and avoid conflict, but their efforts have been met with more and more popular backlash in Taiwan. China’s
military strategy document does acknowledge that “cross-Taiwan Straits relations have sustained a sound momentum of peaceful development, but the root cause
of instability has not yet been removed.”
If Taiwan is serious about accommodation as a means of deterring military
conflict, then it should cease purchasing military equipment from the U.S
. Stopping the arms purchases would send a clear
message to Beijing that Taiwan is interested in deeper accommodation.
A halt in arms sales would
also
benefit U.S.-Chinese
relations by removing a
“
major stumbling block for developing bilateral military
-to-military
ties
.” This is
certainly a very controversial proposal, and would likely be very difficult to sell to the Taiwanese people, but as I’ve already explained the status quo is becoming
more and more untenable. There are two important things to keep in mind about this proposal which mitigate fears that this is some kind of appeasement to China.
First,
halting
U.S. arms
sales does not mean that Taiwan’s self-defense forces would cease to exist
.
China
may be gaining ground on Taiwan militarily, but the pain that Taiwan could inflict on an attacking force is
still high.
China may be able to defeat Taiwan in a conflict, but the losses its military would take to seize
the island would significantly hamper its ability to use its military while it recovers
from attacking Taiwan.
Second,
there is an easily identifiable off-ramp that can be used by Taiwan if the policy is not successful.
Stopping
arms purchases is meant to be a way of testing the water.
If the Chinese respond positively
to the decision
by
offering
greater military
cooperation
with Taiwan
or some form of political
concessions
then
Beijing signals its
commitment to
the
accommodation
process
. On the other hand,
if the Chinese refuse to follow through and
