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| Land-based missiles could form a virtual wall against Chinese aggression - CSBA graphic |
By ED TIMPERLAKE and ROBBIN LAIRD
The phone call between President-elect Trump and the President of Taiwan sent shock waves through the diplomatic community. But it is time to turn the page and include Taiwan in shaping a 21st century deterrence strategy for Pacific defense.
The People’s Republic of China has made it clear that the regime is moving out into the Pacific, asserting its power and influence, and directly threatening U.S. interests and U.S. allies. It is reaching beyond Taiwan in its military and diplomatic strategy, using its expanded capabilities for power projection into the Pacific to reach out to the Japanese island chains as well as the key maritime access points to Australia.
It is clear how important control of Taiwan would be it shaping a pincer strategy against Japan, Australia, and American military installations in the Pacific. Why would the United States then simply stand by and ignore the defense of Taiwan and its key place in a strategic reshaping of Pacific strategy? That would be turning the Pacific Pivot into the Pacific Divot.
There is little reason to be frozen in time with Kissinger and Nixon who sought to counterbalance the Soviet Union by embracing Communist China. Last time we looked, the Soviet Union had collapsed. Russia is not the Soviet Union: Today’s Kremlin sees no commonality of relationships with China, except and only with regard to realpolitik. As such, there is little to be gained by appeasing the PRC in hopes of containing Russia. Deterring Russia is a task all unto itself, as it forges a 21st century approach to power, using its military capabilities to shape outcomes seen as essential to Russian national interest by Putin. And today China is a power unto it itself, one that has departed dramatically from its place in the global system when Nixon and Kissinger negotiated the Shanghai Communiqué.
As Danny Lam, a Canadian analyst, has underscored: “Normalization of relations with the PRC was accomplished through the issuance of three communiqués in 1972, 1979, and 1982 that defined the relationship. In those documents, the PRC and US explicitly acknowledged their differences….and made clear that the differences are only papered over temporarily for the sake of peace. Temporarily is the operative word.”
This was converted to the “one China policy” at the end of the Carter Administration, where Carter severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China.. But Carter’s policy was also forged during the Cold War with what is now the non-existent Soviet Union and before China turned into a military power seeking to assert that power deep into the region. It is time to exit the Madame Tussaud museum of policy initiatives and shape a Taiwan policy for the 21st century, which is part of a broader deterrent strategy.
Read the full story at BreakingDefense