U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Friday, April 30, that U.S. policy on the Taiwan Strait remains unchanged, but if the Chinese Communist Party takes unilateral military action against Taiwan, the United States will intervene.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered his first policy speech since taking office on the same day. He said the next big war between the U.S. and an enemy country will be “very different. Analysts generally believe that although Austin did not specify who the “enemy” is, but his speech is aimed at the Chinese Communist Party, which is expanding its influence and increasingly aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region.
National Security Advisor: U.S. opposes unilateral changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by the Chinese Communist Party
In an April 30 online forum at the Aspen Institute, Sullivan again clarified the U.S. government’s views on the Taiwan Strait issue. He said the new U.S. administration’s position on the Taiwan Strait issue is consistent with decades of bipartisan U.S. policy.
He said, “Our position on the Taiwan Strait issue is simple: we believe in the ‘One China’ policy and the full implementation of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Six Assurances. We oppose anyone who unilaterally changes the status quo.”
He stressed that the U.S. government wants to see stability in cross-strait relations, not unilateral changes to the status quo. He added that the U.S. government has conveyed this will to the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan and U.S. allies, including Japan.
He also said the U.S. would intervene if the Chinese Communist Party takes military action against Taiwan.
When Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga visited the White House in mid-April, the U.S. and Japanese leaders issued a joint statement stressing “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encouraging a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.
U.S. Defense Secretary: New Ideas to Address New Wars
Austin delivered his first policy address since taking office at Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii on April 30. He said potential U.S. adversaries are deliberately undermining U.S. superiority and that the U.S. military needs to activate a new defense concept to protect the nation.
The U.S. military cannot be complacent about being the most powerful military in the world at a time when our potential enemies are deliberately undermining our advantage,” he said. He stressed that in future wars, the U.S. military will not only need to protect the security of the U.S. sea, land and air, but also to protect the security of space and cyberspace and prevent large-scale warfare.
He said, “The way we fight future wars will be very different from the way we fought previous wars, and we need to promote a new concept of protecting our nation, and we need new strengths and operational flexibility to participate in future wars.”
He emphasized the need for U.S. defense policy to be consistent with U.S. foreign policy and for the U.S. Department of Defense to take full advantage of emerging technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and edge computing to “combine technology, operational concepts and strengths” to build a reliable, flexible and robust defense network with allies that does not give the enemy some breathing room.
Although Austin’s speech did not mention the Chinese Communist Party, North Korea or Russia, his choice to deliver the speech at Pearl Harbor, the heart of the Indo-Pacific military, was seen as an expression of U.S. concern about the Chinese Communist Party, which is accelerating its military modernization and making enemies everywhere in the Indo-Pacific region.
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