U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday (October 21, 2020) that the United States has not changed its policy toward Taiwan. Earlier, some called for Washington to abandon its long-standing strategic ambiguity on the Taiwan Strait issue.
Some U.S. security experts, as well as Taiwan’s representatives in the United States, said the United States should make it clear that it would respond to a forceful attack by China on Taiwan.
Responding to a question from the Voice of America at a press conference on Wednesday, Pompeo said there has been no change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan and expressed hope that the Chinese Communist Party would fulfill its commitment to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
On the same day, State Department spokeswoman Ortegaz told VOA that “the United States does not seek any military conflict in Asia,” and urged China to refrain from aggressive behavior and to respect freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region.
She said, “We see the same pattern of coercion and threats that the Communist Party of China uses in its foreign policy, and the same approach their military uses.”
Since the end of the Civil War in the 1940s, Taiwan and China have been under a state of partition. China continues to claim sovereignty over Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force to reunify the two sides of the Taiwan Strait if necessary.
The United States claims that its long-standing “one-China” policy differs from Beijing’s “one-China” principle. The CCP uses this principle to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan. The United States has never accepted or supported the CCP’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.
For decades, the United States has deliberately maintained strategic ambiguity as to whether the United States would intervene if China attacked Taiwan. The Administration in Washington believes that maintaining strategic ambiguity not only keeps Beijing guessing, but also prevents Taiwan from making potentially provocative moves.
However, with the Communist regime rapidly intensifying its threat to Taiwan, leading foreign policy experts, such as President Haas of the Council on Foreign Relations, argue that the United States should change its policy of strategic ambiguity to one of strategic clarity to deter Beijing from taking military action against Taiwan.
The purpose of a policy of strategic clarity is to avoid conflict in the Taiwan Strait,” Haas said in a tweet, “because China’s coercive tactics and military build-up are weakening the deterrent against conflict in the region.
Others, however, argue that while the United States should have convincingly warned China that it would pay a heavy price for invading Taiwan, the U.S. willingness to defend Taiwan cannot be unconditional.
In a recent article, Lai-Yi Ge, director of the China Power Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said, “If the United States gives Taiwan an unconditional security commitment today and fails to convincingly demonstrate U.S. power, China may respond by launching an attack.”
She added that the United States should reserve a space to judge whether the Taipei authorities’ policies are consistent with U.S. interests and the interests of regional peace and security.
Beijing has consistently opposed any foreign intervention in Taiwan’s affairs and has urged the United States to end its security relationship with Taiwan.
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