![]() Of great concern to American policymakers and military strategists has been Beijing’s steadily improving “anti-access/area denial” capabilities, which are designed, as defense expert Michele Flournoy writes in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, “to prevent the United States from projecting military power into East Asia in order to defend its interests or allies. Beijing’s diplomats have accelerated their campaign of bullying neighbors like the Philippines and Vietnam into accepting its territorial claims and signing exploitative contracts with Chinese companies. naval and air patrols operating in international waters in the South China Sea. Chinese ships and aircraft regularly harass U.S. Navy-has stepped up the frequency and intensity of its live fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, the PRC navy-the most powerful in the world by far next to the U.S. political and military communications with Taipei-Taiwan’s capital-calling the decision unwarranted interference in China’s internal affairs, and militarily provocative. The Chinese strongman refused to speak with President Donald Trump in 2016 until he re-affirmed that America would not alter its “one China” policy, and Chinese officials have raised strenuous objections recently to President Joe Biden’s decision to relax even further than the Trump administration certain strictures on U.S. As Xi said in a recent speech, “China must be, and will be united… We do not forsake the use of force.” Indeed, Xi sees unification today as an indispensable objective in his strategy of “national rejuvenation,” in which China assumes its rightful place on the world stage and begins to shape the rules-based international order in a way that he has described as “just and reasonable,” given China’s rising importance. President Xi Jinping has offered up a number of rather stern, even bellicose messages that he intends to make unification a reality sooner rather than later. ![]() This policy, also known as “dual deterrence,” has come under considerable pressure of late. ![]() It has also signaled to Beijing by various diplomatic and military channels its inclination to do so. ![]() Thus, the United States has not promised to defend the island but left itself the option of doing so. forces in the Indo-Pacific Region, Admiral John Aquilino, remarked that a possible invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “is much closer than we think.”Įver since a pro-Western government was established on the island in the wake of Mao’s victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Beijing has waged a patient and methodical campaign to re-establish sovereignty over the island, which today is home to a thriving, autonomous democracy of 24 million with a high-tech-oriented economy and a strategically invaluable semiconductor industry. Recently the newly appointed commander of U.S. In March, the leading foreign policy organization in the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, issued a report concluding that Taiwan has become “the most dangerous flashpoint in the world.” There, a unique and troubling set of geopolitical developments have conspired to make a shooting war between the People’s Republic of China and the United States more likely than ever before. Ever wondered where World War III might break out?Ī clear and troubling consensus has emerged in the American national security community that the Taiwan Strait is the most likely place for a major war to erupt between the United States and China that it might start soon, and that such a conflict might quickly escalate into a nuclear confrontation.
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