Page 14 - Rethinking China Policy

Rethinking China Policy

TAIWAN IN PACIFIC DEFENSE: TURNING A NEW PAGE
By Ed Timperlake and Robbin Laird

The phone call between President-elect Trump and the President of Taiwan has sent shock waves to many in
the diplomatic community.

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But it is about time to turn the page and include Taiwan in the shaping of a 21 century deterrent strategy
for Pacific defense.

The People’s Republic of China has made it clear by its actions and expressed intentions that the regime is
moving out into the Pacific and 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 and leveraging its expanded power
projection capabilities 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 and 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 pursued a strategy rooted in
deterrence of the Soviet Union by embracing Communist China, Last time we looked the Soviet Union has
collapsed.

Russia is not the Soviet Union in an essential sense of seeing 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 21 century approach to power, using its military capabilities to shape
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outcomes seen as essential to Russian national interest by Putin.
http://www.sldinfo.com/remembering-reagan-how-to-deter-the-russians/

Now China is a power unto it itself, one has virtually nothing to do with its condition or role 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.

“There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign
policies.” (para 8, 1972) and made clear that the differences are only papered over temporarily for the
sake of peace. Temporarily is the operative word.”

http://www.sldinfo.com/to-whom-do-western-china-experts-owe-their-allegiance/
Second Line of Defense

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