Even as the bilateral U.S.-China relationship has stabilized over the past 12 months, Taiwan remains a dangerous flashpoint and the issue most likely to drag the two major powers into catastrophic conflict.
The island’s continued centrality was evident again on Thursday when Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Washington, with China’s leader calling on the U.S. to uphold what he called the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence and to handle the issue prudently.
For its part, Washington’s approach to preventing war in the Taiwan Strait has long been to maintain a policy of strategic ambiguity, under which it refuses to either commit to defend Taiwan or to state that it would not do so. With this position, the U.S. aims at double deterrence, discouraging both China and Taiwan from unilaterally changing the status quo.
This arrangement has preserved cross-strait peace for decades but maintaining this stance indefinitely is neither sustainable nor wise for America. Unification between China and Taiwan would have important military and economic implications for Washington, but these implications can be mitigated and do not threaten U.S. existential interests. However, with its military power weakened and increasingly constrained, the U.S. cannot manage the costs and consequences of a major war with China. It needs a Taiwan policy that explicitly rules out a military intervention should the island come under attack.
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