The problem is, a clash between Chinese and US militaries in the Taiwan Strait can hardly be accidental. The Biden administration has talked about the need to establish “guardrails”, but if China concludes that such guardrails are America’s way of preventing its use of force as a last resort for reunification, they won’t be established in the first place.
On August 5, China’s Foreign Ministry made clear its displeasure at the US with a series of measures ranging from the cancellation of all defence consultations to the suspension of climate change talks. This second-wave response shows that, for Beijing, everything can come to a stop for the Taiwan issue.
Looking down the road, we will probably see a chain reaction: the United States will speed up arms sales and expand training and personnel exchanges to turn Taiwan into a “porcupine”; a more confident and capable China will then respond more forcefully. As a result, Taiwan’s room to manoeuvre will shrink further. It is hard to tell where the endgame is, but two things are sure: Taiwan cannot move away and time is on the side of mainland China.
Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert