China’s other territorial ambitions

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, recommends that the U.S. give an explicit commitment to defend Taiwan militarily in order to deter a Chinese attack. “A failed bid to ‘reunify’ Taiwan with China” would severely wound the Communist Party’s hold on its people, he said, “and that is a risk Xi is unlikely to take.” Other analysts recommend that the U.S. station more troops in the region, perhaps even on Taiwan itself, to act as a trip wire, much as the U.S. presence in South Korea deters North Korea. But a slow buildup of U.S. forces in the region might simply trigger Beijing to move against Taiwan immediately. Mass casualties and international condemnation “may be a price Xi Jinping is willing to pay,” says China expert Ian Easton. “We underestimate the Chinese Communist Party’s capacity for radical decision making at our peril.”

Since Xi Jinping became president in 2013, China has been exerting its internationally contested claim to fisheries and mineral resources in nearly the entire South China Sea by building artificial islands and stationing military equipment on them. Neither the Obama nor the Trump administration punished China for that in any meaningful way, and Beijing is now loudly insisting on its sovereignty over islands long claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, and others. Last April, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel near the Paracel Islands, which both countries claim. Last month, Beijing deployed a militia fleet near the Philippines’ Whitsun Reef, prompting the Biden administration to send an aircraft carrier unit and assault ship and warn that an armed attack on any Philippine vessel would “trigger our obligations under the mutual defense treaty.” China backed down—this time.