Foreign policy experts said the United States is the "wild card" in U.S.-Taiwan-People’s Republic of China relations during a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on Dec. 8.
The China Power Project sponsored event, “The Impact of Domestic Politics on the US-Taiwan-PRC Relationship,” examined the impact anticipated from elections within the United States, Taiwan and China, moderator Bonny Lin said. Lin is the director of the China Power Project and a CSIS Senior Fellow, Asian Security.
[39:04]“I really think that despite the high tensions between Taiwan and the mainland, the real wildcard in danger at this moment is the U.S. and the ways in which U.S. policymakers and politicians can throw something into that pond that they think is just going to make a little ripple that turns out to be a hand grenade that blows up, empties upon and kills all the fish,” Shelly Rigger, Brown Professor of Asian Studies at Davidson College, said.
Eric Sayers, managing director and Indo-Pacific Practice Lead of Beacon Global Strategies, a Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), predicted that Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) would be picked as the chairman of a select committee being created in the U.S. House of Representatives to focus on economic and security competition with China, which was realized during the CSIS event.
[22:41]Rep. Kevin McCarthy, (R-Calif.), “will be able to use this as a way to push a lot of his other committees to set that agenda and to move forward,” Sayers said.
China is a foreign policy issue that unites Republicans, he said.
What happened at the recent summit between President Joseph Biden and China's President Xi Jinping was not is most important, Thomas Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations and director of China and the World Program at Columbia University, said.
[09:51]“What's really most important is what happens in the coming months and years,” he said.
Xi complained about the United States not matching its actions to its words on a potential Cold War, he said.
China’s president called for more dialogue and cooperation on global affairs, which might be a positive for the Biden administration, Christensen said.
He expects the new Speaker of the House to visit Taiwan at some point because people will raise the question if the new House leader is as tough as outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). However, the trip will cause a new kind of mini-crisis or something worse, he said.
“In the U.S. elections, voices coming out of the Republican … potential candidates suggest a fundamental change in policy towards Taiwan that I think would be disruptive,” Christensen said. “I understand the impulse to want to support Taiwan more to clarify our commitment, but I think that in the process, rather than deterring a conflict, they could spark one and that would be that would be a tragedy for everybody, especially for Taiwan.”
But the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) would not be a reason for China to invade Taiwan.
China’s strategic ambition is so political that it isn’t driven by any particular economic decision, Vincent Chao, Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident) with the Asia Program and the China Power Project at CSIS, said. That includes TSMC.
“I don’t think TSMC plays a major role, kind of in Chinese calculations. I don't expect that that will be different in the future as well,” he said.
Christensen said the TSMC role has been overblown in discussions about a possible invasion and the company isn’t a prize for an attack. A mainland China attack and attempted takeover of TSMC would deprive the company of everything that makes it competitive.
He said if anything, TSMC serves as a force for deterrence because it would not survive a conflict.
“The only thing that would really happen is the entire global economy will be deprived of TSMC as inputs which would be very bad for the mainland,” he said. “That will be very bad for everybody else.”
