WASHINGTON —
A recently released U.S. government report details China’s ongoing efforts to “erode long-standing norms in and around Taiwan” through various pressure tactics, including increased military flights crossing the Taiwan Strait median line.
While U.S. officials have expressed serious concerns, some military experts argue that Washington’s response has been ineffective in curbing Chinese aggression.
To deter further coercion, some former U.S. military officials propose leveraging the U.S.-Taiwan Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) to allow American military jets to refuel there as a clear demonstration of resolve.
The ACSA, a rarely discussed logistics agreement between the U.S. and Taiwan, allows the U.S. Department of Defense to exchange supplies, services, and logistical support with its partners and allies.
In its 2024 report, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, released last week as mandated by Congress, the Pentagon highlights China’s ongoing military buildup to secure national interests and assert territorial claims along its periphery. The report notes that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is increasingly focused on “military contingencies in the Taiwan Strait while simultaneously delaying or denying third-party intervention.”
The report also details the PLA’s extensive joint land, air and sea exercises around Taiwan throughout 2023 to enhance combat readiness and operational coordination. It notes that more than 1,500 PLA aircraft entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone in both 2022 and 2023.
Officials in Washington say U.S. defense engagement with Taiwan has evolved in response to China’s growing capacity and willingness to use military coercion against Taiwan.
But in Beijing, officials are warning against what they call “foreign military intervention,” asserting that Taiwan is part of China’s “internal affairs.”
“China urges the U.S. to immediately stop arming Taiwan,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated on Monday, following President Joe Biden’s recent authorization of up to $571 million in Defense Department materials, services, and military training for the self-ruled island.
The spokesperson condemned the U.S. announcement of military aid, warning that Washington is “playing with fire” and will get “burned.”
Founded in 1949, the Communist Party-led People’s Republic of China has never governed Taiwan but claims sovereignty over the self-ruled democracy. It has never excluded the possibility of using force to bring the island under its control.
The U.S. maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity, taking neither an official stance on Taiwan’s sovereignty nor supporting its independence.
A State Department spokesperson recently said that the U.S. remains concerned about “elevated” PLA activity near Taiwan, describing it as consistent with levels observed during previous “Joint Sword” military exercises. The statement followed PLA naval drills near Taiwan and along the First Island Chain earlier in December.
Trey Meeks, a senior defense fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, told VOA that low-cost strategies that would boost Taiwan’s morale and demonstrate U.S. resolve could help counter China’s “new normal” of constant and escalated military coercion.
Meeks is among the military experts who said President-elect Donald Trump’s team is likely to be much more aggressive only if Taiwan agrees to significantly increase its defense budget.
When Chinese military jets cross the median line, he suggested, a pair of U.S. fighter jets could later respond by leveraging the U.S.-Taiwan logistics agreement, the ACSA, by making a refueling stop in Taiwan.
Another U.S. option, Meeks said, would be a visit by a U.S. Coast Guard vessel already operating in the region. This would signify a strategic response and signal that larger ships, potentially including U.S. naval vessels, might follow at U.S.-Taiwanese discretion.
It wouldn’t be the first time. In June 2021, a U.S. military aircraft traveled to Taiwan to deliver COVID-19 vaccines, while in February 2023, South Korea’s “Black Eagles” aerobatic team made a refueling stop at Taiwan’s southern Kaohsiung airport while en route to an air show in Australia.
For Taiwan, other options include intercepting Chinese aircraft incursions using radar missile locks.
“The ride stops being fun for the Chinese fighter pilot when you lock him up with a surface-to-air missile,” said Meeks, who’s also a former U.S. military official.
Forty-five years ago, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which became law on April 10, 1979.
TRA policies would provide Taiwan with defensive weapons. U.S. special operations forces have been operating in Taiwan since 2012, and several hundred U.S. troops are currently known to be serving as a training team on the ground in Taiwan.
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