Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Beijing on Monday to see the merits of maintaining peace with Taipei, cautioning that a conflict across the Taiwan Strait would be disastrous for global trade.
In a conversation with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at Stanford's Hoover Institution, Blinken said China—no longer content to let differences lie—was employing coercive means and could use force to achieve its objective of unifying the island it claims as part of its territory.
"There has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years," he said, citing "a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable, and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline."
The Chinese leadership's posture is a "profound concern" to the United States and others, Blinken said, not least because of the potential economic consequences of a cross-strait conflict.
"The amount of commercial traffic that goes through the strait every single day—and it has an impact on economies around the world—is enormous. If that were to be disrupted as a result of a crisis, countries around the world would suffer," he said.
Taiwan's supply of high-end semiconductors—found in advanced technologies produced in the U.S. and China—would cause "an economic crisis around the world" if disrupted, Blinken told Rice, who headed the State Department under former President George W. Bush and was his national security adviser before that.
"So that's why we've been so engaged on this. I hope that Beijing will come back to a place where it actually sees the merits in making sure that differences are peacefully resolved, that it doesn't try to force things through coercion, and, even worse, through force," Blinken said.
On Sunday, Xi Jinping opened the Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress in Beijing, delivering a lengthy address that included familiar language on Taiwan.
"We will work with the greatest sincerity and exert our utmost efforts to achieve peaceful reunification. But we will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures," China's leader said.
"Taiwan is China's Taiwan. Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese people and should be decided by the Chinese people," Xi said in a message to Washington, where officials have sought to internationalize the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait to deter Beijing.
China's designs on Taiwan include a Hong Kong-style "one county, two system" model, a proposal that is widely unpopular among the island's public, and which has been rejected by both major political parties.
Taipei responded on Tuesday by renewing its opposition to the political framework, saying the Taiwanese people wouldn't accept Beijing's "endgame."
"Democratic Taiwan has never been part of the People's Republic of China," its foreign ministry said. "Only Taiwan's 23 million people have the right to decide Taiwan's future."
"The Chinese Communist authorities should abandon the political frameworks they want to impose on Taiwan, as well as their acts of forceful coercion, and respect the Taiwanese people's insistence on sovereignty and their democratic and free way of life," it said.
The U.S. maintains only unofficial relations with Taiwan under its "one China" policy.
Blinken told the audience that the policy wouldn't change, before noting: "But at the heart of that was a commitment to resolve these differences peacefully, and if that's changing, that does offer, unfortunately, prospects for very challenging situations going forward."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
