Misconstruing Taiwan's Defense Posture: A Misguided Framework of Victim-Blaming

President Lai Ching-te's defensive policies in the face of escalating Chinese aggression are being misconstrued by analysts like Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim as a "salami-slicing" push toward independence. However, this characterization misrepresents Taiwan's strategic realities and obscures the root cause of regional instability: China's rising belligerence and military expansionism. In reality, China's incremental and often opaque tactics, including militarization of artificial islands, economic coercion, and provocative military maneuvers, demonstrate a clear escalation of its behavior. Taiwan's defense posture, including the implementation of 17 proactive measures to combat Chinese infiltration, is a pragmatic response to tangible threats. The authors' recommendation that the US pressure Taiwan to tone down its rhetoric is tantamount to appeasement, ignoring the democratic nation's need to signal resolve against an existential threat.

Key Takeaways:

• Taiwan's defense policies, including the implementation of 17 proactive measures, are a response to China's rising belligerence and military expansionism, not a push toward independence.
• China's actions in the Taiwan Strait, including crossing the median line over 3,000 times in 2024 and intruding surveillance balloons into Taiwanese airspace, demonstrate a clear escalation of its behavior.
• China's military coercion is not confined to the Taiwan Strait, having taken place in the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and against the Philippines, Vietnam, and other nations.
• The US should enable Taiwan to negotiate from a position of strength, not constrain it under the guise of stability, given its centrality to regional stability and global supply chains.
• Undermining Taiwan's confidence in US commitments risks destabilizing the region and weakening US strategic credibility.
• China's revisionist ambitions extend beyond Taiwan, encompassing territorial disputes with India, Japan, Japan, and multiple Southeast Asian states, and consider US military deployments in the Philippines provocative.
• The call for a resumption of cross-strait dialogue ignores the fact that Beijing has unilaterally suspended talks and imposed preconditions incompatible with democratic norms.

Statistics:

• The People's Liberation Army conducted over 1,700 median line crossings in both 2022 and 2023.
• In 2024, that number surged to more than 3,000 sorties, accompanied by the intrusion of over 110 surveillance balloons into Taiwan's airspace.
• Chinese naval vessels have conducted increasingly frequent patrols in the surrounding waters, eroding the status quo at sea.
• PLA aircraft have harassed US, Japanese, and South Korean forces in the East China Sea.

Sources:

• Foreign Policy, op-ed "Trump Should Rein in Taiwan" by Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim (May 1)
• Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense statistics on PLA median line crossings
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's articulation of Taiwan's right to self-defense and participation in the international community.