Days after a Chinese spy balloon swept across the United States, a former senior military official, and diplomat urged President Biden to act like his predecessor towards Beijing, saying the [Trump administration’s] “toughest approach it’s right”.
Retired Navy Admiral Harry Harris, who led the US Indo-Pacific Command for three years and then served as the 45th president’s ambassador to South Korea, called on Biden to make it clear that the US will defend Taiwan if China will invade the democratically ruled island.
“[Chinese President] Xi Jinping has shown us his intentions regarding Taiwan over and over again, and we will be ashamed if we ignore it,” Harris told the House Armed Services Committee. “We must not allow [the Chinese government] to dictate US policy on Taiwan.”
Reunification with Taiwan is Xi’s main stated goal, and experts fear an attempt to forcibly oust Taipei could ignite a war within a decade. The Biden administration has been hesitant to align too closely with Taiwan to avoid provoking China, but Harris said Beijing has already made control of the democratically ruled island its main goal.
“My successor to the Indo-Pacific Command [Navy Adm. Phil Davidson] testified before Congress in 2021 that the [People’s Republic of China] could invade Taiwan in six years, which is 2027,” he said. “We ignore [his of his] warning at our peril.”
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have simmered in recent years due to China’s aggressive economic and territorial practices, as well as its rapid military buildup. Former President Donald Trump, 76, was the first to prioritize the fight against China on the national agenda, shifting the main focus of US military threats from the Middle East to Beijing in the 2018 National Defense Strategy of his administration.
While Biden’s 2022 strategy has kept China as his top priority, Harris said the White House needs to sharpen its rhetoric, saying it would help dissuade China from moving to the island and allow Taipei “to make the decision to defend themselves or to capitulate to China”. .”
“But above all, the American people need to know why it is their sons and daughters who will fight and die,” he said. Harris also insisted that Biden should formally refer to China as an “adversary” rather than the currently preferred nomenclature of “strategic competitor.”
“[China] sees us as an enemy; they see us as an opponent,” he said. “And being naïve, operating on the naive hope that eventually we will all be, you know, friends, that’s the most dangerous thing, and that in itself leads to instability.”
“If we go in with our eyes wide open and are willing to engage diplomatically and they are willing to engage diplomatically, I think we can coexist in a world of strategic competition that doesn’t reach the level of an armed conflict,” he said. aggregate. But diplomacy suffered a setback last week after Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to China in response to the launch of the massive surveillance balloon into US airspace.
“Beijing’s actions are coordinated, methodical, strategic,” Harris said. “Last week’s spy balloon drama that unfolded on the eve of the Secretary of State’s planned visit to Beijing represents the PRC’s misbehavior and disregard for international norms.”
Melanie Sisson, a foreign policy researcher at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology, criticized the cancellation of Blinken’s trip, saying it was a missed opportunity to have difficult talks with Chinese leaders.
“We need those high-level leads,” he told lawmakers. “It would have been an opportunity to discuss crisis management, for example, as well as being able to pressure the CCP about its other problematic behaviors around the world.”
