To symbolize U.S. support for Taiwan’s freedom, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis should order a Virginia-class attack submarine on a surface-transit through the Taiwan strait. Mattis should also send Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan to oversee the opening of the American Institute in Taiwan.
Both possibilities are relevant considering a Reuters report that President Trump may order a warship, possibly even a carrier strike group, to transit the Taiwan strait. Reuters also notes that Trump is unlikely to send top officials to oversee the American Institute — the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan — opening in Taipei next week.
A submarine surface transit and the deputy secretary of state would allow the U.S. to send a robust but carefully calibrated message to Beijing. Why these two options?
Because the deputy secretary of state is a very senior diplomat but not the top U.S. diplomat. Similarly, U.S. submarines lack the symbolic presence and combat power of carrier strike groups but also scare Chinese war-planners (more on that in my next piece). These options would thus serve to counter-poke Beijing in the eye without gouging that eye.
But action is needed here.
In recent months, China has steadily increased its pressure on Taiwan, the nation it regards as a breakaway province that must ultimately be brought back under Beijing’s authority. This pressure has taken the form of economic harassment and military threats that may serve as a precursor towards invasion.
Yet, the key relevance for U.S. strategic interests is that Chinese action here does not take place in a microcosm. It reflects Chinese President Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive effort to challenge the U.S.-led balance of power across the Indo-Pacific. Xi intends for regional nations to become feudal Chinese subjects and for global powers to accept Chinese economic patronage in return for conceding ever greater market access (a reality Trump sometimes ignores). And while the Trump administration is reinforcing regional U.S. allies against these concerns, it could do more.
Taiwan offers the U.S. both the need and the opportunity to do more.
Sending the submarine and Sullivan would allow Trump to tell Xi that he isn’t willing to yield other U.S. interests in deference to Chinese assistance in pressuring North Korea. Xi has long hoped to use Chinese leverage over North Korea as a dangle to win just those concessions. He must be disabused of that notion and his confidence that the U.S. will retreat in face of China’s broader regional agenda.
