US Congress urged to preserve stability in Indo-Pacific and curb China’s Taiwan game plan
Delegates maintain Beijing’s grey-zone campaign against Taiwan is a deliberate strategy designed to erode confidence, and it must fail to deliver any political concessions
The hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy saw unusual bipartisan unanimity in a deeply divided Washington on the need to better support East Asian allies and partners.
“We need to be much more strategic,” said Craig Singleton, senior fellow with the non-partisan Foundation for Defence of Democracies. “It doesn’t mean regime change. It doesn’t mean we’re going to take actions that undermine the livelihood of the Chinese people. But there are very clear things we can do to push back.”
China is exposed politically, diplomatically, in the information space, with trade finance and economics, he added.
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“Beijing interprets vulnerabilities, not only in Taiwan’s defences, but also in US and allied responses, as validation of its approach to date – sustained coercion below the threshold of war,” added Singleton, a former US diplomat.