With China intensifying its diplomatic, economic and military pressure and increasing tension in the Taiwan Strait, so that the threat of war can no longer be ruled out, two US diplomats called on the administration of US President Joe Biden to rethink the US strategy to deter China.

To shed light on this subject, the French magazine "Le Point" reviewed the report of the Council on Foreign Relations written by diplomats Robert D.

Blackwell, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Philip Zelikow, Professor of History and Government at the University of Virginia, titled "The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War."

The report, which was reviewed by Antoine Bondaz for the magazine, initially warned that politicians and leaders have a tendency to underestimate the risk of war, stressing that China, however, appears to be preparing for a war in the Taiwan Strait.

annoying signals

Politically - as the report indicates - Beijing is preparing and preparing its people for the possibility of an armed conflict, and on the diplomatic front it is trying to isolate Taiwan more and testing international support for it, and at the military level it is significantly modernizing its military capabilities, and conducting military exercises at a frantic pace by sea, air, land and in space Cyber ​​and real space.

In this analysis, Oriana Skylar Mastro of Stanford University participates, who believes that there are worrying signs that Beijing is reconsidering its peaceful approach and is considering uniting the island by force, stressing that Chinese leaders who saw the military move to seize the island as a fantasy now see it as a possibility Realistically, it is therefore recommending the United States to convince China that it cannot achieve its military objectives in Taiwan, by strengthening American military capabilities in the region so that it can repel any Chinese army invasion of the island.

However, Blackwill and Zelikow - as the writer says - disagree with researcher Mastro, as they believe that a war between China and Taiwan will not pose a direct threat to American interests, and this means that Washington will not go to war with China because their American national interests do not exceed achieving what is necessary for the survival of the United States. The United States is a free and secure country.

The diplomats believed that there are 5 reasons that threaten these interests directly and call for US military intervention, namely preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction against them, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery to maintain global and regional balance, then preventing the emergence of hostile forces or failed states on their borders, and finally ensuring that Survival and stability of major global systems, including commercial and financial.

weapon dealer

Although the United States government is not obligated by treaties to assist in the defense of Taiwan to repel an attack, it is required by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the country defend itself, which means a strategic obligation to best assist the island in preparing its defense, as well as a kind There is a strategic ambiguity about the exact nature of US involvement in the event of a conflict.

However, other researchers believe that the dangers in the Taiwan Strait do not justify the unconditional American commitment to war, but that Washington should act as an arms dealer, help the island prepare self-defense and increase the costs of any aggression by China, as well as develop means to punish China with tools non-military.

As for the Europeans - according to researchers - they should play a major role in preventing conflict rather than interfering in armed conflicts, and therefore it is necessary to dissuade Beijing from changing the status quo in the region unilaterally by convincing it that the cost of unification by force will be prohibitive.