Five weeks since US President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, his administration now faces two important tests in the Indo-Pacific.
The first test is one of the president’s own making. After meeting with Xi, Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as “a very good negotiating chip” and announced that a previously approved sale was now “in abeyance.” The Financial Times later reported that Beijing is holding approval for a visit by Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, pending the president’s decision on the sale.
During Trump’s first term in office, he regularized the arms sale process. Rather than grouping sales into large, infrequent packages, which were then timed to avoid coinciding with the US-China diplomatic calendar, the president moved towards a process in which sales were granted as requested, regardless of timing.
This was good for Washington, Taipei, and even Beijing. It created greater predictability for all three parties. And by disentangling US-China diplomacy from the arms sales process, it theoretically eased talks on other issues where compromise was actually possible.
But in his second term, the president has walked away from that approach. He preemptively held off on final approval for a sale in return for a meeting with Xi in which the Chinese leader gave him little of value in return. Now Beijing is seeing if it can repeat this feat with a sub-cabinet official. Hence the test.
Taiwan’s continued existence as a de facto independent state is in America’s interest, as Trump’s National Security Strategy makes clear.
If Trump is willing to negotiate away Taiwan’s self-defense capability so that Colby can go to Beijing, Xi will have learned that the integrity of the First Island Chain, which the National Security Strategy prioritized, is not as important to the president as a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” with China.
The second test also relates to the First Island Chain, which stretches from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines. Last week, the Philippines confirmed that China had installed a new floating structure inside Scarborough Shoal, a disputed patch of maritime territory in the South China Sea off Luzon’s west coast.
Chinese actions at Scarborough Shoal have caused some of the sharpest tensions in the South China Sea over the last two decades.
During a 2012 standoff at the shoal, the US mediated a reciprocal withdrawal.
Beijing reneged on the agreement after Manila pulled its ships, leaving China effectively in control of the atoll.
Two years later, Beijing began its island-building campaign in the South China Sea, through which it exerted greater control over the contested waterway and established a string of military bases — also in contravention of a commitment, made to then-US president Barack Obama in the White House, not to “militarize” the sea.
Now Beijing is pushing the envelope once again. Make no mistake: China is challenging the US directly. If Washington fails to respond effectively to Beijing’s installation of a floating structure, a permanent structure will eventually follow.
Mischief Reef, another disputed feature that China essentially stole from the Philippines 31 years ago, now hosts a military base with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, room for 24 combat aircraft, and surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles. Manila rightly fears that Scarborough Shoal’s future could resemble Mischief Reef’s present. That would put Chinese intelligence facilities and power projection capabilities just 150 miles [240km] from Luzon and only 220 miles [354km] from Manila.
An outpost at Scarborough Shoal would put Chinese forces in a better position to coerce the Philippines, disrupt future combined operations of the “Squad” (an emerging security partnership of Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the US), and complicate allied intervention in a Taiwan Strait contingency. Does Trump care?
The diplomatic, economic and military tools he needs to tackle this challenge are at his disposal should he choose to use them. Herein lies the second test.
To pass the first test, Trump will have to stop kowtowing to China on Taiwan. That means notifying Congress of new arms sales without further hesitation. To pass the second test, the president will have to draw a line in the sand — or, rather, the water — and convey to Xi that Chinese actions at Scarborough Shoal are inimical to the strategic stability Xi so ardently desires.
Michael Mazza is senior director for research at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (formerly the Project 2049 Institute) and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
