White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday that he believes a war with China over Taiwan can be avoided even as tensions over the island remain high.
Strained relations with China peaked in August 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island to show solidarity with Taipei, despite threats from Beijing that the visit would provoke “very serious events and consequences”.
China regarded the visit as “gross interference in China’s internal affairs” and immediately responded by increasing aggressive military exercises near the island in the days after his trip, as well as in the months afterward.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan listens to a question during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, August 23, 2021.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
TAIWAN OFFICIALS SAY 17 CHINESE MILITARY PLANES, 3 VESSELS, ENTERED SPACE NEAR THE ISLAND
“There is a risk of conflict with respect to Taiwan, but I believe that with responsible management, we can ensure that this contingency never happens. And that is our responsibility,” Sullivan said in an interview with NPR.
The White House declined to condemn Pelosi’s visit, saying members of Congress can keep their own hours.
However, Sullivan noted that preventing war with China will be “tough work” and said it will require “coordination with allies.”
“It will require us to abide by the commitments of the Taiwan Relations Act, which for 40 years has said that we will provide defensive items to Taiwan. In addition, it will require direct diplomacy with the [People’s Republic of China]”he told the morning show. “We have to make this a priority to ensure there is no war over the Taiwan Straits.”
China has repeatedly accused the United States of “playing with fire” and claimed that routine naval exercises conducted under international “freedom of navigation” operations are a violation of Chinese sovereignty.
A member of the People’s Liberation Army looks through binoculars during military exercises as Taiwan’s Lan Yang frigate is seen in the rear on Friday, August 5, 2022.
(Lin Jian/Xinhua via AP)
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On Thursday, Beijing once again raised these allegations with the US Navy after a guided-missile destroyer passed through the Taiwan Strait in what the Navy described as routine activity.
“Chung-Hoon’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows,” the Navy said in a statement.
“American warships frequently flex muscle in the name of exercising freedom of navigation. This is not about keeping the region free and open,” Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said in a statement to Reuters.
Taiwanese soldiers salute during National Day celebrations in front of the presidential building in Taipei, Taiwan. After sending a record number of military planes to harass Taiwan over China’s National Day holiday weekend, Beijing has toned down the saber rattling, but tensions remain high, with the rhetoric and reasoning behind the exercises without changes.
(AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
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Liu called on the United States to “immediately stop stirring up trouble, escalating tensions and undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
The US Navy maintains that it is permitted to operate in the Straits under international law, saying it “is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state.”
