Taiwan Strait: What Is at Stake and How to Prevent a Conflict

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BY Jongsoo Lee

Taiwan is now a focal point on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Preserving the status quo in the Taiwan Strait in the face of growing Chinese power and assertiveness is a challenge not just for the Unites States but also other nations including Japan. For a view on what is at stake and policy prescriptions, Jongsoo Lee interviewed David Sacks, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the author of a recent CFR paper, “Enhancing U.S.-Japan Coordination for a Taiwan Conflict.”

What is Taiwan’s importance to China and the United States? Can China be a great power without control over Taiwan? 

China considers Taiwan to be a “core interest” and a remnant of its unfinished civil war. To Chinese leaders, the country’s “rejuvenation” can only be achieved once its territorial integrity is “restored” and Taiwan is the missing piece. Thus, from their perspective, China cannot be a great power until it brings Taiwan under its control. When cross-strait tensions rise, Chinese leaders remind their American interlocutors that Taiwan is the most sensitive issue in the bilateral relationship. Put plainly, Taiwan is likely the only venue that could trigger a full-scale war between the United States and China.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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James Jongsoo Lee is a member of the Pacific Council, Senior Managing Director at Brock Securities and Center Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He is also Adjunct Fellow at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum and Contributing Editor at The Diplomat. He can be followed on Twitter at @jameslee004.

This article was originally published on The Diplomat.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.